Alright, I'm running out of languages to wish you guys Merry Christmas in (I don't know if there's a Susu version, I sorta doubt it). Luckily I think this is my final Christmas related post for this year.
So yesterday, Christmas dinner was very nice. I got a call from my Dad right before heading over to the Country Director's house, and it was fun to talk to my little sisters for the first time in several months (I think for the first time, one of my little sisters switched into english for the majority of the conversation). Dinner was a very interesting mix of dishes pot-luck style (turkey, guacamole, fried plantains, baked plantains with cheese, cole slaw, fruit salad, fried rice, potatoes o'brien (leftover from Christmas brunch), brownies, maple fudge and cookies. It was mostly Peace Corps (our director and his family, our small enterprise development director, our doctor, and us 19 volunteers) plus 3 volunteers from IFISH, a USAID worker, and a Fullbright scholar doing some sort of research here.
After dinner we headed back to the house and continued the party for a while, but since I hadn't really slept more than 5 hours total the past 2 days I called it an early night around 1am. I'm still kinda exhausted.
Today was mostly spent sitting around watching movies or chatting with people, as before. I'm definitely ready to get out of Conakry, though I'm hoping I won't have to spend New Years by myself in my village (it's looking that way, though my near neighbors and I are hoping to spend it in Boké together). We've been doing the standard Peace Corps Guinea lockdown routine - watching lots and lots of movies. They've been going in themes: The day I got here and the military coup was annoucned "Blood Diamond", "The Last King of Scotland" and some other movie involving an African country having .... problems. On Christmas day it was: "Home Alone", "A Christmas Story", "Elf", and "It's a Wonderful Life".
A really memorable moment was during one of the last scenes of "Elf" when everybody in New York is singing Christmas carols to get Santa's Sleigh going again. All of us broke into song as well ("Santa Claus is Coming to Town", I believe). I had a hard time singing along because I was fighting back tears (anyone who knows me well will tell you I get a little teary eyed in movies, but throw in the emotional roller coaster of a Christmas Coup without the family and resistance becomes futile). I took a quick look to make sure nobody had noticed and realized that almost everybody in the room was just as teary eyed as me. Someone commented on this and we all started laughing.
Coup-wise, things continue to be calm, Lansana Conté was buried earlier today in his home village and people continue to seem happy with the new government. Today we were allowed to go within walking distance of the compound, but since it was the funeral day most of the market was shut down. I went out anyway just to get out of the house. I walked around a bit, walked well past the market and discovered a soft-serve ice cream guy about a 15 minute walk from the compound (they tend to exist wherever there's semi-consistent electricity, though are hard to find usually). I stopped and got 5,000 GNF worth (a lot! about 150 mL?), and sat and ate it on the little bench the guy had in front of his shack because it was shady (I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt with flip flops, but still sweating by the way....no Portland or Iowa snowstorms here). The guy sat with me and we listened to the radio while I watched people go by (it was about 1:30pm on Friday (, so everyone was going to the mosque in their nice outfits). I got a couple of avocados (they're coming back into season!) and walked back to the compound.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Merry Christmas
Alright, things have remained very calm here and so far today's Christmas is turning out to be very nice. I stayed up late last night uploading pictures to facebook, and then chatting with a couple of people until like 2 or 3 am. I slept until 6 (I don't know why I never sleep when I'm in Conakry, I think I stock up on sleep in Bintimodia and then can manage fine without here). I got up and saw that people had already started on Christmas breakfast (ended up being ready at 11, so it was Christmas brunch). I opened my care package under the tree and shared some of the goodies (someone is going to use my "dried fruit mix" in place of rasins to attempt Irish soda bread, etc) then peeled like 100 cloves of garlic. After this we got authorization for 4 of us to go to the market with a specific list of things we need to Christmas dinner, so I went with 3 others. My friend Conor and I teamed up with the "produce" list.
