Bad Couple of Days

Ever spilled boiling hot oil on your dog? I accomplished this feat day before yesterday. It’s those damn stoves they gave us. They’re so tilted, it’s not the first time I’ve spilled something on my stove. But this time…Yogi happened to be going through the garbage box under my new table and I was frying some potatoes and it happened so FAST – the pot tilted, I saw Yogi in it’s way, I grabbed for the pot, it spilled on him anyway, he SCREAMED, I finally got hold of the pot, put it on the ground (the only f-ing stable place in the whole house…lord how I miss stainless steel sinks…) and started to run after Yogi, looking for the most accessible water. Which happened to be in a full bucket, with no goblet. So I’m chasing Yogi, yelling for him to stay still, he’s SCREAMING, hauling a 20 liter bucket, trying to dump it on him at every possibility but pretty much only succeed in soaking my house. Eventually I hit him with the water a bit and he realizes it will make the pain subside and I get a goiblet and chase him with THAT (much easier) and manage to finally pour water over all of his burns. I feel like an ASSHOLE. I mean, I sure as shit didn’t do it on purpose, but he still blames me for it. His coat is still oily. I’m sort of waiting for the burns to heal a bit before I wash him with soap.

Insult to injury: melted my rubber spatula because in my haste I threw it on the ground in the pot which then melted it as I chased Yogi. So I’m writing home for another. I use it EVERY day.

But just like a dog, he doesn’t REALLY blame me. Or rather, I should say, he still loves me. Although he has been acting out of the ordinary, but not necessarily when it comes to me. Poor guy.

It hasn’t made him stop rummaging in the trash.

Today I discovered a tiny white bug infestation. By tiny I mean the individual bug. By infestation I mean it is EVERYWHERE, though you have to look close for it. I was so angry earlier. I thought it was coming from the flour in the cupboard, so I took all the food off the second shelf of the cupboard and all the dishes off the bottom shelf. Washed ALL the dishes. Someone on the road told me if all those dishes were just for me, I should share them with everyone else (Oumou Tokara). Then I washed all of the food items. It did not appear to make a difference. When I had let them dry for awhile I looked again and those FUCKING bugs were all over them again. I was so pissed by the time Alysun came around and told me tomorrow I should spray my house with the insect killer and he’d help me wash my clothes at the marigot (“They’re in your clothes now, too, you have to wash all of them”). I feel them crawling all over me. When I tried to make dinner because trying to clean up after them made me too late to go to dinner with my family, they were already all over my freshly washed utensils and dishes. I wanted to cry.

Tomorrow I am going to unleash an entire can of that insect killer on my house (it did a good job down the latrine) and go to the marigot and wash everything I can think of, plus Yogi, because I have to leave it be for like three hours before I can open the door again. I hope I murder them all.

And it just reinforces the need for Tupperware – SEND ME TUPPERWARE PEOPLE!!!!

In the end I think the bugs MIGHT be coming from the Parmesan cheese my mom sent. I mean it has been AWHILE since I opened it. And if that’s the case it means I’ve been eating forkfuls of them in my spaghetti and cheese for a week. Gross.

Mosque

So I had my first mosque experience today. It is the first Friday of the month of Kar’em or Ramadan and last night I told my “family” (closest thing I have to a family here but still not the same as the families of many volunteers ie: I do not live with them) that I would go to the prayer with them today and somebody yelled at me from the road: “Oumou! Allon prier!” I considered for about 2 minutes and then donned my African complet and went to their compound. There were a lot of people there doing their ablutions. I eventually awkwardly did mine with Caw Ousmane watching me and I know I didn’t do it right but maybe Allah thinks it’s the thought that counts?

