Well today I did as planned and went with Alysun to his plantation. What I didn’t know was that it would turn into a five-hour mountain-traversing excursion.
So here’s how it happened. He showed up at my house an hour late (9am), par for the course in Guinea. I told him he was late and he said he had slept in (meaning he missed the 6am first prayer which my friend Ousmane claims he is ALWAYS up for). Then Yogi escaped. And ran straight to the Sous Prefet’s house, where I managed to catch him. The SP’s house is where he stayed for the two weeks I was in Conakry/Haute, and I have taken him there a few times but I still found it funny that he knew his way there and just went straight up to the kids to start playing. Mr. SP was not annoyed. I think he was actually amused. So I caught him.
And carried him all the way back to my house, enduring all the “is that your baby?” and “where is his cord?” comments the whole way, to which I just responded the noncommittal “mm-hmm”.
So we finally got on our way. We stopped by Alpha’s house to get a bag and then walked to the fields with Alpha and my friend the Secretaire (who took me to the reseau spot that one time but whom I haven’t seen a lot of since). The two of them eventually broke off at their fields and we kept going. I didn’t think it would be that much farther BUT IT WAS. So we get to the foot of the mountain, one of the beautiful, sheer-faced mountains that surround my village and we start going up it. Like, the boulder-y part. And I’m thinking, “where are we going? We are supposed to be going to a fruit tree plantation.” So we keep going. And going. And going. Into “vrai” (real) African jungle. And the whole time I’m thinking, “I’m just INVITING a snake to come bite me” (did I mention there was a snake at my house the other day that the nice dude who owns the boutique at the carrefour by my house came, saw it and said “tu as le raison” and killed it with my hoe? No? Well it happened.), as I push branches aside and step in places I can’t see. And nearly fall down embankments off the foot-wide path we are following. He is in front of me with a coup-coup (kind of like a machete with a hooked end), cutting branches and vines and clearing the way through what they call “le foret” but I call the African jungle, or bush.
After what seems like forever we finally get to a stream and he says, “here we are!” and I look around and there are about 20 banana trees and I am thinking this guy is kind of a lunatic to come all the way out here for 20 banana trees he could plant a million other places (he later tells me he cannot abandon this land which is not only the banana trees but also a literal mountainside of bush land his father [deceased] used to plant with rice, because it was claimed by “le vieux” [an old person] so it would be disrespectful not to continue. I asked why his father picked that land and he didn’t seem to know.) So we harvest some bananas and little piments (hot peppers) and he shows me a few orange and avocado tree seedlings and then he says we will descend the other way.
Which was much harder than the ascent. I slipped and fell at least 50 times in total and have all the scratches, bruises and broken pinky toe to prove it (Ousmane says my toe isn’t broken because if it was it would flop around and it just has a nasty bruise on it and hurts so apparently it’s not broken). I also got my clean clothes dirty and aggravated my infected toe (right next to my “broken” toe). Basically I was not prepared for this expedition into the bush, thinking this “plantation” was closer to the fields.
Anyway, after slipping and sliding down the mountain for over an hour (and heroically biting back the frustrated tears that DESPERATELY wanted to come), we get to more level ground and walk through some MORE fields where he points out all his different family members working their plots, explains he wants to plant more fruit trees here, eats some weird paste-looking dish I haven’t seen before (sans invitacion) at his older sister’s plot (whose kid cries and screams at the sight of my white skin), then takes me to his house to deposit the bananas and clean his shoes (at this point we have been voyaging for 4-4.5 hours). After this we FINALLY set off to go back to my house. I was relieved to get home.
I did get some green bananas out of it (which tomorrow I will turn into banana chips) and also got to see some absolutely brilliant (pissed I didn’t bring my camera) views of the mountains, my village and the fields (basically all the countryside surrounding my [what from up there looked pitifully tiny] village). I’ll have to go up there again but I’ll do it when I have a visitor and am prepared for hiking (hear that, dad???).
Thoroughly exhausted and relishing sleep I bid you goodnight.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Project Number One
So I have gotten the ball rolling for my first project. It is not an AgFo project, but rather a health project, but I believe it is important for the people of my village to have access to clean water.
The pump that had been working since I got here broke a few weeks ago, leaving my village center, a Sous Prefecture, without access to clean, drinkable water. This doesn’t mean TOO much to me personally, because I have a fancy filter and bleach and I could drink well water if I had to using those but people here don’t have filters and most of them don’t know that bleaching their water will help (or using Sur-Eau – which is basically bleach – a product donated by Unicef and PSI and says right on the bottle “NOT FOR SALE. GIVEN FREELY.” [in French] but is inevitably boofed and sold at 3 mille a bottle or about 60 cents, which can still be too much for a family here trying make ends meet and living on a dollar a day, as many do in Africa).
Anyway, in total there are three broken pumps in my village and one new one being built at the mosque, but as my friend Amadou said, once it’s finished it will be broken very soon since it will be the only working pump. And who knows when it will be finished as it is. The closest working pump is in a smaller village that is “far” (I have heard 2.5 – 5 kilometers, which is too far for the average family to go, carrying it on their head). And, like the future mosque pump, will be broken soon due to all the demand.
Anyway, the other three pumps are not completely broken, they are reparable but what my Sous Prefet said is that the NGOs that built those pumps did what lots of NGOs do and said here’s your pump, if it breaks it’s up to the community to fix it, but then did not train anyone in the community how to fix it nor suggest a system of collecting money from pump-users to use to repair it (non-sustainable development YAHOO!), so when it breaks, it stays broken. And this is after putting in a $10-20 THOUSAND dollar investment PER PUMP. Ooh it makes me so mad!
Anyway then he told me that the community says it should be the government who pays to repair the pumps, even though they don’t BELONG to the government, they belong to the community, so no one pays for repairs and as I said before, pumps stay broken, people drink water from the river and are confused as to why they are always sick and grandma dies.
Which brings me to my project. Peace Corps has a funded project program called Peace Corps Partnership Program which, once I have written a proposal and budget and had it approved by my APCD (WOOO ABDOUL!), I can put on the internet and tell all my family and friends to go make a tax-deductible donation. And groups like Friends of Guinea (made up of Guinea RPCVs and friends/family) and any stranger, really, who has a few bucks to send to help people have drinkable water in Africa. Once I have gotten all the money pledged, the project closes and eventually the money shows up in my in-country bank account. I then use it to fix pumps.
