Category Archive

As you might imagine, I have been giving my upcoming post in Cameroon a great deal of thought.

In particular I think the fact that this is not my first VSO posting actually makes it harder.  While Africa will be new to me, doing THIS, ie the whole VSO thing is not.

I think it’s fair to say that it was the new that fired me up and kept me going in Vietnam.  I followed the same curve that every volunteer there has ever been has followed - sheer euphoria, followed by exasperation and tiredness followed by a surge with the end in sight.

So where do I start on that curve this time?

I also don’t want to start every sentence with “When I did VSO in Vietnam we…” and that goes for work, socialising and blogging.

And there is the fear too.  I am slowly admitting to myself that Vietnam was, all things considered, pretty cushy in every respect.  In all honesty I struggle to think of a placement that could be any easier.  But Africa and Bamenda?  This will be very different.

I’ve learnt that it will be not be too hot.  It will rain a lot.  There is very little to do and despite it being a sizeable city there is virtually no expat scene.  When I am not working I can expect to be doing a lot of reading, pottering and tuning in to World Service.

I think. I repeat, I think, I am fine with that.

I didn’t want to be doing expatty stuff.  But then again, just how much can I amuse myself?

In time I’ll put together some rules for myself in terms of how I treat my Cameroon experience, but certainly the first is: I may be a returned volunteer but I know nothing.  This is all new and I should act accordingly.  It’s important that I show be neither a know-it-all or a cynic.

And to be honest, unlike surviving in Asia I feel like I wouldn’t know where to start in Cameroon.  I really do know absolutley nothing.

* I have been reading two Cameroon blogs - first off Rev Tracy’s thoughts from Bamenda itself and also Yer Man in Cameroon who amongst a great number of other fabulous post has a heartening piece on Bamenda.

* No pic is not African, nor is it symbolic in any way.  It’s from my holiday snaps - a little bit of sunshine in Zakynthos - I returned today.  Full set is here.

It occurs to me that ahead of the VSO event blogged below it might be of interest to look at the PDF here.  It essentially outlines the skill groups most needed.

It’s not exhaustive - as an example I knew a few VSO volunteers with hospitality and tourism skills.  In addition, though my background is journalism and PR I ended up a fundraiser.  I reasoned that fundraising was just publicising a lack of cash and what it was needed for. 

I guess I was half right but close enough.

Just remember everyone is there to teach.  The idea being that you don’t just do your job - you train someone else to replace you when you leave.   VSO will train you how to do this before you depart.

I’ve been kind of thinking of doing this for some time.

But I want to do a VSO blog.  In short the whole point will be that I actually write very little at all. 

I’ll set up RSS searches to dig out news of interest.  I’ll catalogue as many VSO blogs as I can find and highlight the best bits.  I’ll, of course, set up a Flickr group and provide links to the already established Facebook group.

I’ll take emails with questions and open them up to comments - the aim being to reassure potential volunteers and share expertise among current vols.  But I also want to inspire too by linking some of the more emotional posts from around the world.  I want it to make people want to sign up.

The rest, I am hoping, wil evolve naturally.

The aim is, if it works, and they like it - I can eventually hand it over to VSO.   But I believe whether official or unofficial it can really help them - and dovetail well with what they already do.  In the meantime it will be clearly marked “unofficial”.

Any suggestions welcome - plus offers of help too.  I’d also like to involve some other past VSO volunteers in this project.

Good to see Rachie, at the excellent Living for Disco, is back to blogging regularly as she prepares for her upcoming wedding.

It’s particularly interesting to see how another ex-VSOer is settling back into “normality”.

In particular check out this post and its comments.

And it’s all as beautifully written as ever.

I was lucky enough to secure employment relatively quickly after returning home.

But I am also aware, reading the blogs of other VSO returnees, that not everyone has been so lucky.

I said it while I was initially floundering, but it is a shame that the experience of working overseas and volunteering isn’t more highly valued by employers.  It says a great deal, I believe, about our little island mindset.

