Transitional Blog Post

Alright, so this will be the final post in this blog (though many of you have probably already given up on it since it's been months since my last post). For those who don't know, I will be continuing on as a Volunteer in Liberia for the next 8 months or so starting in early January, then hopefully working in France - and after that....who knows. Because of this I have decided to end "Fed in Guinea" and transition to "Next Stop: Liberia" which is located at fedtravels.blogspot.com. This way, as I change countries in the future I can just change the blog title without needing to change the URL as well. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Updates on the Situation

So this morning we got the official word that we have suspended the Peace Corps Guinea program, which means I am definitely not returning to Bintimodia. Tomorrow morning our options will be presented to us for transfers, so I would assume I'll know what I'm doing with my life in a day or two (depending on how long it takes me to make up my mind, and/or negotiate end of contract dates with Peace Corps). The main issue is that a transfer would normally require a one-year commitment, and I'm not willing to commit until next November. If I can negotiate an earlier end-of-service date (my original date was set for June/July, but I would settle for as late as September), I may be moving to another program, most likely in West Africa.

I will definitely need to be somewhere else by this time next week, I will be forced to decide one way or the other (transfer or finish service early) by Friday, and will be a free citizen on Sunday if I choose to finish my service. I suppose that's enough info for now, I'll update this when I have concrete plans.

Evacuation

So by now most of my readers have probably given up on my blog since it's been so long since my last post, but I'll still use this avenue to let you all know what is happening with me (and the rest of Peace Corps Guinea).

With all that's happened, I'll start with September 28th, when after having finished training for the new group I made a trip out to visit my best friend Jarrad's village accompanied by another of my good friends Marg. Jarrad lives(lived) 85 km or so from Boké, on a pretty bad road (mostly rocks and potholes). We were lucky enough to find a car going out there early in the day and so by noon of the 28th we were in his village. We enjoyed the day, said hello to everyone, etc etc. Around 8pm we went to his principal's house to chat a bit, and (because we had heard rumors in the preceding week) I asked his principal "so, did anything happen in Conakry today?". This is when we found out that 60 people had been killed in violent protests and 5 of the main presidential candidates for the elections coming up in February had been attacked. Upon hearing this, we immediately went to the village "video club" - a generator-run TV that people crowd around for the evening news, soccer matches and/or pirated DVD movies. The state-run news program (gov't runs the radio and TV stations) started with a 10 minute lesson on the history of Guinea's independence almost 51 years ago, showed a 2 minute story of "violent protests" in Conakry which showed a lot of property damage, but didn't mention deaths. The remainder of the program (a good 20 minutes or so) was coverage of President Captain Moussa Dadis Camara's recent trip to Labé where (based on the televised proceedings) thousands of people seemingly showed up in support of Dadis, and where long-winded speaches were made by key community members all of which mentioned how great he was, and how nice it'd be if he stayed in power. People were very upset and demanded the channel be changed to the stations that broadcast out of France, but by the time the video-club owner did so the "France 24" coverage of Guinea was wrapping up.

The next day, Marg and I hiked with Jarrad up to his "reseau point" - the point nearest to his house where he can get cell phone reception (a 5-6 km hike uphill past a couple of wide ankle deep marshlands). When we got there we made a few calls to find out what the status of Peace Corps was at that point (we wanted to make sure we were allowed to travel back to Boké). We found out we could travel, and were worried we would be trapped in Jarrad's village with no cell phone access if that changed so we caught the first car out of his village that would take us.

The trip back to Boké was interesting, for starters we had to wait by the side of the road for about 3 hours before a car came that would take us (only one other car had passed on this road, but it was full). Once we were loaded into this mini-bus (think cargo van with wooden benches nailed to the floor of the cargo space so that 25+ people can sit in the back, windows are triangles cut out of the sides of the van) we started down the road. It took us over 8 hours to travel the 85 km back to Boké. This included a storm that poured down rain for about 4 hours (I was fortunate enough to be sitting directly under a hole in the roof of the car, so I was completely drenched within minutes and stayed that way the entire ride (my hands were so pruned up that the skin on the back of them was beginning to wrinkle by the time we got to Boké)). At one point (mercifully after the rain had abated) we got a flat tire, then we had to stop in the first village we saw to get the spare patched up in case we got another flat on the way. The fixing of the flat took over an hour, and it was cold enough to make me (and most everyone) shiver, but there was a lady cooking dinner for her family nice enough to let about 10 of us crowd around her cooking fire and warm up/dry out a bit. We made it into Boké around midnight, found out from the volunteers there that the unofficial story at that point was 157 people had been killed by the military in Conakry, then went to sleep. I woke up to my phone ringing at 2am, but was too asleep to get to it in time, I woke up again at 4am and this time managed to answer in time to let my (very worried) mother know that I was safe and that I would call her as soon as I was awake enough to explain the situation.

The next day I got a call from my director letting me know that my parents had called Peace Corps Washington worried about my well being and would very much like to hear from me. I never thought I'd be that volunteer....but there you go. I called my dad and filled him in, then called my mom to give her the rest of the story as well. I spent a day in Boké getting my bags packed again to go to my village, anticipating that I might be stuck there for the duration of this mess on "standfast" orders. The next day I caught a taxi back.

My taxi actually was going to a different village, but they dropped me off on the road 2k from my house (this is acually what happens about half the time I come back from Kamsar, I prefer to walk the 2k than wait for hours at the taxi depot). As I walked in with my bags people from my village seeing me for the first time in 3 months were so excited that I felt it necessary to stop and say hello to everyone who called out to me, as a result I was a tired, sweaty, but very welcomeded (i nu sene! i nu sene!) mess when I got to my house. I was sent two separate bowls of rice and sauce and a bag full of (very sour) oranges within a couple hours of arriving.

My house, as it had been sitting empty for so long, was a mess. Luckily mold didn't take over like it had in some of my friends houses, but the mice took their revenge on my 10 month period of keeping them in check. They ate through the plastic tub my margarine was in, through the plastic lid of my gatorade mix, the plastic lid of my oatmeal, etc etc. One even chewed a hole into the corner of my peanut oil bottle so that I found a big tacky puddle of oil with an empty bottle in the middle of it. They also tried eating my bar of soap, and chewed up one of my earbud cushions pretty badly. I also found several frogs and lizards had taken up residence in my house. Luckily it was all cleanable and repairable, and luckily the mice didn't find a way into my metal trunk where I keep my cheez-its.

Some of the village kids were showing up to chat with me, and so I put on my iPod's african mix over the speakers and started bringing things out for them to wash while I swept up and mopped my floors. I also got them to pick most of the weeds and sweep my porch so within a few hours my house was looking much better and the kids' energy level had dropped beyond the point of wanting to hang out with me any more that day. They got a hearty amount of Jolly Ranchers as payment.

I finished the evening by spending more time greeting people, then I crashed early (long day). The next morning I had started continuing cleaning my house up and unpack when I got a phone call letting me know that we were starting our evacuation procedure on order of the US State Department. I was told it was unlikely we would be exiting the country, but that we were getting the ball rolling just in case. This sort of killed my enthusiasm for house cleaning so I spent some time greeting some more people and hanging out with kids on my porch instead. A couple of days later I got a phone call letting me know officially that we would be leaving on Tuesday the 6th of October for Bamako, Mali on our evacuation.

After spending the little bit of time I had back in my village, this news was pretty awful. I had learned Susu, made friends, found people I trusted and cared about in my community and all that was all the more evident by the welcome they gave me, yet in 2 days I would be leaving again, and may never see any of them again. Most sadly, my best friend Corso was in Kindia, home for the summer break and wouldn't return for another week. I called him first to break the news and he was as upset about it as I was. I then went to my principal and told him what was happening and that I was going to Mali with the rest of Peace Corps and that I didn't think I'd be returning. In addition to me one other teacher wasn't going to be returning to our school this year (he's dying of some abdominal cancer, as best I can figure out from what's been told to me about his treatment), so our already overworked and underpaid school is going to be stretched so much thinner this school year. I gave all my chemicals to the French teacher Tavara Diallo who I gave a quick training on since he'll be teaching my classes this coming year.

I spent a pretty misrable couple of last days going through every emotion imaginable while packing up my bags. I forced myself to spend much of that time working on and finishing my world map (it's done, all countries labeled, list of people who worked on it with the year painted on). In the end, I found myself up at 9pm with my headlamp on during a storm finishing the last few countries (Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe) while Mèrie, one of the three girl students I taught who is going on to high school, chatted with me about what I thought she should specialize in the following year (Guinean high school students focus on either social science, experimental science, or math science).

The next morning I set my bags outside and read on my porch for an hour until the Peace Corps car showed up. I had already said my goodbyes to the main people I cared about, and at that point most people who I had worked with knew I was leaving. Around 9am the car showed up with Dan, Mary, Jarrad, Astrid, Marg, Annie, Julie, Molly, Daffé and the driver. I said my last goodbyes to my neighbor and susu teacher Fodé Moussa, thanking him (in susu) for having been my teacher and friend the last year. He gave me like 10 different benedictions (god bless your ... family, health, work, travels, self, and a few others I didn't quite decypher) and hugged me goodbye.

The car drove off, and we were on our way to Coyah where we would meet up with the Peace Corps bus which took us to Mamou that night. I found out in Coyah that we would be picking up the volunteer from Kindia, so I called her to see if she would mind Corso being there when we picked her up so I could say goodbye to him in person. She didn't, and so I called him. We ended up getting delayed but he waited with her outside her house for 2 hours until we pulled up and had our 5 minute goodbye. She later told me he spent most of the time chatting with her about how much he was going to miss me and how great an english tutor he thought I was. When we said goodbye he gave be a plastic bag with gifts in it, a new pair of bazin melange pants, a new indigo dyed pants and shirt outfit, 2 pictures (one for me, one for Tim), and a very heartfelt note. He is definitely the best friend I've made during my time here, and I'm really going to miss him.

Our trip to Bamako took two days (we spent the first night in Mamou), and in the end took me 29 hours from Bintimodia to Bamako, excluding the time in Mamou. We are staying in the Peace Corps Mali training compound which means we are staying in a large group of huts, 3 to a hut (Jarrad, Bryan and I are hut-mates), getting 3 meals provided to us, shuttles into the city, are sharing 3 computers in addition to people's laptops to use internet, edit resumés, etc etc. This is partly why it's taken me this long to finish this post.