Here’s the catch. In order to do a funded project, the community has to give 25% of the cost either in cash or in-kind donations like material and labor. So this is what I told my Sous Prefet. I said, if this is something the community wants, we can fix all three pumps, they just have to come up with 25% of the budget. He said he would bring it up to the President of the CRD and seemed excited about the prospect. Apparently the dude who would do the fixing lives in the bigger city to the South so he would have to come up and do the estimate. And I will bring up the idea of training someone IN MY VILLAGE to do simple repairs. And maybe sensibilizing the community about how NOT to break the pump. Or have someone who does all the pumping all day, paid for by a small fee per bidon (this is the system in a lot of places), who knows how not to break the pump. Hey look I just created jobs! (now I’m a Small Enterprise Development volunteer TOO!)
So anyway. If the community really wants this, they will get the guy up here to do the estimate and show me how they can give 25% of the cost. And then I will write the proposal. And maybe we will once again have clean water. Inshallah.
I call this my first project unless you want to count my other, unintended project: when I was first getting my yard ready for planting, the petites would help me collect all the trash out of it and they got it in their head somehow that I wanted old rusty nails and pieces of metal wherever they could find it. So inevitably kids come by my house about 10 times a day with handfuls of this stuff expecting bon-bons (candy or gum). Sometimes I give it to them, other times I don’t. I don’t really want all these rusty metal pieces but came to think of it as such: it’s better than them all sitting in the ground waiting for a barefooted kid (as they all are more often than not) to step on it and end up with tetanus. So there you go. Health project #2.
Plus my hand washing sensibilizations. I put a poster on my door that I got from Unicef that espouses the joys of washing your hands with soap, especially in the following circumstances: before cooking, before eating, before breastfeeding, after using the latrine and after cleaning your baby’s butt cause they pooped everywhere (“nettoyage anal du l’enfant”). Everyone that comes to my house reads the poster (complete with pictures, more effective) over and over again and I make people wash their hands with soap after working in the garden (another important time to wash with soap as there is animal feces all over the place). Health Project #3.
Other health-related activities: sensibilizing my friends that malaria comes ONLY from mosquitoes (you can’t get it from eating raw mangoes or getting wet from the rain), AIDS facts (can only get it from contact with blood or sex – can’t get it from mosquitoes or shaking hands or hugging. But then Crazy asked me if you can get it from using the same razor to shave your head. And I was like ooh…good question. Because if the razor nicks the person with AIDS and gets blood on it, yeah, so I wouldn’t take the risk of using the same razor [they use straight razor blades] but didn’t want to scare him either – hey another reason not to leave your used razor blades on the ground [as if little kids putting them in their mouths wasn’t enough]), the wonderfulness of condom use (“You know what’s cheap? Prudence [the local brand of condoms, sold for NO MORE than mille franc for three or about 20 cents, Crazy said he thought they were cent franc each which is, like, 2 cents]. You know what’s expensive? AIDS.”)
As far as AgFo projects? I got my counterpart really intersted in promoting Moringa, showed about 7 people how to fill Coyah (water) sachets for a pepiniere and how to find good soil to put in them (under a tree. Leaf litter = good, dark soil), did organic fertilizer (Gliricidia leaves) with about 7 people (who all thought I was crazy…”you’re going to rip up leaves and mix them into your soil? WHY? You could just use chemical fertilizer!”), and occasionally work with a groupement doing a big pepiniere for reforestation (but they pretty much know what they’re doing and don’t really need my help, thanks to the last volunteer!). What I really hope to get done at the end of my two years is plant a bunch of Moringa in public places (and in peoples’ yards) and show people how to use it and why it is important. If that’s all I get done, I’ll be happy. I am afraid I have already ruined my credibility, though, because due to extenuating circumstances I did not get my garden up and running early enough and now have the most pathetic garden in town. Plus I planted a bunch of sort of “experimental” stuff, some of which is not working out. So it looks like I don’t know what I’m doing. Seriously.
Every time I feel kind of useless and like I’m not doing anything/nothing is happening, I should refer back to this entry.
The pump that had been working since I got here broke a few weeks ago, leaving my village center, a Sous Prefecture, without access to clean, drinkable water. This doesn’t mean TOO much to me personally, because I have a fancy filter and bleach and I could drink well water if I had to using those but people here don’t have filters and most of them don’t know that bleaching their water will help (or using Sur-Eau – which is basically bleach – a product donated by Unicef and PSI and says right on the bottle “NOT FOR SALE. GIVEN FREELY.” [in French] but is inevitably boofed and sold at 3 mille a bottle or about 60 cents, which can still be too much for a family here trying make ends meet and living on a dollar a day, as many do in Africa).
Anyway, in total there are three broken pumps in my village and one new one being built at the mosque, but as my friend Amadou said, once it’s finished it will be broken very soon since it will be the only working pump. And who knows when it will be finished as it is. The closest working pump is in a smaller village that is “far” (I have heard 2.5 – 5 kilometers, which is too far for the average family to go, carrying it on their head). And, like the future mosque pump, will be broken soon due to all the demand.
Anyway, the other three pumps are not completely broken, they are reparable but what my Sous Prefet said is that the NGOs that built those pumps did what lots of NGOs do and said here’s your pump, if it breaks it’s up to the community to fix it, but then did not train anyone in the community how to fix it nor suggest a system of collecting money from pump-users to use to repair it (non-sustainable development YAHOO!), so when it breaks, it stays broken. And this is after putting in a $10-20 THOUSAND dollar investment PER PUMP. Ooh it makes me so mad!
Anyway then he told me that the community says it should be the government who pays to repair the pumps, even though they don’t BELONG to the government, they belong to the community, so no one pays for repairs and as I said before, pumps stay broken, people drink water from the river and are confused as to why they are always sick and grandma dies.
Which brings me to my project. Peace Corps has a funded project program called Peace Corps Partnership Program which, once I have written a proposal and budget and had it approved by my APCD (WOOO ABDOUL!), I can put on the internet and tell all my family and friends to go make a tax-deductible donation. And groups like Friends of Guinea (made up of Guinea RPCVs and friends/family) and any stranger, really, who has a few bucks to send to help people have drinkable water in Africa. Once I have gotten all the money pledged, the project closes and eventually the money shows up in my in-country bank account. I then use it to fix pumps.
