positive thoughts = positive emotions = positive results
Interestingly, ‘positive thoughts – positive emotions – positive results. We are good people’, was the message of the formal in-country training that started today.
The first trainer was Mohammed who if you looked at him looks like one of the poorer Muslim men who hang out in Bury Park in Luton – dressed in a long white dress and pantaloons and a little white prayer cap on his head and thick bushy beard. What was so impressive was the way this guy talked in English which is probably his third or fourth language at a very high level of psychological interpretation of human behaviour. He is programme manager for participation and governance which is my area of work in the far north, so I am going to see a lot more of him. He made us all laugh with his take on our ‘mind the gap’ culture.
The second lady was Celestine who works in a local college teaching English and runs a clothes shop of clothes she designs. She gave a slightly ‘glossy’ overview of Cameroon. They see themselves as far more peace loving and easy going than the Nigerians. They have 250 tribal groups, their football team is called the Indomitable Lions and she defended the accusation that for 2 years running 1998-99 Cameroon was the most corrupt country in the world.
Our last session was with David who runs the training programme for the American Peace Corps and had huge presence. He was so interesting – educated in England and America and yet sitting on the fence about ‘progress issues’. He came up with a string of sound bites including
- Human rights are challenging to a collectivist society
- There is no shopping list in Africa i.e. no planning
- You are not going to google wisdom
- God is at the heart of poverty
- ‘The present obvious’ such as asking you if you are eating when you are obviously eating is a way of socializing
- 7 million Cameroonians (about a third of the total) are in vicious poverty. The elite shop in Paris.
He also talked about whom he called the ‘Prince’ in Bogo who is going to be my boss and how I have to take off my shoes, clap my hands 3 times in a specific way ( you can’t shake his hand) and kneel in greeting and many other strategies about making yourself acceptable. For example a woman who refused to lead a prayer at her welcoming reception had to be sent home because the community refused to work with her.
After our training we went and looked round a supermarket and on the way passed a police van shooting bullets into dense trees. A huge swarm of thousands of what looked like black birds initially rose into the air and then we realized they were bats and they were shitting on our heads. I can’t remember whether it is malaria or rabies that bats carry over here.
Tonight we all went out for a meal together and I realized that I was living part of my vision of what I would like to be doing that I discussed with a career coach funded by EC1 about three years ago which was that I was working in a foreign country and sitting round the table discussing world politics with people who talk interestingly and knowledgeably about their own countries. It is very stimulating.
I hope you are not going to find my emails totally self-absorbed. I am not going to come home and bore you all to death about VSO any more than I talked that much about our month in America, but my way of being close to you and keeping you in my thoughts is about sharing my experiences and I hope you will find them moderately interesting. You can read my emails when you have nothing better to do.
I also have to write a ‘group’ email as internet is expensive so I need to prepare what I write in advance and load it very quickly. Once you tell me what is happening for you, I will also take time to reflect what is happening in your lives so it is not all me me.
One other interesting to me snippet I learnt today is about malaria tablets. Apparently hardly any in the group have been able to cope with the strength of the malaria tablets. One of the side effects of the tablets I am on is that they can make you hallucinate which apparently if it is going to happen does so in the first 3 weeks! Most of them are taking a less strong tablet every day.