The market was very busy, it's been closed the past couple of days so I think everyone was re-stocking up. Everybody seemed calm and there was no sense of danger at all (or we would have gone straight back to the house). Conor and I bought: 12 cucumbers, 6 kilos of tomatoes, 6 kilos of onions, 2 kilos of green bell peppers (you can get more vegetables in Conakry than anywhere else, expensive as hell though), 7 kilos of carrots, 1 kilo of green beans, 16 avocadoes, 10 eggplants, a bag of garlic (about 15 heads), 10 limes, 4 kilos of cabbage, ....and some other stuff. Obvously we did this in a few different trip and then walked the stuff back to the waiting Peace Corps car. A Liberian kid (spoke decent-ish english) kept following us for a while trying to interpret english to susu for us, but when he saw that I could argue with the market lady in susu about how she was overcharging for tomatoes he gave up, asked for money then walked away confused. The highlight of this was near the end when Conor (who speaks Pulaar, not susu) and I were both bargaining in our respective local language with the same lady (who, being Pule herself mostly ignored me) and most of the market around us stopped and stared at the white people who speak the local native dialects. Later I got payback when a Susu lady ignored Conor, and told me in Susu "he's a Pule and a Diallo, watch out for him" (Guieans have a lot of joke (kinda) family feuds, I'm a Bah, she was a Balde (same thing, sorta), and we all think Diallos (and Camaras (also the same thing?) are thieves, they in turn thing we're sorcerors, obviously this is just a country wide local joke, but it's awesome that calling someone a goat thief will usually get you a better price for whatever you're trying to buy). I think market ladies are my favorite people, possibly in the whole world.
Anyway, we got back to the house unloaded all our stuff (the other couple of people got roughly the same volume of other foodstuffs) and then I sat down with a bunch of people to watch "Home Alone" while brunch got finished. As the thieves were being driven away in a police car (in the movie), brunch was announced. Scrambled eggs with basil, garlic, onions and green peppers, fried potatoes and onions with good spices, fruit (pineapple, coconut, bananas), fresh squeezed orange juice and toast. Real coffee too (usually you can only get instant coffee here). So good. We had all-around "Merry Christmas" hugs and dug in. Now everyone is working on cooking for dinner at our Coutnry Director's house later this afternoon, potluck style.
For a Christmas spent during the middle of a military coup in a (temporarily) constitutionless country, we did pretty well for ourselves. Now, I'm gonna go help one of my best friends (who incidentally I hadn't seen since September) make some fried rice for tonight.
Merry Christmas.
The market was very busy, it's been closed the past couple of days so I think everyone was re-stocking up. Everybody seemed calm and there was no sense of danger at all (or we would have gone straight back to the house). Conor and I bought: 12 cucumbers, 6 kilos of tomatoes, 6 kilos of onions, 2 kilos of green bell peppers (you can get more vegetables in Conakry than anywhere else, expensive as hell though), 7 kilos of carrots, 1 kilo of green beans, 16 avocadoes, 10 eggplants, a bag of garlic (about 15 heads), 10 limes, 4 kilos of cabbage, ....and some other stuff. Obvously we did this in a few different trip and then walked the stuff back to the waiting Peace Corps car. A Liberian kid (spoke decent-ish english) kept following us for a while trying to interpret english to susu for us, but when he saw that I could argue with the market lady in susu about how she was overcharging for tomatoes he gave up, asked for money then walked away confused. The highlight of this was near the end when Conor (who speaks Pulaar, not susu) and I were both bargaining in our respective local language with the same lady (who, being Pule herself mostly ignored me) and most of the market around us stopped and stared at the white people who speak the local native dialects. Later I got payback when a Susu lady ignored Conor, and told me in Susu "he's a Pule and a Diallo, watch out for him" (Guieans have a lot of joke (kinda) family feuds, I'm a Bah, she was a Balde (same thing, sorta), and we all think Diallos (and Camaras (also the same thing?) are thieves, they in turn thing we're sorcerors, obviously this is just a country wide local joke, but it's awesome that calling someone a goat thief will usually get you a better price for whatever you're trying to buy). I think market ladies are my favorite people, possibly in the whole world.
