Security guards

In Africa, many people have a house protected by a security guard. As a foreigner, I also want to live in a well-secured house, so also a security guard should be part of this! Some security guards are very good; others are more like a joke. I experienced some kind of funny guards, in some cases you can doubt how much security they bring!

In Nigeria for example, at some point we had a security guard who was somewhere in his eighties. We always said that if something would happen, we would be the ones to protect him instead of him protecting us… He didn’t speak one word of English, what is of course very useful in a house with two foreigners who don’t speak Yoruba. The most interesting about this man was that he was scared about our watchdog.

We also had a guard there who managed to lose the key of our gate. So, if he would go out, he would close it from the outside in such way that we couldn’t leave, but anyone coming from outside could simply open the gate. Very secure indeed!

Here in Yaoundé I first had a deaf guard. He was very friendly, but of course anyone could just enter if he would face the other direction. He was replaced by someone who is socially not so strong. He now travelled and his junior brother is taking over. This guy is (hopefully) not scared of dogs, but he is definitely scared of people! He doesn’t look at you when you greet him, and instead of bonjour he says; eeh! No idea what he will do if there is a serious issue.

My guards are maybe not always the best. But it can always get worse. I know of someone whose guard helped some robbers to break in to the house. At some point the robbers entered the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife. I prefer someone being scared of people over someone like that!

Security

If you live in a country like Cameroon, people will often ask you how safe it is. There is normally quite some news about Boko Haram. If it is peaceful, where people don’t starve or other disasters happen, there is no news. So the only thing you hear are the problems…

In Cameroon, security is quite a big thing. Boko Haram is really concentrated in the North and Far North Regions, but the insecurity is a topic for everyone. Sometimes the insecurity in the northern part of the country is causing problems in other areas. For example, the road between Kumbo and Bamenda is still under construction. It seems that there is no money to finish it because it was all spent on the army to fight Boko Haram.

In daily life, you mainly notice a lot of road controls. When you travel by taxi you get constantly stopped. If you travel by bus between Bamenda and Yaoundé every passenger has to leave the bus at least once or twice to get their ID cards checked.

But, does this provide security? There is no computer system to check your ID card. So how do they know this person is not a searched terrorist? The only thing they can see is if you have an ID card with you. But I am pretty sure a terrorist would always make sure he or she travels with an ID card, so what does it proof? They only thing is that the policeman can ‘chop’ some money if someone travels without an ID card, but that is hardly extra security…

Recently I visited the offices of some international organisations. Normally you also have to leave your ID card at the security guard and they register who you are. Nowadays in some organisations they also check your bag (more or less) and scan your body with a metal detector. However, if that thing beeps, they don’t do anything! I visited an organisation recently, the man entering just before me had the detector beeping, with me it beeped. But nobody bothered to check. I came to the conclusion that if you want to commit an attack, you should put your weapon or bomb in your pocket, that is where they expect metal to be and don’t check. So does this really provide security?

In Abuja I saw something similar in the Hilton Hotel. There was a real danger there as Boko Haram did attack Abuja and focused on places with many westerns, so that makes the Hilton Hotel a potential target. All bags had to be scanned, every person had to pass the metal detection, like in the airport. But in the airport they check you when the detection beeps, here they didn’t.

Maybe some terrorists are really stopped by all these checkpoints. And maybe people really feel safer with all these controls. But to me, it really feels like a fake security. But fortunately, the security situation in most of the country is not so urgent that it really matters!

 

Dutch, Deutsch, Neerlandaise, Allemande...

When my bag was stolen, I also lost my residence permit. So I needed to renew it. That sounds much easier than it turned out to be!

After being sent up and down between Immigration and Judicial Police and waiting for two hours for the Commissioner to arrive and sign my document, I finally got everything ready and paid. But now, the real challenges came in…

I found out they have a new computer system since about one week. It will (hopefully) give me a nice new permit, and much sooner than it used to be. However, it seems I was one of the very first ones (if not the very first!) for who they made the permit like this. So the officer had to try out the system on me...

After an hour, he managed to fill in most fields on the screen. But, ‘what is your nationality?’ I explained; ‘I am from the Netherlands, so I am Dutch, neerlandaise’. ‘So you are from Germany?’ ‘No, from the Netherlands, Pays Bas’. ‘Ok, so your nationality is German?’ ‘No, it is neerlandaise.’ The system knew Hollandaise Caribbean, but I don’t think I am very Caribbean. ‘So, NO I am from the Netherlands.’ ‘Yes, but Netherlands is part of Germany right?’ ‘NO!’ ‘Ok, has it ever been part of Germany?’ ‘NO!’ ‘But your parents are German?’ ‘NO!’ ‘So you are not German?’ ‘NO!’ ‘So what is your nationality?’ ‘I am Dutch, neerlandaise.’ ‘So, German?’ I spent literally more than half an hour like that.