Then Grandma told me I had to wear a bubu (apparently what I was wearing would not fly at Friday mosque) so I followed her into the bedroom and she gave me a bubu to change into so I did even with little Ibrahima in the room (he’s just a little kid and boobs don’t mean anything here plus I was wearing a bra). Bubus are freaking awesome. They are like wide-armed mumus. Quite comfortable. Then she gave me a big white prayer shawl (apparently she didn’t approve of the shawl I brought even though Fatoumata ended up wearing it to the prayer so I dunno). Anyway I looked like a real African lady walking into the mosque courtyard. We did not go into the actual mosque. I assume it was filled with men. There were a couple rows of men out in the courtyard, too, and the women were lined up behind them, all dressed exactly like me. So thank you grandma!!

It drizzled some and I cursed myself for having left my solar charger out in the latrine because I spent half of mosque just worrying about it getting too wet and breaking.

I think I almost have the prayer movements down but I still don’t know what they murmur during the prayer. Afterwards all kinds of people congratulated me for going to mosque. They all know I am not Muslim but I think they all want to try to convert me and even if they don’t, they appreciate my gesture to understand. I look at it like Teale said, “when else are you going to have an opportunity to live like a Muslim??” But she goes farther than me as she actually lives with a family and fasts with them. I am not fasting. At least not yet. I would do it if I lived with a family and had people to commiserate with. I think it would be hard. In fact I know it would.

Because when I go back over there at sundown and go over to the old lady’s house with the women we do the prayer WAY faster so that they can eat ASAP. So there is “gosi” which is rice with sugar, sour cow milk and apparently peanut butter. And “burie” which is fonio and sugar. And then “toh” which is a manioc mush (I can’t even think of something to compare it to in American cuisine – maybe kind of like a giant gnocchi) swimming in sauce (so far it’s been peanut sauce or boro boro sauce which is a dried leaf derived from what is basically a weed). I honestly don’t mind toh at all. I mean, yeah, rice is a bit better, but I really don’t mind it, especially when the sauce is good. Ian said the same thing. So for those of you possibly headed to West Africa, don’t stress the toh, man…it’ll be ok.

Also, don’t tell Traian, but I eat with my hands. I mean, I KNOW my right hand is clean because I scrub it with soap before I go over and THEY are all eating with their hands so even if I did do the spoon thing, the spoon isn’t any cleaner than my hand and it’s still gonna be eating out of the same bowl as the rest of the hands, so…there you go. Plus it tastes better when you eat it by hand, I’m telling ya.

But if you come visit me I’ll get you a spoon if it weirds you out .

Le Mois de Kar'em

So it’s Ramadan. It started when I was in Conakry over the weekend and when I got back to my village it was in full swing. In fact when I arrived about 8pm Monday night (threw out a leap of faith and went all the way to the gare in the city south of me once we got there from Conakry at about 6pm – which Ian forewent – and found a car going all the way to Ian’s village which could drop me off at mine and silently thanked God for the good luck). We stopped in the only sizeable village between the city and my village just as night had fallen so that people could eat. Not the passengers, really, because if you hadn’t brought food with you, you were SOL. I was just planning to eat when I got home so I was just like, “eat fast”. And then this old lady came running up to the car and asked if everyone who didn’t have food wanted to eat “toh”, which many volunteers describe as snot in slime sauce or something like that. I actually didn’t think it was so bad. The lady even brought me a spoon which I was grateful for because all day a small child had been coughing on my hand in the taxi and I was NOT about to eat with my hand but I had my second toh experience. I don’t mind it at all, really. I mean, it’s different from rice but I don’t think it’s bad at all.

The lady told me next time I come through that village I have to ask for her and she’ll feed me but the taxis never stop there, it’s a drive-through village, but if I ever have the chance I will look for her anyway.

So yesterday I was on my porch talking to Ousmane II about the state of my service in Guinea (it still amazes me the level of maturity and detail I can talk to Ousmane II about) and Caw Ousmane walked by and I told him he needed to invite me to pray and eat dinner with them during the “mois de Kar’em” and he said I could come that night but I already had plans for my dinner so I said I would come tomorrow at 7pm. So today I showed up freshly bathed, in an African complet, ready to go to mosque and eat with the family. Turns out I actually got treated like a WOMAN! Which means I did not get to go to mosque. Instead I navigated my way through a bunch of manioc with the other women to a house I had never seen (it was hidden) where I prayed on a mat with Aissatou and Fatoumatou and this other lady and then we gathered around a bowl of toh with peanut sauce and ate with our hands (I refused the spoon offered as I had recently washed my hands with soap). I am of the belief that “chose” with sauce tastes better when you eat it with your hands. Even though the Peace Corps Medical Unit does not recommend it. Hasn’t made me sick yet.