Anyway, we got back to the house unloaded all our stuff (the other couple of people got roughly the same volume of other foodstuffs) and then I sat down with a bunch of people to watch "Home Alone" while brunch got finished. As the thieves were being driven away in a police car (in the movie), brunch was announced. Scrambled eggs with basil, garlic, onions and green peppers, fried potatoes and onions with good spices, fruit (pineapple, coconut, bananas), fresh squeezed orange juice and toast. Real coffee too (usually you can only get instant coffee here). So good. We had all-around "Merry Christmas" hugs and dug in. Now everyone is working on cooking for dinner at our Coutnry Director's house later this afternoon, potluck style.
For a Christmas spent during the middle of a military coup in a (temporarily) constitutionless country, we did pretty well for ourselves. Now, I'm gonna go help one of my best friends (who incidentally I hadn't seen since September) make some fried rice for tonight.
Merry Christmas.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
New President
Alright, well the coup is still going and military is still in power. A little while ago they officially announced the new president (I think) - Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, the guy who has been the spokesman for the military faction who took over control. Again, I won't comment on what I think of this, but here are some links:
http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/22357
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jaQPxwTr7Ls-HVfZkk2xle0dPUhQD9596KMG0
While this may not be what organizations such as the African Union orthe United Nations would want, as it is a departure from a civilian government and continues in the military strongman control - it does seem to have made people here very happy. They have taken to the streets not to riot and protest, but to dance and cheer (and all the Camaras are especially happy, since the new president is one of them). I suspect they are especially happy that the waiting period has passed and hopefully things will get better from here. As of now things are looking better for safety. We will still be waiting to see that things stay calm before going back to our villages, I will most likely be here until at least Monday.
Edit: Another link (I got word out before the BBC, go me):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7799279.stm
http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/22357
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jaQPxwTr7Ls-HVfZkk2xle0dPUhQD9596KMG0
While this may not be what organizations such as the African Union orthe United Nations would want, as it is a departure from a civilian government and continues in the military strongman control - it does seem to have made people here very happy. They have taken to the streets not to riot and protest, but to dance and cheer (and all the Camaras are especially happy, since the new president is one of them). I suspect they are especially happy that the waiting period has passed and hopefully things will get better from here. As of now things are looking better for safety. We will still be waiting to see that things stay calm before going back to our villages, I will most likely be here until at least Monday.
Edit: Another link (I got word out before the BBC, go me):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7799279.stm
Feliz Navidad
-- Disclaimer, if you are the parent of a volunteer who is out somewhere in their village with no cell phone reception, please be aware that everyone is accounted for, and they are probably safer in their respective villages than they would be in Conakry (the trainees are also safe back with their host families). --
So, it's December 24th, and Christmas is here. I'm Mexican, and in my family (and in general all of Mexico) the 24th is the big day and the 25th is for cleaning up the previous night's party (and for kids to open the presents Santa left...all other presents get opened after dinner, though I think as I kid I opened Santa's presents on Christmas eve as well....mom?).
Anyway, somewhere in Mexico City I assume most of my relatives from my dad's side of the family are getting together for a big family dinner (there are a lot of us...I've lost count but it's somewhere around 25-30 cousins all together (I could come up with a number if I felt like going uncle by uncle (or aunt by aunt....let's not forget gender equality) counting the kids...but I won't)). I assume most of my mom's relatives are also getting together, but they're a bit more scattered to the winds. My sister is visiting my parents in Arizona, having brought her puppy Chloe with her (who I have yet to meet), and they'll be having the first Christmas without me in my 22 years of existence. My little sisters will be opening their presents from Santa tomorrow, I expect they're outgrowing the Disney Princess stuff...but sad to say I don't know for sure.
As for me, I can probably now claim to be the only person in my entire (vast) extended family who can claim to spend Christmas in a leaderless country under military control in the beginning stages of what could (but hopefully won't) dissolve into a civil war in the worst case scenario (We've made top story on BBC.com world news! Last time Guinea was this newsworthy there probably wasn't a BBC.com). I would say I did not sign up for this when I started down the Peace Corps path....but who am I kidding, a part of me loves it.
