Cameroon culture is about as far from American culture as you can get and still be on the same planet.  In some ways that is.  Of course there are similarities, too.  But if one is going to move between the two cultures one must learn some basics about the major differences, or it isn't going to work.  We have a friend who has just won the visa lottery.  He has an opportunity to go to America and ultimately get a green card.  This is a young man we knew briefly twelve years ago.  He was approximately ten years old at the time.  Now he is back in our lives via email (he's living outside of Cameroon, studying to become an airline pilot) and he's making every mistake possible.  Since we cannot sit down and talk face-to-face with him, we are not able to accurately discern what kind of person he has become.  There isn't that give and take that is so vital to relationships.  I know that in these modern times of social media, people don't really worry about deep relationships, but we are old fashioned.  Frankly we refuse to keep up with the modern trends when it comes to superficial relationships.  So here we are with this young man writing to us several times a week.  He's our new best friend.  His English is limited so we are not always sure exactly what he is trying to say.  And now after less than a month of this, he has started asking us for money for this, that and the other thing.  You can do that in his culture.  It's not offensive.  There is a way to handle that direct approach in the culture without breaking the relationship.  His requests could be genuine, or not.  There is no way of knowing since we cannot talk direct to him.  It is very easy to get sucked into his pleas for financial help.  Been there, done that.  But we are much more cautious today as a result of many bad experiences.  We have no intentions of responding to his every request for money.  Now that we have learned he has won the visa lottery, we are choosing to give him advice on how to function in American culture without being offensive.  That is all the "help" that we are giving him.