My Chicken

Speaking of my chicken I think I just heard her sqwawk like she was being attacked and when I opened the door she was gone and my gate was open. I hope somebody didn’t steal her. That would be mean.

That night: As I was sitting on my porch, talking with Crazy, Ousmane II and Alpha Conakry, relating my early morning fears (hadn’t heard from Meryl all day and she had not tried to come home even though it was an hour or two past the time she had been coming home), Crazy said, “Hey, Meryl!” And pointed at the gate. Sure enough she was up there preening. I hastily took Yogi inside and put him in the bedroom but before I was even able to walk back out on the porch she was coming to the door and my friends were calling, “stay there! She’s coming in!” But I had to open the screen door so that’s what I did and then she just marched inside, way easier than any of the past ten days. I was amazed and grateful that my chicken came back. I mean, she’s just a chicken. And she poops A LOT…but she’s my chicken. She’s part of the family. Just like Jimminy (the cricket who lives by the door and sings every night) and Barry, the dog who’s about Yogi’s age that comes by to play (read: hump) every couple of days, and the mouse (forgot what I named her but saw her the other night! And this morning at 5am she knocked over a pot and scared the daylights out of me as I was dreaming about eating pizza [now plotting to kill mouse for pizza offense]). One time a frog squeezed under one of the locked rooms’ doors and there have been a fair amount of lizards who have found their way in but I don’t name them because I typically only see them once.

Which brings me to my other houseguest, the suspected bushrat! So one time when I went out to my latrine there was a GIANT rat out there who scurried up the palm frond enclosure and paused at the top, it’s foot-and-a-half-long tail trailing over the side. He only left when I threw a rock at him. Then there were peculiar animal droppings near the corner of my enclosure, which had been broken by termites and strong wind (yay for rain!). It’s not super broken, Yogi hasn’t even tried to get out that way, but something smaller than Yogi could get in and out. Like a giant rat.

He keeps leaving droppings that look like black beans right in the spot where I bathe and yesterday when I was fixing to go out there I opened the door and heard a scuffle, Yogi ran out and apparently just sniffed him and then he hurried around the enclosure. At the time I was too scared to jump out there like Yogi but kicked myself for a long time afterward for not getting a glimpse of the animal who had just left a fresh pile of droppings in my shower area.

I am going to give him an unpleasant name because I dont like him.

Washing Machines

Last night I dreamed of a washing machine. Do you people over there in the US realize how freaking AWESOME washing machines are? You can stuff it full, pour some soap in it, if it’s not yours put a dollar in it and YOUR CLOTHES ARE CLEAN 30 MINUTES LATER! And THEN you can put them in a DRYER and 45 minutes later they are DRY and CRISP and WARM and ready to wear! I am fairly sure the vast majority of you reading this have always taken your washing machine for granted. DO NOT. It is a mistake. The washing machine is one of the greatest inventions known to man. And to think that at one time in my life having to “wash my clothes” was an event worthy of foregoing a night on the town or other event. BULLSHIT! With a washing machine, and a dryer…THAT IS NOT A USE FOR AN ENTIRE SUNDAY MORNING FOLKS! NO MORE EXCUSES! GO TO CHURCH OR SOMETHING (or at least Sunday brunch…with mimosas made with fresh squeezed orange juice…and eggs…with cheese, fresh mushrooms, bell peppers, tomatoes…and MorningStar farms veggie sausages…). Is my recent train of thought that has been snaking back to life in the US showing? Like a neon sign? Let’s cut the power (we don’t have any here, anyway…)

This morning I went to get rice and sauce, like I do every morning at precisely 8am. If I go after 8am, she could be sold out. And even if she’s not sold out it won’t be super hot after 8am and Allah knows I love my rice and sauce toasty. So it’s sweet potato leaf sauce. Not my favorite, but I was expecting it as yesterday was peanut sauce, the day before manioc leaf sauce and I believe the day before that was peanut sauce. My sauce preferences as of the moment are as such: manioc leaf sauce (mafe hakko bantara), peanut sauce (mafe tiga), a tie between maganye (eggplant sauce) and sweet potato leaf sauce (mafe hakko pute), and wallowing at the very bottom, soup sauce (mafe soup). I would say my rice lady (who is now my rice lady’s sister since my rice lady is off giving birth in Conakry) has peanut sauce 40% of the time. Manioc leaf sauce 20% of the time and the other 40% is split between the others. I wish it was 60% manioc leaf sauce and 40% peanut but hey man that’s life.

