Fear of a new life

Sometimes, a little change in your life can have a significant impact on the way you live, or on your personal state of mind. Some people are not prepared to any changes, or do not know how to manage a sudden upheaval that can bring them to a different life style. Three weeks ago, my sister, who was looking for a job, had been hired up by an interesting Multinational company. The only matter laid on the fact that the job location is in Cameroon, our home Country. Indeed, as all my siblings, my sister has left Cameroon very early at the age of 15 to continue her study abroad. The fact that she has spent almost the half of her life out of Cameroon has generated a sort of disconnection with the Cameroonian culture and way of life. She has borrowed a lot from the different French and American cultures that she had been in contact with, and she has adopted a new mentality that might be completely different from what people have in Cameroon. But the point is: what is the most important, being in a system where you seem to be more comfortable without a job or trying to adapt yourself in another where you will have a decent life? From my point of view, I would say that the proper of the human is to be able to adapt himself to any environment as difficult as it can be. My sister, who is leaving today, will have to struggle with these issues and prepare a comfortable future for her and her family.

Families Values in Africa

One thing I am very proud about my father is that no matter what difficulty he has encountered in his life, my education has always been one of his main preoccupations. He always told me that if it was necessary, he would be ready to sell his house to pay my tuitions. There is no physical obligation for him of doing that, but they are more moral. In Africa, we give a great importance to the family. Family in Africa is not limited to the father, the mother and the children. An African family is also composed by the grand-parents, theirs siblings and all the descendants. Consequently, in my family we are 5 brothers and sisters, but my father took care of more than 10 of my cousins. Another thing is that at the contrary of what happen sometimes in the western countries, old people are never placed in retire center. Because their descendants will always take care of them, you will never see, in Africa, an old person that has to work to survive. There is only one word to explain this situation, it is what we call being grateful. We are grateful for what our parents have done for us, so we will never let them down. Old people here is the U.S. are sometimes disappointed by their progeny attitudes. But this is generally due to the way they used to treat their children. As the law of talion says: eye-for-an-eye, or the other expression: live by the sword, die by the sword.

Moral Values and Moral Responsibilities

Having child can be considered as one of the most important and beautiful gift that somebody can get in his life. The birth of a child is not finality, it is just the beginning of a long road that needs to be maintained and followed. You must deserve your children, and take into account the fact that whatever you will do, it will be always yours, regardless his age. It is the role of a parent to defend your child against any kind of danger during all his life. Everyone has the right to decide the way he wants to educate his children. However, we should take into account that our main preoccupation should be the future of them. But, I do not understand why some wealthy parents make experience their children very difficult financial situations even when it concerns school. Based on my experience, I can say that working while going to school, not allow you to be as efficient as you would if you were only studying. Indeed, some students have to find a job, in order to be able to afford their needs. This leads to a significant impact on their school performances and can drastically affect their future in College. Parents who can afford to provide to their children the best in everything, should feel themselves responsible for that guided by moral values.

The Indomitable Lions

Soccer is the most popular sport in Africa. It is also the sport that cost the less because you just need to have a ball and some friends to start a game. Soccer is so important that each Africa nation has a national team that not only represents few players dressed in the color of the country, but a whole nation. For my case, the national team of my country, Cameroon, is nicknamed the national team. Everyone is involved in the performance of the team, from the grand-parents up to babies. We are considered as one of the best national team of Africa and the world since we were ranked 11th in the FIFA ranking in November 2006. Every country is well known for something, American for burgers, French for the good food, we, we are well known for our national team since we were the first African team to reach the quarterfinal of a final phase of the World cup in 1990. I remember several times, when I answer to people about my origins, and they tell to me, “Cameroon of Roger Milla”, “Cameroon of Samuel Eto’o”; indeed these two Cameroonians players are very famous. Roger Milla established two records that are the oldest player ever to appear in a world cup and the oldest goalscorer in a world cup tournament at the age of 42. Samuel Eto’o also is a great recordman, he is the first player to realize two consecutives years the triple (championship, national cup, champions league) with two different teams (FC Barcelona, Internazionale Milano). Expecting a lot from our national team, we are firmly attached to the statement saying: “A lion never die, he just sleep”; In other word, people are not waiting for us but the world cup is ours.

