Opportunity knocks

Are you under 35? With a degree in something like African Studies, Development Studies, or maybe Sociology? Then there’s an exciting opening for you in the Congo.

There are literally hundreds of development agencies and charities working here, all looking for people who are adventurous. There’s not much need for highly technical skills (Médecins sans Frontières being the obvious exception), just a willingness to take risks and turn your hand to whatever’s needed.

And you can have fun. We were at a music event at the French Cultural Centre last week which was swamped by the said young enthusiasts – and enthusiasts they are, with work, with drink, and with each other. You go to restaurants, to night clubs, to walk along the river: they’re there.

It’s easy to distinguish them from commercial people or spouses. The women (who seem to be in the majority in this game) have straight, shoulder length hair and glasses. The men may have a beard, and will favour a flamboyant type of shirt. Sandals are, of course, the standard footwear. Jeans are predictably normal. Conversation between them (as, I suppose between us oldies) has a formula to it, to allow you to place someone in the right slot: who do you work for? What do you do? How long are you here for?

Mind you, there’s stiff competition. The ones who win are those who live in the most remote and/or dangerous areas, have been here longest, or who have a personal relationship with some dangerous warlord, or Government Minister (any difference?).

There are lots of such people in Kinshasa but the biggest number are in the conflict zones such as Goma. They get paid much more than they would in their home country – that goes without saying. But they’re expected to put up with modest housing and often to survive without any form of personal transport.

Many work in areas which are very rural, interact with villagers, learn a few words of the local language and emerge changed for life by the warmth of the people they work with and help, as well as the atrocities that they see. These are experiences which force them to mature unusually quickly, for better or worse. But they are also opportunities that they wouldn’t have missed for the world.

There’s another sort of person here: the careerist. They are often, but not necessarily, the older ones who are in a long term career in the foreign service and the like. They are very different. They quickly become professional whiners so as to extract the maximum of creature comforts from their employer. If the tiniest thing goes wrong they go ballistic. They make the smallest incident into a catastrophe, and make it sound as if they are being treated like dirt. For example, a single mother with a one year old, who lived in a two room flat in London before coming here, was offered a two bedroom (more than twice the size of her former abode) house at the Embassy. Totally unacceptable, she says, and eventually negotiates a four bedroom house (so that there’s somewhere for her visitors to stay) at, wait for it, $10,000 a month. That’s taxpayers’ money. Oh, and of course, she has to have new curtains . . . And then there’s the case of a man who refused to go to work because that would require him leaving the house. His problem was that the lock on an outside security gate was not working, ignoring the fact that they had a stout main door, that the property was guarded by two security guards and no one had EVER had a burglary. A promise that the lock would be repaired that day was not enough.

One can’t help feeling that these soppy careerists, whose only concern is personal safety and salary maximisation, would be much happier if they learned something from the young ones.