ANYWAY. My homologue Mr. Diallo had said yesterday that he has malaria. Don’t freak out. They say EVERYTHING is malaria here. If you don’t feel good, want to sleep all day and maybe have a fever, it’s malaria. So today I see him on my way to get my rice and I say, “ca va la sante?” (how’s the health) and he says “ca va en peu” (it goes a little). On my way BACK from rice, he waves me down and walks up and asks if I would like to come work at the pepiniere today. Now, I am halfway through Harry Potter 6 and itching to finish the series but I realize that, you know, planting trees is my JOB, so I say yeah what time? He says now. I look at my rice and say, “Well, I’ve gotta eat NOW…” So he says afterwards come to his house and we’ll take the moto down to the pepiniere (3k or so) and plant a bunch of Gmelina. I say ok. I get home and look longingly at Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I eat as much sweet potato leaf sauce as I have piment (hot pepper) for (bless my rice lady’s sister, she always gives me a full piment! Piment makes rice and sauce 10x better!) and give Yogi his breakfast (sweet potato leaf sauce and rice) and almost grudgingly put everything inside, shove Yogi in the house (he fights), grab my motorcycle helmet and trudge over to Mr. Diallo’s house.

It’s not exactly his house. He has a room in this house. Rama has one of the other rooms. There are 2-4 more rooms occupied by other people but I don’t know. The building is pretty much next door to my house.

Have I mentioned that when I go by my house after coming from somewhere else and I look at it as a villager I would think the following: my garden is pathetic, what a HUGE house for one person, why hasn’t she cut back her yard (no lawn mower, dude!!), why is her back window open when she isn’t there (because if I did that Yogi would be in complete darkness when I am away and there’s not much to steal through the grate on that window, anyway), and her porch is messy. I am a poor excuse for a Guinean.

At any rate, we go down to the pepiniere and on the short moto ride I am once again reminded that when I get back to the States I’ll probably want a motorcycle. And the moto trip through West Africa we’ve been talking about as a Close-of-Service trip seems more awesome every day.

Anyway. We’re working at the pepiniere. Mr. Diallo says that the groupement planted their gmelina direct seeds too close together so they are not getting big enough and fusing (I think that’s what he said). He says we are going to make our own little field near the entrance and show people how it’s done (“they’ll know it was people of the forest who did this!!”). So we start working. He’s doing all the hard work and looking at his gaunt frame I think, “that dude does not need to be burning any more calories than he already is”, but I know he won’t let me do it mostly because when I try to do it it’s laughable so I don’t try except for a brief five minutes where I take up the coup-coup and try to start cutting 2 foot tall weeds and he calls over, “I’m going to do that!” So I content myself by sowing all the seeds. This is done by squatting and nearly breaking your ankles after a few hours, putting 2 seeds side by side about 2 inches from the last pair. Through six troughs per bed. For six beds (we still have 4 more to do). I am almost hoping we’ll content ourselves after 2 beds. No way. After 3 beds he asks if we should stop or do one more. I’m like what the hell, let’s do one more! So we do and he asks if we should do one MORE and I’m like what the hell! All I’ve got on my planner today is Harry Potter so let’s plant these seeds! I am saying this wearily cause my tummy’s growling. He decides to make 2 more beds instead of one to round it out at 6 and I faithfully seed them, squatting on my haunches.

After we finally finish the sixth bed, he seems really happy. Exceptionally happy for thinking he has malaria. So I think it’s worth it because he is really happy, though I have no idea what we’re going to do with these trees once they grow. I mean I assume we are going to plant them somewhere but he has not enlightened me as to where.

