Happy New Year

Alright, so since my last post, I’ve left Conakry along with my fellow northern Basse Côters and went to Boké in hopes of sorting out my furniture business (back in September, I commissioned 2 shelves and a table through a Guinean friend of mine with a wood guy in Boké (I was told there were no good wood workers in my village). Since then it’s been one problem after the other, and to make a long story short, I got my bookshelves in November, and am still waiting for the table, which has been sitting in one storage place or another for a while now). I managed to talk my friend into moving the table up to the regional house so that my regional coordinator can bring it on the next mail run (this next week?) and am crossing my fingers. I also finally purchased a mortar and pestle so I can grind my own pepper, cinnamon, etc (and make pesto, I planted my basil seeds yesterday in an old soup can, but like 30 minutes ago I found local basil in the Kamsar market (I think I both amused and frightened the market lady when I was like “A munse???? Basilic na a ra??? Iyo?! Ehhh allah!”)). I tried to ask if it was always there, but I don’t entirely believe her. On Tuesday when I was passing through Kamsar on my way home I found green beans, bell peppers and parsley with one of the vendors (all of which probably came from Conakry) and I asked if she had it everyday, she said yes but she didn’t have it today when I went back….she says she always has it on Tuesdays…my busiest teaching day, dammit. But anyway, it’s nice to get more and more familiar with all the market ladies in a market as big as Kamsar’s, and to know that at least some of the time I can find good herbs and vegetables if I’m lucky and persistent (I promised the bell pepper lady that if she saves me a couple I will buy them next Thursday).

Another market accomplishment was finally picking a tailor (semi-randomly) and trying him out on some “comme ça” cargo shorts. I bought some local fabric, gave him my favorite pair of khaki shorts and told him to make a copy of them. He charged more than I thought was fair (15,000 GNF = $3), but hopefully that means he will do a good job. If he does a decent job I’ll finally make my leppi (an expensive indigo dyed fabric from the Fouta, which I bought in September while in Mamou) into the cargo pants I planned for them initially (I’ve been hesitant to trust just anybody with the fabric since it’s very hard to find here, and even where it’s common it’s 3 times as expensive as the standard “wax” fabric).

Anyway, so I’ve been in my village since Tuesday, and things have been good. On New Year’s Eve, my host family killed a chicken for dinner (the second time I’ve had chicken at their house in 3 months or so). I got parts of the same chicken for both meals of the next day, and I realized something about my standards that has changed. I was excited and happy to eat chicken that I knew had been dead for like 36 hours, and I knew had been kept at roughly the temperature of an incubator since nobody in my village has a fridge. Yet, I was still happy about it. How will I ever take that whole “thaw chicken in the fridge” business seriously after living here? And I’m pretty sure that’s just the tip of a large iceberg (I’ve also completely stopped caring about bedbugs. To quote from a Steinbeck book I read recently “After they got used to the taste of him, and he grew accustomed to their bites, they got along peacefully”).

Anyway, after dinner on New Years Eve, I went home and read by my kerosene lamp (my headlamp is somewhere in the Conakry house…I hope) until about 11. I then went outside and was shepherded into the nightclub (which on Monday mornings is the market, and the rest of the time is an abandoned shell of a building with no roof) by my best friend (an elementary school teacher) who spotted me immediately and had me accompany him and his girlfriend (one of my 10th grade students) to the bôite. I watched people dance for a while, then some of my students got me up and dancing as well. The music was a mix of reggeaton, bollywood, local African music (I found out that the “yi xili di” song is from Cape Verde), etc. At midnight, nobody seemed to notice or care that it was officially 2009, so I said “Happy New Year” to myself and kept dancing. I took a break to make a phone call, and then stayed until like 2am. It’s not a beach in Sierra Leone, but it’ll do.

Otherwise, it’s been a lot of the same old. My kitten is bigger, and he’s more adventurous with exploring now (he ventures as far as the hospital now, even while unsupervised). I’ve decided he’s probably big enough to maybe not get picked off by an eagle, so I’m less nervous about him wandering out of where I can keep an eye on him. I need to figure out a way to get him fish on a regular basis though, I could walk to the bridge in the morning and buy it from the fishermen like all the village women do, but I’m lazy and rarely awake much less properly dressed to walk outside that early in the day. I’m tempted to ask my host mom to just buy a couple extra fish and I’ll pay her for them, but haven’t yet.

Alright, well, I think that’s good for now, I’m gonna go swim and maybe treat myself to a fancy meal at the restaurant in honor of the New Year, then bike back home.