When he finally thought he found my nationality (Hollandaise Caribbean, so not even the correct one) he had to scan my file. That was a step too far…

Then the next problem, they needed to take my picture… Before that could happen, we were already four hours later and someone had come to support the technical process. At least he pretty much understood the program.

So, the picture… I understand taking a picture of a white person against a white wall can be difficult. But that was not the challenge. After twenty tries they came to the conclusion: ‘Madam you are too tall to take your picture!’. I agree I am not the smallest person you have ever seen, but I am not extremely tall either! So in the end we had to put the chair on its side and I had to sit on it. Then they finally managed, but: ‘Madam, you are laughing at that picture!’ (Yes, sorry, I just find it funny!)

At this point they had to take my finger prints and signature. And scan my documents. One scan went wrong so they wanted to delete it. And then all information got lost so we needed to start all over!

By now they figured out what my nationality was. (‘So you are Dutch right? Not German? Not Hollandaise Caribbean either? So Dutch?’) That saved quite some time. But now they managed to mix up my father’s and my mother’s name. Fortunately, the technical guy was able to change it without deleting everything again. In the end I got my temporary permit, which even says I am Dutch.

By that time, the office was already closed. There was a Nigerian guy who came in together with me who was still waiting. They still wanted to attend to him though. I only hope they do know the difference between Nigeria and Niger…

Expat dilemma

Compared to Ilorin, Kumbo has quite a white community. There are always numerous volunteers, American PeaceCorps volunteers, Belgian interns, German volunteers and some more. But there is not much of an ‘expat bubble’. There are no expensive restaurants where only white people go, there are no fancy European shops.

In Yaoundé, this is all different. There is quite a big community of expats, working in NGOs, embassies and commercial companies. There are European and Asian restaurants, European supermarkets, European style bakeries etc. I have been in places that you don’t realize you are in Africa; fancy furniture, real croissants, mainly white people. Kind of a new experience to me!

At the same time, it brings me dilemmas. If I see how much people earn working in NGOs, I feel bad (also Cameroonian NGO workers earn quite a lot of money, although probably less than the foreigners). I really don’t mind if people make a lot of money in commercial companies, that is part of the game for me. But in NGOs? People with a very average salary earn easily enough per month to execute all Knowledge for Children activities in a school for a year.

For me it is kind of difficult to understand that people work in an NGO and then earn so much money. I understand other people make more costs than I make, sending children to school etc. I also understand you may want to be compensated for living far away from your family and I also know the salaries are still lower than what you should earn back in Europe or the US for this job.
But, how can you face a class of children knowing your monthly salary is higher than the entire school budget for the year? How can you face a mother who just lost a child because there was no money to buy medication for the child?
Sometimes I am just wondering what people spend their money on. Yes, there are great and not very cheap restaurants, but going out for dinner every day? I was really wondering, until I met a Cameroonian friend. When we went home I said; ‘I need to go to the market and buy some tomatoes and other vegetables’. She was just staring at me and then said; ‘You buy tomatoes in the MARKET? You are really a strange expat’.
It never came into my mind that I could also buy tomatoes at the European supermarket. She told me she once went with a friend and bought three tomatoes for sevenhundred francs (a bit more than one euro), while I pay one hundred francs (about fifteen euro cents) for four or five tomatoes on the market close to my house.

I hope I will be able to get the best of the two; enjoy the European supermarkets to treat myself to cheese or chickpeas, enjoy fancy dinners every now and then and hang out with some Europeans. But also keep enjoying cheap lunch on the street, eating grilled fish with my Cameroonian friends and buy vegetables in the market!

Discussing politics

When I lived in Kumbo, I had a good friend. He has the same deficiency as I have; we love to discuss about world news and politics. He moved to Yaoundé last year, but now I am also here so we can have our (pretty much endless) discussions again.

For me, these discussions are very interesting. He is from a completely different background than me. I grew up in a pretty left-orientated and progressive Dutch family, as a woman. He is a Muslim man from a relatively traditional (though educated) background. So the worldviews we got from home are pretty different.