So when we finish he looks at his watch and says “we’ve worked until 11:09!” And in my head I’m like “WHAT? That’s it? We got here at 8:30!” So I get home and I do a bunch of chores, clean up after my chicken, wash dishes, rinse buckets, finally take a bath in which I wash my hair (long time coming!) and when I get back to the living room, finally ready to crack back open my HP thinking it can’t be later than 12:30ish, I look at the watch and it says it’s 4pm. I think my watch must have been crushed by my water bottle in my bag and has reset itself so I turn on my village-unusable cell phone as the only other clock I have and it says the same thing and I’m like, “No wonder my stomach is screaming at me!!” Either I misunderstood Mr. Diallo or his watch is way off.

So feeling thoroughly productive I crack open Harry Potter and don’t get too far until Hoodia comes over. Hoodia strictly speaks only Pular, I actually don’t know if she has ever been to school a day in her life, but we actually manage to communicate many things, including what’s in my garden, that there’s a mango tree growing out of my compost pile, that Yogi is way too excitable, the reactions to Yogi of all the kids at the Sous Prefet’s house (she is his cousin), that she has not yet found a husband (who’s rushing her? I think she’s 16) and that I like her shirt. Universal sign language, my friends. It works. As do my 25 words in Pular (I have no idea how many words I know but it is woeful considering I was installed almost 6 months ago.

Anyway it was a long and productive day. And Yogi didn’t even pee in the house even though I was gone for 6 hours. MIRACLES HAPPEN!

…but I still want a washing machine.

Guineans and Sex

So tonight I had a rather illuminating conversation with a friend of mine.

It all starts when I ask if there’s a marriage going on (heard singing) and he says yes and I say why the heck haven’t I been invited to a marriage? And he says he’ll invite me to the next one. Then we start to discuss the ages at which people marry here, and he says that it is not uncommon for a 12 year old girl to marry a 50 year old man. And I say this is not good because girls that age are not ready to have kids and whatnot. He basically says, “if there’s grass on the field, play ball.” I explain that while her TUMMY might be ready for babies, her HEAD isn’t. “Ca c’est vrai” he says.

We start to talk about excision. I say it’s not good. It’s bad for women’s health, bad for birth and bad for sex. I ask why Guineans excise women. He says because if they are not excised, they’re sluts, basically. He says he has had sex with both excised women and non-excised women. He says he prefers the non-excised women (whom he claims are all Christians from the Forest region) because they are happy to have sex. Excised women, he says, cry during sex, and afterwards tell you not to touch them. I want to cry just sitting there on my porch.

I spend an hour trying to make him (and another friend who happened by, at this point) understand that, “if non-excised women AND excised women BOTH have sex outside of marriage, why excise?” They come to the realization that it’s pointless after mounting the argument that excised women have to be forced into sex before marriage (and after, really) and non-excised women don’t, they want to do it. I say, “but they are both still having sex before marriage, n’est pas?” A look of comprehension finally dawns on their faces. They condemn excision.

I push further and ask why it’s ok for him to have sex outside of marriage but not for women. He says, “because I’m a man!” DUH. I tell him he is no better than a woman and that everyone is equal.

Multiple wives. I am trying to explain why having multiple wives and ridiculous numbers of children are one of the main causes of poverty. While this message eventually gets through, one thing they both insist on is that there are way more women in the world than men and it is necessary for men to marry more than one. I tell them this is absolutely not true and throw out a figure I think I heard once: 51% of the population are female while 49% are male. They say it is more like 60-40. I ask them where they heard this. They say the teachers tell them this at school.

I explain that there are people in the United States that don’t have sex until marriage. Already knowing that we typically don’t get married until 20 or later, he says, “you mean there are virgin women who are 20??” And I say, “of course. Men too.” His mouth drops in an expression of utter disbelief. He says you can’t tell whether or not a man has ever had sex. I tell him in the States there is no reason to lie about NOT having had sex. Men only lie about HAVING had sex. He asks why people, 20 years old, would never have had sex. I say some of them are religious and do it because the bible or the Koran or their religious leader said so. Others because their parents might kill them (not literally), others because they don’t want to do it before marriage and still others who can’t find anyone to have sex with them. At this last group, he balks. “Oumou!” he says, “aren’t there prostitutes???” I choke on my popcorn and it takes me a good five minutes to recover. Then it takes another ten minutes to get across the idea that in the States, it is not cool to sleep with prostitutes, as it is here. If someone sleeps with prostitutes in the States, they don’t talk about it. And a prostitute is a lousy way to lose your virginity, anyway. I try to explain the concept of love. They don’t really understand that here. Here you marry for money or kids or because your parents tell you to. Marrying for love is completely foreign.

