The tide has turned ...

Cultural studies tell us that the first three months of being in a new place makes up the ‘honeymoon’ phase. Yes, it’s true and then you go into a phase of denial and rejection. I was mentally prepared for this ‘depressive’ phase but not in the way it came about. The weather had been particularly hot and given that it had started to rain, although not a lot, there had been humidity in the air and just walking the few metres between the hotel and the office meant I arrived face and body bathed in perspiration. You feel rung out before you start and the only solution is to change.

Then you start to feel the pinch of being left out, of being left aside. There’s little inclusiveness here and in this male-dominated world, you need some sort of support mechanism to help you survive. From the VSO point of view, there are the volunteers but it doesn’t go hand-in-hand that putting a group of Westerners together, they’ll become buddies overnight. There was a Canadian girl I met in the beginning but she left a few weeks later. Then there was Georgette who, because of our work circumstances, I took a while to get to know. She’s returned to France, perhaps to return, she doesn’t know.

Circumstances being what they were, there was a guy who befriended me in the hotel who was attentive and concerned. When I moved, this same person was there to help in the final stages (I had already exhausted myself with getting the furniture assembled, cleaning the place, getting down to the market place to buy this and that to make the apartment space operable). Somehow, he managed to get away with my (second) computer (the one I was going to use at home), small electrical equipment and cords, brand new zoom camera and all my reserve money (the information I had received had said that there were no ATMs in Maroua). To add insult to injury, six days later, I notice my bank account down to zero, and I knew that this person was a professional con-man and defrauder.

A wonderful Cameroonian who is married to a Quebec girl and waiting for his Canadian visa to come through has been a great support. Then Kate came back a few days ago – she had returned to the US for a wedding. Kate’s on a Fulbright scholarship and is returning definitively in three weeks. She’s welcomed me several times at her place to use her internet connection. It’s good and I can phone out on Skype. At the office, the connection is really unreliable during the day, sometimes there is no connection, at others it is intermittent. To use Skype, I need a sustained good connection and this seems to be accessible only from early evening – good for taking to France and America, but Australia is then in the wee hours of the morning.

These events put me into a state of shock and initial trauma. I’m working my way through and beside the headaches of late, I sleep well at night. Talking to others, I have been told that theft and deception is commonplace and that if push comes to crunch, you let the intruders take what they demand rather than your life. On certain routes north of here, highway banditry is well known. Yet the people continue to live in their villages and surrounding areas. Life, for better or worse, goes on.

When a motorbike taxi driver tries to overcharge me because of the colour of my face, I tell him he is cheating me and to go away. I then take another bike at the right price. When you go down town, you slowly become aware of the higher prices that some vendors try to charge. It’s hard in the beginning and it’s quite an art to knock them down. The thing I learnt is to know someone reputable and get them to do the purchasing for you – it works well but is not always possible. There are those honorable souls, of course, and then there are a few fixed price stores (a fabric shop and the small grocery stores) but shopping is not a relaxing outing as in Australia, you have make an effort to meet the fray and always be a little on your guard.

So, I am grateful that this thief and con-man only took money and physical possessions. I am still here and able to tell the tale. You don’t go to the police because corruption is such that payments under the table would be required to undertake any and every stage of an investigation, and to what purpose? All I would wish is that the person amends his ways and learns the value of the work required to earn the money in the first place. But poverty is everywhere and gaining a quick buck becomes a ‘respectable profession’ in the eyes of the perpetrator. A pretext for a way of life that flaunts the law and puts others in fear.