I'm also glad to be in Conakry where I can see news sources other than what I can get on my shortwave radio (if I had to find out the details of this through "World Have Your Say" I would probably be much more annoyed). Someone just read off someone's comment from WHYS online, the source was "Nene Binta Diallo from London" which is hillariously appropriate as I'm sure every one of us knows at least one (if not a half dozen) "Nene Binta Diallo"s. ("Nene" is sort of like Mama, Binta - probably short for Fatoumata Binta is a very common first name, and Diallo is a very common last name). Upon hearing this we all chuckled and I caught myself saying "I love Guinea" (my usual responce to this sort of thing) and realized that it's really true. I love it here, and I hope all this gets sorted out peacefully so we can go back to our villages and keep working on stuff (I was JUST getting started on setting up the library in Bintimodia, having made contacts with the Kamsar Library staff, and talked to some teachers about helping me catalogue all the books that were donated to the last volunteer who was in Bintimodia).
Anyway, I'm glad to be here with the other volutneers since we can have our own Christmas party here (In all honesty, Thanksgiving at site kinda sucked despite my village squash "pumpkin" pie). We have christmas music, food, beer, and most importantly other people who celebrate Christmas (and even a couple who usually don't). I also have two care packages waiting for me (one from my mom, another from Ana) which I have not yet opened so that I can have something to unwrap later tonight for Christmas (and then something to give other volunteers for Christmas). It probably wasn't the safest thing to travel to the capital city knowing there was an inevitable coup d'état, but I'm sure glad I did it and was lucky to be able to before things got out of hand (though I don't think they've really gotten too bad yet).
One of my contacts - a higher up in the bureau of tourism who is requesting a SED volunteer for the upper basse cote (my area) - has been calling me every so often with updates (usually hours before the same news gets put online - I guess it's good to have friends (or passing acquantainces in this case) in high places). It also really goes to show a couple of aspects of Guinean personalities that I greatly admire. Starting the day I met him he would call me roughly every day to see how I was doing (it's not uncommon for a Guinean to call you just to say hi, ask about your health/family/house/cat/work/etc and then hang up - village ettiquette apparently extends over cell phone networks) and to see how the volutneer request was going (even though I explained to him several times that I don't have much say in it besides recommending him to the APCD - he understood this, but still called to check up on me and invite me to visit him and have dinner with his family while I was Conakry for the holidays (I met him a week ago, by the way)). What's more, when he heard about the problems he called to tell me about it, ask if I was safe, and tell me something to the effect of "well, if I end up losing my job with this change of government I'll be sure to let me replacement know to contact you about the tourism volunteer...so how's your family?". Like I said, I love Guinea.
So, it's December 24th, and Christmas is here. I'm Mexican, and in my family (and in general all of Mexico) the 24th is the big day and the 25th is for cleaning up the previous night's party (and for kids to open the presents Santa left...all other presents get opened after dinner, though I think as I kid I opened Santa's presents on Christmas eve as well....mom?).
Anyway, somewhere in Mexico City I assume most of my relatives from my dad's side of the family are getting together for a big family dinner (there are a lot of us...I've lost count but it's somewhere around 25-30 cousins all together (I could come up with a number if I felt like going uncle by uncle (or aunt by aunt....let's not forget gender equality) counting the kids...but I won't)). I assume most of my mom's relatives are also getting together, but they're a bit more scattered to the winds. My sister is visiting my parents in Arizona, having brought her puppy Chloe with her (who I have yet to meet), and they'll be having the first Christmas without me in my 22 years of existence. My little sisters will be opening their presents from Santa tomorrow, I expect they're outgrowing the Disney Princess stuff...but sad to say I don't know for sure.
As for me, I can probably now claim to be the only person in my entire (vast) extended family who can claim to spend Christmas in a leaderless country under military control in the beginning stages of what could (but hopefully won't) dissolve into a civil war in the worst case scenario (We've made top story on BBC.com world news! Last time Guinea was this newsworthy there probably wasn't a BBC.com). I would say I did not sign up for this when I started down the Peace Corps path....but who am I kidding, a part of me loves it.