In fact I have been less sick in the time I have been eating street food and with my hands than I was when I was eating individually prepared plates with my host family during training. I assume my system has adapted.

Anyway after the toh we got the bowl of (shoot I forgot the name AGAIN but it is basically rice and sugar – Gosi), which I also enjoyed with my hand. As soon as we were done I just had time to thank the old lady who had hosted us before we went back to the compound and sat down for some attaya (meticulously brewed green tea). Then I said I had to go buy rice for Yogi at the Carrefour (since I can only buy rice at night now, no one’s there in the morning which means I sleep in until 9 or so). I asked if I could come for prayer and dinner with them every day for the month of Ramadan and they said “of course!”. Then Aissatou walked me home where I got my bowl (in America it would be a pot) and got Yogi rice with peanut sauce and meat – which I may have enjoyed if I wasn’t already stuffed from my evening Ramadan meal.

I wish I lived with a family because then I would fast with them for the month of Kar’em but since I don’t, I can at least impose on Aissatou’s family for prayer and dinner for the month. Still gonna sleep in as long as I want and have an instant oatmeal for breakfast but hey, I’m all alone here.

Pictures

Bromance:














Chicken Farm:














Nachos:




















Yogi:
















I was trying to take a picture of me and Yogi, he was not coooperating:














Yogi keeps petites at the gate:
















Joe's New Facebook Picture:


















Barack Obama - He Touched Everybody:


















In reality I work for National Geographic:


















Alpha:



















Nene:


















Ousmane II:


















Erich's Pants are SWEET:


















Happy Peace Corps Volunteers (Me, Erich, Corrina):














The girls I brought to girl's conference (Maimouna and Aissatou):




















Dance Party at Girls' Conference:















Peace Corps Volunteers are a bunch of thinkers:














I climbed this:

One More Early Night Should Do It

Turning in early for the third night. Started to feel almost normal before I got in bed and didn’t puke at all today so I might be good as new in the morning!

Tonight had another stroke of culinary genius and made skinless potato skins with the REAL cheese my dad sent (FYI Sargento colby jack cheese sticks make it without a problem and since they’re individually wrapped there’s no rush to get through a whole block before it molds). I skinned the potatoes because Traian told us to, even if you’re boiling or frying the potato, and I usually do what Traian says since he’s the doctor. Then I cut them in half and hollowed out the middles of each half. Fried them like french fries. When they were done I put slices of cheese in the middles, put them face down in a frying pan and heated it. Heated it a bit too long because I walked away from the stove to get my camera so the cheese REALLY melted and turned almost to liquid but still tasted fabulous. Only things that would have improved it were salsa and sour cream! Might try to do it again in Conakry where I’ll have salsa and sour cream…and bigger potatoes.

Anything’s possible when you put your mind to it.

Glad I should be back to health tomorrow as I have stuff to do around the house (it’s a wreck…happens when you don’t do any tidying for three days…and have a dog) and have to finish up the beds in the pepiniere with my counterpart (who I think knew I was still sick so didn’t even ask to go today). Going to Conakry Monday for the project review Tuesday-Friday. Then back for 2-3 weeks before I have to go BACK to Conakry for the VAC meeting. But that’s ok, because I don’t think I will have time to do any of my errands during the project review week.

The only thing that REALLY stinks is finding someone to watch my dog. It’s difficult when you don’t live in the same compound with a family, your reliable dog sitter moved away (Sous Prefet), your friends are in Conakry for the vacance, and 75% of the people in your community are afraid of dogs. Can’t wait for Ousmane to come back from Conakry. I’m going to turn him into my dog sitter. I find young guys are good dog sitters because they typically aren’t very afraid of the dog and they have their own sleeping huts so he can sleep inside with them. But that won’t be until after both of these Conakry trips so still have to figure it out. Wish me luck.

