Richard Wesley

Elodie and I have been visiting each other in Yaounde and Belo respectively, generally just alternating weekends, and travelling on the night buses to make the most of our limited time together. 'Garanti Express' generally makes it through the seven hour ride without too many breakdowns. In Belo we generally get in some walking in the amazing hills in the region. Andy, an returning volunteer from Scotland, showed us a great spot last weekend. A hidden waterfall complete with wonderful swimming hole, hanging vines and private rainbow! In Yaounde the supermarket and fast internet are two major draw cards. I do seem to be jinxed when it comes to visiting the local money zoo, which is just outside the city. On my first attempt the place was closed to visitors as some of the monkey's had escaped and keepers were trying to get them back their enclosures. The second try was scuttled by a policeman trying to find fault with the papers of the vehicle we were using. All turned out ok...

Working in any organisation entails getting along with many different people, all trying to work towards various common goals. Unfortunately, when working with completely different cultures, sometimes attitudes about what is right and wrong can clash. It seems that I have ended up in the middle of many different issues, many involving different volunteers that have worked in Belo over the last months, and of course the root of all evil - money. Accorded to the Wikipedia corruption perceptions index New Zealand is ranked number one while Cameroon comes in at place 146. I think if I had really known the implications of this difference in attitudes before I started enquiring about finances, things might have gone a little smoother than they have. All that can really be said is that all I suspected in my first weeks has turned out to be true but worse after my many months. Accounting is poor or non existent, there is no understanding of transparency, and one staff member was simply pocketi...

Elodie and I, along with four other great friends, spent three days climbing Mt Cameroon, which stands well above anything else in west Africa. We first spent a few days on the black sand coast of Limbe, before heading up to Buea, the starting town at about 1000m. With the required (compulsory) guides and porters, we set off up the steep trail. Day one really did just consist of gaining lots of altitude so as to provide a great view for the night at 'hut 2'. We could see the coast and the lights of Douala (Cameroon's largest city) laid out below. The next morning dawned fine and clear in spite of this still being the west African 'wet season'. We really did get lucky with fantastic views from the summit at 4095m. It was then a long wander along the massive bulk of the mountain to the far southern end, where we descended past the still warm eruption craters from 1999 and 2000. The last night was spent tenting at the place called Mann Spring (more of a muddy dribble),...

I rode a motorbike a little as a teenage on a farm north of where I grew up. That little experience seems to have given me enough of the bug to do a bit more while here in Cameroon. Another volunteer Lance, only here for four weeks, turned out to be a motorbike mechanic, which was a huge opportunity for me to learn as much as I could. One weekend after work we headed off around part of what is known as the Ring Road, which circles the main range of mountains in this north west region, for a complete distance of 367km. Due to the rains and unreliable bikes we just did a small section, but this still included a lot of technical rough riding, a fairly serious river crossing, a fantastic waterfall, and a visit to the local chiefs palace. On the way we had various fuel leaks, my clutch not working for half a day, one flat tire, and a chain coming off three times. I only crashed once, we only got lost once (ended up in the middle of a farmers field after the river crossing somehow), and only...

Wow, bit of an epic trip to the hospital with a bunch of orphans today. It appeared quite a nice catholic setup with clean-ish buildings and a fairly well run out patient department at least. The doctor was much as could be expected though, fairly grumpy, bossy and unfriendly, but at least apparently very busy. The real issue was eight year old Stephan's reaction to having some blood taken for a CD4 test (counting white cells). I expected the little guy to be a pro at it, even if nervous. He took my hand on the way to the lab and I chatted away about this and that. Once inside though things turned bad with wailing and crying and squirming. But that's not so bad. I got Immaculate who was also up for some blood to go first and chatted about it some more with Stephen, and started to think I had cracked it. Then it was back into the hot seat and melt down again. However this time the lab technician said and did things I can't repeat here, I'm still in shock I think. In the ...

The full update, for those interested, is that I am now project supervisor for an orphan sponsorship project based in a little town of Belo, in the middle of the north west region of Cameroon. The project is under an local outfit called Berudep, but is run sort of independently, with the main aim of the game being 100% of sponsors funds reaching their target orphan. A little website I set up gives you the general outline and also a look at the orphans involved and their wonderful names.... Immaculate, Precious, Elvis, Godwill.... check it out for yourself: sponsor-an-orphan.blogspot.com So far my job has involved sorting out the numbers, that is the rather involved and complicated accounting system here, but also getting out and seeing how things are in the homes of some of these kids. There is a wide variety, from Stephen (see the previous post on jiggers), to Joy the little baby, to Immaculate who is twenty and learning to sew. The traditional set up here is very rural, basically sub...

The end of my first week and so much is running around inside my head. Much of the time when arriving somewhere is sorting out who is who, what the most important parts of the project are, and what the next most urgent steps are. Looks like some improvements to the accounting system, and some teaching lessons for me might be order. More on the project another day, as I want to share all about ‘jiggers’. These were a bit of a shock to me, but are in fact ‘sand fleas’ which live in dry dusty sandy areas in tropical areas. According to the internet “tungiasis” is an infestation of the skin by the sand flea. The pregnant female flea burrows under the skin, sucks blood, swells, and releases hundreds of eggs. Apparently “…complications, though rare, may involve ulceration, gangrene, secondary infection, tetanus, and death…”. Well, totally destroyed feet are certainly another complication of at least one of the orphans here! He’s had so many jiggers in his feet, especially around his t...