I'm also glad to be in Conakry where I can see news sources other than what I can get on my shortwave radio (if I had to find out the details of this through "World Have Your Say" I would probably be much more annoyed). Someone just read off someone's comment from WHYS online, the source was "Nene Binta Diallo from London" which is hillariously appropriate as I'm sure every one of us knows at least one (if not a half dozen) "Nene Binta Diallo"s. ("Nene" is sort of like Mama, Binta - probably short for Fatoumata Binta is a very common first name, and Diallo is a very common last name). Upon hearing this we all chuckled and I caught myself saying "I love Guinea" (my usual responce to this sort of thing) and realized that it's really true. I love it here, and I hope all this gets sorted out peacefully so we can go back to our villages and keep working on stuff (I was JUST getting started on setting up the library in Bintimodia, having made contacts with the Kamsar Library staff, and talked to some teachers about helping me catalogue all the books that were donated to the last volunteer who was in Bintimodia).
Anyway, I'm glad to be here with the other volutneers since we can have our own Christmas party here (In all honesty, Thanksgiving at site kinda sucked despite my village squash "pumpkin" pie). We have christmas music, food, beer, and most importantly other people who celebrate Christmas (and even a couple who usually don't). I also have two care packages waiting for me (one from my mom, another from Ana) which I have not yet opened so that I can have something to unwrap later tonight for Christmas (and then something to give other volunteers for Christmas). It probably wasn't the safest thing to travel to the capital city knowing there was an inevitable coup d'état, but I'm sure glad I did it and was lucky to be able to before things got out of hand (though I don't think they've really gotten too bad yet).
One of my contacts - a higher up in the bureau of tourism who is requesting a SED volunteer for the upper basse cote (my area) - has been calling me every so often with updates (usually hours before the same news gets put online - I guess it's good to have friends (or passing acquantainces in this case) in high places). It also really goes to show a couple of aspects of Guinean personalities that I greatly admire. Starting the day I met him he would call me roughly every day to see how I was doing (it's not uncommon for a Guinean to call you just to say hi, ask about your health/family/house/cat/work/etc and then hang up - village ettiquette apparently extends over cell phone networks) and to see how the volutneer request was going (even though I explained to him several times that I don't have much say in it besides recommending him to the APCD - he understood this, but still called to check up on me and invite me to visit him and have dinner with his family while I was Conakry for the holidays (I met him a week ago, by the way)). What's more, when he heard about the problems he called to tell me about it, ask if I was safe, and tell me something to the effect of "well, if I end up losing my job with this change of government I'll be sure to let me replacement know to contact you about the tourism volunteer...so how's your family?". Like I said, I love Guinea.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Oh....Guinea
So in case you don't keep up on international political disasters, President Lansana Conté - who had been in power for 24 years in Guinea - died a few days ago and his death was announced this morning over the radio. Since then the military has declared a coup d'état. I am hesitant to talk about Guinean politics in this blog, as I am not here to pass judgements or express my opinions about how the country should be run - so I leave you these links to find out the details.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5il-w1kVcVAD9cU9Ac9_IXzMzF3zAD9587HIO0
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i-uQEQhRUpG9E2ib-0EZPvcxwYRg
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/world/africa/24guinea.html?em
...anyway, here I am, once again stuck in the Peace Corps compound in Conakry waiting to see how this new development (a big one, I might add) plays out. I wanted new and exciting things in my life when I joined Peace Corps, and what's more exciting than traveling on the day a 24 year "presidency"ends and a military coup is declared (apparently tanks are out on the streets? I didn't know Guinea even had tanks). So I'll explain my day in as much detail as I feel comfortable making completely public:
I left my house early this morning (around the time the radio was announcing the President's death), dropped my kitten off with my Principal's kids and started the 11km walk to the main road (there's not really any transportation in and out of Bintimodia unless it's Thursday (market day)). After about an hour of walking I got picked up by a passing bush-taxi and got to go the rest of the way that way. I got to the main road around 9am and this is where I heard that Lansana Conté had died from Titi, the guy in charge of the cars at this gare-voiture. I thought about going back to my village, but since I had virtualy no battery left on my cell phone and I didn't want to spend Christmas alone in my village I decided to press on and continue to Conakry. I figured (correctly, it turned out) that any major turmoil would take at least several hours to get itself organized and that getting in to Conakry quickly was probably my best bet.
