Greve

So this morning I went to the health center with Aissatu Bah. She had cut her finger with a knife while cooking the other day and was going to have her dressings changed. Basically, something we as Americans do at home but here there’s no such thing as a basic household first aid kit so the simplest thing like putting some iodine on it and a band-aid (they don’t actually have band-aids here, they tape gauze onto the wound) requires a trip to the health center. They don’t have much there, but they do have iodine and gauze. However they don’t sterilize anything before using it nor do they wash their hands before dressing somebody’s wound and I’m just like – “you’d be better off if I did that for you at my house” but we are not allowed to do that, so…

While we were there she and the doctor told me that a greve started in Conakry yesterday. I think greve literally means “strike”, but it’s more like “people are demonstrating against the government and the government is killing them.” 87 dead since yesterday. The only thing I could get out of anyone is that it has to do with “the opposition”. Really have to try to get BBC News on my radio today. I am sure we are on standfast (first stage of readiness – it means stay at your site or wherever you currently happen to be) right now but I haven’t heard anything and if I still haven’t heard anything by Thursday morning I don’t know if I should go to Paul’s race or not. It’s nowhere near Conakry, it’s in the opposite direction, but if we’re on standfast we are not supposed to travel. I really wish I could make phone calls without going all the way to John’s site. But maybe he will send me a note today or tomorrow to let me know what’s going on. At any rate I am putting my “consolidation” pack in order in case we get the word to start preparing for possible evacuation. Plus a little suitcase of the stuff I’ll want sent to me if we do get evacuated (apparently they will send you a limited weight of stuff if you are evacuated). Mine is mostly fabric/African clothes, jewelry and other small souvenirs. But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

So besides that, Aissatu’s family does not have good luck this week. Not only did Aissatu cut her finger cooking, but Caw Ousmane cut his thumb with his machete out in the fields. Grandma has been vomiting for 2 days. Billo has a HORRIBLE ear infection, I mean there is just crusty discolored gunk all over the outside of his ear. I asked if they had taken him to the health center and they said no. Kid definitely needs antibiotics. Then the other kid (shoot…Ibrahima?) has all these sores all over his shins oozing pus and blood and I was like Aissatu, use the soap I gave you the other day (good antibacterial one), wash that well 3-4 times a day and make the kid wear clean pants. SERIOUSLY. I don’t know if they will do it or not. But basically there are only 3 people in the family who are in good health: Caw Ousmane’s wife Aissatu, his baby Tidiane and Binta (teenager and Aissatu Bah’s sister).

Also my mice are not dead. I just saw one sprint across the living room floor. Yesterday I saw one walking all slow so I thought maybe he was in his death throes but then he saw me and shot off like a rocket. Can’t kill bugs with fumigation, can’t kill mice with rat poison (and they DID eat it), what’s with these African super-creatures? Maybe that’s why they call them “Africanized Bees” cause if they’re impossible to kill, they’re probably Afrca-like.

In other news, I got a really awesome loaf of French bread today. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, just the way I like it!! Wish I knew which baker baked it. YUM.

EDIT: Ok so my friend Bella just gave me the down-low on the greve, which, I looked it up, does mean strike. So apparently what’s going on is that all of the “opposition” candidates (everyone but Dadis – there are like 80) had planned during Ramadan that they wanted to have a demonstration protesting Dadis’ plans to be a candidate on the ballot, which he originally said he would not do. They knew they had to wait until Ramadan was over so they planned it for Sept. 28 which is Guinea’s independence day (when they kicked France out) in the Estade du the 28 de Septembre (Independence Stadium, basically). About a week ago Dadis made his candidacy official. Which fueled the demonstration even more. There were over 50,000 “jeunesse” (youth, though I suspect they weren’t all youths) there. The CNDD did not like this demonstration and told them to disperse. They said no. So the Presidential Guard (Red Berets) went in and made them leave, in the process killing 87 people (and evidently raping women with their guns – this is just what my friend told me). So in response, there is apparently a demonstration in Mamou today (“the intersection of Guinea” – gotta go through there to go almost anywhere) and he thinks they will spread to all the bigger cities, places where we have volunteers (well, I mean, we even have volunteers in Conakry but at least in Conakry they can go to the Bureau which is guarded).

So if this is true and there are going to be demonstrations like this in bigger cities, I am not going to Paul’s race, as I have to go through several big cities to get there. I just hope that John hasn’t left his site yet and that we are on standfast and he has to stay there because if me and Ian don’t have John there to send us messages, we are kind of SOL. Although I guess if it were a real emergency he could call the German couple who live in his city and they could send us a message (they speak English – and French, and German, and probably 2 or 3 other languages =).)

At any rate, I’m getting my “For America” suitcase all ready to go…just in case.