The upside is that because Peace Corps is worried about our morale we are getting good food, and activities planned for us (outing to a waterfall this weekend, trip to a world cup qualifying soccer match (Mali vs. Sudan) last weekend, etc. We're not sure if we'll be going back to Guinea, we originally were not very hopefull but it seems DC wants us to wait and see for a couple of weeks to a month while they determine if it will be safe for us to return.

I've gone through so many decisions on what I'm doing with my life from this point on that I'm not even going to bother mentioning them now. I may go back to Guinea if that's an option, I may transfer to another Peace Corps country, I may go home soon while I seek out a new job abroad (those options include high schools in Guatemala, Japan, and France who need Chemistry or English teachers, etc etc). I will write a post when I figure out where I'll be going next, but for now, expect that I'll be in/around Bamako until at least next week unless the situation in Guinea changes drastically for the better or worse.

Longwinded Return to Blogging

Alright, so since my last blog post (3 months ago!), I've been a busy person, I went to an HIV/AIDS/Malaria/Excision workshop with my best friend from my village Corso, then I spent a week and a half helping get the last details worked out for the new education group's training before their arrival. During this process I wrote a 50 page chemistry experiment guide with appendices explaining where to find chemical materials, and how to build certain apparatuses from market materials (mayo jars, etc).

I then took a WONDERFUL month long vacation that was much needed. I spent two weeks traveling in France with my Mom, sister, aunt, cousin and cousin's daughter. We mostly stuck around Paris, but took a 4 day trip to the Alsace region to see small towns, staying in a "gite" aka a guest-house in the small town of Breucshwickersheim (or something like that...). After this I took a train to Madrid and met Tim there and then traveled around Spain with him, his parents and sister to a farm in the Asturias region of Spain (near Arriondas), then to a wedding in a tiny town (population 9, seriously) near Burgos, finally we spent a few days in San Sebastian (during which Tim and I took a day trip to Bilbao to see the Guggenheim there) before returning to Madrid for a couple of days before I made me re-entrance to Guinea.

I arrived just as the new training group was about to depart for their site visits, and so I arrived in Conakry at night, slept, woke up and got right into a bush taxi headed for Boké to lead the 4 new Basse Côte volunteers on their first visits to the villages they'll live in the for the next two years. It was a fun week, though a bit hectic at first (didn't really get to eat in one of the villages because nobody offered to feed us and we hadn't brough anything with us - we eventually found bread and mayonnaise for dinner, in another village we were stranded for several hours while attempting to leave because there just weren't any cars going anywhere, we eventually found our way out). It was a trial by fire return to Guinea, especially as I was responsible for the happiness of 4 trainees, but it really just reminded me what I had come to realize in my last week of vacation in Europe - I really like Guinea and am completely willing to sacrifice some creature comforts in exchange for the more wild and make-do lifestyle you find here...at least for the next 9 months or so left in my service.

I then spent a week in Conakry starting a translation of my chemistry manual into French to give Guinean teachers at the December Teacher's Conference I'm helping organize before heading down to Forecariah to be a trainer for the last 3.5 weeks of the new groups training. This period is known as "Practice School" and is when they all teach full-sized guinean student classes while being supervised and evaluated by experienced volunteers (comme moi), and their Guinean trainers. The first few days my evaluations were quite long and involved (things like "don't let students talk over you when you're lecturing" and "remember to leave things up on the chalkboard long enough for students to take notes" were just the beginning), but they quickly responded to the criticism, and by the end I spent most of their classes reading my book in the back, while making the occasional note on minor issues. I'm really excited that there are more teachers in Peace Corps besides my group, especially since a few of them are going to be living relatively near me.

During this time I had some tough decisions to make regarding where I'm going with my life after Peace Corps (did I mention I'll be done in 9 months....yikes!). I'd very seriously considered doing a third year in Guinea as a professor at one of the main Universities, after speaking with chemistry professors from the University of Conakry it seemed that even with my undergraduate degree, I could have something to offer their organic chemistry students, and I was excited to teach real chemistry for a change as opposed to reviewing basic math and introducing the idea of atoms, etc to middle school students. The more I thought about this option however, the less and less it appealed to me, especially considering the host of other options available to me.

In short (and I need to be, because attempting to write out everything I'm considering would take about 9 months), I've decided that, as much as I love Guinea and enjoy the fact that I've adapted pretty thoroughly to the culture here - I don't want to stay here for a third year when I have the option to instead spend my time abroad exploring other countries (and hopefully other continents, though I'd also love to explore other regions in Africa). I am very tentatively looking into being a trainer for a new Peace Corps program that will be starting with education volunteers next summer in Sierra Leone (this would mostly likely be June-September of next year, but at this point there isn't enough information to know who or what they'll need for this). I am also very seriously looking into a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teacher position in France for 9 months starting next October (to give me a chance to de-Guinea-ify my French, and live in Europe for a while, which is on my list of things to do before I die), I'm also planning on sending my resumé out to other Peace Corps programs that interest me as a potential third year extension somewhere else (Southeast Asia, and South America both interest me, I would love to get into teacher-trainer positions where my job is to work with local teachers on improving their methods to stimulate critical thinking, etc). Anyway, the list is long, and I've only scratched the surface of what my options are, one thing I AM fairly certain of though, is that I will be out of America for at least the next 2 years, and possibly longer (I'm looking at International Organizations (UNESCO), and NGOs (Academy of International Education Development, etc), and tons of other jobs that might keep me away and abroad for a while.

Wow, that wasn't short at all...

Anyway, this plan makes maintaining personal relationships stateside difficult, and while I know I have the support of my loved ones back home I do worry about not seeing my family enough (especially my little sister who I'm sure are starting to forget what I look like), losing contact even more throroughly with my friends, etc. This decision to remain abroad has already led me to break off one relationship that was/is very important to me, but given the circumstances it seems like the best thing for everyone involved from a long-term POV. ...Enough about that.

Anyway, so I hope this post catches everyone up a bit on what I've been up to the last few months. I will hopefully get another out before I leave Conakry for Bintimodia in a few days, but seeing as how I'll be helping the Trainees(soon to be Volunteers) find and bargain for all the stuff they need for their new houses/huts, I don't know how much time I'll dedicate to blogging.

Don't forget, you can always call me, my phone number is listed in my facebook profile (I changed it, if you have one that starts with (224)65 instead of (224)62, then you need to update it), and I always welcome letters, care packages, etc. Until next time (hopefully before 2010 comes around)...

Quick Update Regarding the Lack of Updates

So I've once again been spotty on my updating of this blog - part of that is still the continuation of Tim's visit keeping me busier than usual, and the other part is the fact that the Kamsar internet café STILL isn't opporational. I started a post with details of my hiking trip to the Fouta (Dalaba, Doucki, Labé, Mombeya, and Kankalabé) but it is unfinished, and I don't think it's going to get finished in the next couple of weeks...BUT here's my schedule for those interested in knowing what I'm up to for the next couple of months:

I have finished with all school related things in my village and I am now free to do more traveling than I would be during the school year, this is also when conferences tend to happen (for the same reason), and soon the new training group (G-18) will be here and I will be training them. So, the plan is to drop Tim off at the airport in a couple of hours (literally), then leaving for an HIV/AIDS conference for a couple of days (it started this morning, but I got a reprieve due to Tim's flight - I will be there for the second half of it). This weekend I'm probably going to take a Peace Corps car to Forecariah to do a training development workshop (to plan the final details of how the new group's training will be structured, etc). This will end just in time for me to spend 4th of July in Conakry - then spend a couple of days writing a chemistry demo booklet for the new training group before their arrival around July 8th. I will be around to do their training in Conakry, then I will see their adoption ceremony in Forecariah before heading back to Conakry just in time for my "real" vacation. I fly out of Conakry for Paris July 15th, I travel around Belgium and France with my mom, aunt, sister, cousin, and counsin's daughter for 2 weeks then take a night train to Madrid and travel around with Tim, Tim's parents, and Laura (Tim's sister) for two weeks including attending the wedding of a friend of the family. I fly back to Conakry in mid-August.

Phew, so it'll be a busy couple of months, and I assume my blogging will continue to be sporadic at best. I hope to be able to finish writing about my Fouta trip, and about my final weeks in the village before I head off to Europe, though, but that probably won't happen until early July when I'll get access to internet again. Until then!

'Cause Mariana Said So...

Alright, I was going to slack on the blog writing because it's been a long day and I'm about to spend a good chunk of time uploading pictures to Facebook, but since my sister (and loyal reader) requested an entry, here goes...

Since my last post (which, by the way, was chosen as "Peace Corps Voluneer Blog of the Day" by some Peace Corps Twitter thing, as I've just found out in an e-mail), Tim and I have gotten a good start on the world map project, Jarrad came by and helped us out one day, I finished teaching my classes, and I decided to bring an entirely different girl to Girl's Conference.

The World Map Project is basically painting a mural of the map of the world to whatever size you want (1:2 ratio), we did 2x4 meters on the wall of the outside of the elementary school - facing a map of Africa and a map of Guinea done by previous volunteers (Sam and Michelle, respectively, I think). There is also a smaller map of the world on another wall of the middle school, but it's pretty small, only labelled the continents, and south america fell off when the wall cracked a few years back. Anyway, we measured out exactly the dimensions of our rectangle plus a 4cm border like 5 times, we penciled it out, we painted it white, painstakingly measured our 7 cm grid (28 squares high, 56 wide), and spent a few days penciling in the countries by a square by square grid system. For this process we used some of my students - though after they were done we had to make some minor (and in one kid's case, major) repairs. My two 10th graders did pretty well save for tilting spain at and odd angle and messing up a few international boundaries, but my 9th grader COMPLETELY screwed up Africa. After he left we had to erase it entirely and start from scratch. I was hoping nobody would notice but a bunch of kids who were watching us (there is usually a crowd) were chattering away about how so-and-so did it so bad that we had to re-do it...hope word didn't make it back to him.

Anyway, so we got the penciled countries in and went back to erase all the gridlines, this is where we enlisted the younger elementary school kids (though one of them kept erasing the map and I had to follow behind him redrawing where he had obliterated Hawaii or Equador). Afterwards we used small paintbrushes to do black paint borders of all the countries - something we just finished before leaving for this trip. Luckily we managed to talk Jarrad into coming to my village for a night, and then spend the morning helping us paint before he headed back to Boké. We also made a nice dinner (salad, mac and cheese, a bottle of wine) to celebrate the one-year-before-Jarrad-finishes-with-Peace-Corps mark (he's cutting out a bit earlier than I will next summer).