I flagged down the first few cars that went by (accidentally flagging down a "VA" license plate - government vehicle), and eventually one stopped and had a seat open for me. I gave Titi a 300 GNF tip ($0.06?) since he didn't really do anything except chat with me about Lansana Conté while I found my own vehicle, and got in.
Now, I've had uncomfortable rides before, but this one so far takes the cake. I was in the back-backseat of a retrofitted Renault Nevada from the 70s or 80s. This is a small station wagon/hatchback car that would normally hold 5 people and have a spacious space for storage. Here, this space contains another row of seats where 3 people can (sort of) fit. The result: the car ends up holding 10 people total (for those doing the math, add a passanger to the middle row and front passanger seat...there you go). I'd sat in the front passanger seat of one of these taxis before, sharing it with a man who very patiently allowed my kitten to claw at him. I usually ride in the middle row of seats (what would normally be the back row) which is uncomfortable, but at least you sort of were designed to fit in this space anyway. The 3rd row, however, is a little higher up than the middle row, so I had to bend my neck the entire trip (I just curled into a ball and slept part of the way - man I'm getting good at that). I also had my legs getting crushed by the seat in front of me since there was absolutely no leg room. Had I been one inch taller I don't think I would have fit in this seat. Fortunately my driver drove like a maniac and we made the Bintimodia-carrefour to Conakry trip in record time (only having to swerve dangerously out of oncoming traffic once!), and we stopped twice for people to pee where I managed to get up and beat feeling back into my limbs.
Once in Conakry I told the driver where to drop me off so I could catch a car headed to the Peace Corps compound. I walked a ways and foudn a guy who would take me for 10,000 if I bought out all the seats in the car. This was a bit steep, but nobody else was going my direction, and I did my "put it in perspective" trick (converting 10,000 GNF to the USD equivalent of $2) and agreed on the condition that he'd drive me to the door of the compound and not just to the market where I would normally get dropped off. He and I chatted briefly about what was happening to Guinea now that Conté was out of the picture. He compared the current situation of Guinea to Guinea-Bissau (our neighbor to the north, for those who don't have the African map memorized) with regards to drugs and prostitution, etc. It's always interesting to get the point of view of Conakry people vs. village people (Bintimodia village....not the music group), it's like being in a completely different country.
Anyway, now I'm here in Conakry, once more on lockdown with about 20 other people (mostly from my training group) who will be here until things get resolved or completely go to shit. Obviously I'm hoping for the former.
The timing of this is terrible for us in general, many people are traveling (our volunteers are currently in 8 different countries), many more wanted to travel but are stuck in their villages until things change (I dodged that bullet by not having a working phone when the "stay at your site"announcement was made). I'll try to keep people abreast of the situation via this blog as much as I can.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5il-w1kVcVAD9cU9Ac9_IXzMzF3zAD9587HIO0
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i-uQEQhRUpG9E2ib-0EZPvcxwYRg
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/world/africa/24guinea.html?em
...anyway, here I am, once again stuck in the Peace Corps compound in Conakry waiting to see how this new development (a big one, I might add) plays out. I wanted new and exciting things in my life when I joined Peace Corps, and what's more exciting than traveling on the day a 24 year "presidency"ends and a military coup is declared (apparently tanks are out on the streets? I didn't know Guinea even had tanks). So I'll explain my day in as much detail as I feel comfortable making completely public:
I left my house early this morning (around the time the radio was announcing the President's death), dropped my kitten off with my Principal's kids and started the 11km walk to the main road (there's not really any transportation in and out of Bintimodia unless it's Thursday (market day)). After about an hour of walking I got picked up by a passing bush-taxi and got to go the rest of the way that way. I got to the main road around 9am and this is where I heard that Lansana Conté had died from Titi, the guy in charge of the cars at this gare-voiture. I thought about going back to my village, but since I had virtualy no battery left on my cell phone and I didn't want to spend Christmas alone in my village I decided to press on and continue to Conakry. I figured (correctly, it turned out) that any major turmoil would take at least several hours to get itself organized and that getting in to Conakry quickly was probably my best bet.