Medicament

One thing that drives me CRAZY about Guineans is their absolute love and dependence on medicine. ANY time I say I am sick, or I don’t feel well, or I have a cut or an infection, the first thing out of their mouth is, “well, have you taken the medicament?” I especially loathe this response when I have a cold. THERE IS NO CURE FOR THE COLD, FOLKS! I just tell them I am eating a lot of oranges to get Vitamin C. THAT’s the medicament for a cold.

It’s like at the first sign of illness they run off to the health center for medicine. Our Dr, Traian, makes us wait at least 3 days before we take anything. Because most of the time, it clears itself up after 3 days! We aren’t even allowed to take anything stronger than Pepto Bismol for diarrhea. Know why? BECAUSE YOU HAVE DIARHHEA FOR A REASON! Your body is trying to get rid of something so you need to LET IT get rid of it! If it can’t do it itself after 3 days, you get to take Ciproflaxcin (I think it’s an antibiotic) to help it out. But NEVER Immodium AD.

Guineans seem to have no concept of this. That things will get better on their own. It’s like when the Western World introduced medicine to Africa they jumped on it like free rice and insist on taking it for everything. Which is, frankly, irresponsible.

It’s like the malaria thing. Where EVERYTHING is malaria (though I have seen a few cases of Typhoid, too, which is encouraging). Like yesterday when I told my homologue I had been vomiting and am sick, he asked, “Is is malaria?” And then, “did you take the medicament?”

First of all, no, it’s not malaria. These aren’t even the symptoms of malaria. Secondly, you don’t just go taking medicines willy-nilly, especially ones your body/the disease can build up resistances to (like antibiotics).

But at the same time it’s dangerous to just tell them to let well enough alone. Because then maybe they’d go way too extreme on the other end of things and never go to the doctor. It’s frustrating.

Death

So yesterday I heard wailing and crying. If I hadn’t been so sick I would have wandered out to see what was going on. I was pretty sure somebody had died and then I saw members of my friend’s family walking by my house with mourners whose faces were covered with scarves.

Today my homologue came by and told me that it was Aissatou’s (one of the girls I took to girls’ conference) dad who had died, up in Guinea-Bissau. Her brother, Alpha, a good friend of the last volunteer, was there when it happened and sent word to someone in the big city south of us who brought the news here. Apparently the man had been sick for a couple of years so it was not completely unexpected, but still a sad event. Apparently Aissatou has gone au village for mourning. Tomorrow if I feel better I am going to go over and offer my condolences to the rest of the family. I feel bad that I didn’t go today but after my homologue left I was puking in my bucket again because I just can’t stand for very long. Or at all.

I’m supposed to go do the other beds of Gmelina at the pepiniere with my homologue tomorrow but I think I will ask if we can push it to Wednesday because even if I feel better it’s good to give it a buffer day, you know?

Also apparently the new Sous Prefet moved in yesterday. Haven’t met him yet. Too sick to go greet. Same as giving condolences, if I feel better tomorrow I will go do it.

October 15 is Global Day for Handwashing with Soap. The need for this? Unlike in the Western World, here in the Developing World people barely even wash their hands with water, let alone soap (fact made worse that their left hand is used for wiping after going to the bathroom). In fact I don’t even know if you can buy soap in my village (other than the dish/laundry soap)! If you can’t, that’ll be one of the goals, to get a boutique owner to start carrying soap. I am going to do events with the school and the health center. Any suggestions for specific activities? One thing I want to do is set up public hand washing stations at the two places (school and health center). I can also teach the “lave tes mains” song (which goes to the tune of “Frere Jaques”. I also had the idea of giving away bars of soap as prizes, but for what? I know I have a lot of creative friends out there, so send me any ideas you have.

