Happy New Years everybody!

At last, here’s my blog entry for December (posted with the help of the Anderson’s e-mail and my lovely mother). I’m sorry there aren’t any pictures, but hopefully I’ll get them up when I go to Mamou for in-service training on the 25th. This time around, I’ve decided to put the blog in Chapter format. Now I feel like I’ve written a little book! Like, a really little book, because each chapter is only about 2 pages long...

Chapter 1
The Most Dangerous Man in Guinea

A few weeks ago, I was talking to my mom on the phone and she mentioned something she’d heard on NPR about West Africa: the number one killer of small children is car accidents – not car on car accidents, rather, car on child accidents. Although I’m fairly confident malaria is actually the number one killer (supposedly one West African child dies from malaria every thirty seconds), I have to agree that roadside accidents are all too common. Three kids have been struck and killed in my village since I move there in September. Not long ago, a one year old boy ran after a ball behind a reversing taxi. Unaware of this, the driver backed over the boy and crushed his head. Yes, this kind of thing happens all too often around here.

As I cycled home from the phone tree following this conversation, I couldn’t help but think all the close calls I’ve had with hitting pedestrians while riding in bush taxis. My thoughts strayed from the potential taxi accidents to potential bicycle accidents as a group of goats scooted out of my way on the road. What would happen if, just once, the goat changed his mind and ran right into my bike? Would the impact kill the goat? Would it bring my bike to a halt as I sailed over the handlebars to the demise of my left wrist, repeating my feat of the seventh grade? Trying to brush these morbid thoughts aside, I double checked the strap on my helmet and pedaled on.

Arriving in my village, I was making great time – with the wind at my back, this had probably been my fastest return trip yet. I rode past the “Marche le Lundi” sign and thought, “only about a quarter mile left! Step on it!” Just then, a little boy shot out across the road, right in front of me. I slowed down a little, but, seeing he was clear of my path, I continued. As I was about to pass him, a man who I can only assume was his father, yelled at him in Dialonke, telling him to look out for the bike. The boy, never having seen me, spun around and ran headfirst into my handlebars.

The poor kid never stood a chance. His head smacked off my handlebars and then smacked off the ground. Surprisingly, I didn’t go down. I did, however, stop, and was immediately shaken by the incident, even before I’d turned around to see him crumpled on the road. My first thought was that he was dead. He wasn’t moving and I couldn’t stop visualizing the impact as his head hit the asphalt. But then he stood up. He screamed for about a half second, but he must’ve stopped when he saw the blood.

As he turned to face me, he held his hand to his eye, but that did little to allay the blood pouring from all over his head. I tried to move towards him, but his instant recoil reminded me that little African boys are absolutely terrified of big white men. His father came over, yelling at me in words I will never understand, and I simply said I would go get the doctor. The father, not wanting blood on his clean white shirt, told the boy he had to walk to the clinic. I rode ahead, wanting to tell Dr. Toure what was on the way, hoping he could help, but not sure what to expect from a village hospital, with no electricity or running water, in the middle of the bush.

At this point, I was visibly shaken. Toure could see that, and told me to go home; he’d take care of everything. To me, though, that was the easy way out and I wasn’t taking it – I needed to stay and do whatever I could; I needed to stay and suffer the consequences. The boy arrived shortly after, followed by a crowd of thirty or forty angry villagers. Shouting and finger-pointing ensued, but I’ll never really be sure what was said, but I’ll never forget how uncomfortable I was, as though I were on trial in front of a firing squad, as far as could be from a jury of my peers. The boy stood there, blood still dripping from all over his face and from a deep gash on the top of his head. He stared at me fixedly, blinking as the blood dripped over his eyes. Weeks later, I can still see the fear in his eyes when I close my own.

Toure, ever the hero, took the boy back in his office and proceeded to fix everything. In the meantime, I went home and raided my care packages for candy to give to my victim – what else could I do? When I arrived back at the clinic, Toure had already shaved his head and started putting in stitches. I handed the candy to the father, apologized profusely, and went back to my hut, where I put my head in my hands and wept for about two hours.

Eventually, Toure came over to tell me head taken care of everything, that the boy would be fine… but I still couldn’t shake the thought that, between the complete lack of teaching I’ve done due to poor school organization and hitting the boy, I’d effectively done more damage than good to my community. That was probably about as close as I’ve ever come to throwing in the towel and going home. I didn’t stop shaking until the next day. Even then, I was scared – the child never cried – what if he’d been in shock? What if he’d had a concussion? Did Toure check for these things? What if he died??

