Hello out there to any readers who haven't given up on me and still check the blog in spite of my long absence. As I noted in a previous post, I went back to the US for a monthlong break and returned to Cameroon late last month. Since then I haven't really felt in the swing of things as far as blogging goes, so I've been lazy and not posted anything. So, I decided it was finally time for an update.
Home leave was good. It was great to see friends and family again, to be back in the States, and to eat loads of unhealthy junk food. I gained a few pounds actually. I didn't have too many problms with reverse culture shock, except for bizarrely begin really uncomfortable being around white people for my first two days back. Odd... And of course I spent a lot of time telling people things that started with "In Cameroon..." over and over. All in all though, it was a badly needed change of scenery and I returned to Cameroon feeling recharged.
I've settled back into Buea easily. I've been putting in a fair amount of time working with my host institution, a local NGO called LINK-UP, that tries to help impoverished children and orphans in several communities in Cameroon's Southwest province. My work with LINK-UP has so far revolved around two main areas.
The first is a new micro-credit program they have recently started in collaboration with an outside group called Drombaya. This is a program to provide small loans to families the organization has been helping to start or expand their own small income generating activities. Generally, these are small scale projects like making and selling or reselling food items and small artisanal work. Before going back to the US I helped them craft some of their loan policies and design the paperwork and process. The program started up in my absence and seems to be off and running fairly smoothly. For the moment I'm not doing much in this area but I'll be revisiting it to see how the pogram is working once it's been operational for a few months.
My second project with LINK-UP is basically management consulting. The organization started small and has always been run by its founder and President. When it started he could do this out of his head and mostly by himself. However, as the organization has grown and been successful, they've passed the point where an ad hoc management style works effectively. So, I've been working with the President and the staff to develop and write down their internal rules and procedures in an effort to help them better manage their activities and make the organization more professional.
Outside LINK-UP, I've made contact with another local Cameroonian development organization called Nkong Hilltop, which mostly works in he agricultural domain, running micro-credit programs and building skills among farmers. I recently did a computer security workshop with some of their staff where I provided training in how to protect their computers against viruses (a huge problem in Cameroon) and use the internet safely. In the future we are planning more computer related training sessions in order to help them start trcking some of their projects and better manage their finances using computers.
Besides work, I've started taking a French class at the local Linguistic Center, a government sponsored language training center aimed at promoting bilingualism in Cameroon and offering French and English courses. Although my French is still pretty strong, now that I'm not using it daily any more I can feel it slipping a bit, so the five hour a week course is perfect practice to ensure I don't lose too much of it while I'm here.
Aside from that, I've just been hanging out with friends here in Buea and sneaking off for an occasional day trip to the beach.
So, that's what I'm up to these days.
Home leave was good. It was great to see friends and family again, to be back in the States, and to eat loads of unhealthy junk food. I gained a few pounds actually. I didn't have too many problms with reverse culture shock, except for bizarrely begin really uncomfortable being around white people for my first two days back. Odd... And of course I spent a lot of time telling people things that started with "In Cameroon..." over and over. All in all though, it was a badly needed change of scenery and I returned to Cameroon feeling recharged.
I've settled back into Buea easily. I've been putting in a fair amount of time working with my host institution, a local NGO called LINK-UP, that tries to help impoverished children and orphans in several communities in Cameroon's Southwest province. My work with LINK-UP has so far revolved around two main areas.
The first is a new micro-credit program they have recently started in collaboration with an outside group called Drombaya. This is a program to provide small loans to families the organization has been helping to start or expand their own small income generating activities. Generally, these are small scale projects like making and selling or reselling food items and small artisanal work. Before going back to the US I helped them craft some of their loan policies and design the paperwork and process. The program started up in my absence and seems to be off and running fairly smoothly. For the moment I'm not doing much in this area but I'll be revisiting it to see how the pogram is working once it's been operational for a few months.
My second project with LINK-UP is basically management consulting. The organization started small and has always been run by its founder and President. When it started he could do this out of his head and mostly by himself. However, as the organization has grown and been successful, they've passed the point where an ad hoc management style works effectively. So, I've been working with the President and the staff to develop and write down their internal rules and procedures in an effort to help them better manage their activities and make the organization more professional.
Outside LINK-UP, I've made contact with another local Cameroonian development organization called Nkong Hilltop, which mostly works in he agricultural domain, running micro-credit programs and building skills among farmers. I recently did a computer security workshop with some of their staff where I provided training in how to protect their computers against viruses (a huge problem in Cameroon) and use the internet safely. In the future we are planning more computer related training sessions in order to help them start trcking some of their projects and better manage their finances using computers.
Besides work, I've started taking a French class at the local Linguistic Center, a government sponsored language training center aimed at promoting bilingualism in Cameroon and offering French and English courses. Although my French is still pretty strong, now that I'm not using it daily any more I can feel it slipping a bit, so the five hour a week course is perfect practice to ensure I don't lose too much of it while I'm here.
Aside from that, I've just been hanging out with friends here in Buea and sneaking off for an occasional day trip to the beach.
So, that's what I'm up to these days.
2 comments:
Hi Brian,
Thank you so much for sharing this article. Well written!
I also heard that Ethiopians are obsessed with Obama. It looks like it has become an African phenomenon.
Looking forward to seeing President Obama in 24 hours!
as expected, 1.2 million kenyas are at the U.S embassy, asking for visas to come visit their uncle at the whitehouse
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