Mail Run Has Been Good to Me

Well, I barely slept at all last night, scrunched up into a ball trying to make the pain in my abdomen go away. Then I spent the whole day feeling miserable and puking. I kept down the canned peaches I ate for breakfast (thanks again, Mrs. Figas!) and two fruit leathers (for awhile) but the lunch soup came back up. Then Daffe got here around 3 with the mail run and THINGS ARE LOOKING UP!

I received a book and a card from Megan (thanks Megan!!), and a package each from my mom/Bob and my dad/Marci. These packages might go into the package hall-of-fame. Indian food, cheese, soybean seeds, dehydrated jalapeno dices, CADBURY CRÈME EGGS (not even squished or melted or anything!), tuna steak pouches, Easy Mac Alfredo, other heat-and-eat meals (essential for when you’re sick), cute tank tops, I can go on! What a lift to my spirits it is to not only get packages but get AWESOME packages!

If I didn’t feel like crap I’d bust open a box of wine (which I sent to myself this mail run) and get creative at the stove. But, alas, I do feel like crap and don’t know if I even want to waste any of this fabulousness on a dinner that may end up in my puke bucket an hour later. Like my lunch did. Note to self, the Harmony House Chickenish Soup wasn’t that good going down and REALLY wasn’t good coming back up.

However, fruit leather? Not horrible .

I ended up going with one of the Easy Mac Alfredo cups for dinner. That stayed down. As did a Laffy Taffy and Crème Egg (couldn’t help it!).

Couple of notes: While there was no major destruction or mouse-attacks on either of these packages, would like to once again remind senders to put pretty much everything in ziploc bags. Not only does this ward off mice, and keep everything protected if something explodes, but I use the bags over and over again. The only damage done this time around was that my dad sent a bunch of loose hard candies and somewhere along the way they melted a bit and so everything is sticky. Didn’t ruin anything, though. Also, when sending tuna/salmon, stick with just the steaks in the Bumble Bee pouches, we can get canned tuna in Conakry (Starkist, even). Just a couple of tips to maximize your package’s potential!!

Blech

So I’m sick. Not,like, Africa-sick, the way many volunteers have managed, but all day I have felt lightheaded and like I want to hurl whenever I stand up. So I spent pretty much the whole day laying down and am turning in really early. Like, it’s 7:30 and my teeth are brushed.

I had my usual rice and sauce for breakfast and then an instant cup of vegetarian chili with a Laughing Cow triangle, a couple of Starbursts, a couple of quarter-sized cookies my Guinean friend sent me. I skipped dinner altogether. Didn’t have the energy to make it, nor did I think it would make me feel better.

Hopefully I’ll feel better tomorrow. Tomorrow is mail run day! I hope my mom’s package got here, I am on package withdrawal. It’d be cool to get a letter, too (HINT HINT). John should be back from the States so maybe he got me some stuff too and put it on the mail run. Or maybe he ended up coming home with the mail run in which case I’ll see him tomorrow. And Ian should be sending my bike back, if he made it back to his site last week. I got kind of worried because he left on Tuesday and on Thursday his friend Conte said he hadn’t seen him in Ian’s town. So I had an early morning freak-out session where I imagined Ian’s body on the side of the road but I know it is just paranoia and an overactive imagination and everything is fine. It will be proven when my bike gets here tomorrow. (UPDATE: Bike got here. Ian’s alive).

I have started writing. First thing I’ve started since I got here. As usual all I have are the beginning, the characters, the backstory and the setting. Now I need a plot. Plot has always been my struggle point. I’m really good with characters, dialogue and tone, but plot? Not my strong suit. It’s going to be a script but I’m going to do it the right way and beat sheet the whole thing out before I really sit down and hash it all out. Maybe my mom can send me one of my screenwriting books for guidance.

It’s funny, because for most of my life I have written a LOT. I used to write (basically, romance) novels in high school. Scripts in college. Short stories always. Poetry when the mood strikes. But for the eight months since I’ve been in Guinea, journals only. It will be good to exercise my brain in that way again.