Here’s the catch. In order to do a funded project, the community has to give 25% of the cost either in cash or in-kind donations like material and labor. So this is what I told my Sous Prefet. I said, if this is something the community wants, we can fix all three pumps, they just have to come up with 25% of the budget. He said he would bring it up to the President of the CRD and seemed excited about the prospect. Apparently the dude who would do the fixing lives in the bigger city to the South so he would have to come up and do the estimate. And I will bring up the idea of training someone IN MY VILLAGE to do simple repairs. And maybe sensibilizing the community about how NOT to break the pump. Or have someone who does all the pumping all day, paid for by a small fee per bidon (this is the system in a lot of places), who knows how not to break the pump. Hey look I just created jobs! (now I’m a Small Enterprise Development volunteer TOO!)
So anyway. If the community really wants this, they will get the guy up here to do the estimate and show me how they can give 25% of the cost. And then I will write the proposal. And maybe we will once again have clean water. Inshallah.
I call this my first project unless you want to count my other, unintended project: when I was first getting my yard ready for planting, the petites would help me collect all the trash out of it and they got it in their head somehow that I wanted old rusty nails and pieces of metal wherever they could find it. So inevitably kids come by my house about 10 times a day with handfuls of this stuff expecting bon-bons (candy or gum). Sometimes I give it to them, other times I don’t. I don’t really want all these rusty metal pieces but came to think of it as such: it’s better than them all sitting in the ground waiting for a barefooted kid (as they all are more often than not) to step on it and end up with tetanus. So there you go. Health project #2.
Plus my hand washing sensibilizations. I put a poster on my door that I got from Unicef that espouses the joys of washing your hands with soap, especially in the following circumstances: before cooking, before eating, before breastfeeding, after using the latrine and after cleaning your baby’s butt cause they pooped everywhere (“nettoyage anal du l’enfant”). Everyone that comes to my house reads the poster (complete with pictures, more effective) over and over again and I make people wash their hands with soap after working in the garden (another important time to wash with soap as there is animal feces all over the place). Health Project #3.
Other health-related activities: sensibilizing my friends that malaria comes ONLY from mosquitoes (you can’t get it from eating raw mangoes or getting wet from the rain), AIDS facts (can only get it from contact with blood or sex – can’t get it from mosquitoes or shaking hands or hugging. But then Crazy asked me if you can get it from using the same razor to shave your head. And I was like ooh…good question. Because if the razor nicks the person with AIDS and gets blood on it, yeah, so I wouldn’t take the risk of using the same razor [they use straight razor blades] but didn’t want to scare him either – hey another reason not to leave your used razor blades on the ground [as if little kids putting them in their mouths wasn’t enough]), the wonderfulness of condom use (“You know what’s cheap? Prudence [the local brand of condoms, sold for NO MORE than mille franc for three or about 20 cents, Crazy said he thought they were cent franc each which is, like, 2 cents]. You know what’s expensive? AIDS.”)
As far as AgFo projects? I got my counterpart really intersted in promoting Moringa, showed about 7 people how to fill Coyah (water) sachets for a pepiniere and how to find good soil to put in them (under a tree. Leaf litter = good, dark soil), did organic fertilizer (Gliricidia leaves) with about 7 people (who all thought I was crazy…”you’re going to rip up leaves and mix them into your soil? WHY? You could just use chemical fertilizer!”), and occasionally work with a groupement doing a big pepiniere for reforestation (but they pretty much know what they’re doing and don’t really need my help, thanks to the last volunteer!). What I really hope to get done at the end of my two years is plant a bunch of Moringa in public places (and in peoples’ yards) and show people how to use it and why it is important. If that’s all I get done, I’ll be happy. I am afraid I have already ruined my credibility, though, because due to extenuating circumstances I did not get my garden up and running early enough and now have the most pathetic garden in town. Plus I planted a bunch of sort of “experimental” stuff, some of which is not working out. So it looks like I don’t know what I’m doing. Seriously.
Every time I feel kind of useless and like I’m not doing anything/nothing is happening, I should refer back to this entry.
Monday, June 22, 2009
The Perfect Package
For all of you out there just dying to send me a package (sic), here is what the perfect package would include:
-Sargento colby jack cheese sticks (believe it or not, these make it and are AWESOME with eggs)
-Knorr (formerly Lipton) Sides w/Veggies
-Taco Bell/Del Taco sauce packets
-Fun-size 3 Musketeers, Milky Way & Butterfinger bars (thanks again Megan!!)
-A couple of magazines
-Pictures of you/family/friends/places
-A cute (sleeveless or short-sleeved) shirt (size M)
-Bumble Bee Tuna Individual Size Pouches
-New Music on CD
-Emergen-C/Crystal Light
-Jiffy Pop popcorn pans
-Stuff for my walls
-A new movie or TV on DVD
-Shaving cream (Barbasol is fine)
-Doggie shampoo
-Doggie treats/toys
-Indian food boil-in-bag pouches (esp. Palak Paneer, Jaipur Vegetables, Mattar Paneer)
-Letters
-Simple clothes catalog (J. Crew, Delia’s, etc… the tailors here can copy anything from a picture, especially cute dresses)
-Reach flosser cartridges
-Secret Clinical Strength Anti-Perspirant
-Chapstick (no SPF please! Unless it’s Carmex Click Stick SPF 15)
-Ziploc Bags (Good quality, Ziploc brand is actually best. The ones with the little plastic piece that you “zip” open and closed with are even better because they don’t wear out as easy. You can wrap all this other stuff up in them!)
-Mini-bar size bottles of liquor
-Batteries
-Surprises!
-Oh and some Chipotle burritos with extra sour cream would be awesome . See if you can work that out!
Things I need only one of:
-Dog training book
-Gorilla tape (maybe 2 of these – stronger than duct tape)
-Two Ears of Corn (book)
-Travel-size bottles for shampoo and whatnot
-Thick-strapped (no spaghetti straps) tank tops with built-in bras (check the sports section of Target – would like 3 or 4)
-Good set of small silver (or stainless steel or white gold) hoop earrings (the ones my dad sent one fell out somewhere so I only have one now, but they were perfect!)
