We packed all of our stuff onto the Land Cruiser and this time it fit a lot easier without John’s stuff. Then we went to see the Prefet. It is a different Prefet than the one we met at site visit, so he’s only been the Prefet for like 2 weeks or something like that. His outfit was really cool and he seemed like a nice guy. He kinda resembles Laurence Fishburne. Then we went to the gendarmerie and met with the head honchos there, who said they would go talk to the fou (crazy dude) that has been bothering John. Then I bought Kola nuts (culturally appropriate to give to your officials and the elders when you move in) and we were on our way.
The drive on the road from John’s site to my site is not fun, it’s like a neverending amusement park ride. Like, it is a Hummer commercial but it goes on for hours. Actually today it went really fast! We think it only took like 45 min using the Land Cruiser and it takes an hour and a half to two hours using a bush taxi, including the part where you have to get out and walk down/up a mountain (which we didn’t have to do in the Land Cruiser). This could be because bush taxis are Peugeots from the 70s (no joke) and a Land Cruiser is meant to drive on that kind of terrain.
When I arrived my Sous Prefet Bangoura was happy to see me, clapping as he and the President of the CRD walked towards me. He took me to his office to officially sign me in as a resident of my village.
Then we went to my house. Honestly, it isn’t as bad as I remember it being, and there is a nice latrine built just outside my back/side door that has a cover over the toilette and everything (this was a very welcome aspect as Julie told me a story about two of her puppies falling down her latrine and having to listen to them for three days before they finally died – I don’t want that to happen to Yogi so having the cover over the hole is GREAT). It has a nice stick and leaf fence around it that is like 7 feet tall which is a good height (petites can’t look over it). At night the stars are brilliant overhead.
The President of my village's CRD, my Regional Coordinator Daffe, me, Sous Prefet Bangoura:
I asked to have a couple of things done including fixing the front door so it closes properly (which got done within the hour as the dude who does that stuff just happened by on his moto and we called him over). A carpenter got started on putting a gate on the entrance to my fence to keep animals out of my yard. Just today there were a ton of cows and a couple goats who ventured into my enclosure to look for food. It will be good to have the gate so that I can have a garden. I have a huge yard that some planting would do good for, but water is far and that will be difficult during the dry season. I also asked them to point me in the right direction of a carpenter who can make me a screen door and screens that open for my windows. I have the actual grillage, but I need someone to make the frames and put them on.
So after all the pomp and circumstance, the Peace Corps car pulled away and left me alone (I did not have the famous urge to run after it, but I took a photo anyway):
Then I set to the task of cleaning. No one has really lived in this house for a long time so it is pretty filthy. I am so glad I bought a broom at that Leb store in Kamsar. It has already gotten a ton of use. Oh AND the kitchen towels. In fact I wish I had more. One has turned into the Yogi pee towel (I use it every time he pees on the floor which is several times a day…trying to train him to go outside!!). After awhile Mamadou and Nene showed up with water on their heads which was awesome because there was plenty to be done with it! Nene actually mopped all my floors including the porch (by mopped I mean used a towel and scrubbed with her hands) and when Hoodia came over she cleaned my bidons (big yellow jugs that used to hold vegetable oil that everyone uses to hold water, in my case, drinking water from the pump), which was awesome!
People would stop by to say hello, I had no idea who most of them were and still don’t. When they would see me doing something, they would take away the cloth or the broom and do it themselves but in all honesty I was being VERY thorough and eventually it just got to be annoying, but hey it’s the thought that counts!!
Late in the day SP Bangoura sent a dude off on his moto to get me two bidons of pump water and Nene brought my other small bidon back with pump water when she was done studying for school. So I have enough drinking water to last for awhile. While we were waiting for him to arrive back at my house, I started going around my yard picking up trash and putting it into the burn circle to eventually be burned once I make my way through the whole yard. Hoodia was looking at me like I was crazy and all I kept saying was, “C’est pas jolie! C’est pas jolie pour ma maison!” In Guinea there is trash everywhere and there is rarely an effort or desire to clean it up.
Once we had used up the water Nene and Mamadou brought from the well, Hoodia, Nene and I ventured down to this other water source. It’s not the pump, it’s not the well, it’s this pipe that just constantly spews water from a concrete block. But it’s pretty clean water, the villagers drink it straight from the pipe so I think it’s somewhere between well and pump water. There were women down there bathing their kids, washing dishes and laundry and filling buckets and bidons to take home. We filled two buckets and one petite bucket that I was planning to carry but Hoodia only let me get like 10 feet up the hill before she took it away (there is this big dangerous path up this hill through the woods that you have to traverse to get to said water source, I have NO idea how the women get up and down that balancing a bucket on their head, baby on their back and stuff in their hands. Unbelievable!). She only let me carry it another 20 feet once we got to the flat path before taking it away again. I mean, I could have carried it (I had it on my head but had to also balance it with my hands), but it wasn’t easy and it was a small bucket! The buckets they were carrying were twice as big. The conclusion I’ve come to is that I am not going to be able to get my own water, which makes me feel pretty useless. But I figure I can give some young girl a job fetching me water daily for a couple mil and some bonbons. Maybe Hoodia or Nene or maybe any of the other thousand petites in my village.
No comments:
Post a Comment