Then he hits me with the real bombshell. “Well, can’t they just force a woman to have sex with them?” I realize that when he told me that he didn’t know ANYONE under 20 who was a virgin it was because half of them were rapists. I ask him if his friends have forced women to have sex with them. He says, “of course.” I don’t have the heart to ask if HE has, afraid to know the answer. I tell him that is illegal in the States and if you do it you go to jail. He asks if that’s true even if the woman is your wife. I say yes. He is flabbergasted.

I am depressed.

Expedition

So Ousmane II tells me he wants to take me on a “petite expedition” and after my last journey up a mountain I’m like, whatever, bring it on.

So this time I wear proper shoes: Keens way better than Chacos for hiking, take note!! Even though I am in a sour mood when he comes to pick me up in the morning (he is late, and I hate that, and I am starting to get into my Harry Potter book and resent the interruption), it turns out to be a good day.

We walk for a long time down the road until we get to a fluorescent green patch and then veer off toward the mountain. I’m already knowing we are going to climb the mountain and this time I’m prepared, what with my Keens and my camera. We walk through rice fields, saluer-ing everyone out there working and get to the foot of the mountain, where all the big boulders are. We start to climb. The views are freaking spectacular. I make a mental note to take any visitors from America up here.

We climb for awhile, resting on rock benches every now and again. Ousmane II keeps asking me if I’m tired and while I may be WINDED, I’m not tired, and we push on. During one of our rests, looking out onto the valley below containing rice fields, then trees and mountains beyond, he confesses he did not think I would even make it to here, let alone keep going. I’m thinking…is this because I’m white or because I’ve got a few extra pounds on me?

So we keep going and we get past the bouldery region and enter the forest. And I’m thinking we’ve already seen the spectacular views, where are we going? So we forge on for awhile and after a long time I finally say, “ok, I admit it, I’m tired”. And he’s like, “let’s go back.” So we take 3 or 4 steps to go back and he’s like “yeah I was going to take you to the end of the mountain where you can look off the edge and it’s like waaaaaaah!” And I stop dead in my tracks and I’m like…”well, how much farther IS it?” because I am interested in this. He says, “it’s far. We’ll do it next time.” I relent, but then curse myself all the way down the mountain because I know it would have been really cool to stand at the apex of the mountain and scream out onto the valley. Still kicking myself right now. However, we did go to the cliff face, which runs all along the mountain and inch to the edge and fearfully look down. As Ousmane II said, “it would be really bad if you fell out here.” Cause, you know…there’s not even a hospital, let alone a mountain rescue squad.

After a three and a half hour expedition, we get back to his house and eat rice and manioc leaf sauce, then sit around drinking attaya for awhile with some neighborhood males.

For living in the capital and having been all the way through school, Ousmane II still seems to know shockingly little about the world and still has a wide-eyed innocence about him when I explain things, even though he is 23 years old.

We talk about airplane travel and he asks how long it takes to get to the States via airplane from Africa, thinking it took between 1-3 hours. His first guess is 3 hours. When I look at him like he’s crazy he says, “2 hours? 1 hour?” And I say, “It took 24 hours to get from NYC to Guinea when I came here” and his jaw drops. Granted, not all of that was actual flight time, but c’est ca.

Then I start telling him that there are satellite phones on airplanes and you can call people with them. He is floored. I don’t even bother to explain the TVs in every seat where every person can choose their own movie. For free. That might make his head explode.