-Heartgard/Frontline (for dogs)
-Physician’s Formula Blemish Healing Concealer (one shade darker than Fair Light)
-Prevention Insect Bite Relief spray
-Long shorts (below knees) made of light, loose sweatpant material (like goucho pants – would like 2-3 of these)
-Unscented shampoo (JASON makes a good one)
-Echinacea/Elderberry immune system supplements
-Phos Flur fluoride mouthwash
-A couple of travel-size toothpastes
My Guinean friends have requested:
-Sports Illustrated/other sports magazines especially featuring soccer
-Good-quality soccer jerseys (especially USA or Barcelona)
-Big box of crayons
-Non-chocolate individual-size candies (runts, nerds, sweet tarts, little skittles packets, stuff like that)
Things I don’t need any more of:
-Floss (though I would take Reach flosser cartridges cause they make life easy)
-Soap (including Dr. B’s)
-Toothpaste
-Laughing Cow cheese (we can get that here although only in original flavor so the swiss variety was cool to get but if you’re gonna send cheese go for the cheese sticks mentioned above!)
-Cheese powder
-Cinnamon
-Sunblock
-Hand sanitizer
-Vitamins
-Wipes (baby, antibacterial)
-Body lotion
-Hairties
-Sargento colby jack cheese sticks (believe it or not, these make it and are AWESOME with eggs)
-Knorr (formerly Lipton) Sides w/Veggies
-Taco Bell/Del Taco sauce packets
-Fun-size 3 Musketeers, Milky Way & Butterfinger bars (thanks again Megan!!)
-A couple of magazines
-Pictures of you/family/friends/places
-A cute (sleeveless or short-sleeved) shirt (size M)
-Bumble Bee Tuna Individual Size Pouches
-New Music on CD
-Emergen-C/Crystal Light
-Jiffy Pop popcorn pans
-Stuff for my walls
-A new movie or TV on DVD
-Shaving cream (Barbasol is fine)
-Doggie shampoo
-Doggie treats/toys
-Indian food boil-in-bag pouches (esp. Palak Paneer, Jaipur Vegetables, Mattar Paneer)
-Letters
-Simple clothes catalog (J. Crew, Delia’s, etc… the tailors here can copy anything from a picture, especially cute dresses)
-Reach flosser cartridges
-Secret Clinical Strength Anti-Perspirant
-Chapstick (no SPF please! Unless it’s Carmex Click Stick SPF 15)
-Ziploc Bags (Good quality, Ziploc brand is actually best. The ones with the little plastic piece that you “zip” open and closed with are even better because they don’t wear out as easy. You can wrap all this other stuff up in them!)
-Mini-bar size bottles of liquor
-Batteries
-Surprises!
-Oh and some Chipotle burritos with extra sour cream would be awesome . See if you can work that out!
Things I need only one of:
-Dog training book
-Gorilla tape (maybe 2 of these – stronger than duct tape)
-Two Ears of Corn (book)
-Travel-size bottles for shampoo and whatnot
-Thick-strapped (no spaghetti straps) tank tops with built-in bras (check the sports section of Target – would like 3 or 4)
-Good set of small silver (or stainless steel or white gold) hoop earrings (the ones my dad sent one fell out somewhere so I only have one now, but they were perfect!)
-Heartgard/Frontline (for dogs)
-Physician’s Formula Blemish Healing Concealer (one shade darker than Fair Light)
-Prevention Insect Bite Relief spray
-Long shorts (below knees) made of light, loose sweatpant material (like goucho pants – would like 2-3 of these)
-Unscented shampoo (JASON makes a good one)
-Echinacea/Elderberry immune system supplements
-Phos Flur fluoride mouthwash
-A couple of travel-size toothpastes
My Guinean friends have requested:
-Sports Illustrated/other sports magazines especially featuring soccer
-Good-quality soccer jerseys (especially USA or Barcelona)
-Big box of crayons
-Non-chocolate individual-size candies (runts, nerds, sweet tarts, little skittles packets, stuff like that)
Things I don’t need any more of:
-Floss (though I would take Reach flosser cartridges cause they make life easy)
-Soap (including Dr. B’s)
-Toothpaste
-Laughing Cow cheese (we can get that here although only in original flavor so the swiss variety was cool to get but if you’re gonna send cheese go for the cheese sticks mentioned above!)
-Cheese powder
-Cinnamon
-Sunblock
-Hand sanitizer
-Vitamins
-Wipes (baby, antibacterial)
-Body lotion
-Hairties
Saturday, June 20, 2009
First "Invitacion"...and my toe's gonna fall off
There is something really wrong with my toe. It’s the second one from the left on my left foot. I started to notice it hurting when I was fixing to leave Conakry a week ago and thought it was just that my nails were getting long so I cut my toenails. But then it just continued to get worse. It is now big, red, swollen, with white blisters and pain. Sometimes it’s hard to walk. It oozes a pus-y substance. It’s gross. People keep telling me to go to the hospital, where I can get a “medicament” (medicine) but honestly the hospital doesn’t have anything I don’t have in my medical kit and judging from the horror stories I have heard from other volunteers about Guinean medical care, I have decided to self-treat, which has not gone well, obviously. First I tried soaking my foot in bleach water and cleaning it with Beta-Sept (a surgical antiseptic scrub and the thing it appears Traian always tells you to try first about ANYTHING) and a brush, which hurts like hell but gets it clean. So I’ve been doing that, no improvement, keeps getting worse. So then I try putting triple antibiotic (Neosporin) on it at night, does nothing. My counterpart looks at it and says it’s the “champignon” or mushroom/fungus and that I got it from working in my yard in open-toed shoes (which EVERYONE here does, plus it started when I was in Conakry and hadn’t been working in any gardens for two weeks), so I start putting two different anti-fungal creams on it. Does nothing. Doesn’t seem to matter if I wear a band-aid or not. Definitely not getting better. If I weren’t invited to a wedding tomorrow, I would go to Telimele and call Traian but I don’t want to flake on the wedding especially when I don’t know whose wedding it is or the name of the person who invited me to say I can’t go. So if it’s not better Monday (it won’t be), I’m going to Telimele to call Traian and just hoping it’s not a flesh eating bacteria because I hear they send you back to the States for that. Shoot, I don’t even want to have to go to CONAKRY, let alone the States! Cross your fingers for me!