In other news yesterday was my official last day of teaching for this school year!! Well, sort of...I had planned around stopping this week all along because all around the country school is supposed to end around now, final exams happen, and school should be completely done by early June. As it turns out (and as I found out yesterday) my school is going strong for another couple of weeks because enough of our teachers are behind their syllabus that they're just going to hold out until June 8th to start finals, by the time most other kids will already be on break. I had already planned this trip I'm currently on, and I had finished my syllabus a couple of weeks ago (I've been reviewing since then), so I told my principal as much and called it a school year. When I return I will have to grade my final exams and remaining homework, then turn in grades. But, once that's done, I'm good until next October or so (except for my extra side-projects, etc).

It's weird, even though I haven't quite reached my one year mark (10 months and 2 weeks...and counting), I'm mostly done with roughtly the first chunk of a 2 chunk commitment. Time here is weird because it seems like days take a long time, but the months seem to be flying by. In no time at all Tim is going to be out of here, I'll be in Europe, and then school will have kicked in for a second school year...and then what??

Well, I'm still working on the big "and then what?" questions of post-Peace Corps life - I'll write more about that when I'm more concrete about it (hopefully by September or so....I might need/want to start applying for certain programs as early as then if I'm still seriously considering them (grad schools, JET, TFA, NYCTF, and probably half a dozen others).

Anyway, today was a long day - I woke up around 6 and Tim and I were out of the house by 7, yet we didn't make it to the peace corps compound in Conakry until 4:30pm (and I NEEDED to get there by 5 to get money out of the safe for this trip, so I was kinda stressed). Plus (and this is the thing that really ticks me off) I left my brand-new never-used Barack Obama umbrella in one of the taxis (ARG!). We ended up waiting over an hour at the main-road taxi stop for our car to leave, then the back tire lost its tread (it didn't go flat or blow out...the tread just fell off) so we had to wait under a shady tree for it to get replaced by the completely bald spare tire. Not an hour later the spare did the same thing and this time we didn't have a spare tire. Luckily we were able to duck into someone's porch along the road while the driver and a passanger "fixed" it by cutting off the loose flap with a razor blade. We drove on this disaster-waiting-to-happen for another 10-20km or so until the next big town where we waited another hour or so for a new tired to be put on the car. Of course this meant we got into Conakry right at rush hour and then our taxi made us switch to another car for no reason, on top of the third car we had to get in Madnia towards the Peace Corps office (this, I think, is where I left my umbrella....argh!). In the end we made it in time to get money, and I've since eaten (oh yeah, I had a small piece of fried dough at 8am, then 3 chawarmas at about 7pm, nothing in between...). What a day.

The good news is tomorrow (bright and early), we're going to Dalaba in the Fouta, hanging out with a couple of my friends for a few days, then going on a 3 day hike through the mountains in the middle of the country (Doucki), THEN going to Labé to show Tim around there before heading back to Conakry for a VAC meeting and back to my village. I'm excited to be away from my village for a while, not have to be responsible for work (though...I guess I'm going to be working on budgeting for a teacher's conference, but at least that's different).

Anyway, if you made it this far, I'm glad you're this interested in my life, I don't feel like editing this right at the moment, but i'm guessing it's one of my least-cohesive entries yet...I hope to write a better one from Labé or when I'm back in Conakry.

Blog Post from a Hard to Find Internet Cafe

Ok, this entry will be brief, hopefully explanatory, and probably not very well written. Sorry. The reason I've been so long in posting to this blog is because the internet cafe that I frequent in Kamsar has had technical difficulties for over a month now (getting close to two months actually...). In addition to this whenever internet has been available (Boke house, mostly), I've ceeded my right to the limited conenctivity time to Tim so he could catch up on all the stuff he needs to catch up on (he's nowhere near as used to being cut off from internet as I am now, and I suppose rightfully so since he actually has farm reservations to make for his WWOOLF plans after Guinea). The culmination of this was this special trip we've made to Boke so he could get access to internet here - last night the stars all aligned (Boke had electricity, our internet provider was functioning, there were no other volunteers who wanted to use the itnernet, etc) and Tim got to use the dial up connection from about 8pm until about 6am or so (got photos uploaded, farms researched, etc). I checked my e-mail and then typed up a blog post (not this one) on his laptop to uplaod to the internet eventually.

Since the internet stopped working this morning (our router battery died), we decided to venture out to the new iternet cafe that just opened in the past week or two that all the Boke voluinteers were raving about. We were told it was a satellite connection, with a generator backup, and that it was in Boke at the University. Only 2 of these 3 things are true - the cafe IS at the university, but what I didn't know was that the university was way the f**k out in the boonies of Boke, like 3 or 4 "suburb" villages away. I didn't know this when I started walking towards it this afternoon. Whenever I asked for directions I was told "you've got to take a moto-taxi, it's far" but since Tim is opposed to moto taxi's and Peace Corps policy forbids me from riding them we walked it. Turns out the university is 7km outside of Boke. We were on the verge of turning back and giving up (we'd been walking for about an hour and a bit in the hottest time of the day) when we got here. The things I do....christ.

Well, I'm here now, Tim is getting the last of his internet business figured out and I'm finally putting up a long awaited blog post (apologies to my regular readers, my mom's already told me that my sister was complaining about my lack of updates). Unfortunately my long post that I wrote last night is on Tim's laptop, this cafe doesn't allow USB drives, and the guys running the cafe couldn't figure out how to set up Tim's computer on their network (they're not used to windows Vista, and they're not used to computers being in English) so I will hopefully put that post up in a few weeks when I go to Conakry (or if the Kamsar internet gets fixed....this next weekend).

The quick and dirty summary is this: Tim and I have been hanging around in my village, I've been teaching and I only have a week or two of teaching to go before final exams - my school hasn't decided on the schedule yet. Our plan is to do "The World Map Project" on the elementary school wall in the time that Tim is here - painting a 2x4 meter map of the world using a draw-by-grid system. I picked my girl's conference participants (more on this in a later post) by doing an essay contest with all my 9th and 10th grade girls.

Girls Conference is basically a 4 day workshop where each volutneer brings a girl from his/her village and they are sensibilized about women's rights, female circumcision, HIV/AIDS, public speaking, etc etc all together in Boke. Their food, lodging and transport is covered by Peace Corps. For this essay contest I told my girls to write a page about "The biggest problem girls/women in Guinea face, and a possible solution". Of about 70 girls I got 6 essays back. Of the 6 only 3 actually addressed the topic (one of the other three actually wrote about how married women need to listen to their husbands because their place is in the house cooking the rice...). I narrowed it down to two girls - my principal's daughter Fatim, and the former Peace Corps host family daughter Merie - after consultation with the volunteer organizing the conference I decided to take both of them since there's room in the budget for more girls.

Other exciting news is that Tim and I made a trip out to Mankountan to see Teale in her village, we saw a girls soccer match that she had organized and spent the night in her hut. Pictures from this can be found on Facebook if you look up "Tim Baker" within my friends - his photo albums should be public. Also, his blog can be found at http://timjbaker.wordpress.org - he's written more than I have about what we've done during his time here.

Anyway, my itnernet time is running low - plans currently involve going to see the Fouta and go hiking with my friends John and Marg from Dalaba at the end of the month when I'm done teaching. Hopefully I can write a more complete blog post about the past 2 months and I wil be able to upload it when I pass through Conakry for this trip.

Now I've gotta figure out a way to get back to Boke, then back to my village before it gets too late....wish me luck!

Phew, kinda

Alright, Tim is here sending a quick e-mail to let his family know he made it ok. The taxi driver showed up early (what?!?!) and so I got there 30 minutes before his flight. I waited for a while outside sitting on a wall with like 40 Guineans for about an hour, and then I noticed that there was a lot of movement in the terminal. I walked over to a sketchy part of the outside and peered through the bars and tried to spot Tim. Someone asked me the name of my friend and they went and looked for him just as I spotted him. I noticed he was having some conversation that didn't seem to be going well so I decided to try to abuse my white-ness and get past the guards to give him a hand.

I went to the exit from baggage claim and asked the guard nicely then a little more sternly in French to let me through to help my friend who spoke no French. He refused and didn't seem in a mood to change his mind so I said "awa" without really thinking ("ok, goodbye" in both susu and pulaar) and walked away, and he immediately called me back and let me through. Right as I got to the next set of guards with the other guard escorting me through Tim was walking out of the terminal with a security guard carrying his bag. I thanked the couple of Guineans that seemed to have helped him get through and offered to take his bag, but there seemed to be some issue that nobody was telling me about.

Finally we stopped and the english-speaking Guinean woman who helped translate for Tim in my absence tried to explain to me what the situation was in English, and then I asked her to tell me in French because I wasn't understanding her and I found out that she had gotten Tim through by promising the Custom's officer a bribe that I was supposed to go back and pay.

To cut a long story short - I went on a rant to her, then to the security guard about a lot of different reasons why they were corrupt and why I wasn't paying them anything. My usual strategy is to argue until they get sick of me and let me go but since Tim looked tired (and I was also sleepy) I gave in and handed over 5,000 ($1) - my first bribe in Guinea. At this point the guard started saying that wasn't enough and then I went off on him some more, shoved the bill in his hand, ripped Tim's bag away from him and walked away.

The taxi driver took us back and charged me a very reasonable rate considering he picked me up at 2:10, and dropped me off at 4 in the morning, and now I think it's time to get some shut-eye.

Crossing My Fingers

Alright, so I've been in Conakry for a day and a bit now. Most of the first day was spent hanging out in the volunteer house and getting lunch and dinner at the beach bar. Today I talked to basically the entire staff of Peace Corps Guinea for one reason or another, some relating to getting Tim cleared for his visit, some relating to medical issues, some relating to what's going on in my village, some about this upcoming training schedule, etc. Afterwards I tagged along with Jarrad to a medical appointment, and we had lunch with Sue - our assistant PCMO - at Conakry's indian restaurant (Restaurant Taj Majal). It was a pretty good meal, and then we had a brief moment to browse stuff downtown before going back to the office.