Sometimes I feel kind of sorry. For example, when we talk about terror attacks. These terrorists attack in name of his religion. He is very clear; this is not my Islam. We agree that these terrorists are mainly using the religion to mobilize people. But still, it has consequences for Muslims. Populist politicians blame all Muslims, not distinguishing between these people misusing religion and the normal Muslims who also reject this.

Another ongoing discussion topic is politics. The role of France and other Western countries in the Middle East and Africa, the weapons distributed which are later used against Europeans in other countries etc. As many Cameroonians, he has some sentiments against France (Cameroon used to be mainly a French colony).

What I hear more often from Cameroonians is that they feel that the West (especially France) wants to keep their influence here. They want Cameroon to be like them. That of course leads to the following discussion topic; what is the best government system, democracy or something else? We didn’t really agree yet but so far we came to the conclusion that for a real democracy you need people how are sufficiently educated to make an informed choice, and media that are free enough to provide the information you need for this informed choice.

I believe this is also what went wrong in the UK. The decision to stay or leave the EU is so complicated, you can hardly expect people who are not working in this field every day to really understand the consequences. From here you get, of course, to the next topic; Brexit… And from Brexit you get to all the new female leaders; May, Merkel, Clinton… And from there to the populist men who all seem to have foreign women (Thanks for that insight Andre!) and from there…

As you see, our discussions are just endless. I am already looking forward to the next one!

City life

Not as nice as the view in Kumbo,
but still not bad

Some time ago I wrote about my adventures looking for an apartment in Yaoundé. Since last week I officially live in Yaoundé.

While I travelled to the Netherlands, my landlord finally managed to remove the previous tenant from the house. The landlord told me he disconnected that guys four years ago from water and light because he never paid the bills. Can you imagine living without water for four years? At least, the pipes and taps in my house didn’t really survive that. So plumbers have been working in my house for three days.

Luckily, my colleague moved my belongings while I was in the Netherlands. Most things made it, except for a table and my toothbrush… I borrowed a table from the landlord, so the house is fine now. Only the toothbrush is still missing!

The house is quite nice and until now the water and light have been really reliable. At least once it was fixed! It is quite a delight to just have water whenever you on the tap. Or to feel you can take your laptop off the charger as light will still be there by the time your battery is empty. Of course, you never know for sure but until now it works!

I live in a quite central location, but outside the real expat quarters. I like it, I can go there easily but I still feel like living in Africa. My neighbours already know me, when I came back from Kumbo I got comments that they missed me. I already have ‘my’ sandwich boy, tomato lady, onion lady etc.

After a few days in Yaoundé I had to travel to Kumbo. It was really nice to meet my colleagues and be in the office. But when I saw all the mud and entered the hotel without water, I remembered why I wanted to go to Yaoundé. 

I still need to get to know the city. Mission for next week is to get an office. For now, I have been working from home but that is kind of boring. Hopefully I can find someone who could sponsor Knowledge for Children by giving me a free office space. And, as a real Dutch, I want to get myself a bicycle. So; slowly getting a city life!

 

 

 

 

Councils

Before I came to Cameroon, Knowledge for Children started trying to work with Councils. The idea was that Councils have an interest in the education in the schools in their municipality and they have a budget for education. So they should be able to contribute financially to our programs for schools in their own region.

This has always been a difficult issue. Most mayors are used to NGOs bringing them things, not NGOs asking them to help. Besides that, a mayor is a chosen position. According to some Cameroonians, that means people who are now mayors had to spend a lot of money for campaigns to get to that position. Once chosen, they need to get money back and that means they don’t give it to projects. I don’t know if it is true, but I am afraid in some cases it looks like it!

In the past two years, we tried different strategies to approach councils. We tried to invite Mayors to book donations, we tried to work through the Deputy Mayor in charge of education and more.  In the end, I think the Lord Mayor has to be convinced about the importance of our work. But how to get the Lord Mayor to understand this differs per Council. There are also some Councils where the Mayor is not very welcoming. They forget about appointments or refuse to receive us. We decided to leave them; if people are not ready it is their problem.

Signing with the Lord Mayor (left) and the
Deputy Mayor in charge of education

Last week, we finally signed a partnership agreement with the Nkambe Council. In the next three years, they will support eight schools. They will pay almost € 2300 per school. The community will still contribute their percentage. The support of the Council really helps us to be able to do everything we need to do in the schools.

The Lord Mayor of Nkambe really values education. He told us in our very first visit that he used to be a teacher. He always wanted to become a head teacher. He never made it to be the head teacher, but now he is the Lord Mayor and can still support education. And of course I am happy he does this by supporting Knowledge for Children so the children of Nkambe will Read Today and Lead Tomorrow!