Category Archive

Posting this pic from this weekend’s trip to Souter Lighthouse seems like a good excuse to tell you about my “Soup” page.  Check it out here.

In short, using the magic of RSS feeds, it takes all the content from my blogs (ie this one and the new Cameroon one) and my Flickring, Twittering, Last FM-ing and Deliciousing and streams it all on to one page.

Right now, well, there’s probably not that much to see, but once we hit a full on Cameroonian assault hopefully there’ll be quite a flood detailing my African adventures (and it’s soundtrack).

In the meantime I’ve been, as you might imagine, searching by all means necessary to find out more info on Bamenda, my new Cameroonian home.  So far so good.  Lots of people seem to like it and if there’s no real expat community to speak of there do seem to be plenty of other volunteers around.  No doubt there will be some beer buddies amongst them.

I dropped a message to say hi to zzilch (Peace Corps, I think) who posted this photo complete with info stating:

After spending two days at our post, we travelled Friday morning to Bamenda, the capital of the Northwest Province. Since our post wasn’t far from the training village and we still had 3 days left of site visit, we took the opportunity to visit other volunteers in the area.

Bamenda is a great city, with a large market and even a supermarket that has things like corn flakes! Since the Northwest is one of the two Anglophone provinces, we had to shift gears and go from speaking nothing but French in the West to speaking English and even a few words of Pidgin (which I’m learning) in Bamenda and the surrounding villages we visited.

We stayed with a volunteer who is posted near Bamenda, and his friend took us and two other trainees to ride horseson Saturday morning. The view from the summit of a hill we climbed on horseback was so beautiful, it was almost worth the five full days of beaucoup de pain all of us had as a result of the three hour ride.

We made some great friends, both Cameroonian and American during our trip that we’re looking forward to seeing again when training is complete.

On Sunday, the five of us who met up in Bamenda headed back to training on a bus that was surprisingly uncrowded for the first few hours of the trip. Then we changed buses. The last hour on the bus was cramped, bumpy, and polluted as a Cameroonian bus ride should be.

As ever I appear to have entirely lucked out in being assigned the most beautiful place to live in. I always was a lucky f**cker.

Remember that big news I have been alluding to in the comments section of this blog?

Well finally, now that I’ve resigned my work, told my parents and let friends know, here it is.

In September I shall be leaving Newcastle to live and work in Bamenda, Cameroon for two years. Yes, it’s another VSO gig.

More details later but, in short, I am going to work as a fundraiser for an AIDS awareness charity.

It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Some links - Wiki, Flickr, videos.

Oh and it’s nothing but a shell and brand, new spanking domain but set all RSS readers to www.ourmanincameroon.com.

Yup, you’re coming with me.  Things are going to get a lot more exciting around here.

* Should also add that I am off on holiday for a week from today.  More information when I get back.  Apologies if comments remain unmoderated while I’m away.

There was a moment earlier today that I kicked myself for not attending Glastonbury. 

A quick look at the webcam and it looked, well, dry.  And there are few better places in the world than a dry Glastonbury.

But then I just checked again and this is what the place looks like now and all of a sudden I’m glad I’ll be tuning into to it on the sofa later.

However this does give me the chance to tell a Glastonbury story. 

On my old old blog I once wrote this about the greatest performance I had ever seen - from a mystery performer in a tiny Glastonbury tent.  To tell the truth my memory is not that good.  I viewed the whole through a haze.  It had been one of the days.  But it was, kinda cosmic.  Man.

“His voice, when he started singing, was howling. Deeply mournful at first and the small crowd caught each other’s eyes and nodded and smiled in appreciation..”

“I had never heard the song before. I can’t even remember how it went. All I can recall is that it soon started to pick up pace and it moved from melancholic to joyful as it progressed through the verses.

“Our heads nodded more vigorously and our smiles grew wider as the song quickened. And, as it did so, it wasn’t long before the strumming of his guitar became a blur.

“By this time his howling voice was louder and clearer. He was holding notes for what seemed like forever. His eyes lighting up, watching us as we watched him in amazement.

Soon his right hand had become impossibly fast. You could no longer focus on it. The song was of the dueling banjos genre. He knew he could play faster and hold a note longer than anyone and he was enjoying watching our amazement

It was only earlier this year, while watching a DVD, that I found myself vaguely recognising the lead actor.  When he sang it became clear.  This was the guy.

I am fairly sure that this is my mystery singer.

…I’ve almost figured it all out.

Be with you soon.

It’s still less than a year since I returned to this country following almost three years overseas.

During that time the kindness shown to me by people who, without fail, had some much less then me, amazed and moved me.

