Green Beans

You know what are awesome? Green beans. Also, potable water.

So all the beans in my garden look the same. One started to rot so I picked them all. There were about 10-15 of them. I boiled them. Then I put salt on them and ate them. There appear to be at least two different kinds. One has a tougher pod and bigger beans and the other is like a green bean. I planted green beans, scarlet runner, and bush beans, that I can remember.

GREEN BEANS ARE AWESOME! I wished I had more. I don’t think I’ve had that much protein or that many vitamins in weeks. My body is still tingling!

Speaking of my garden, while I was gone at girls conference cows got into my yard. They ate all my corn. Even my sweet corn. I am kind of sad about this. They trampled some of my hot peppers. However they did not eat my hot peppers, sunflowers, tomatoes, zucchini, squash or beans. Just the corn. And I have a HUGE cucumber out there and a good sized yellow summer squash. I did not harvest them today because I don’t know when I will eat them yet.

I am thinking I will harvest the summer squash tomorrow and saute it with onions and garlic and enjoy it with my last remaining Bumble Bee Salmon Steak pouch (send me fish, people!! I got this one from Kate!) and maybe boil a couple of potatoes too. That’s a nice American meal. I was able to get potatoes really cheap in Mamou! The only thing that stinks is transporting them. I gave some of them to Ousmane Iis family because they watched Yogi all week while I was gone.

I (well, Corinna) also bought a whole crate of eggs (30) from the chicken farm by ENATEF in Mamou. It cost 20 mille or 4 dollars. So I now have a crate to bring eggs back and forth with. And 30 eggs to eat. Although one broke in transport and one Yogi just pulled out the crate and broke it so he got to eat it (I have now put the crate out of his reach). I figure they will last maybe 2 weeks or so before I eat them all. Did you know that from the time an egg comes out of the chicken, it’s good for 2 months (non-refrigerated) if you don’t get it wet? You can test this by putting your egg in a cup of water. If it sinks, eat it, if it floats, don’t eat it. However, don’t test all your eggs right when you get them cause if you get them wet you have to eat them the next day. I am going through these eggs so fast that I think I will start buying 2 crates at a time…60 eggs, 3-4 weeks? Is that bad for your health?

So on to potable water. Since all of our pumps are broken, I have started drinking rain water. Les Stroud drinks rain water straight on Survivorman so I figure I should be good, right? Well, here is the system: when it rains, catch water in buckets from streams coming off the corrugated tin roof:














Pour water into bidons using a funnel made out of a plastic bottle top, filtered through a bandana (this removes a lot of sediment):


















Put twice the amount of Sur-Eau (basically bleach) in it than is recommended:

















Let sit at least 30 minutes. Put recommended amount of bleach in top of Peace Corps-issued water filter:

















Fill with water:














Wait 30 minutes. Drink. So far it’s been fine. I figure it can’t be worse than river water, right (and that’s basically my only other option). Water filters are awesome. It’s no wonder people here are sick all the time when they don’t have pumps, let alone filters.

The idea of sticking a glass under a tap and drinking the water that comes out baffles my mind at this point.

Night before last I called John in LA on the phone because I was having a mental breakdown and needed to hear voices from the States even if I could only afford 2 minutes. When he answered, he said, “hold on I have to put my Bluetooth in”. I about died. I mean, I’m worrying about finding water to drink and bleaching my apples (which can only be found in Mamou and Conakry). What kind of riot would a Bluetooth wireless piece cause in Africa?

Then I called Leggett and talked to him for two minutes but at this point was out in the hangar and all the girls were standing in a circle, singing and clapping and dancing so I couldn’t hear him too well and I just said, “can you hear them singing?” For some reason I was biting back tears a little bit, I think because from the awkwardness between the girls on the first day of the conference for it to now be them all singing Guinean songs and dancing in a group as though they had known each other forever was inspiring. When I hung up with Leggett I went and joined the dancing. They push you in the middle and watch you dance semi-awkwardly as they sing songs and replace names with your name. I think almost all the volunteers ended up out there at some point and every time a new volunteer would show up, they’d be shoved in the middle and all the girls would cheer.

Life is different here.