I flagged down the first few cars that went by (accidentally flagging down a "VA" license plate - government vehicle), and eventually one stopped and had a seat open for me. I gave Titi a 300 GNF tip ($0.06?) since he didn't really do anything except chat with me about Lansana Conté while I found my own vehicle, and got in.
Now, I've had uncomfortable rides before, but this one so far takes the cake. I was in the back-backseat of a retrofitted Renault Nevada from the 70s or 80s. This is a small station wagon/hatchback car that would normally hold 5 people and have a spacious space for storage. Here, this space contains another row of seats where 3 people can (sort of) fit. The result: the car ends up holding 10 people total (for those doing the math, add a passanger to the middle row and front passanger seat...there you go). I'd sat in the front passanger seat of one of these taxis before, sharing it with a man who very patiently allowed my kitten to claw at him. I usually ride in the middle row of seats (what would normally be the back row) which is uncomfortable, but at least you sort of were designed to fit in this space anyway. The 3rd row, however, is a little higher up than the middle row, so I had to bend my neck the entire trip (I just curled into a ball and slept part of the way - man I'm getting good at that). I also had my legs getting crushed by the seat in front of me since there was absolutely no leg room. Had I been one inch taller I don't think I would have fit in this seat. Fortunately my driver drove like a maniac and we made the Bintimodia-carrefour to Conakry trip in record time (only having to swerve dangerously out of oncoming traffic once!), and we stopped twice for people to pee where I managed to get up and beat feeling back into my limbs.
Once in Conakry I told the driver where to drop me off so I could catch a car headed to the Peace Corps compound. I walked a ways and foudn a guy who would take me for 10,000 if I bought out all the seats in the car. This was a bit steep, but nobody else was going my direction, and I did my "put it in perspective" trick (converting 10,000 GNF to the USD equivalent of $2) and agreed on the condition that he'd drive me to the door of the compound and not just to the market where I would normally get dropped off. He and I chatted briefly about what was happening to Guinea now that Conté was out of the picture. He compared the current situation of Guinea to Guinea-Bissau (our neighbor to the north, for those who don't have the African map memorized) with regards to drugs and prostitution, etc. It's always interesting to get the point of view of Conakry people vs. village people (Bintimodia village....not the music group), it's like being in a completely different country.
Anyway, now I'm here in Conakry, once more on lockdown with about 20 other people (mostly from my training group) who will be here until things get resolved or completely go to shit. Obviously I'm hoping for the former.
The timing of this is terrible for us in general, many people are traveling (our volunteers are currently in 8 different countries), many more wanted to travel but are stuck in their villages until things change (I dodged that bullet by not having a working phone when the "stay at your site"announcement was made). I'll try to keep people abreast of the situation via this blog as much as I can.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
December Already?
Alright, so I’ve made it to the internet café here in Kamsar once again, hopefully I can get online to upload this and research the few things I want to research (I keep a post-it note at home where I write down things I want to look up when I get internet, today it says Burkina Film Fest (sometime in February….maybe I’m gonna go if the dates and costs work out ok), herringbone pattern (something that’s come up in like 3 books that I’ve read so far – and I don’t know what it looks like), kitten sucking cloth (my kitten has a habit of burying his face in cloth (usually my dirty clothes that are on the floor), and sucking on the cloth while purring very deeply, I want to know if this is normal cat behavior or if my cat’s just …. special), and fatuous (I want to see if it means what I think it does, I wrote it in my journal without thinking the other day and then I wondered if I used it correctly)). It’s funny how little things that one would normally just look up on wikipedia or google out of curiosity need to be written down ahead of time for me. Otherwise I get here, I write a blog post, check e-mail, check facebook, and don’t know what else to do, then I get home and remember I wanted to look up such and such.
Anyway, enough about my faulty memory – the past couple of weeks have been sort of exciting. I’ve been hanging out in my hammock a lot reading books (I recommend “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” and “The Time Traveler’s Wife” pretty highly) and grading papers (I never realized how much of teaching is grading papers, and I don’t even give out much homework!). I also have taken to teaching the little kids that come visit me English (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, so far) while they play with my kitten (several times a day – sometimes several times in an hour – my neighborhood kids come over and say “Monsieur Abdoulaye (my Guinean name) – le chat!” (except they pronounce “le chat” as “le ka”) and then if my kitten comes outside they take turns grabbing him and petting him. I tend to keep an eye on them to scold them when they get too rough, but I figure if Barté is unhappy he can always run back in the house, where I don’t let the kids follow. He’s surprisingly patient with them, I hope I haven’t tamed him too much – I want him to fight back if kids (or dogs, other cats, eagles, owls, etc) hurt him.