Culinary Genius

So sometimes I fancy myself a bit of a culinary genius at site, considering the lack of ingredients, refrigerators and spices. My staple meal is either potatoes or eggs with: onion, avocado, Laughing Cow cheese and piment sauce. But sometimes I manage to eat rather well.

For example today I wasn’t very hungry for dinner but not not-hungry enough not to eat anything. I HAD been planning to enjoy my single yellow summer squash freshly picked from my garden, sauteed with onion and garlic but when I chopped it open it had worms inside it. And I had already chopped up the garlic and onion, which were already sitting in oil. Sigh. So I raided my non-perishable trunk and found a little packet of instant tomato-basil soup (hey! Send me individual instant soup packets, people!) that I had gotten when I was in Dakar. It expired in March, but since when has a little thing like an expiration date stopped a West African Peace Corps volunteer? (answer: probably never) So I enjoyed that (it was delightful, actually) followed by an entire mango. Quite a satisfying dinner and very simple.

Other achievements:
Spaghetti parmesan with peas – my mom had sent me a big canister of parmesan cheese (does not need refrigerating) which I had been waffling about what to do with when one day I had a stroke of genius and made spaghetti boiled with some dehydrated peas I had brought from the States. This I covered in parmesan cheese. For the sauce I sauteed onions in a little extra peanut oil and poured the whole mixture on top. It was REALLY good. I enjoyed this concoction for about 2 weeks until I ran out of spaghetti. I still have a little bit of peas and quite a bit of the cheese so I am sure I will enjoy it again sometime soon. And when the peas run out, replace them with green beans (also dehydrated).

Tacos, especially breakfast tacos – It is shockingly easy to make tortillas (although they are not as big or as thin as I would like so basically they resemble corn tortillas but are made of flour). Speaking of tortillas I tried to make chips the other day by frying tortillas in oil and while it’s not too bad it makes a better dessert, lightly fried and then dusted in cinnamon and sugar. Anyway, tacos. Basically once you’ve made the tortillas you can put scrambled eggs with sauteed onions, Laughing Cow, avocado and hot sauce. If you’re real frisky you can cook up some beans to throw in there, too (I have dehydrated beans from the States which makes having beans SUPER easy). Or if you are lucky at market, tomatoes.

Potato skins and an improved version:

I got cheese in a package and went for bar food.







Fairly American Meal:

Green beans, potatoes, tuna fish steak. Life is good.

I picked my huge cucumber today so tomorrow I have to figure out what to do with it. Maybe I will just make a potato-cucumber salad (boiled potatoes, cubed; diced cucumber and onions in a mayonnaise-oil-vinegar sauce…with a Maggi cube). I also have more mature beans to pick so I may boil those up for a snack tomorrow, too.

I am really sad about the summer squash thing, though. Tough break.

Twilight

So I just read the first Twilight book. I already saw the movie, I think several times, because when it got to country people played it nearly nonstop in the Conakry house TV room as there was always somebody who hadn’t seen it yet.

Book WAY better than movie. In some ways. Like, the book was WAY sexier than the movie. The movie had that ONE kiss and the book has a half dozen or so. And other, sexy, mouth-against-throat sort of moments. Stuff that could be REALLY hot on screen (and still, I believe, PG-13). So I was a bit confused about why the screenwriter (or maybe director) chose not to make the script as sexy.

Also, in the book I find Bella a bit more needy and/or annoying than I did in the movie. In the movie she seemed strong, self-assured, independent. In the book she seems…juvenile. Also Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward, maybe not QUITE as Adonis as the book leads you to believe he will be but the actress that plays Bella, Kristen Stewart, has this strange smoldering sexuality about her that I first noticed from her 15 minutes in Into the Wild. Great casting on THAT front. If I had read the book before seeing the movie I wouldn’t have pictured Bella the way Kristen Stewart plays her but I am glad that I have that to go on in my mind’s eye now because it makes Bella a bit more tolerable.

