Finished Up the First Week…..Three to Go……

The first week wrapped up yesterday. Initially the training programs were designed to be six days in length which is very unusual and after I arrived they requested we keep it to five days which is a relief. There may not be a lot to do in the hotel on weekends but the work—believe it or not—is physically exhausting and six straight days would be tough.

The first week went pretty well. We started off with logistics problems such as training vehicles, meeting rooms, meals, etc., but that is usual for overseas jobs. Probably the next three weeks will go a little smoother.

This was a good group. They were all from Cameroon and all but one spoke really good English. The fifth student spoke almost no English at all which slowed things up for translations but he was a good student and overall the program went well.

Things at the hotel are good—one of the three English-language TV stations is an all-movie station and I’ve enjoyed the movies so far. I really don’t watch TV very much at home so I haven’t seen the movies they’ve had on the station. I prowled around yesterday and found another stairwell inside the hotel and it is really nice—well lit, clean and carpeted—and I’ve started doing some stair-climbing as a form of exercise. It makes a positive difference.

I’m taking it easy today and tomorrow and then back to work Monday. I’m trying to lay the groundwork for a trip to one of the beach villages next weekend but COTCO seems to be against it again this trip. We’ll see……

Thanksgiving in Cameroon 2009......

Except for my short army career, I don't remember being away from home for Thanksgiving before......I thought about it some today and I really do have a lot to be grateful for.














I'm grateful for the food I've enjoyed today. The fish is simply called sole and the rest of the food is typical Cameroonian fare. One of the rice dishes is called ndole , which is made of boiled, shredded bitterleaf (a type of green), peanuts, and melon seeds. It is seasoned with spices and hot oil, and can be cooked with fish or meats. It is considered the national dish of Cameroon.

The right-hand tray above the fish contains some clear-looking balls. They are a mixture of starches--rice, potatoes, yams--that are cooked then pounded until they form a sticky mass which is then formed into balls and dipped in spicy sauces.

The sauces are typically made of a root called cassava (which naturally contains traces of cyanide), okra and tomatoes. Peppers are added and can be very similar to Thai peppers in hotness. One of the other trays contains fried plantains which I've been told are not bananas but very similar.

I'm grateful for the hotel room I have over here. It is small but safe, secure and relatively clean.



















I'm grateful that I have three English-language channels on my TV set.





















I'm grateful for the Internet in my room which allows me to follow the online newspapers at home, keep track of the Dynamo during trading season, and basically just maintain contact with the outside world.



I'm grateful for my friends--especially the ones that send me emails.






















I'm grateful for the Skype feature on my computer that allows me to talk to Devin live almost every day while I'm over here.




















I'm grateful for my home and I truly feel for the many people in the world today that live in shanties like these we drove past today.



























I'm grateful for the community I'm going back to in three weeks and I really do appreciate it after traveling through poor communities like this one today.



















I really do feel grateful this Thanksgiving and, like I told Devin on Skype earlier this evening, don't feel sorry for me over here. I actually have it really good......I'm really grateful for the opportunity to travel the world and visit places like Cameroon.

And lastly, I'm grateful for this fleeting but beautiful sunset outside my hotel window as I was typing this.

Happy Thanksgiving from Cameroon.

Half-Way Through the First Week……

…..It’s now Wednesday evening and I’ve done three days work this week which means I’m half way through the first of four weeks over here. As is typical in Cameroon, things got off to a rough start logistically but are starting to smooth out and probably will be ok for the remainder of the job. The hotel I’m staying in is the same one as when I was here two years ago and there have been some upgrades which make it a little nicer but it is still in many ways a gilded cage. It is secure and safe, relatively clean and has a good restaurant—all of which makes it one of the nicest hotels in the country—but there is absolutely nothing to do outside of my room.

Security is so tight here that when I went out the front door to take a picture of the front of the hotel, the doorman came running out to stop me. I guess he thought I was going to go walking down the street. Inside the hotel, there is a small lobby connected to a lounge and then the restaurant. All this consists of the first floor. There is a small walled patio outside the restaurant that has the swimming pool but there are really no grounds to the hotel—no place to walk, run or exercise. I thought about walking up and down the stairs but they are hot, smelly and filthy. No, I didn’t see any bats but I’m sure they’re there somewhere. They take two-hour lunches in Cameroon and I considered taking my running shoes and trying to walk during lunch, but the work area is a hard-hat and steel-toe boot area and it’s too hot and humid anyway.