In other news, we got 29 new trainees last week who are doing their training now. These are all extension volunteers (health, small enterprise development, and agro-forestry) so they are being trained by the group of volunteers who got here last December, but I will get a chance to see them at Christmas which should be cool. We’ve been given a list of potential sites where they will eventually be placed, and unfortunately none are coming near me – but that’s probably because there’s already a relatively high density of volunteers in my region. I gave my old host family a call on Tuesday and was almost immediately passed over to the new trainee who is staying with them. He sounded a bit dazed and confused (he didn’t realize I was a volunteer from the previous training group until the end of the conversation, even though I mentioned it twice) but that’s to be expected for the first couple of weeks, especially the first day with the host family.
I had another mouse in my kitchen yesterday, and while Barté didn’t kill him, he gave him a good chase (after I plopped the cat down right in front of the mouse – he wasn’t too good at realizing there was another animal in the house) back to his hole. Hopefully I can get some cement soon to plug up some holes in my floor and walls.
Also, I think I forgot to mention this in my first post where I mentioned Barté’s name – “Barté” (bar-teh) is Susu for tiger. In reality the é would look like an epsilon (backwards 3), but this keyboard doesn’t have the Susu Alphabet on it (only a couple of letters are different – 2 different types of “e”s, “o”s, and “n”s).
Alright, this is a short blog post, but hopefully I’ll write a longer one next time (next week? Christmas?). Until then!
Anyway, enough about my faulty memory – the past couple of weeks have been sort of exciting. I’ve been hanging out in my hammock a lot reading books (I recommend “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” and “The Time Traveler’s Wife” pretty highly) and grading papers (I never realized how much of teaching is grading papers, and I don’t even give out much homework!). I also have taken to teaching the little kids that come visit me English (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, so far) while they play with my kitten (several times a day – sometimes several times in an hour – my neighborhood kids come over and say “Monsieur Abdoulaye (my Guinean name) – le chat!” (except they pronounce “le chat” as “le ka”) and then if my kitten comes outside they take turns grabbing him and petting him. I tend to keep an eye on them to scold them when they get too rough, but I figure if Barté is unhappy he can always run back in the house, where I don’t let the kids follow. He’s surprisingly patient with them, I hope I haven’t tamed him too much – I want him to fight back if kids (or dogs, other cats, eagles, owls, etc) hurt him.
In other news, we got 29 new trainees last week who are doing their training now. These are all extension volunteers (health, small enterprise development, and agro-forestry) so they are being trained by the group of volunteers who got here last December, but I will get a chance to see them at Christmas which should be cool. We’ve been given a list of potential sites where they will eventually be placed, and unfortunately none are coming near me – but that’s probably because there’s already a relatively high density of volunteers in my region. I gave my old host family a call on Tuesday and was almost immediately passed over to the new trainee who is staying with them. He sounded a bit dazed and confused (he didn’t realize I was a volunteer from the previous training group until the end of the conversation, even though I mentioned it twice) but that’s to be expected for the first couple of weeks, especially the first day with the host family.
I had another mouse in my kitchen yesterday, and while Barté didn’t kill him, he gave him a good chase (after I plopped the cat down right in front of the mouse – he wasn’t too good at realizing there was another animal in the house) back to his hole. Hopefully I can get some cement soon to plug up some holes in my floor and walls.
Also, I think I forgot to mention this in my first post where I mentioned Barté’s name – “Barté” (bar-teh) is Susu for tiger. In reality the é would look like an epsilon (backwards 3), but this keyboard doesn’t have the Susu Alphabet on it (only a couple of letters are different – 2 different types of “e”s, “o”s, and “n”s).
Alright, this is a short blog post, but hopefully I’ll write a longer one next time (next week? Christmas?). Until then!
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