I've since been hanging out in the compound, and getting stuff ready for Tim's arrival. His flight is scheduled to arrive in like 45 minutes, and I called my taxi driver (who I called this afternoon to set up a "deplacement" for 2:30am). I think I woke him up, but I told him I would be waiting for him at 2:30 at the gate to the Peace Corps compound. I really hope he's not running on Guinean time, and he will get me to the airport in time to help Tim through whatever bit of Customs, etc I can. I'm a bit nervous between dealing with the taxi (I'm going to pay him to take me there, wait for an hour or so, and then take us back - because it's not really safe to just grab any old taxi at 3am in Conakry - especially if you're clearly not Guinean and have baggage) and about dealing with potential problems with airport staff, but I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope for the best all around. Ideally, within 2 hours I will be back in the compound with Tim. I just hope the taxi driver doesn't screw me on the price more than is appropriate for this sort of 3am wake-up and drive me, wait, and drive me business.

Alright, I'll probably update about this adventure in the next day or two...for now wish me luck.

Going to Boke and Riz Gras Gift Cards

So this morning I decided to finally get around to cleaning up my house in preparation for Tim's visit. I was in the middle of this when I got a call from Jarrad, letting me know that the following day there was an embassy car going from Boke to Conakry, and that I should try to come along to get a free comfortable ride down. I decided to clean as quickly as I could to do this, since it would make my life that much easier, and I could spend a little time in Boke getting my secret gift-card mission taken care of (details on this come later).

Around 5pm I was done with the clean-up and packing for Conakry and so I went out and started my usual method of getting to the main road - walking the 12k until someone passes by and gives me a lift (this has variable success, especially later in the day). I hadn't made it very far before someone called out to me and asked if I was going to the main road. When I said I was they told me they were driving there as soon as their meeting was over. I went over and sat with them, played snake on my phone, and waited for the meeting to end.

Of course, I should have known better than to expect a quick ride. When the guy asked me if I was going to Conakry and I said that I was going to Boke, he said "ok, good, you can probably get a ride to Boke even at 8pm". I took this to be an exaggeration giving the latest probably time of finding a car, but it turned out to be hopeful guess. Indeed, after more of the meeting happened, including ending with speeches all around and sharing a plate of rice and sauce (I was given a spoon and ordered to join in) I found myself waiting until about 7:30 to leave the village, and was looking for a Boke car around 8pm at the main road.

Luckily I got there just in time to find the last Kamsar-bound car leaving the gare (there were no Boke cars at that time), and so I got a ride as far as Kolaboui, the crossroads between Conakry, Boke and Kamsar. Here I got off and found a Boke car and only had to wait about 20 minutes for it to fill up, and we were on our way. I thus made it into Boke around 9pm or so.

At this point, I went on my gift-card mission that I'd been scheming for a while. See, for my birthday, my friend Jarrad gave me a bottle of liquor and told me he had thought of getting me a gift-card to the attieke (ivorian manioc based delicious street food) lady in Boke - this would have involved explaining the concept of gift cards to the lady - but he didn't have time/the french skills to pull this off in time. Now, I don't think it's very original of me to have taken his idea, but he does like food and never cooks when he's in Boke, so I took the idea and ran with it. In my village I made 2 gift cards, one for the attieke lady, and one for the riz gras lady (a senegalese rice dish) that he usually goes to. I planned on buying him 10 plates of each to last him a few months of meals here in Boke. However, last time I was in Boke, I was never alone in the market, he was always with me (despite my attempts to lose him a couple of times).

This time however, I was alone and on my way to the restaurant anyway to get my own dinner, so I managed to talk to the riz-gras lady and explained the concept of "I pay now, he comes later with this piece of cardboard and gets food". It was surprisingly easy to explain, and I know she understood because she then showed her daughter (who sometimes runs the place in her absence) the card and explained the system to her in susu (I understood just enough to know she got the point correct). The nice thing is that she knows both of us pretty well, so I know she'll remember when he comes back. He's the "giant black-american" and I'm "the giant black-american's friend, with a beard" (Jarrad frequents the place more than I do, so they know him better, though I suspect she likes me more since I speak some Susu and Jarrad doesn't).

I still haven't managed to get the attieke lady onboard, and I don't expect to have time before leaving Boke, so I'm going to add a mediocre quality bottle of liquor to the gift as well. I feel pretty awesome at having managed this transaction though.

By the way, I explained this on the phone to my Mom, and she basically told me I was just making people's lives difficuly and should just give Jarrad the money to buy his own rice if that's the present I wanted to give him. But the thing is - it's not the riz gras itself that makes this a good present, it's the fact that nowhere else in Guinea is any sort of gift-card system/credit system in place for street food, and it's something of a reminder of the ridiculous consumer culture in the states. Also, Jarrad will know that the effort of making the cards and especially of explaining the concept to the merchants was more so important than the money value of the food (though riz-gras isn't cheap). Even if (and I hope this doesn't happen) the lady forgets, or refuses to honor the card, etc - the effort was the important part.

But yeah, so that's that. After this escapade, I came up to the house, watched "Pirates of the Caribbean III" with people, and made plans for tomorrow morning's Conakry trip. Since I wasn't sleepy I took advantage of the free internet (Boke power is on!) in the adjacent office, and will soon now be going to bed. Next stop, Conakry

From Kamsar, again

Alright, so I’ve been out of communication for some time now, I didn’t come to Kamsar last week and so it’s been about 2 weeks since I’ve checked e-mail, and about 6 days since my cell phone battery died (I was planning on charging it at the village nightclub last Saturday (they run off a generator), but they didn’t open for some reason…I found myself running around after dark to random houses that I thought had a generator going, but nobody seemed to be running them this past week (no important soccer matches on TV, and so no need to gather half the village and run a generator for the TV)). I’ve certainly been out of communication for longer (I spent almost 3 months with no internet in Forecariah – and the cell phone reception there wasn’t very reliable), but it was still a bit annoying.

Village-wise, not much has happened. My Country Director came for a visit a little over a week ago, he showed up after my classes had ended so I was able to show him around for the whole 2 hours he spent in my village – we took a few pictures in front of a large baobab tree stump (the tree had been cut down to build a canoe) and chatted with my sous-prefet and principal. We also started brainstorming a potential “Tour de Basse Côte” for us to do at some point – he’s big into biking and has already done a trip with volunteers between Kissidougou and Kankan out in Haute Guinea. I’d like to have it involve going the 80k to Jarrad’s site from Boké – since I plan on doing that at some point anyway, but we’ll see how it goes.

There was also a “Community Development Meeting” last Saturday in my village (we’re the sous-prefeture, sort of like the county seat, so people from all the neighboring villages came to our meeting room for this event). I showed up at 9 because nobody ever told me what time the meeting was supposed to be at, and I figured I’d go and ask, then go home and come back when I was actually needed. I was welcomed and told the meeting would start “tout de suite” (real soon) and so I busied myself looking over the village computer – which I’d promised to set up (The village got a new-ish PC, printer and copy machine from the gov’t, but nobody but me seems to know what to do with them so I’m going to set it up for them, teach them basic word processing, and set them up with template letters for the kinds of stuff they’re probably going to want typed up from now on (the current system involves hand-written letters and carbon-copy paper)). After I evaluated that they had almost everything they needed to get the machine going (they need to buy a current regulator so the fluxuating generator power doesn’t fry the system) and I think tomorrow we will finally turn it on and see what it contains (I hope it has the necessary software, otherwise it’s going to be (even more) useless). Anyway, after I’d checked all the cables and thought about what they needed to get, I went into the room where the meeting was set to begin, and sat down amongst the other people, many of whom had already arrived. I had just started writing a letter to help pass the time when I was ushered to one of the seats at the front of the room, facing the “audience”. I kept writing, finished the letter, waited around and finally around 11 or so they took attendace by calling out all the necessary villages and seeing how many people from those places had shown up by a show of hands. I was counted under “Bintimodia-centre”. Then there was some brief (10 minute) speech given in Susu that I didn’t understand a word of. Then, apparently, someone important showed up and so the meeting stopped and we waited again while something (I still don’t know what) kept the main people busy. I waited around some more, started a second letter, and watched people move chairs back and forth trying to decide the best way to arrange people. Finally at 12:30 I decided I didn’t feel like waiting any longer to hear a meeting in a language I wasn’t going to understand anyway, and I went home. The next day I got the 5 minute version (in French) from “Bob”, the guy in charge of youth development in the village.

So that’s pretty much it, other than that I’ve been teaching as usual (we started conjugating the verb “to be” in English class this week – a step up from memorizing random phrases like “how are you?”) and reading as usual (on book number 85 currently, I would say that I’m going to be very well read when I’m done here, but I do spend a lot of my time on trashy fantasy and detective novels so I don’t know (I loved “The Count of Monte Cristo” and “Oliver Twist” though, neither of those really felt hard (or impossible) to read the way “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” did (I gave up on that one half-way through)). Anyway, upcoming highlights include going to Conakry in a few days to pick Tim up from the airport and then maybe staying there about 8 days waiting for a committee meeting I’m supposed to be at (though I may skip it since it was pushed back 4 days - making it sort of inconvenient with the plans I made around the original date). Anyway, so I will write again in a few days from Conakry, and hopefully post some newer pictures of my house now that it’s pretty much set-up.

Until then.

Travel Plans

So I'm still in Boke for one more night, I'll be going back to my village tomorrow morning (too late to teach, unfortunately), mostly because I got kinda sick today (I hope it goes away soon, I had only thrown up once before this here in Guinea, but today I did 3 times within a couple of hours, though that was partly motion sickness from being in a car on a bad road)).

This will be a quick post because we're running on generator power (Boke power is out, again) and other people want to use the internet. Basically I'm just excited since my mom officially purchased my plane tickets for Europe. I'm flying to Paris in mid-July, hanging out with her and my aunt for a couple of weeks, taking a train to Spain, hanging out with Tim (and his family a little?) for a couple of weeks, then catching a flight from Madrid back to Guinea in mid-August. This will be my one big vacation while I'm here, though my friend Jarrad and I are talking about making a trek out to Togo for Christmas (they have the best food in West Africa from what I hear, and we generally both really want to go there to check it out).

Well, that's good for now. The only other bit of news is that my Country Director is visiting my village this week to see where I am and how things have gone, I'll probably post about that visit this weekend. Until then.