Monster toe aside, tonight I finally had my first “invitacion” to dinner with a family. I have eaten with the Sous Prefet’s family before, only twice “ensemble” and never with my hands, but it hasn’t been like a real “invitacion”. It was with the family of the dude who is my counterpart’s boss, but it wasn’t he who invited me, it was Mamadou Alpha Balde, who is an 11th grade student in Telimele but his family lives here and he was good friends with the last volunteer when she was here. He said he went running with her every day. Too bad I am way too “faible” for that! Anyway he is back in the village on “vacance” from school and had been by my house for a couple of days just talking and eating popcorn (Guineans LOVE it and can’t believe it when I tell them it is just corn and oil. And salt. Wait til I put cheese powder on it. I “invitacion-ed” 5 or 6 boys who were at my house yesterday and they all kept taking handfuls and exclaiming “c’est doux!”). Yesterday I had said that I don’t have a family here like the last volunteer did (she lived in a hut on a family’s compound, like many volunteers), I live alone in my own compound and the closest thing I have to a family is the Sous Prefet’s family. Anyway he said that he would take me to his house and introduce me to his family today. And I was like YAY! So when he came by to get me, Yogi and I went over and sat around and drank “attaya” (a green tea that can take hours to totally finish, men do it a lot here) and ate fresh peanuts that the family farms themselves. There was a goat tied up to a post that had a 2-day old goatlet (I guess in English we call it a “kid”? In Pular it is a “bao hun kun”). The goatlet was super cute but the mom was MEAN and wouldn’t give the goatlet all the milk it wanted. And when the family would flip the goat over and hold it down and try to get the goatlet to suckle, it wouldn’t really do it, only when the goat was standing up like it would normally feed, and that’s when it would kick the goatlet and walk away. Talk about a bad mom!! The second of the two goatlets had already died (might have been stillborn) and if this goat keeps up like this, this one will die too. Soon. (I went back the next day and Alpha told me the baby goat had died because the mom was mean)
Then he wanted to go to the video club to watch the soccer match between Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire and I wanted to transplant my vegetable seedlings so he dropped me off at home and said he’d come get me for dinner.
So I transplanted my seedlings with the help of two of the neighborhood boys (I think they spy on me to see when I start working and then run over to help so I’ll give them lollipops. Smart kids.). So there is now a sunflower, zucchini, yellow zucchini, cucumber, bush beans, scarlet runner (a bean), corn (African, haven’t transplanted the sweet corn yet) and piment (African hot pepper) actually planted in the ground at my house. Lots of stuff never came up out of the “sachets” and the second round I only planted a few days ago so it hasn’t come up yet either.
Anyway then I washed all my dishes and sat on my porch “blague-ing” with Ousmane, this other student who has only recently started coming around and whose name I don’t know, and Ousmane II until Mamadou came to get me and I went to his house for dinner, which is only just down the road, across from the mosque, about a 2-3 minute walk.
So at first he was going to do what everyone does and give me a plastic chair and have me eat inside by myself but while he was getting the chairs I plopped down on an empty stool in the circle of the family, who had been waiting for me to arrive before they ate and said the word “ensemble”. And I think they were all a little surprised. Especially when I refused the spoon and said I wanted to eat with my hands like a Guinean, though I can NOT eat as fast as they do and was the last person finishing my triangle of the big plate. It was an awesome “mafe hakko bantara” (manioc leaf sauce) with fresh piments, just how I like it! And it was burning my fingers as I was eating it was so fresh and piping hot. And I love this family because they are like me and like to eat with A LOT of sauce. Like, more sauce than rice. Praise Allah.
It was the grandma who had made the sauce and I said “al barka” (God bless you) like 50 times and want to turn them into my family. There are a lot of them, including Aisiatou, who is one of two girls in the 10th grade here. I am trying to take her and the other 10th grade girl, Maimouna, to the girls’ conference in Mamou next month. Maimouna already said she could go, so now I have to figure out a way to raise the “community contribution” which is 15 mille per girl (or about $3). I think first thing I will do is ask the CRD (elected community office).
Also Madame Fofana who is a volunteer at the Centre de Sante made me “mafe tiga” (peanut sauce) for lunch today and sent it over with Nene and it was really good (she said she’d make it for me after I gave her my leftover produce before I left town last, which included potatoes, avocadoes and a coconut. I gave it to her because she said she only eats bread because she lives alone here and doesn’t have anything to cook with – her family lives in a big city to the south and her husband sends her money to live on which is why she is a volunteer but she hasn’t sort of “permanentized” her living situation i.e. setting up a “kitchen”). She also included her famous homemade piment sauce which is always a great touch to any plate of rice and sauce. And this morning Safi at the boutique had a pretty good peanut sauce, so when it comes down to it, I actually ate three meals of rice and sauce today. Now THAT’S truly Guinean.
Monster toe aside, tonight I finally had my first “invitacion” to dinner with a family. I have eaten with the Sous Prefet’s family before, only twice “ensemble” and never with my hands, but it hasn’t been like a real “invitacion”. It was with the family of the dude who is my counterpart’s boss, but it wasn’t he who invited me, it was Mamadou Alpha Balde, who is an 11th grade student in Telimele but his family lives here and he was good friends with the last volunteer when she was here. He said he went running with her every day. Too bad I am way too “faible” for that! Anyway he is back in the village on “vacance” from school and had been by my house for a couple of days just talking and eating popcorn (Guineans LOVE it and can’t believe it when I tell them it is just corn and oil. And salt. Wait til I put cheese powder on it. I “invitacion-ed” 5 or 6 boys who were at my house yesterday and they all kept taking handfuls and exclaiming “c’est doux!”). Yesterday I had said that I don’t have a family here like the last volunteer did (she lived in a hut on a family’s compound, like many volunteers), I live alone in my own compound and the closest thing I have to a family is the Sous Prefet’s family. Anyway he said that he would take me to his house and introduce me to his family today. And I was like YAY! So when he came by to get me, Yogi and I went over and sat around and drank “attaya” (a green tea that can take hours to totally finish, men do it a lot here) and ate fresh peanuts that the family farms themselves. There was a goat tied up to a post that had a 2-day old goatlet (I guess in English we call it a “kid”? In Pular it is a “bao hun kun”). The goatlet was super cute but the mom was MEAN and wouldn’t give the goatlet all the milk it wanted. And when the family would flip the goat over and hold it down and try to get the goatlet to suckle, it wouldn’t really do it, only when the goat was standing up like it would normally feed, and that’s when it would kick the goatlet and walk away. Talk about a bad mom!! The second of the two goatlets had already died (might have been stillborn) and if this goat keeps up like this, this one will die too. Soon. (I went back the next day and Alpha told me the baby goat had died because the mom was mean)
Then he wanted to go to the video club to watch the soccer match between Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire and I wanted to transplant my vegetable seedlings so he dropped me off at home and said he’d come get me for dinner.