Anyway. Directly after finishing Twilight, the book, I am all crazy and romantic and thinking about every relationship I’ve had and how NOT Edward all those guys are and how someday I’ll find my Edward and it will be freaking FANTASTIC (if less obsessive…the book is REALLY obsessive…maybe because she’s 17). And then the next book I crack open? “Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys”. I’m an idiot. I was hoping to get a laugh. Now I’m just depressed. “There is no horse.” I got about an hour to think that someday there might be something amazing in life and now I’m back to the old, pessimistic, “dudes are dudes and they’re idiots and self-absorbed and unperceptive and are NEVER going to sweep you off your feet because not only are they too fucking LAZY, but it would never occur to them, because they don’t FEEL the way that women do.”

And I just want a milkshake.

Water Woes Wasted

Hey I think it was my Dad’s birthday yesterday. Happy Birthday, Dad!

Well, in some strange twist of fate, the pump at the mosque has been completed almost exactly on time! I couldn’t believe it. When I heard a couple of months ago that it was going to be finished July 31 I got my hopes up but quickly pushed them down because nothing EVER gets finished when people say it will in Guinea. But sure enough, someone came by my house a couple of days ago and said the pump is working! And people keep walking by my house with water on their heads so I know it must be true!

This gets me really excited. Because I don’t have to worry about water anymore! That was pretty much my biggest problem before it started raining all the time but now I won’t have to worry and I can have a dry season garden! Yay! I have already started trying to decide what I will plant. I will also need to make an enclosure just for the garden because cows keep jumping my fence. So I think I will plant: sunflowers, tomatoes, beans, zucchini, cucumber, soy and hot peppers (hey somebody send me jalapeno seeds I hear they grow well here!). I might try for bell peppers again, too. Will have to buy a couple in Conakry and make sure I properly dry and store the seeds this time.

Yippee!!

In other news, Ian made the mistake of foregoing John’s site (because John wasn’t there) and continuing to my site day before yesterday on his way back from Conakry. He spent all day trying to get a taxi out of here yesterday and it never happened (most taxis and all the trucks were going to the other village North of here whose market day it was). Yep, le transport est dificil ici (the transport is difficult here). Instead of waiting around again today he asked to borrow my bike, strapped all his stuff on the back and took off. When people in my village realized he was going to bike all the way to his village possibly in the rain their mouths dropped and they let out the infamous African “Heeeeeeey?” He is sending my bike back to me on the mail run Monday and then I am going to send it to Conakry and have them replace some of the gears whose teeth are worn down and don’t work. Hope he made it!

Then I had a rather productive day. I cleaned my water filter which I almost never do and certainly not the recommended every week (don’t tell Sue!). I also washed all my bandanas and hand/kitchen towels (tomorrow: underwear!). Then I made tortillas and fried them to make chips which I tried to eat with this cup of nacho cheese sauce I had but it was awful so I just ate the chips instead. Then I was sitting on my porch making organic fertilizer out of leaves again (yesterday at the carrefour as we were eating keke for dinner this kid was chopping branches off a gliricidia tree in front of his boutique so I asked if I could have them) when Ousmane II came over with his friend from Conakry and they started to help me and then the dude who took me on the epic expedition to the banana trees also stopped to help. I explained to them (as I have to Ousmane II before) that the leaves of this tree are a really good fertilizer and you can use it instead of chemical fertilizer more often and for longer (indefinitely, really, whereas chemical fertilizer gives diminishing returns after a couple of years and ultimately is bad for the soil, water and environment in general). I don’t think they believe me. They talk about it in Pular and I can understand them saying “leaves” and “fertilizer” and then laughing like I am some small child who they are just humoring. They don’t believe me when I tell them the tree is called “gliricidia”, not “cassia”, heck my HOMOLOGUE barely believes me when I tell him that and only sort of started to believe me when Abdoul was here and was like “yep, that’s gliricidia. It’s good for fertilizer.” Anyway while they don’t believe me at least they know how to do it and maybe one day someone will be really desperate for fertilizer and not have the money for chemicals and just say “what the hell? Might as well try it! Maybe that crazy white lady was on to something!” Maybe.

It’s a nice thought.

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.

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?