A Visitor!

So I'm in Kamsar for the day once again. I was here last week, and even wrote a lengthy post about a funeral I attended and some paint I'd bought - but then the computer froze/spazzed out and I lost it all. I assure you it was a great loss to the world of online travel literature. I may resurrect it one day, but not today.

So I'm in Kamsar despite the fact that I had plans to bike with one of my students to his house today. I got a text message at 8am from my friend Jarrad - saying he was in Boké with nothing to do and wanted to go to Kamsar. I planned on going up to Boké tomorrow anyway when the mail-run (Peace Corps car delivering my mail, comes once a month) drops by - I would catch a ride with them back up to Boké. I left a note for my student telling him I was sorry but I had to cancel, and caught a car up to Kamsar to meet Jarrad and get my usual market/internet stuff taken care of.

So now we're here in the internet place, soon to go to the pool and then we're going back together to Bintimodia where he'll see my village for the first time, I'll show him around a bit, then tomorrow we'll both catch the Peace Corps car to Boké, spend a night there, and he'll keep going with them to drop off his mail while I'll take Tiffany's bike back with me to Bintimodia for Tim to use while he's here (I'm thinking of biking from Boké to Bintimodia, but it's like 50k, and I've been lazy lately, so I might just toss it on a bush taxi and call it a day).

Anyway, my internet time is running low and I unfortunately won't get another chance for a week or more (the internet in Boké is apparently down) so I'm going to do some quick research on plane prices and then go read by the pool. O'oo.

A Day of Luxurious Excess

So this weekend a good number of volunteers managed to meet up in Boké, and so we took the opportunity to go into Kamsar and enjoy the little luxuries it offers. A few of us also had good reason to be a little more carefree with our spending (it was just my birthday, Jarrad has accumulated a lot of money not spending anything in his village out in the boonies, etc) so we went to the restaurant and had a nice lunch (dinner really, since we didn't eat for the rest of the day). Three of the five of us split a bottle of real French wine (it wasn't amazing quality wine, but it was way better than the "wine" you can get here), Jarrad and I both had steak (with a side of steamed (canned) vegetables and some fries), Jarrad had onion soup on the side, Tiffany got a pasta dish, Mary got the lebanese plate (hummus, kafta, baba ganogj, meat kebab, etc), and Astrid had fish kebabs (good non-bony fish). We also had some cheese that we had bought from the grocery store and so I had some nice French blue cheese with my meal, and had a little of Jarrad's gouda with cumin seeds as well. It was a pretty extravagant meal, but by american standards it was cheap (my meal was $5, the bottle of wine was like $16 split 3 ways, the 100 g chunk of cheese was $4 or so).

We also got some stuff at the grocery store which included my birthday present from Jarrad - a 1 liter bottle of Tanqueray gin, this was expensive (not much cheaper than our entire lunch bill) - and was the best present anyone could have given me - I've been eyeing that bottle every time I go into the store but couldn't come up with a good reason to spend that much on any one item. I bought grapefruit juice and tonic, and we made our way through most of it last night (between 4 or 5 people). I'm planning on returning the favor for his birthday, during which we'll be in Conakry.

I was excited to see that my favorite riz gras lady (Mme. Makanera) was back in business (she'd been sick and not working for months now). I debated getting an order to go for dinner, but I was way too full, something to look forward to next time. Upon our return to Boké, I finally met one of the new volunteers who got here in December - a woman who is south of my village by like 40k, we shared the gin and sat around getting to know each other by candlelight (Boké electricity didn't come on last night). I'm now in Kamsar showing her around since she missed out on going with us, and I was planning on going through Kamsar back to Bintimodia today anyway.

Something funny that I noted earlier this morning when I was chatting with Jarrad about it was that lately both my blog and my journal are less and less about Guinean culture things and more and more about seeing other volunteers and getting nice food/drink things. This isn't because I've given up on being thrifty and integrating with Guineans, but rather because Guinean culture is so a part of my routine now that things like topless women, kids playing by pushing old bike tires with sticks, a car on the road that toppled over because it had too much stuff piled on top of it, mangos ripening on trees, etc just don't surprise or amaze me anymore. For example - in my birthday post I mentioned planting piment with a market lady, but I didn't think to mention that as soon as we got there she whipped her shirt off and had her breasts swinging every which way the whole time. Why would I? I see that sort of thing like 5 times just on my way to get onions from the lady 4 houses down from me. Things like going to a restaurant and drinking something other than bissap (hibiscus tea) are the things that to me seem abnormal and noteworthy, but I suppose they don't make as interesting a read to people who can go to happy hour after work. I'll try to keep this in mind.

Alright, well this time I didn't think to type up the entry before plugging my credit into the computer, so I'm on the clock and am going to now browse facebook for the duration of my alloted time, until next time...

A Very Guinea Birthday

So I spent the hours leading up to my birthday trying to get all my 800 or so exams graded so I could be done in time for the big day ... I fell 150 short, which I will be getting done this weekend.

I went to bed, and woke up just before 5am to my phone ringing (I have one of those really obnoxious ring tones). It turned out my friend Maricarol - who I've been friends with since we were 6 - wanted to call to wish me a happy birthday, but hadn't quite figured out the time zone difference....in any case it was great to get a call from her. I went back to bed, then got up to teach. I started my 10th grade on the last section of the syllabus - organic chemistry!. They're only learning about hydrocarbons, but it's still great to teach them something other than balancing equations, etc....though I spent most of the time teaching them to balance equations for the combustion of various alkanes. I then gave my 9th grade English class an incredibly serious lecture on cheating that took like 20 minutes. They could tell I was not happy with them, and they didn't even argue much when I told them I had failed every one of them on the final. I think the lesson went as well as I could have expected it to, I think it got to them enough that at least they'll be more careful about cheating in my class in the future.

I got a call from Tim, and we got his travel dates figured out (he'll be here in about a month!), then I got a call from my mom and we chatted a bit as well. I also got a couple of text messages from other volunteers, and I had already received birthday cards in the mail from my mom, sister, Tim, and a few of my friends both back in the states, and in Guinea.

I went home and started work on my birthday cake. Using the cocoa powder my mom sent in a care package and ingredients I had gotten in the market that weekend I made a pretty delicious chocolate cake. I used the dutch oven system to bake it (explained in this entry) and it came out pretty good. I whitled a regular candle down to birthday candle size and stuck a teddy graham cookie on top for decoration. Since I didn't have "Happy Birthday" on my iPod, I dug out a tape of music that my aunt sent me which contained "Las Mañanitas" among other mariachi hits....so I played that for myself, made a wish and blew out my candle. I then cut myself a piece of cake and was just about finished with it when this lady who I hang out with in my village came looking for me, wanting me to help her transplant some more chili pepper seedlings.

I locked up the house and gave her a piece of cake, then did my best to explain that it was my birthday to her in Susu. After some sign-language she got the point and I realized the Susu word for birthday is the same as the French....I should really start trying that more often. She loved the cake and told me I need to teach her how to make it (I think I can substitute the "hot cocoa" mix you can sometimes find in the markets so she can find all the ingredients here). I told her I would if she taught me how to make these cookies that people sell around here that I really like. I then went with her to her field and spent a couple of hours helping her and her son dig trenches, fill them with manure/compost, pour water in them, and transfer a strong seedling to each one. We probably got like 150-200 of these set up in that time, we eventually got two young boys "helping" though they spent a lot of their time just watching me (I suppose a white guy ankle deep in mud and elbow deep in manure is a rare sight for them...).

After this I went home, took a bucket bath, and watched a movie on my iPod, and called it an early night (between getting woken up at 5am, teaching 6 hours, and spending 2 hours in the fields, I was exhausted). All in all a very good birthday.

Also, I should have some pictures up on Facebook in a few hours - as long as the Boke power doesn't cut out....

From Kamsar

So I’ve finally made it in to Kamsar after being absent for a while. I’d been missing groceries and other nice essentials, but I made the trip out today. I caught a car out of Bintimodia instead of biking (I’ve been lazy lately, and it’s been getting hotter), but I had to wait like 3 hours for a car to show up. I waited with 4 other adults and a baby at the crossroads out of Bintimodia, and made it in to Kamsar around 1pm.

I got my market stuff taken care of (flour and eggs (gonna make myself a chocolate cake for my birthday), avocado, 3 tomatoes, a can of chicken meat (kinda like spam, but made in the middle-east somewhere), a kilo of potatoes, 3 bell peppers, some envelopes, some plastic baggies, unpopped popcorn, some pasta, canned milk, smoked fish (for Barte), and then I made a trip to the grocery store for a box of saltines (I’m always craving salty crackers in my village, but I never feel like paying $3 for a box of saltines (I could buy 12-15 large bean sandwiches for that much money in Bintimodia) – however I decided to just splurge even though it seems ridiculous to spend so much on saltines of all things. By the way, this was an abnormally bountiful trip to the market – bell peppers, canned meat, tomatoes and avocados aren’t usually easy to find.

Now I’m getting some updates taken care of to my blog before heading off to the pool for a bit (it’ll be nice to swim off all the dust from the road). I would just head straight back home but I want to get my iPod charged before going back to my village (I’ve discovered that I can charge my phone if I go to the “night club” – the open air space where they set up a generator and some speakers on Saturday nights – and hang out with the “DJ” – the guy who sorta knows how to work the CD player and shouts over a microphone every once in a while to make himself feel important – while my phone is plugged in to the string of power strips attached to the generator. However, I feel weird taking my iPod there to be charged, so I still take care of that here in Kamsar).

In village news, I’m still working on grading my huge stack of exams from first semester final exams (I made the mistake of giving my students a test like a week before the “official” final exams (I didn’t know we had official final exams, I was informed the day before they started) so I had like 800 total exams to grade between my 4 classes of English and 4 of Chemistry). If grading my 9th grade English tests, I noticed something funny – everybody had a perfect score, and the few people who didn’t hadn’t made transation mistakes (I had asked them to give me the French of 10 English words (boy, house, rice, etc…)) but rather they had made spelling mistakes making up nonsense words that SOUND like the correct word, but aren’t. So basically, everybody cheated. I was in Boke when this test was given and someone else watched the class take it – clearly that someone else wasn’t watching very carefully or didn’t care. I’ve decided I’m going to fail everybody because I made it clear to them early on that they would get a 0 if I caught them cheating on my tests. I’m going to give everybody an 8 (40%) and tell them that they can bring their grade up my doing well on my second semester tests (which I will proctor myself to avoid cheating). English isn’t officially on the middle school curriculum, so my failing them won’t hurt their chances of getting into high school, but it will hurt their pride and will set an example. I’m going to give them a big lecture on this on Tuesday and tell them about their mass-failure then (my birthday of all days….awesome).