So I transplanted my seedlings with the help of two of the neighborhood boys (I think they spy on me to see when I start working and then run over to help so I’ll give them lollipops. Smart kids.). So there is now a sunflower, zucchini, yellow zucchini, cucumber, bush beans, scarlet runner (a bean), corn (African, haven’t transplanted the sweet corn yet) and piment (African hot pepper) actually planted in the ground at my house. Lots of stuff never came up out of the “sachets” and the second round I only planted a few days ago so it hasn’t come up yet either.
Anyway then I washed all my dishes and sat on my porch “blague-ing” with Ousmane, this other student who has only recently started coming around and whose name I don’t know, and Ousmane II until Mamadou came to get me and I went to his house for dinner, which is only just down the road, across from the mosque, about a 2-3 minute walk.
So at first he was going to do what everyone does and give me a plastic chair and have me eat inside by myself but while he was getting the chairs I plopped down on an empty stool in the circle of the family, who had been waiting for me to arrive before they ate and said the word “ensemble”. And I think they were all a little surprised. Especially when I refused the spoon and said I wanted to eat with my hands like a Guinean, though I can NOT eat as fast as they do and was the last person finishing my triangle of the big plate. It was an awesome “mafe hakko bantara” (manioc leaf sauce) with fresh piments, just how I like it! And it was burning my fingers as I was eating it was so fresh and piping hot. And I love this family because they are like me and like to eat with A LOT of sauce. Like, more sauce than rice. Praise Allah.
It was the grandma who had made the sauce and I said “al barka” (God bless you) like 50 times and want to turn them into my family. There are a lot of them, including Aisiatou, who is one of two girls in the 10th grade here. I am trying to take her and the other 10th grade girl, Maimouna, to the girls’ conference in Mamou next month. Maimouna already said she could go, so now I have to figure out a way to raise the “community contribution” which is 15 mille per girl (or about $3). I think first thing I will do is ask the CRD (elected community office).
Also Madame Fofana who is a volunteer at the Centre de Sante made me “mafe tiga” (peanut sauce) for lunch today and sent it over with Nene and it was really good (she said she’d make it for me after I gave her my leftover produce before I left town last, which included potatoes, avocadoes and a coconut. I gave it to her because she said she only eats bread because she lives alone here and doesn’t have anything to cook with – her family lives in a big city to the south and her husband sends her money to live on which is why she is a volunteer but she hasn’t sort of “permanentized” her living situation i.e. setting up a “kitchen”). She also included her famous homemade piment sauce which is always a great touch to any plate of rice and sauce. And this morning Safi at the boutique had a pretty good peanut sauce, so when it comes down to it, I actually ate three meals of rice and sauce today. Now THAT’S truly Guinean.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Mary Jane
“Her name was Mary Jane, she sang like Etta James, she came and went so easily, and it’s strange how times have changed, I seen Mary yesterday and she don’t look the same to me…”
Dude. I really enjoy this Shwayze album. I will admit that most of the songs sound the same, but after having seen a couple of episodes of his MTV relaity show “Buzzin’”, named after his first single, he is endearing to me. His persona on the show doesn’t match up to a lot of his lyrics. And his partner, the white dude with the long brown hair…I am just loving it. I GROOVE to this shit and I want to give a CD (can they play CDs?) to the boite to play this stuff on club night (Thursday, Friday, Saturday…). They won’t understand what he’s saying but they can for sure move their bodies to this.
In all honesty, my departure from Hollywood and arrival in Africa is essentially a complete 180. Yes, I believe that everyone in the WORLD is obsessed with celebrity and the jadedness that enters your psyche in Hollywood is something I feel that people who have not lived/worked there can not understand.
When I talked to him, my dad made a rather serious commitment to coming to visit me and ever since then I have fantasized about what it would be like to introduce my dad to Guinea, what he would think of how I live here, how I communicate with people, the f-ing utter beauty of this country. I really hope he is able to come through and visit because it will be WORTH IT. Experiencing Africa at the VRAI village level is something you can never know as a tourist, and it is beautiful, simple, rustic, necessary.
Dude. I really enjoy this Shwayze album. I will admit that most of the songs sound the same, but after having seen a couple of episodes of his MTV relaity show “Buzzin’”, named after his first single, he is endearing to me. His persona on the show doesn’t match up to a lot of his lyrics. And his partner, the white dude with the long brown hair…I am just loving it. I GROOVE to this shit and I want to give a CD (can they play CDs?) to the boite to play this stuff on club night (Thursday, Friday, Saturday…). They won’t understand what he’s saying but they can for sure move their bodies to this.
In all honesty, my departure from Hollywood and arrival in Africa is essentially a complete 180. Yes, I believe that everyone in the WORLD is obsessed with celebrity and the jadedness that enters your psyche in Hollywood is something I feel that people who have not lived/worked there can not understand.
When I talked to him, my dad made a rather serious commitment to coming to visit me and ever since then I have fantasized about what it would be like to introduce my dad to Guinea, what he would think of how I live here, how I communicate with people, the f-ing utter beauty of this country. I really hope he is able to come through and visit because it will be WORTH IT. Experiencing Africa at the VRAI village level is something you can never know as a tourist, and it is beautiful, simple, rustic, necessary.
Monday, June 15, 2009
The Odyssey
That’s what I’ve decided this is. Tonight when I was having my dinner, a light rain falling on my corrugated tin roof, I put on my iPod and flipped nonchalantly to The Killers, an album from my days as a film student at CSULB (Hot Fuss), and remembered suffering the mosh pit that is the floor at the front of the stage at a Killers concert in LA with my friend Jackie, saying “fuck it” after 3-4 songs, allowing ourselves to be pulled out by big burly security guards and stalking to the back of the floor (where it was empty) to dance like idiots where we were sure all the people in the seats in the general vicinity were staring at us either enviously or laughing in cameraderie and both agreed that this would be our last Killers concert unless they came out with an amazing new album.
This past week I was in Conakry, putting together a video for JET (our peer support network), that ended up being a slideshow with a bunch of different volunteers explaining the hardest part about leaving the US, how they felt when they got to Guinea, what got them through training (training is a bitch and nothing like being an actual volunteer), how they felt when PC dropped them off at their site and drove away, things they did to integrate into the community, their favorite thing about their site and their advice to new trainees.