All I wanted to do was go call someone, but that meant getting back on the bike and riding back past all the people that had poured out their wrath just hours before, so I stayed put and waited. For what? I don’t know. But, by the next day, I’d started to feel a bit better. That is, until I started to hear a “THUMP! BANG! THUMP!” on my roof. I ran outside, having to immediately dodge a huge rock headed right towards my head as I came out the front door. People were stoning my hut!!!

But then I heard them shout, “Mamadou! Mamadou! Serpant!” At once, I realized the rocks weren’t aimed at me, and my hut was simply the unfortunate innocent recipient of the rocks intended for the green snake coiled in the tree overhanging my hut. Guineans hate snakes, and understandably so, because most of them, including the one in the tree, are extremely deadly.

Before long, one of the rocks struck its target and knocked the snake free of the tree, sending it flying onto the roof of my hut (can you imagine how happy I would have been if I were still sitting in my hut and this sucker came in seeking refuge?!). The snake slithered off the roof and into a large patch of tall grass, but the neighbors weren’t deterred. They immediately set to work, lighting the grass on fire, trying to smoke out the snake or burn it to death trying.

About five minutes later, the snake emerged, only to have its head beaten in by a stick. The snake, as it turns out, was a green mamba – or, as they call it here, a three step snake. Three step snake? That means, once it’s bitten you, you can take three more steps before you’ll never take any more. Yeah, the only snake around here that’s more deadly is the black mamba. Although it was a little frightening that this snake was so close to the door of my hut, the entire situation was quite exciting and I capped it off by taking several photos of the boys with their kill.

The next day, as I prepared to leave for the Anderson’s, another snake was killed just outside of my front door. This one was a belt snake, aka a five step snake, so no big deal, right? Actually, the more I thought about it, it WAS a big deal!

Only two days before, I’d hit one of the local children and messed him up badly, resulting in what may have been a mass cursing by the thirty or forty locals who’d been yelling at me. Maybe somebody was trying to send a message? Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that the first snakes I’d seen in the village came in the two days succeeding the accident! A big part of me thought the boy must have died and somebody wanted me to pay the price.

So I got out of town. Kind of. I went and visited the Andersons a few miles away. Upon my return, I was expecting to be stoned, or worse, so you can imagine my relief when I spotted the boy sitting on a bench by one of the boutiques. I went over to check on him. Aside from cuts on his nose, forehead and cheek, and the stitches on his head, he seemed okay. Talk about your sighs of relief! Buying him some candy and oranges, I considered the case closed. I guess my fear of sorcerers and snake charmers coming for me must’ve all just been my imagination.

There is, however, a lesson to be learned from all of this: children here do not know how to cross a street. It could not be more evident that they have never seen “The Micky Mouse Club” and therefore never learned the valuable lesson on stopping, looking, and listening. What does this mean for me? It means I’ve found a secondary project to pursue! Somehow, I’m going to set up a system to educate children about safely crossing the road and to educate parents about the importance of watching their children. After all, as guilty as I felt about my accident, it wasn’t my fault; if the boy had looked first, he never would’ve run out into the street (or so I like to think), and if the father had been paying attention, he would’ve told his son to look out BEFORE he was already in the middle of the road.

Does anybody know how to say “Stop, look and listen” in Dialonke?

Chapter 2
To Move or Not to Move

As I’ve mentioned several times before, teaching in my village has not exactly gone as planned. About 80 percent of the time, I’m the only teacher in the school (sometimes even the only PERSON); the principal hasn’t shown up in over a month. Basically, my school doesn’t function. As such, I’ve made the decision, with the guidance of my PC supervisor, to make the move to another town, one where the school actually functions but which is badly in need of a math teacher. It was a tough decision to make, but after returning to the village after Thanksgiving, I realized that, were I to stay put, my story of life in Guinea would simply be one of survival, and that’s not why I came here. I came here to help people, to do some good, and it looks like that just isn’t going to happen with the current state of affairs.