Philantrophy

What is the real purpose on collecting inconsiderable amount of money and wealth? I always questioned myself for a long time about the answer of this question. When you die, you don't bring your money with you; so it is a more profitable and salutary action to help people in need instead of keeping into your account large amounts of money. One definition of philanthropy is the effort or inclination to increase the well-being of humankind, as by charitable aid or donations; that simply means that there are people able to put aside the race to wealth to help those who are really needy. Even from a religious aspect, the Bible ask people to help each other. Because of the fact that I grew up in Africa where you can meet people extremely poor, I know people that are living with less than 100 dollar a month, and it has always been a dreamed for me to be enough successful in my professional life to afford helping other people. One year ago, this desire has been consolidated when I read the biography of a famous personage in the American History, Andrew Carnegie. This man is considered as the second richest man of the world history, but has given away more than 350 millions dollars in his life time almost for philanthropy. These million dollars, that represent ¾ of all the money he earned in his life, would represent billions now. And it is admirable to see somebody that has understood that even if money it is important to live, it is less important than human values. One of my preferred quotations from him is “Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community”. For me the best way to help people is not to give them money, but allow them by different ways such as build school, library create employ and grant scholarship, to become Independant.

My experiences as a talent scout

Sometimes, the most interesting things in your life arrive with pure coincidence. I have started to work as a talent scout two years ago when I met one of my schoolmate's father who was the CEO of a sport management agency. He encouraged to get myself involve in this job since I am originary from Cameroon, and this country is full of talented soccer players as Samuel Eto'o fils, Achille Emana or the fantastic Roger Milla. Thanks to my connections I have been able to detect two fabulous players in formation in the Cameroonian team, "Cotonsport of Garoua". The two players were Jacques Zoua, 17 years old at the time and Aboubakar Vincent 16 years old. The first one was a member of the juniors national team and the second one belonged to the Cadet. With some partners, and thanks to the videos of some of the games Zoua played during the junior african cup, we were able to propose him to the swiss team, FC Basel which was immediately interested. I arrange for a Visa for him, and he went to Basel in Switzerland for a few days and scored 2 goals in 45 min. FC Basel has immediately proposed to him a four years contract. Moreover, since I was mandated by Cotonsport to negociate his transfert, I succeeded to get for the club the sum of 400.000 dollars, which is a pretty high amount for an african team. Zoua has made an excellent first season and had been called up for the national team to attend the world cup. Unfortunately for him, he had a injury during the last game of the swiss championship. I would tell you more about Aboubakar Vincent story in my next post.

Soccer Player Agent : A Fantastic Job

Soccer is the most popular Sport in Africa. Each national team is entirely supported by the population of his country so that people could think that we are fanatics. Indeed, in my country, Cameroon, Soccer is even use by the president as a political tool. This is why one day I decided to become a soccer player manager. I wanted to help young people with a lot of talents, allow them to have a better future the poor one toward which they would be probably destined without a professional football career. I feel myself like being a saver, doing something for others, and that completely fit in my objectives since I want to be a philanthropist. Being an agent brings you to a particular and fabulous life full of travels all around the world to watch different games and players, a life that allows you to sleep in the most beautiful hotels of the worlds, to eat in the greatest restaurants and to meet ones of the most interesting and important persons in this this world. However, it is not an easy work; it is extremely hard to find a good player that fit in the criteria of the professional soccer, and even when you find him, you have to fight against the others, sometimes dishonest, agents that would like to sign him too. Excepting this side of the job, seeing the fact that it is well paid, and you have a lot of free time and fun, I can only encourage people to respect it.