My answers: The hardest part about leaving the US was knowing I was putting my career on hold and knowing I would never have access to refrigerated water or sour cream (FALSE…can have both of those things in Conakry with some effort). When I first got to Guinea I felt like I needed to throw up. And then I did. Repeatedly. Also miserably hot and yet despite it all, kind of peaceful and relieved. The hardest part about living with a host family during training was not knowing what they wanted me to do and not understanding what they were saying to me. The things that got me through training were egg sandwiches at the carrefour, spending evenings at Chey Vicky’s (a bar where you hang out with fellow trainees after dinner), and going to the Bureau (PC base of operations) when I needed to talk or have a little piece of America. Or cry. And mail day. If you don’t get anything it’s really disappointing, direct your friends to my epic mailing guidelines post (linked on Right). When Peace Corps dropped me off at my site and drove away for good, I felt ready. I was happy to be in my own house with my own rules, have all my stuff with me and not in a suitcase, clean the place up and make it what I wanted it to be. I did not have the infamous feeling of wanting to run after the car yelling, “I’m not ready yet!” about which I was almost a little surprised. One thing I did to integrate at my site when I first got here was to only buy one onion a day. Since I cook for myself (don’t really have a family, though the SP’s family would be the closest), I use an onion or two every day for my meals, as it is pretty much the only vegetable readily available (and has Vitamin C!). So I would only buy one a day so that every day I HAD to leave my house and go to the carrefour and buy an onion from my onion lady, who always saluer-ed and was happy to sell me an onion: people saw me and while I might not have been comfortable, I was starting to be part of the community. My favorite thing about my site is that my dog that I got the night before we left training lives here with me . Also that everyone wants to saluer (greet) me and that I live on the carrefour (intersection) so lots of people walk by my house so I can say hello. Also that the lady I buy rice and sauce from every morning (for me and my dog to share) always seems happy to see me. And my onion lady. And my friends Ousmane and Nene. And the Sous Prefet and Madame and his whole family. And that it is ridiclously gorgeous here. If I had any advice for new trainees it would be that training is nothing like being a volunteer, language will come, your host family is really happy to have you, everything will get easier/seem normal with time, you WILL communicate with the States regularly if you make the effort and those pink and white lollipops with the black and white cow-like wrappers are the answer.
Another thing I have recently come to peace with: this is a ridiculously beautiful country. I have found myself thinking that often. Yesterday I was sitting on a transport truck in the late afternoon, trying to make it back to my site by the exact day I said I would (a feat in Guinea) and I was just staring out the open top of the bed, looking at rolling mountains, cliffs, clouds and streaks of sunlight and thinking: what a ridiculously beautiful place I live in. If you are going to come visit Guinea I recommend June. It doesn’t rain constantly, but just enough to make it fucking beautiful here.
The other thing was that when I got home my friend Ousmane said that he and my chauffer friend Emcee had been waiting for me in Telimele that day, KNOWING I was coming back that day and had left merely minutes before I arrived, disappointed. Emcee had told every passenger that the front was reserved for me and both Ousmane and Emcee said “WHEN DID YOU GET THERE??? We were waiting for you!” But of course Ousmane was at the carrefour when I arrived and he came to the truck to take my backpack down for me, then carried it to my house and accompanied me to the Sous Prefet’s house where my dog was beside himself to see me and Madame said Yogi annoyed her “only a little” and insisted on me eating some “mafe hakko” (sauce made from manioc leaves), my third rice and sauce of the day (and it was an awful bush taxi ride, I will say only that), but really I was grateful because it was late and I didn’t want to make dinner but enjoyed half a Milky Way bar I got at a Leb store in Conakry once I got home before I went to bed. During the night it rained HARD and at 2am I had to let my stinky dog in my bed. Today I bathed him in herbal shampoo (send me doggie shampoo, people!) so he can sleep there all night if he wants (put on the new sheets I bought from Paul’s friend at his site in Haute, they are pink and green tie-dyed – c’est jolie!). I also had a dream about eating (no, ordering, I woke up before the eating part) a Chipotle burrito (I went through the whole line and everything, telling them what to put on it, though sour cream was expensive and there was no corn salsa – WTF). It was disappointing not to have dreamed eating it. Zach’s brother brought two Chipotle burritos with him when he came last week (both of which Zach ate) so I recommend doing that if you come visit me. It doesn’t need refrigerating. Apparently nothing does (learned this living in Guinea).
All in all, basically I am saying life is good here, I have figured almost everything out. It took six months. Now I need to start actually doing projects. Which is an exciting yet daunting idea. MORINGA AND ORGANIC FERTILIZER!!!!
Hold on, Africa. You’re about to have a lot of trees planted in you! ;)
This past week I was in Conakry, putting together a video for JET (our peer support network), that ended up being a slideshow with a bunch of different volunteers explaining the hardest part about leaving the US, how they felt when they got to Guinea, what got them through training (training is a bitch and nothing like being an actual volunteer), how they felt when PC dropped them off at their site and drove away, things they did to integrate into the community, their favorite thing about their site and their advice to new trainees.
My answers: The hardest part about leaving the US was knowing I was putting my career on hold and knowing I would never have access to refrigerated water or sour cream (FALSE…can have both of those things in Conakry with some effort). When I first got to Guinea I felt like I needed to throw up. And then I did. Repeatedly. Also miserably hot and yet despite it all, kind of peaceful and relieved. The hardest part about living with a host family during training was not knowing what they wanted me to do and not understanding what they were saying to me. The things that got me through training were egg sandwiches at the carrefour, spending evenings at Chey Vicky’s (a bar where you hang out with fellow trainees after dinner), and going to the Bureau (PC base of operations) when I needed to talk or have a little piece of America. Or cry. And mail day. If you don’t get anything it’s really disappointing, direct your friends to my epic mailing guidelines post (linked on Right). When Peace Corps dropped me off at my site and drove away for good, I felt ready. I was happy to be in my own house with my own rules, have all my stuff with me and not in a suitcase, clean the place up and make it what I wanted it to be. I did not have the infamous feeling of wanting to run after the car yelling, “I’m not ready yet!” about which I was almost a little surprised. One thing I did to integrate at my site when I first got here was to only buy one onion a day. Since I cook for myself (don’t really have a family, though the SP’s family would be the closest), I use an onion or two every day for my meals, as it is pretty much the only vegetable readily available (and has Vitamin C!). So I would only buy one a day so that every day I HAD to leave my house and go to the carrefour and buy an onion from my onion lady, who always saluer-ed and was happy to sell me an onion: people saw me and while I might not have been comfortable, I was starting to be part of the community. My favorite thing about my site is that my dog that I got the night before we left training lives here with me . Also that everyone wants to saluer (greet) me and that I live on the carrefour (intersection) so lots of people walk by my house so I can say hello. Also that the lady I buy rice and sauce from every morning (for me and my dog to share) always seems happy to see me. And my onion lady. And my friends Ousmane and Nene. And the Sous Prefet and Madame and his whole family. And that it is ridiclously gorgeous here. If I had any advice for new trainees it would be that training is nothing like being a volunteer, language will come, your host family is really happy to have you, everything will get easier/seem normal with time, you WILL communicate with the States regularly if you make the effort and those pink and white lollipops with the black and white cow-like wrappers are the answer.
