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.