Also, I’ve been going to the fields with one of the ladies in my village (she doesn’t speak a word of French, but we sorta get by on my broken Susu). I’ve been helping her transplant piment (chili pepper) seedlings from a big mass of seedlings into individual spots – basically thinning out the crop so that the strongest seedlings get their own space to turn into a fruit bearing-plant. I’m also going to start my seeds that I brought (zucchini, spinach, tomato, cantaloupe) in plastic baggies and ask for a small corner of her field to grow my vegetables (if they work – and that’s a big if since they’re non-native and nobody here knows how to correctly grow them, myself included – she could then sell extras in the Kamsar market for way more than her chili peppers cost (however, chili peppers are probably much easier to grow, given how cheap they are).

Alright, I suppose that’s all for now, I’m going to post this and take care of some other internet stuff before heading to the pool, and then Bintimodia. Next time I post, I’ll be another year older. Until then!

Boke Summary

Alright, so I'm headed out to find a car back to Bintimodia, and I have about 10 minutes or so of battery life on the laptop (it charged with the electricity last night) to post a quick summary of the weekend.

I went to Kamsar thursday and met up with Tiffany by the pool, got some stuff from the grocery store (shampoo, a scrubbing sponge, deodorant, and olive oil) and also some supplies from the lady in the market who sells good vegetables (1 kg fresh green beans, and a cadeau bell pepper). Tiffany and I made it back to Boke early so I got some more stuff in the Boke market that I've been needing in Bintimodia (tomato paste, margarine, laundry soap...).

Afterwards I found Jarrad in the Boke house and we ended up grabbing dinner from the restaurant at the bottom of the hill (possibly the only restaurant in Boke, we're not sure). The lady knows us both - especially Jarrad - since we usually go there when we're in town. She sell riz gras, chicken, spagetti with meat, or a whole fried fish along with a few sodas and yogurt.

We hung out at the house for most of the weekend, we had the option of going out with one other volunteer to a swimming hole, and then to the nightclub last night - but we were mostly looking forward to lounging around the volunteer house, reading and not going to a Guinean nightclub.

So that was my weekend - reading in the volunteer house, making food, making trips to the market for stuff, and getting internet business taken care of while it's free and the battery lasts.

Now I'm off to my village and probably won't make it back on here until the 28th, though I may make a Kamsar trip before then for supplies. Until then.

A Longer Post

Ok, so there is ample battery time, and the internet in Boke died after the "Create Post" window loaded for blogger, so I'm just going to write for a while and hope the internet will be working again when I'm ready to post this.

Anyway, in other village news, I experienced my first death in the village. I was reading in my hammock as I usually do, about 20 yards from the entrance to the hospital when a 20-something guy came out of the hospital and started sobbing against the outside wall of the building, not 15 yards from where I lay reading. I thought about asking him if he was ok since I've never seen an adult Guinean guy cry, but I just decided to pretend I hadn't noticed and keep reading. After a while a late teen to early 20s girl ran out of the hospital shouting/singing/chanting something while sobbing herself. She ran around the village shouting/singing/chanting this way (similar to the Imam's call to prayer) as a form of announcement, but as she was saying something in Susu I didn't understand, I just kept reading and started to really wonder what was going on. Older women (Vieilles) started pouring in from left and right with concerned looks on their faces and chattering away in Susu, and I started to wonder if maybe a woman was giving birth and was having complications so they had called the vieilles to help with the birth (I've heard at least half a dozen women give birth, the perks of living right next door to the hospital with constantly open windows). Then men and teenagers also started to pour in and I realized this was something else.
I got up as discreetly as I could to put my hammock indoors (I felt sort of ridiculous reading on a hammock while most of the village was clearly upset about something not 10 yards from me at this point) and went into the crowd and did my best to evesdrop in Susu, but ended up resorting to asking one of my students to tell me what was going on. It turns out a young man (early 30s?) had died - he had climbed up a palm tree to get coconuts and found a snake up there which bit him 3 times before he could get away, he managed to get down from the palm tree without falling but apparently died from the snakebites. I expressed my condolances, started to feel a bit out of place and went inside my house.

A bit later the true wailing began (women do the screaming/sobbing/wailing mourning tradition here for deaths and other sad events - my host mom in Forecariah did this the day I moved out at the end of training) which was both unnerving and beautiful at the same time. After some time a normal car came, and the shrouded body was loaded in the backseat across the laps of 3 men (family members?). The car then sped off to take the body elsewhere, presumably to be buried. After a couple of minutes the crown dispersed except for the young girl who had initially done the wailing announcement to the village, I later found out she was his fiance. I didn't know the guy myself but it was still an odd experience to observe from that perspective.

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In other news, I finally got to see the Kamsar library while it was open, and I chatted with the head librarian/director of the library, a super friendly and very well educated Guinean woman. I checked out their cataloguing system and asked her about the borrowing system they employ as well as how one might go about getting books via NGOs, etc. I found out about a Canadian man who has an NGO set up specifically to send books and computers to Guinean schools and libraries, apparently this is the guy who donated the books we currently have in stock at my library (I found it a little sad that this woman who is 20km away and has nothing to do with Bintimodia knew way more details about what had been accomplished and how for my library than anybody at my school did). I was amazed at how well organized and well set-up the Kamsar library was, they have tons of novels, a children's section, an english book section (presumably for the ex-pats, but who knows), a computer lab (the computers were mostly needing repairs, but it was there), and a classroom where they do literacy classes! I was also really pleased to see that not only was the director of the library a woman, the assistant-director was too. She gave me the information for the Canadian guy, as well as for the person in Conakry whose job it is to deal with libraries in the country (she seemed to think he'd help out with Bintimodia's librarian training, I'm skeptical but maybe I can at least get a few school books out of his office). All in all it was a great experience. I was also pleased when she asked me if I was French, since my French was so good (I get this from random Guineans all the time, but usually that's because they themselves don't speak very good French, but this lady was very well educated AND she thought I spoke well, nice).

On a related note, one of the things she suggested I do was drop by the local private school where most of the ex-pat students go and talk to the director there about donating books to the library. I was so charged up after this great meeting with her than I went right over to talk to him right then and there, and here I had one of those moment where I realize how much I've adapted to Guinean culture.

Now, in the states as in most countries, you wouldn't drop by a school principals office at a ritzy private school unanounced just to say hi and introduce yourself - but I'm so used to people dropping by my place and just greeting me and going on their way that I thought nothing of it. I made it into his office after some bemused looks from the ex-pat teacher who I first ran into and asked for directions to the principal (all the teachers at this school are French ex-pats who speak perfect French that makes me realize that I am completely fluent only in West African French, and not so much the European variety which actually makes use of tenses like the subjunctive and conditional). I soon found myself in front of a very distinguished and annoyed looking man, who had been clearly doing something, with nothing more to say than "I just thought I'd drop by and introduce myself" in my pidgin French. He dealt with it pretty well, but I suddently found myself on the other side of this greeting process I run into almost daily (the one where the less-Guinean of the two is thinking "really? you just wanted to say hi? THAT's why you interrupted me?"). I left the school and started laughing at how "villageois" I've become.

Also important for today. One year :)

A Quick Post

Alright, I've made it in to Boke for the weekend to spend Valentine's Day with some other volutneers and get some business taken care of online using the free internet/computer use at the house (I have some letters to write asking NGOs and embassies for books for Bintimodia's Library - at the very least I'll need a French and and English form letter...maybe more later on).

In village news, I made it back from IST and found that my cat thinks his time is better spent at my other neighbor's house (giving me a good reason to finally talk with them some more). In the mornings around 6:45 he starts to meow loudly, paw at my head, paw at the door....eventually I grudgingly open it and the traitor runs off to the other house. He comes home for lunch and leaves again (sometimes, if he's really full he just takes a nap in the house first), at night I have to go round him up and bring him in to sleep....he's basically only my cat 20% of the time now, most of it I'm sleeping. At least this way he can still get my mice if they poke their heads out again (they're nocturnal, and have been absent for a few weeks now) and it also makes finding a cat sitter much easier (yesterday I had an exchange with the woman of the house (who likes my cat the most of the family) that went something like "Tomorrow I go to Boke. 3 days. My cat, he sleeps here, he eats here, it's good?" in Susu, she got the message and agreed, I gave her some money for the food and went on my way).

Also, at some point last week in the middle of the night 2 of my villages water pumps were stolen (one of them was the one that was across the street from me....very annoying). Apparently pumps get stolen fairly often, someone comes in the middle of the night, dismantles it, pulls up the gadgetry that makes it work, and take it to sell to some other village. So now my village is dependent on half the amount of clean water and some families are resorting to drinking well water (cholera risk...along with like 40 other diseases). I've started using well water to bathe and wash my clothes in, but I'm still drinking and washing my dishes in pump water. Apparently nobody wants to step up to pay the money to replace the lost pumps even though there's a fund in place just for this purpose....je ne comprends pas.

Also, my school is in full swing with the first semester final exams, I will write more on this in my next entry as my internet time is limited right now (running the electricity on generator power, other people want internet before the gas runs out). To be continued tomorrow....

Realization

So I made it up to Boke today, having accomplished not much else, but on the walk up to the Volunteer house with Jarrad, he said "you know...there's a lot of stuff we take for granted now that would have been way too much to handle 6 months ago". Here's a summary of the day and the reasons for this comment:

Tiffany, Jarrad and I left Conakry this morning, I got a bean sandwhich from the girl on the corner, and didn't even bother spitting out the pin bones that were in with the fish, nor did I consider the potential health risk of eating street food (I do it almost daily). We walked a while until we got a taxi to take us to Madina, the big market where we usually catch a Boke-bound taxi. Our driver told us Bambento was closer and better for Boke cars, and not only did I know where he was referring to, I realized he was right and thanked him for letting us know.