He keeps remarking, “eh, les blancs!” or, “oh, white people!” And I tell him, “it’s not just white people, in America we have black people, Asian people, Indian people, latin people…all religions, all nationalities…” I tell him there are plenty of black people who have invented stuff and get caught off-guard when he disbelievingly says, “like what?” I was kind of shocked that my brain came up with nothing. In my defense I can only name like 5 inventors, one of whom is Thomas Edison, all of whom ancient and, incidentally, white. But luckily a sort of educated older dude who was there having attaya with us (who I think may have actually been to America but at least has definitely been on an airplane) came to my rescue and said, “DUH, there are black Americans! They invent stuff, too!” And I say, “there are black Englishmen, black Germans, black everything, not just Americans and not just Africans.” And then we launch into the discussion about how in America, if you are a citizen, you are an American. It doesn’t matter where you originally came from, if you’re an American, you’re an American. Everyone in America comes from somewhere different except the American Indian. Which launches a whole discussion about American Indians and what languages they speak.

I probably have my most productive discussions with Ousmane II, including one where I tried to explain homosexuality, surrogate mothers and in vitro fertilization. His reaction to all this new information can be summed up by one thing he said once, “la vie est grand!” or…life is big.

It sure is.

Schools Out For Summer

Saturday night and I’m in bed before 8:30. Yogi is not happy, whining, creating pagaille in the room. He still has lots of energy and wants to stay up and run around. But I have a cold and I think lots of sleep will do me some good. And I’m the Alpha dog so he just needs to calm down and accept it.

Having a chicken is not as easy as they made it sound. She poops more than any other animal on the planet, I swear. I don’t know how she comes up with that much poop from the two handfuls of rice she eats a day. Also, she is on a thirst strike. I haven’t seen her drink water at all. But I leave a small bowl of it where she can reach it all the time so maybe she is not so dumb not to drink if she is thirsty. She is uncomfortable so she bobbles around half the day trying to get comfortable, complaining. I can’t freaking wait to let her outside. Then we’ll see if she comes home or not. I’m going to make her a little nest on the porch so I don’t have to keep her inside nor have to worry about her when I am away, like at girls’ conference in two weeks.

So I had planned to spend the whole day on the couch, nursing my cold, but around noon I decided to go and saluer the Sous Prefet and family. Then I heard music coming from the school and remembered I had been invited to the “fermature” of the primary school. Now, when I was invited, he made a motion like he was locking a door, which led me to believe that we were literally just going to close the school and I was like, “why am I being invited to this?” No, it’s more like a closing CEREMONY complete with all the kids years 1-5, parents, friends, teachers and officials. I guess it’s a good thing I showed up because they had me on the list of officials to announce. So I had to give a little wave when the MC announced “la femme du Corps du la Paix, Oumou Diallo”. I was NOT properly dressed. I was wearing a dirty tank top and a pair of long shorts the tailor made for me and plastic flip flops. At least the shorts were made of Guinean fabric? Never make the mistake of thinking you can go somewhere and just hang out in the back and act casual. Cause it never happens.

So after a bunch of waiting and speeches and kids going to the microphone and doing recitations (this is how they learn here…they are made to memorize several series of phrases in French consisting of introducing themselves and their parents, saying where they go to school, etc, etc, etc), they line all the kids up and start to read off each kid’s name. Now, it’s not in random order or alphabetical order, it is in the exact order of how well they did on the three yearly compositions. So, kid with the highest average is read first and so on until the kid who did most poorly sheepishly walks by the table of officials including me, the CRD, the director of the Koranic school (I think), some dude from the Gendarmerie (cops), the district representative, the DPE (Prefectoral education director) and the DSPE (Sous Prefectoral education director). Then all the kids yell at kids who are still standing on the other side of the mango trees. Maybe those are the kids who REALLY didnt do well who don’t get their names read. I think of what this would be like in America. I think people would be outraged because in the US we put such an emphasis on self esteem and not hurting people’s feelings even if the plain truth is, you did the worst on your exams.

Parents and family friends give some of the kids money as they do their walk of fame (or shame) and each kid is expected to put 1 mille franc in a basket at the officials table. I ask the DSPE what the money in the basket is for. He says something about the teachers contract not being fulfilled and basically the money goes to pay for the taxis to take the teachers back to where they are from. Because lots of teachers don’t actually live where they teach and go home to their families for the vacance. Why they don’t just move to where their job is like we do in America is beyond me. They have to be here from October to July, seems worth it.