Like I said earlier, conditions are pretty nice at the hotel but it is just so restrictive. COTCO is headquartered in Douala but our meeting site is outside of town on the Wuori River at a site called Lima Base. The river here has been dredged and there are some pretty large vessels moored. This morning we saw a long dugout canoe with about twenty people in it. They had large cloth bags and were dressed in native African clothing typical of this area. One of the workers said they were probably refugees from Gabon. Douala itself is about 1.6 million people but they are spread out in a network of small villages.

To get to Lima Base we have to drive through one of these villages on a dirt road and it is everything you imagine impoverished Africa to be. There is one well in the center of the village with a concrete wall around it and there are always people there filling plastic bottles with water. There is a “free medical clinic” there but I’ve never seen it open on my trips here. There are literally hundreds of small children—many can hardly walk they are so small—and you can tell they are starving and sick. This is one of those areas where you don’t take photos and I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it anyway. We really don’t realize how fortunate we are in the States…..

Which brings me to the subject of Thanksgiving tomorrow. I’ll have lunch with the group out at Lima Base and then I will probably splurge a little for supper at the hotel. Pretty sure there’ll be no turkey though……

It Took Nearly a Full Day, But I Made it to Douala…..

…..From the time I left my front door until the time I checked into my room, it was a 22 ½ hour trip but that included over six hours layover at the Paris airport. For the most part, the trip went smoothly with only minor glitches.

On the flight from Paris, one of the passengers came up to me on the plane and introduced himself. He was the head of security for ExxonMobil here and he remembered me from two years ago. We had a good talk at the airport and he will be giving me a detailed personal security orientation as part of my first-day initiation on Monday. I’ll also have a detailed medical orientation and will be issued a malaria survival kit—I have started the mandatory anti-malarial medications yesterday and will take it daily until a week after I’ve returned to Friendswood next month.

As far as personal security, not much has changed since the last job here however there was a recent taxi strike that turned violent and there have been public demonstrations in support of the taxi drivers. One of the fallouts of that is that cameras and photography—always restricted—are both very touchy subjects right now.

At the airport, COTCO met me and walked me through the complicated customs and passport issues here and arranged a minibus to the hotel. I had tried to change hotels but they overruled me because of security reasons and booked me in the same hotel I was in two years ago. I checked in—the typical room above the fourth floor facing away from the street—and and the room is much nicer than last time. One major upgrade is free Internet access in the room so I should be able to post regularly and email every day. I’m including a photo I shot out of my room window this morning.

I hardly slept during the trip so I had a full night’s sleep last night and we’ll see how quickly my body adjusts to jet lag today. I went down and had lunch earlier and was only moderately hungry—we’re seven hours ahead of Texas so it was breakfast time and I don’t eat much breakfast. I have a $141 per day meal allowance while I’m here and, believe it or not for one of the poorest countries in the world, it will cost me about that much to eat here. One favorable thing I do remember about this hotel from last time is that the food was good and safe—and that in itself is a major plus. Of course, you pay for it…..

Another upgrade from last trip is that the room now has two English-language channels—CNN and BBC. I also get Al Jazzera, but it’s in French. And I now have a flat-screen TV in the room. Life is good and I will come across a lot of people this coming month that have little food, no electricity and no drinkable water. I feel under house arrest in the restricted confines of the hotel but it is really a very good and safe environment that most Cameroonians will never experience in their lifetimes.

I’m basically spending this first layover day taking it easy—watching TV, playing with the Internet and trying to adjust to jet lag. The work begins tomorrow and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll be training Cameroon COTCO employees to teach their tractor-trailer transport drivers safety techniques in hauling fuels and hazardous chemicals in dangerous driving conditions. This is what I enjoy doing—this and working with embassy drivers for the State Department—and it sure beats doing the basic instruction myself in downtown Houston as I’ve done almost all year in 2009.

We had a “bat invasion” just now outside the hotel. I’d forgotten about them, but several times a day there are literally thousands of bats that come out and swarm in huge circles around the city for fifteen or twenty minutes then go back to wherever they stay during the day. I’ve been told the underground parking garage at the hotel is like a cave with the ceiling covered with bats. I remember seeing some of them in the stairwells but never in the hallways or rooms. Actually, the locals here are big fans of the bats—they swarm several times a day and eat probably millions of mosquitoes. And mosquitoes are the biggest cause of malaria—one of the biggest medical problems here and a huge killer of children in this country. I tried to take a picture but they’re really small and really fast…..

I’ll eat supper a little later and will probably be a little more hungry and will sleep at least several hours tonight. It usually takes me two to three days to make the full adjustment after I arrive. I’ll try to post regularly but the photos may be few and far between. So far, off to a good start……