I’ve returned home to find that the people making the trip the other way around are not made so welcome. Our media and our politicians are against them. Even Gordon Brown, a Labour Prime Minister, talks of creating British Jobs for British People - a slogan previously only of the far right.

Has it all gone so wrong? Is this the way it is now? Have we all recalibrated our politics to such a level that even racism is the norm?

And I wonder what the migrants think. What do they make of the day by day stories in the Daily Mail, Express and Sun? Do they think we are all racists?

I hope not but I think we have a lot of work to do to persuade them. I am tired of being ashamed at my country over this. I want to make foreigners in my country as welcome as I was made.

I firmly 100% believe they make this country better - in so so many ways.

That is why I will be attending the event below. I would hope that any decent person reading this will do the same. Please spread the word. Your city cannot be held to ransom by the far right. It’s sad that this should come down to a shouting match. But, if so, we have to shout louder.

If you do not live locally I am sure the same scenario will be playing out near where you are. Please make it your business to find out what you can do.

When I lived in Hanoi, Prince Andrew came to visit.

By accident, or design, he happened to be in town when it was the Queen’s Birthday. To mark the occasion Brits were invited to the Embassy to shake his hand and presumably ask him to pass on their best wishes to his Mam.

The general consensus was “ick”.

The British contingent wasn’t so small but was still almost invisible. For the Americans there was actually an American Club. The Aussie’s had a regular Friday night barbie at “Matilda’s”. The French were always doing something particularly cultural.

When I worked at KOTO it was commonplace for visiting Australians to give out little furry koalas with Aussie flags to the kids. When the “Socceroos” came to town I cringed at long-time expat Australians cheering on their team against a Vietnamese side with half their size, strength and investment.

Honestly – I’d have loved to see smug tossers Lampard, Gerrard and all well and truly thumped in Hanoi. What fun.

Elsewhere, while there was something called the American Spouses Club – the concept of Brits doing the same was too weird.  Brits really didn’t seek out Brits in the same way.

We didn’t like to celebrate our royalty much either(though even the Aussies had a day off back home for Liz’s birthday). The thought of our national anthem being played anywhere was horrific.

Okay so the British Council would stick its head up above the parapet from time to time. But for the most part it was on a more business level – flogging British Universities to rich Asian kids. 

Personally the most nationalistic I can ever recall being, was when I heard The Beatles on a cafe stereo.

The point is for the most part we don’t really do nationalism – it’s for an embarrassing minority. From the point of view of most Brits, nationalism is for a dwindling daft, sad and occasionally sinister group - skinheads, Tory grannies, retired majors, Sun hacks and the terminally naff.

Okay, so in the UK you could point to a few flag-waving run ups to football championships - but visible as it might be it’s still a minority. Let’s face it, while nationalism is upped in these instances no one is really hoping that Rooney “knocks one in for the Queen.”

Ironically enough, when mixing with other nations I was proud of our lack of pride. Our lack of jingoism was something I really could believe in.

In the end it turned out that the British unique selling points were: No flag waving. No nationalism. No rose-tinted nostalgia for the UK and the ability to be objective about our country.

Now it’s suggested that we should pledge allegiance, salute the Queen, boost nationalism  etc.

In doing so they’re taking away the only bit of being British I was ever proud of.

Good on you Tim.

…and so now, I’d like to say; people can change anything they want to and that means everything in the world.  

People are running about following their little tracks - I am one of them - but we’ve all got to stop just following our own little mouse trail. People can do anything. This is something that I am beginning to learn.  

People are out there doing bad things to each other. It’s because they’re being dehumanised. It’s time to take the humanity back in to the centre of the ring and follow that for a time.  

Greed; it aint going anywhere. They should have that on a big billboard across Times Square.

Without people, you’re nothing. That’s my spiel. 

Joe Strummer

The above wasn’t originally meant as a Christmas message but I think it makes a pretty good one.

Naive? Yes.  But naive is good.  That’s one thing that I have learned over the past three years of adventures.  You can do it.  We can do it.  Realism has its place but not as an excuse.

I can’t help but think of Christmases past.  And New Years too.  Times that changed my life forever and the way I see things.  They’ve also influenced my ambitions for the future. 

I am back in Newcastle.  A timeout if you like.

Now is about people I care about.  Resetting my default.  Realising afresh how lucky I have been to live the adventures of Vietnam and Nicaragua.

Happy Christmas one and all, this is me signing off for the festive period.  A family Xmas followed by a week in snowy Poland.

Who knows what 2008 holds for any of us and there is a danger of looking too much into the future instead of enjoying the now.  But it will be the year when plans for the next adventure take shape. 

Have a good one.