After observing this whole ceremony for awhile I decide I want to give money to the top girl in each class. Unfortunately I did not decide this until the last class, the 5th, was being announced. And then the top girl was, like, 13th. Of maybe 40 or so. She looked confused when I handed her 2 mille. Other kids who were getting money would only get 1 mille per donor so I wanted to show that the top girl was important so I doubled the cadeau. I asked the DSPE to show me the top girls from the other 4 classes at the end but it turned into a pagaille and Nene came up and said “allonsi” so my goodwill gesture of trying in a small way to encourage girls to stay in/do well in school was thwarted. Next year.

So if you ever wondered how integral rice is to life here, here’s a little slice: the kids learn a song that they sang multiple times during this ceremony and a bit of it goes like this: “When I’m hungry I eat the rice. When I’m thirsty I drink the water.” What else are they going to drink? There’s no milk (well, there would be if they’d milk the cows but they don’t do that), sodas are way too expensive and that’s pretty much all we got. Although occasionally a kid will earn 500 francs and go buy a Jolly Jus packet (kinda like a Kool-Aid packet) and flavor their water. I also like how they say THE rice. It’s like that time in training when Yarie said she was going to do the cooking that day and I said, “what are you going to make?” and she looked at me like I was an idiot and said, “the rice!!”

On the Sous Prefet changement front, Mr. Bangoura arrived back from Conakry yesterday evening. He told me that when he told the Prefet he was being changed, the Prefet was like, “no! You are my best Sous Prefet! I told them not to do that!” And then suggested a way Mr. Bangoura might keep his job. And if Mr. Bangoura WEREN’T such a decent Sous Prefet he might have gone that road but he didn’t, dude’s got principles. Unlike some others who are keeping their jobs. So they are moving to Conakry. Which is one of the better places they could move, for me, because it means I can see them when I am in Conakry for my quarterly visits. It’s better than, like, Boke. Where I never plan to be.

He also said the guy coming to replace him is a good guy but I don’t know how well he knows him and I wouldn’t put it past Mr. Bangoura to say nothing but nice things so the community gives the guy a fighting chance. Nene came by my house today and said that people have been coming over to the SPs house all day to cry. Including me.

C’est la vie.

Meet Meryl

Today I became the proud owner of my first chicken. She’s white. I named her Meryl. I received her from my friend Nouhan, who gives me rides to and from the bigger city to the South for free in his SUV. When he was giving it to me (he bought it in my town today as we were having market day today), he said it was because I had said I wanted eggs last time he brought me home and then he told me to prepare the chicken well like an American would but I wasn’t sure if he meant the chicken or her eggs. I can’t kill a chicken and I got attached to her once I named her Meryl (it just happened, I wasn’t consciously trying to think up a name, hell I didn’t even know if I was going to keep her!), so I am gonna keep her for her eggs. Which apparently she will start to produce in my house after 3-4 weeks.

So here’s how you acclimate a pet chicken: tie their feet together so they can’t run off. Put them in your house for three days, you know, until they start to sympathize with their captors. Give them a handful of rice in the morning and a handful of rice at night, followed by water. After 3 days, put them outside. They will come back every night around 6pm. If she doesn’t come back it means she is shacking up with a rooster and you have to go find her. She sleeps in the house. The end.

Right now she is in an old USPS Flat Rate box which once contained awesome items from the States. She occasionally complains and flaps around but for the most part is quiet. She does not like Yogi. Yogi wants to sniff her all the time but as long as she is not running around squawking, he isn’t trying to bite her. Now, I need to create a house for Meryl outside. Not because I would mind having her in the house, but she probably won’t want to stay in the house with Yogi and I also leave once a month and she wouldn’t be able to get inside while I’m gone. So, outdoor house it is. Tomorrow I have to ask around about how exactly to construct such a thing (I know they exist, lots of people have them).

Today the Sous Prefet’s family put most of their belongings on a transport truck to be taken away, including five 50 kilo rice sacks of dried manioc. The SP still has not returned from Conakry but is supposed to get here tomorrow. I am really sad they will be leaving for good on Saturday. I took pictures of them today and gave them the presents I bought them in Labe, which went over really well.