But without exception, the biggest complaint of all of us, is that HR departments no longer reply to unsuccesful applicants. 

Apply for a job and you can find yourself waiting around for weeks before it eventually sinks in that you haven’t made the short list.  This is not an on-spec request for employment I am talking about - this is an application for an advertised post.

Just when did this become common practice? Every business now, it appears, behaves this way.

Surely the least an organisation can do is to let people know that they won’t be called for interview.  Sure, it’s good to save paperwork but that is what email is for, isn’t it?

Either way, it sucks.  If there is any worse feeling than a rejection letter it’s the slow creeping feeling that you didn’t make the grade (but the desperate hope that perhaps there’s just been a delay).

It is a horrible situation and an awful way to treat anyone.

On a handful of occasions, when I was working in Vietnam, I’d find somebody waiting behind to talk to me after I had made my “Story of KOTO” speech to a tour group.

If I had pitched it just right and mixed enough laughs with enough lump-in-the-throat bits, then people would donate to the cause. Often too an after-talk visitor would want to speak to me personally.

Invariably they’d be old. Quite often they’d push their donation directly into my hand. On more than one occasion they didn’t understand the local money, or inflation or whatever. Their gift, which I am sure they thought was generous, turned out to be only a few pennies. It was gratefully received all the same.

But they’d stayed to talk to me for a reason. They’d say something kind in an oldies way. They’d thank me for the speech and tell me to “keep it up” and use words like “marvellous” a lot.

What they didn’t know, and what they couldn’t grasp, was just how easy it was.  Their praise was nice to hear but unnecessary. Because what I did wasn’t hard.

You want to make the commute to work fun? Weave your way through a million scooters on the back of a motorbike. Want to find some motivation? How about 60 kids being put on the streets if you fail? Want to feel wanted and appreciated? Work with Vietnamese people.

I’ve always maintained that the hardest part to working for a living is not the work itself. It’s the grind. It’s knowing that your holiday is only four weeks a year. Or your days off number a measly two out of seven.

So now I am doing the hard stuff. The number one bus to work. The cold. The weekend heralded with a whoop on Friday night, only to be commiserated as “almost gone” by Sunday.

I remember when I first started my working life after college. I kept starting sentences with: “This summer I’m going to…”, before letting the line die as I remembered that this summer I’d be working.

I reckon it took me five years to be work institutionalised. To feel that two out of seven, and four weeks a year were not so much ok, as just the way it was and eminently do-able. Now I have to relearn the old work ethics.

And all of that is what I told the old dears who said kind things to me at KOTO. The nine to five (and the rest) grinders are the heroes.

It’s good to be home. It would be churlish to say that it feels tough. It’s not. Just more mundane. I’ve been spoilt.

Spoilt by the sensory overload of Vietnam and the lazy days of Nicaragua.

To take a positive from all of this: To anyone reading this who might have thought of volunteering overseas but reckon they couldn’t stick it….

Just do it. What you already do is harder. Volunteering is easy.

Voluntary Service Overseas details here.

As an ex VSOer in Hanoi who, on occasions, saw the otherside of volunteering in Granada, I’m with them 100% on this one.

From today’s Times:

“One of Britain’s leading charities has warned students not to take part in gap-year aid projects overseas which cost thousands of pounds and do nothing to help developing countries.

“Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) said that gap-year volunteering, highlighted by Princes William and Harry, has spawned a new industry in which students pay thousands of pounds for prepackaged schemes to teach English or help to build wells in developing countries with little evidence that it benefits local communities.

“It said that “voluntourism” was often badly planned and spurious projects were springing up across Africa, Asia and Latin America to satisfy the demands of the students rather than the needs of locals. Young people would be better off simply travelling the world and enjoying themselves, it added.”

Yes, yes, and yes again.

I’ve written on this subject before and you can find it here.