At the taxi gare in Bambento, we were delayed while we waited for our car to fill up, so Jarrad and I split a plate of atteke (grated and fermented manioc couscous-type dish) with fish and aloco (fried plantains) when we realized a lady next to us was selling some. After a while a little girl came over to stare at us and we all smiled and waved at her. I asked her her name in Susu and she didn't seem to get it, Jarrad asked her in Pulaar and she didn't respond with her name but she started greeting us in a mixture of Pulaar and French. After a while she came and sat with between us and we chatted with her (mostly "bonjour" and "ca va bien?" as her vocab wasn't huge...she was probably 2). We played with her by taking turns poking her when she covered her eyes and then pointing at each other in a "he/she did it" sorta way. At one point she took her sweater off and put it around her waist then handed me the ends so I could tie it for her, at another point she was hanging off Jarrad's neck...she was very cute.

We got out car out of Conakry and at the final Conakry checkpoint the soldiers who check IDs didn't approve of our Peace Corps IDs, and made us get out of the car and asked to see our passports. This, again, we simply handled by telling him who we were, what we were doing, explaining that we didn't need passports to leave Conakry and that the ID he had in his hand was good enough. When he didn't believe this we called the Safety and Security guy from Peace Corps and he straightened the soldier out and we were on our way.

The trip was uneventful, my leg fell asleep and I was really sweaty by the time I got to Boke, but it was fine. In the market I had Jarrad stand guard as I took more money out of my bag (I had forgotten my wallet in a pair of pants that I had packed). We went into the market on our way back to the volunteer house, we got bissap and while I was paying I noticed 4 or 5 ladies walking with big ceramic pots on their heads*. I flagged one down and bought one from her speaking exclusively Susu to ask the price and so on, I'd been trying to get one of these for months! We then walked the 2k up the hill to the volutneer house, I was carrying my backpack, my duffel bag, and a big ceramic pot.

Near the top of the hill one of the ladies who lives near the Peace Corps compound in Boke complimented my pot in Susu and we had an exchange that went something like this:

-Your pot, it's pretty. (I poti, a tofan.)
-Thank you (I nu wali)
(greeting - this is mostly "how are you, how is your family, etc")
-Where is your home? (I xoni na minden?) (I'm used to being asked "Where are you from?" (I kelife minden) so this question threw me for a second, but then I realized what she had asked and said....)
-My home is in Bintimodia. I'm Bintimodian. (N xoni na Bintimodia. Bintimodia ka na n na)
-Oh, is Bintimodia where you work? (Awa, Bintimodia I walima na?)
-Yes, I'm a teacher there, I work with Peace Corps (Iyo, xaranderaba na n na, n walima na Corps de la paix)
-Oh, ok (awa)
-I'm your neighbor (I doxobore na n na) (I recently learned the work for neighbor and was excited to try it out)
-Yes you are, well, goodbye (Iyo, awa, O'oo)
-Ok, see you tomorrow. (awa, O'oo, won tina)
-ok, see you in the morning (awa, won gesege)

After this Jarrad turned to me and said "wow, that was a long conversation!" and I agreed. He complimented me on my Susu, since he had no idea I spoke so much of it (everyone in Mamou speaks Pulaar, so my Susu was useless there). We then had the conversation about things that would have overwhelmed us 6 months ago. We walked to the woman who is friends with Jarrad and Astrid - the one Astid was visiting when she found my kitten. I met her, and she told us to come back later in the evening and she would give us gingam with piment (sugary ginger drink with chili pepper...I'm excited as I love it). I'm going to head over there with Jarrad now, and continue on into town for dinner.

O'oo.

*In villages, people use big unglazed ceramic pots as a refrigerator system. You fill the pot with water and stick a cover on it. Since it's porous it allows evaporation and the evaporation cools the whole thing down like 10-20 degrees so you actually get cold water. It works especially well in the dry season, which we're in now. I'm going to use it to keep my eggs, and maybe some butter cold, also I can drink the cold water when I'm feeling overheated (hot season is coming up...)

IST Summary

Alright, so I'm back in Conakry for a night, and will be continuing on to Boké, and possibly Bintimodia tomorrow. I have so much to say and only so much time and patience to dedicate to this, so here goes a general summary of the past weel.

I left Conakry with a Peace Corps car and mostly just tried to sleep on the way up. A lot of us crammed in, so it was actually about as comfortable as a bush-taxi except it was free, had A/C, and I could speak in English instead of French/Susu.

Upon arriving in Mamou I was quickly reunited with all my friends from pre-service training (PST), some of whom I hadn't seen since we finished training in September. As is usual in these instances, there was some drinking and partying, but for the most part everyone was just happy to see each other again, compare stories, share frustrations, laugh and simply enjoy the fact that we were finally talking to people who really understood what we'd been going through and who are going through some of the same themselves.

The training sessions for this were a bit of a mixed bag. One session on how to raise funds for a project that needs money (like, say, a library...) via a couple of different grant applications that work through Peace Corps. I don't expect I'll need to use this since most of what needs to happen with the library doesn't need money yet, but more on that later. Another session focused on how to deal with finding a secondary project and how to decide if it's worth doing (based on community interest, overall benefits, costs, etc). We had a few technical (chemistry ed) sessions with Mendeya (a Guinean chemistry teacher in Conakry who was our trainer in Forecariah) which were sort of boring in themselves, but getting to chat with Mendeya again was pretty cool. We told him about what we needed to get (a few chemical supplies that we never got like CuSO4, BBT, HCl, pH paper, etc) and he told me where in Conakry they could be found and that he would do his best to get them for us when he returned to Conakry (more on this later....).

We had a few other sessions including a medical one where I got 2 more vaccines (I've lost the total vaccine count at this point) and then had a few language classes on Thursday (I took a Pulaar class....which was sorta helpful except Pulaar is freaking hard and all I really learned was how to say a few phrases mostly of the "good morning"variety).

Outside of the official trainings, I had a long discussion with my APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director) who is in charge of all Education stuff of Peace Corps Guinea, and I explained what had been going on between my "school official"and myself with regards to my being shot down for secondary projects, and felt pressured to do things his way despite the fact that I disagreed with him. After I got all the recent frustratons off my chest we talked about the purpose of secondary projects (to benefit the community at large, and not just one sub-set), my role in secondary project planning (absolute power...basically. My "school official"has power over me when it comes to my teaching, but he can't tell me to do anything I don't want to regarding secondary projects, though it is my responsibility to listen to the community - my plan is to listen to the entire community (or at least it's figureheads) and not just the leader of the school), and basically I explained all that I had been trying to do against my "school official"'s approval. Added to this was the fact that I eat at his house twice a day (his family is also my host family) and so disagreements in the business end of things makes the whole experience complicated.

Anyway, my supervisor is going to call my "school official"to politely put him in his place and let him know that I have the power to do whatever I want with the library - including making it open to the community, and also including not doing anything and focusing my effors elsewhere if I feel my views aren't being taken into consideration. I'm hoping this will allow me to work on the library project without needing to worry about or seek his approval. I'm going to try to walk around and talk to the figureheads I'm interested in getting involved and see what they think - not promise anything - and perhaps get my own committee together and figure something out for a first meeting of the minds on this project. I feel that if I can get the sous-prefet to approve of my community library (as opposed to a school one), then I'm going to be able to continue with the project with less pressure from the school to make it exclusive.

As far as money goes - I don't think any is necessary for the time being. All this time I've been getting hounded to get more books and get money for more books, but we HAVE books. Granted, we are lacking in certain important areas such as school books, easy french magazines, etc - but the first priority really is to get the library organized and started on cataloguing before I will need to worry about getting additional materials. Plus, I was told by a higher up in the Guinean education district in Mamou (a man involved in Chemistry education using local materials) that I could probably request free school books for the library through the DPE of Boké (the American equivalent of a State Board of Education, kinda). I'm not fully convinced of this, but it's worth a shot before I start looking to buy books.

As far as "petty" material expenses that will pop up (for example, the stamp that will read "Bibliotheque Communitaire de la CRD de Bintimodia" or something along those lines). I know for a fact that my "school official" received $100 from someone who said "This is for the library, Federico should decide what it should be spent on" pretty much word for word. This will more than cover the level of expenses I foresee in the organizing and cataloguing of the library. I'm skeptical that this money still exists as its been 4 months since it was donated, but I have a feeling that mentioning this money will quiet future pestering for money. After all, if the money was simply pocketed or used to buy a motorcycle what's the point in me bringing in more before it needs to be used? Ou bien??

Anyway, in short I got confirmation from my APCD and my fellow volunteers that I have every right to demand more independence and more support from the adminstration and that ultimately my decisions to work on projects like the library, the environmental club, or anything else are mine to make and generally I need to stop being a pushover in the name of integration and cultural adaptation. Basically, I'm going to need to be the "my way or the highway" ugly american once in a while if I expect anything to get accomplished. Hope it works...

In other news, I'm also going to help my friend Marg with a Teacher's Conference that she's organizing. This would be a 3 day conference in Mamou where Volunteers would bring teachers from their villages who are interested in getting trained in various teaching techniques such as critical thinking development, alternative techniques, incorporating experiments, gender equality, etc. I'm going to help put together the session for chemistry teachers on how to use locally available materials to do demonstrations in class (example: cut open a D cell battery, use the zinc external case as an easily oxidized metal in redox demonstrations, use the graphite electrode running down the middle in a set up for hydrolysis or for copper plating using CuSO4 (which will be provided to them), get a magnet out of a broken radio speaker and use it to separate iron fillings from sand to explain ferromagnetism, etc).

On a related note, I'd been trying to get CuSO4 and BBT (bromothymol blue - a pH indicator) to use in my class for some time, and finally I got information on where in Conakry it can be found (not surprisingly in Madina, the huge market downtown, specifically at a lab near a bridge there). So on my way in from Mamou, I got out of the Peace Corps car at an intersection and caught a Madina-bound taxi. I got dropped off in the right general region and asked a few people where exactly the building was. I found it and walked in, past a napping guard, and up some stairs. I found an open lab door and knocked as I walked in and greeted the surprised Susu woman who appeared to be on the verge of napping herself (it was mid-day, it's not uncommon). After I explained who I was and why I was there I met a "Doctor" who told me he could get me the materials I was looking for the following morning since the person in charge had gone home already. We exchanged information (I mostly wanted to have a contact within this lab) and I went to the compound.

