Volunteers review

 

As I grapple with the do I come home early decision, I am thinking a lot about what this experience has taught me about me. Out of the 3 people I came with, Iris went after 6 months as planned and Claude goes at the end of September, 5 months early as his placement did not work out.   A Christian friend says that God brought me out to Africa to get my attention which makes me smile, but also makes me think.

 

One of the volunteers has changed her placement and now works within the VSO training team. She is horrified to hear VSO staff talk with partners and collude with them over derogatory remarks on the motivation and quality of volunteers. We are here as a rest from our real jobs, we just want husbands, we’re all young (the average age of vols here is 44), we just want career experience, we go on too many holidays, we aren’t expert in anything, we just want adventure. The younger contingent are up in arms about this, but I sort of think – well, it is an awful lot easier and more pleasant than that endless London commute, there is zero work pressure, I did come for an adventure. The only thing I would disagree with is that we do go through an intense selection process – about 15,000 apply and about 800 a year get through. We are not without skills if local people made an effort to get the best out of us.

 

What has disappointed me is that I thought that if I put myself in a really interesting, out of the norm position I would meet what I think are really interesting, out of the norm people. I would say the volunteers are highly intelligent: soul mates for Hazel – neh! And does that whole expectation and the phraseology I use say more about me than them? Obviously I can’t get on a level with people 20 plus years younger than me and I am not trying to. I am a bit shocked at how they gossip and bitch about each other, but intelligent people in work scenarios are very good at doing that all over the world and us older ones do it too, we are just more circumspect about who we share it with! It makes me value even more the friends I have back home – just being able to talk about stuff that engages or interests me and maybe it is a bit intense for every day, but at least I have an outlet at home I don’t have here. I haven’t found the level of what I would call emotional intelligence here amongst Cameroonian people and perhaps the age differential makes it harder to share personal feelings with younger as well as some older volunteers here – not that I wouldn’t or haven’t tried, but I get the impression that circumspection beyond the cursory is not their thing. Even the ones that didn’t go to public school have a bit of a, ‘I was born to rule’ mentality, and ‘Cameroonian peasants, if you are not prepared to listen to me and appreciate the erudition of my written and spoken word, f*** off’. Unfortunately most of them can’t read so 100 page erudite reports are meaningless.

 

The tragedy for VSO and people here is that they don’t get the undoubted learning and skills of the volunteers because they haven’t the people skills to handle us and most of us haven’t the people skills to handle them. A lot of placements implode in personal rows.

 

I can probably handle it better than most and to be true, once they put me in a different walled house without the world and his wife staring at me I can handle being ignored and denigrated at the commune. I’ve had plenty of work experience on a par with that in England and can do humble.

 

I absolutely miss physical love. Opportunities for sex with younger, extremely fit men are there, but come subtly or not so subtly with £ signs. How men or women can utilize prostitutes is beyond my comprehension. Older men are all shagging beautiful young women here because they have all the power and can.

 

Secondly, I so rarely get to have stimulating conversations. The general populace are very friendly to me in a completely superficial way. It always lifts me to go out in the street and to be greeted so warmly, but you don’t get to chew the cud with them. Those I know a little bit better will tell me endlessly, but Hazel, it’s not the way here. I have to get my thought provocation from books and your emails and do I want that for 2 years? No.

 

I have got a little bit better at the polite meet and greet stuff; I’ve got very good at being alone and even prefer being alone sometimes; I’ve ticked the VSO style experience off my list and probably would not do it again (certainly if I come home early I lose that option), I can work in French, I’ve had some lovely me time to recuperate from 8 years of putting the children first in all my planning, I have read a lot of very good books in the VSO library, I cook from fresh ingredients, I have so loved the sun and the beautiful, endless African landscape.

 

I still don’t know what the 50s me will be. I come home and marry FP and have great sex and eat nice meals for the rest of our life together. I get myself a dinner service for the first time in my life and we entertain. I wait for my children to have babies and hope they will want my input. I get a small job because I don’t need lots of money now the children are grown. I keep chickens and grow my own vegetables and cook better because I have learnt all of that in Africa. Volunteering in a developing country was the last big thing I wanted to do so as not to regret anything on my death bed. There are probably about 10 countries I want to see before I die, but a small job could knock those off the list.

 

Do I retrain and think, right, let’s fight for a new career for the last 10 years of my working life or has Africa taught me that actually I ‘chill’ really well?

Watch this space.