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!