Another thing I have recently come to peace with: this is a ridiculously beautiful country. I have found myself thinking that often. Yesterday I was sitting on a transport truck in the late afternoon, trying to make it back to my site by the exact day I said I would (a feat in Guinea) and I was just staring out the open top of the bed, looking at rolling mountains, cliffs, clouds and streaks of sunlight and thinking: what a ridiculously beautiful place I live in. If you are going to come visit Guinea I recommend June. It doesn’t rain constantly, but just enough to make it fucking beautiful here.
The other thing was that when I got home my friend Ousmane said that he and my chauffer friend Emcee had been waiting for me in Telimele that day, KNOWING I was coming back that day and had left merely minutes before I arrived, disappointed. Emcee had told every passenger that the front was reserved for me and both Ousmane and Emcee said “WHEN DID YOU GET THERE??? We were waiting for you!” But of course Ousmane was at the carrefour when I arrived and he came to the truck to take my backpack down for me, then carried it to my house and accompanied me to the Sous Prefet’s house where my dog was beside himself to see me and Madame said Yogi annoyed her “only a little” and insisted on me eating some “mafe hakko” (sauce made from manioc leaves), my third rice and sauce of the day (and it was an awful bush taxi ride, I will say only that), but really I was grateful because it was late and I didn’t want to make dinner but enjoyed half a Milky Way bar I got at a Leb store in Conakry once I got home before I went to bed. During the night it rained HARD and at 2am I had to let my stinky dog in my bed. Today I bathed him in herbal shampoo (send me doggie shampoo, people!) so he can sleep there all night if he wants (put on the new sheets I bought from Paul’s friend at his site in Haute, they are pink and green tie-dyed – c’est jolie!). I also had a dream about eating (no, ordering, I woke up before the eating part) a Chipotle burrito (I went through the whole line and everything, telling them what to put on it, though sour cream was expensive and there was no corn salsa – WTF). It was disappointing not to have dreamed eating it. Zach’s brother brought two Chipotle burritos with him when he came last week (both of which Zach ate) so I recommend doing that if you come visit me. It doesn’t need refrigerating. Apparently nothing does (learned this living in Guinea).
All in all, basically I am saying life is good here, I have figured almost everything out. It took six months. Now I need to start actually doing projects. Which is an exciting yet daunting idea. MORINGA AND ORGANIC FERTILIZER!!!!
Hold on, Africa. You’re about to have a lot of trees planted in you! ;)
Monday, June 8, 2009
RIP Pagaille
So at IST Ian's cat Pagaille (it means "chaos" in French) just dropped dead out of nowhere. It was really weird and really sad (for me, anyway). So here is my tribute to Pagaille and his death.
Pagaille:
Pagaille surveys the damage the dogs made in my and Jake's room hours before he was found dead:
Pagaille dead and wrapped in his favorite toy, a blue plastic bag:
Ian digging the hole:
Pagaille in the hole:
We planted catnip seeds around it that Danyelle had gotten in the mail. We are awesome AgFo Hoes:
RIP Pagaille:
Yogi will miss you:
Pagaille:
Pagaille surveys the damage the dogs made in my and Jake's room hours before he was found dead:
Pagaille dead and wrapped in his favorite toy, a blue plastic bag:
Ian digging the hole:
Pagaille in the hole:
We planted catnip seeds around it that Danyelle had gotten in the mail. We are awesome AgFo Hoes:
RIP Pagaille:
Yogi will miss you:
My House
So I know you have been wondering what my house looks like, right? Well here you go!
My House:
Living Room:
Bedroom:
Latrine (uh...bathroom for you people in LA):
View from my porch (in the rain):
Me after my first rain bath:
Yogi in our house:
Ugly spider I killed in my house, note size by matchbook reference:
Yogi does not think he is too big for his bed:
My House:
Living Room:
Bedroom:
Latrine (uh...bathroom for you people in LA):
View from my porch (in the rain):
Me after my first rain bath:
Yogi in our house:
Ugly spider I killed in my house, note size by matchbook reference:
Yogi does not think he is too big for his bed:
Saturday, June 6, 2009
First Trip to Haute
Well…Western Haute, anyway. I am here at Paul’s site in Western Haute Guinea (eastern Guinea, which borders Mali, Cote D’Ivoire and Liberia). We got here by taking the mail run yesterday which was a LONG drive, but a good road so not too bad. I got to see Corinna’s site which was nice even though she is moving houses.
My first impression of Haute was that it isn’t much different from the rest of Guinea. It isn’t unbearably hot, no hotter than it is at my site, really, but in it’s defense we are entering rainy season so the sun is not at the height of strength right now, as it is in April and May. However on closer inspection there were some differences I noticed: a lot more huts and a lot more flat ground. That’s not to say there aren’t mountains in the distance, there are, but there is a lot of flat land around that is not overgrown with greenery like it is in Basse Cote and Fouta.
Today I was able to see Alison (G16), Ben (G16), Sacha (G17) and Nick’s (G15) sites. All but Nick live in huts and Sacha has this awesome 360 degree mural she has been painting on the inside walls of her hut.
My first impression of Haute was that it isn’t much different from the rest of Guinea. It isn’t unbearably hot, no hotter than it is at my site, really, but in it’s defense we are entering rainy season so the sun is not at the height of strength right now, as it is in April and May. However on closer inspection there were some differences I noticed: a lot more huts and a lot more flat ground. That’s not to say there aren’t mountains in the distance, there are, but there is a lot of flat land around that is not overgrown with greenery like it is in Basse Cote and Fouta.
Today I was able to see Alison (G16), Ben (G16), Sacha (G17) and Nick’s (G15) sites. All but Nick live in huts and Sacha has this awesome 360 degree mural she has been painting on the inside walls of her hut.
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