About an hour later, Mendeya called my phone and told me he was in the office and had something for me, it turns out while I was sneaking into labs he was talking to his buddies at the University of Conakry and had managed to get 4 containers (the kind 35mm film comes in) of CuSO4, one for each of the Chem volunteers, and also about a gram of BBT for each of us. He asked if I would be in Conakry tomorrow and when I said I was leaving in the morning he said "ok, well, I'll be back in a few hours then" and left. He came back in a few hours with a booklet written by some Conakry chemistry teacher which is basically a 30 page book of notes and practice problems to prepare 10th grade students for the chemistry portion of the Brevet exam (high school entrance). He told me to make photocopies of it and send it out to the others on the mail run, then leave it with my APCD. It's amazing how dedicated he is, and how much he went out of his way to get us the materials we semi-casually requested from him a couple of days earlier in Mamou. I'm really looking forward to working with him this summer to train the new Chemistry volunteers.

Alright, time to get going, until next time.

Last Post before IST

So, Conakry has been nice. I haven't been good about leaving the compound, but I've had a good time with people here. We did manage to go downtown and get food at Le Damier (super fancy restaurant where the amazing buffet cost $24 (most meals on the street cost less than a dollar), most meals in a regular restaurant cost about $5)). I ate way too much of everything (highlights included roast capon (fancy chicken), plantain chicken stew, crepe with chocolate sauce, mango/papaya/lime juice, capuccino with chocolate shavings, lots of small meat/vegetable/cheese filled pastries, a mini creme brulé, etc. We showed up early, brought magazines, and sat and chatted between plates for the 4 hours the buffet was open. It was a great experience, even if it cost 2/3 as much as my cell phone...plus it's not like I'll be eating any of that again until maybe the summer when we are thinking of organizing another trip to this place around the 4th of July when we're all together again.

Anyway, other than this, I've seen "The Dark Knight" (someone brought the DVD back from the states after going home for Christmas...great movie), along with like 4 other movies, and generally enjoyed my time here in Conakry. I went to the leb store and bought tahini so I can make tahini dressing to take over to the Shwarma guy for him to use in place of mayo next time I eat there...that will make a big difference, I also got some spices to take back to Bintimodia since the herbs and spices in Kamsar are terrible and expensive.

I've managed to get a lot of internet stuff accomplished, and even managed to upload a video to Facebook (and another one is in the works right now) along with about 60 new photos. I'll be leaving for Mamou in the morning tomorrow and probably won't use the internet much there since I've gotten so much done here in Conakry. I will hopefully post again next weekend from Conakry before heading back up to Bintimodia.

From Conakry before going to IST

So once again, I write from Conakry, only this time the country isn't in crisis or striking, so I can actually get out and do stuff. So far I've made a quick trip to the market to get dinner, and watched a couple of movies in the house. I'll make another - more thorough - trip to the market later today, and tomorrow I'm going "en ville" (downtown) to get food from the all you can eat fancy brunch place that's super expensive because everything is imported (but where you can get a real espresso, good fruit juices, quiche, etc) assuming they're open. If not, I'll probably get Chinese food from the place run by ex-pat Chinese people mainly for ex-pat Chinese people (the menu is in chinese and nobody there speaks very good French, so we usually need to order via sign language (sizzling beef is "boeuf SSSZZZSSZZZZSZZ" with both hands making a fire motion with the fingers)).

Otherwise, I plan on spending my time hanging out with my friends here at the house, using the internet to upload pictures and gmail-chat with friends, and hopefully cooking something for myself at some point (so far I've just been buying pre-made street food, shwarma's mostly -though, depending on who I buy it from it tastes like I'm eating a carne asada taco, a salad wrap with french fries and a little beef, or a barbeque beef wrap, not one of them tastes like a real shwarma).

I'm here in Conakry as an extended stop-over period before going to Mamou for IST (in-service training). My entire training group (minus the one guy who quit) are going to get together for a week of training at the conference compound there. This means we'll be living dorm-style 3 to a room, getting meals and tea breaks on a schedule from the compound's kitchen (hard boiled eggs, bread and margarine for breakfast, rice and sauce for lunch and usually dinner (though sometimes they make something like chicken with fries....which is great)). It will be nice to see everyone again, and to get a better quality of rice and sauce given to me twice a day, however I think I'll definitely be ready to get back to my house after this week of having my day scheduled out for me.

As far as life in Bintimodia goes, things have been ok. Teaching is a bit frustrating, but nothing too bad. I was told by my vice principal that grades are due on February 2nd (the day I get back from Mamou), he told me this the morning I was leaving for over a week...so that's not going to happen, though I'm sure I won't be the only one to have fallen behind. Our biology teacher got a job with a different school and quit mid-year, so now there's no biology classes. My principal is looking to hire someone buy I'm tempted to offer to teach it at least to 10th grade - since they have a large high-school entrance exam coming up with a biology section - if he doesn't have someone by the time I get back. However, I'm going to talk to my friend Jarrad about this since he's been teaching biology at his school along with chemistry since his school was in the same situaton as me when the school year started.

I left Barté with my principal again since things went well last time, but as soon as I dropped him off, he followed me back to the house, then fought when I was taking him back. He eventually escaped and ran across the street to the Credit Rural (some sort of government bank-like loan institution, I think, there's one in most villages) where his best friend Fodé Moussa works (an older guy who I speak with in Susu (he doesn't speak French) and who my cat loves more than me). I'll probably just ask him to look after him next time I need to leave the village since I don't think he'd mind, I just don't have the communication skills in Susu to get this request across.

Anyway, I think I'll post again before leaving on Sunday, so until then...

Frustrations, Successes, and Exploding Batteries

Alright, so it’s been a while since my last entry, partly due to me not going to Kamsar, and partly due to the internet being down when I do make it in. (At least they brought the price down to 5,000 from 6,000 since gasoline is now cheaper (they run off generators when the power goes out). Because of the inconsistent electricity, my battery charger just made a loud popping noise and started smoking (sounded like a blown transistor if my Analytical Chem electronics lab experience served me well), luckily I have a backup.

Anyway, the past two weeks have been a mixed bag of sorts, I got strep throat, killed two mice, saw an ENORMOUS rat that my cat just sorta followed in a “what’s this?” sort of way as it ambled into my latrine, yelled at and walked out on one of my classes (the English lesson for the day was “you’re all wasting my f**king time!” – it was a chemistry class), had a power struggle with one of my students (he wouldn’t stop talking in class, so I kicked him out, and he just sat there and stared at me defiantly until he realized I wasn’t kidding around when I grabbed his notebook and threw it out the window (I’m pretty sure he was older than me, and was experimenting with the “petit” system where he’s higher on the food chain than me)), had another conversation with “a school official” who keeps trying to wedge me out of any decision making in the library project and insists on calling the shots while having me do all the work (I want it to be a community library so we can extend it to all of Bintimodia and have the community take an interest in it which might help preserve it in the long-term – he insists it should be the school’s library and wouldn’t even hear my thoughts about getting important community figureheads (the head of the Women’s group, etc) involved in the committee, which currently consists of the school admin and one teacher (oh yeah, and me, I guess, though I’m starting to wonder if I’m just the token American whose job it is to find books and money, organize the entire system, and let the big boys call the shots))).

On the upside, I’ve started getting out to the neighboring communities more with one of my better friends, going for walks in the afternoons and stopping by with people to chat, etc (every time I go out I end up coming home with an armful of “cadeaux” oranges (‘tis the season), and on one memorable occasion two of the best grapefruits I’ve ever had). I’ve made more friends in the village, and my cat and I are coming to an understanding about what he should and shouldn’t do (though his new little game is running to Guineans during prayer time - when they’re kneeling and bowing to Mecca - and try to get them to play…it’s not as cute after the first few times. I got some awesome cargo shorts commissioned (I just had to move the button over by an inch or so since they were a bit too large), and I finally got my bamboo closet/wardrobe/shelf thing for my room, though getting it was an adventure.

I commissioned it after my last entry, finding the bamboo guy on my bike home. After some bargaining I got him to lower the price to 200,000 (I wanted it cheaper, say 150,000, but I’m always hesitant to bargain too much with someone who hasn’t made the item yet, so it doesn’t turn out to be crap later). We agreed that it’d be ready the following Saturday, so I showed up Sunday morning fully expecting it to be almost ready but not quite, I wasn’t disappointed. I told him to reinforce one part of it (the bar I intend to use as a “closet”) and that I’d be back in 6 hours to get it. I went about my business as usual, then went back to find it finished. I told the guy I’d be back with a car soon and walked over (about ½ mile) to the taxi area to find a car headed to Bintimodia. I expected to pay about 6,000 tops for this trip (a seat in a Bintimodia bound car is usually 4,000 – I figured tack on 2,000 for the large baggage). The first guy I talked to listened paitently, and say “ok, 100,000”. Now, since “cent-mille” and “cinq-mille” sound so similar, I knew I must have misheard him. “5,000?” I asked, and he said “no, 100,000”. About an hour of bargaining, yelling, pleading, name-calling, laughing and running around to most of the cars in the area later, I agreed to pay someone the last 14,000 left in my wallet (literally the last of the money I had), in exchange he’d meet me over by the road near the bamboo guy whenever the car filled up with people (anywhere from 15 minutes to….???). I walked back paid the bamboo guy, had a guy help me carry the thing (about the size of a smallish entertainment center) to the side of the road. I took out my book and read for about 90 minutes, talked to my mom for a while, and then the car showed up (I was a bit worried since I had no money, a big entertainment center, nowhere in Kamsar I could sleep and the sun was setting, but I just kept my faith that someone would get me eventually). We got it back to my village though, and it’s made a big difference as far as organization goes. Now I just need to buy and/or commission some hangers.

The new training group did their site visit, but since none of them are that close to Boké they didn’t go and do a regional capital visit like I did back in August. I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever meet them (maybe 4th of July?). I’m looking forward to going to In-Service Training for a week in Mamou since I’ll get to see all my training group again and spend a week with them catching up on the last 3 months of our lives. I’ll also finally be able to pin down the people I need to ask about getting materials for the library project, and figure out if there’s a more diplomatic way of convincing my “school official” to stop treating me like a child.

Anyway, there’s probably tons more to say, but nothing is coming to mind and I should wrap things up here anyway, until next time.