Madame Bangoura is sad to be leaving but I can tell from what she says that she is starting to warm to the idea of moving to a big city like Conakry, where she can talk on the phone, watch TV, visit friends, go to soccer matches at the stadium, go to a half a dozen different markets, etc… She remarked how in our village she just sits on the porch and watches the day go by. I told her in English we call it “people watching”. I told her I would come and do it with her all day tomorrow since it will be my last chance.

Today I realized that she is one of only three women who speak French in my village. There’s her, Madame Fofana (whom I already wrote has left for Kindia and it is not known if she shall return) and Rama. Rama works for an NGO and isn’t in town more than half the month, usually less. The matron, Oumou, speaks a little French but it is very limited, where as I could converse freely with Madame Bangoura and Madame Fofana.

This lights a fire under my butt to start studying my Pular because who wants to talk to dudes all the time?

Anyway it feels like everybody’s leaving, many for good and some just for the vacance but basically what I’m left with is a rather dull summer. Guess that frees me up to study my Pular.

Bad Week

So as I was coming back to site yesterday a dude at a barrage (the barrages are back, not sure exactly why, but they are, and at one, one of the guys actually asked me and John if we supported the CNDD, to which we refused to respond) told me that the Sous Prefet’s son (Mamadou) broke his arm in two places on Friday (he fell out of a tree) and the SP took him to Conakry. He also told me my dog died but then said he was just joking. I did not find it funny.

Then at John’s site his friends told me that all of the Sous Prefets are changing and that there will be a new one in my village and he will be from the Forest region and no one thinks he speaks Pular. Which makes a load of sense, n’est pas? I mean what effective governor speaks the language of their community? ::drips with sarcasm::

So I am sad because it means the SP and his family will be leaving my village. I mean, I realize that there are a lot of SPs in Guinea who are less than liked and I’m sure there are some that are corrupt or never do anything, but Mr. Bangoura is not one of those Sous Prefets. The entire community likes him, he does stuff, he is not corrupt, he is fair and a very nice guy. Everyone here is happy with him but regardless, he will be going away. It sucks big time for me.

I have also been told that Madame Fofana at the health center might not be coming back (which really sucks because I was going to use her as my counterpart to help distribute the mosquito nets I should be getting from Project Palu). Before I left for the fourth of July party in Labe she told me she was going to Kindia for a month, where her family lives, but that she would be coming back. Now I am being told that her volunteer contract with the health center is up and no one knows if she is coming back or not.

In fact the only good news I’ve gotten lately is that my friend Ousmane told me today that he told his family he wanted to do the 10th grade here instead of Conakry so that he can be my friend. He will still have to leave next summer to do 11th through Terminal somewhere else, but it will be nice to have him for the next school year when I want to do a lot of stuff at the school (pepiniere, vegetable garden, World Map Project, English classes, etc…).

Today he was here and hinting that he still needs some money for the taxi to Conakry where he is going to spend the vacance. He said he already had thirty mille but needs 50 for the taxi and really wants to get 60 so that he can eat. This seems reasonable. He wants to leave Thursday so I told him if he didn’t have to go to the fields tomorrow he could come work here and I would give him the rest of his transport money. It’s double the day rate for workers (which is 15 mille), but he is my friend and I am able to give it to him so I’m going to.

We are going to clear/cut back the weeds in my yard to discourage snakes, build a support system out of bamboo for my beans, line the other side of my path with mud bricks that are just sitting in my yard, make a platform out of mud bricks to put my buckets when it rains to collect water, repair a couple of holes in the fence where the goats are getting in, transplant my vegetable seedlings, plant the rest of my moringa seeds in sachets, attempt to deal with the erosion problem in my garden and maybe get a bunch of gliricidia leaves to mix into my dirt. Basically there is lots to do and tomorrow will be a busy day. He will earn his keep. He’s supposed to show up at 9am.

Today he also told me I got fat over the weekend, which means I must have done my fair share of eating and drinking. But hey, that’s what Fourth of July is for, n’est pas?