The new town is exactly that – a town! It has electricity (some of the time), phone service, internet, eggs and potatoes (neither of which are available in my current locale), and, most importantly, PCV friends only about 25 kilometers away (which puts them about 100 kilometers closer than my current neighbor). I suppose the decision to move should’ve been a no-brainer, but I couldn’t help remembering how tough those first few weeks in the village were, and that’s something I have no desire to repeat. However, I’m fairly certain this move will be quite different – I’ll pretty much have everything around me that I don’t have right now.

The only thing I won’t have is the Anderson’s (the missionary family), and that will be tough. They really have been my African angels, but I’ve also come to realize that allowing that comfort to keep me in my current village would be going against my justifications for joining the Peace Corps in the first place. As great as it is to have this family, I have to remember that I didn’t travel thousands of miles across the world to make American friends. By no means am I trying to downplay the importance of the Anderson’s role in my service thus far – were it not for them, I would have terminated my service long ago. They have been the helping hand I’ve needed, and now I feel like, given all the pros of moving to the other town, I’m ready to try riding without the training wheels. And I’ll really only be sacrificing a few months of their company, because they’re going back stateside for three months starting in April and, once they return, they’ll actually be moving to a new village which is, believe it or not, closer to my new town than my current village.

So, in early December, I gave Dioulde, my program director, the go-ahead to get the wheels rolling on the move. The only thing we really needed was for the new community to come up with a house for me, and then I’d be ready to go. Unfortunately, they had not come up with the housing as of December 20 when Dioulde left for a month of vacation. Now, it looks like it’s going to February before he can continue talking with the new town to discuss my move.

This poses several problems. First, by not moving until February, I’m already missing about half the school year – what good would I do showing up a year late? I know I can’t teach a year of material in four months! Also, what am I supposed to do in my current village? Keep leading my students on by teaching them until February, and then pull out the rug by telling them I’m outta there? Lastly, upon returning to my village the other day, I learned that all the former teachers who’d left my school after last year have been ordered to return – so, supposedly, my school now has teachers. Is there still justification for me to leave? I don’t know.
My plan? I’m going to give Dioulde the pieces of the puzzle and let him put it all together. If it’s up to me, I’m still in favor of the move; I don’t think a school of teachers forced there against their will is a great environment for me to get things done. But who knows?

Chapter 3
Coup du Jour

In case you’ve been sleeping under a rock (or you just didn’t read the Africa section of bbc.com or my blog in the last week…), Guinean President Lansana Conte is dead. We were awaked by a phone call on Tuesday, the 23rd, at about 3 in the morning. Talk about news that’ll wake you up! Actually, I was back asleep within about a minute of hearing – what was I going to do at 3 in the morning??

Anyway, starting the next morning, we were on lockdown in the compound in Conakry and those volunteers who hadn’t yet made the trip in were stuck spending Christmas in their sites or regional capitals. Our New Years trip to Freetown was immediately cancelled; luckily, we were able to get our passports AND 131 bucks back from the Sierra Leone embassy without a problem. Really, being on lockdown wasn’t a big deal. We were able to send people out for food, and the fact that there were only about 20 of us made the house much more livable than trying to cram 50 or 60 people in there (actually, the place was still a wreck with only 20 of us...).

Although I had fully expected the country to collapse after Conte’s death, the pursuing coup d’état went so smoothly I was certain I wasn’t in West Africa anymore. I suppose being in support of a coup is frowned upon, but those guys deserve credit – no blood was shed, not a single death, and the Guinean people could not have been happier.

There’s really not a lot for me to report that wasn’t already on the news, except for my fun puzzle experience on Christmas Eve. Around 10 pm on the 24th, I was up on the roof of the volunteer house working on a puzzle alone; after being cooped up with the others for a few days, I needed a little while alone to recharge my social batteries. In the distance, I heard what sounded like fire crackers. And then they were closer. And louder. The noise kept growing until I was no longer certain I was hearing firecrackers. Suddenly I heard blasts which sounded as though they’d come from right next to me. BANG!! So I dropped to the floor. Seriously, my reaction was so quick and unconscious it probably would have made a great youtube video. On the ground, I couldn’t stop laughing at myself as I crawled towards the door and sought refuge inside.

It turns out it was not firecrackers. The military was driving through the streets, firing into the air as a warning to anyone thinking about breaking the curfew. Well! They sure scared me off the streets!

We were kicked out of the compound on Monday and sent back to our sites to spend New Years alone. I don’t know about you guys, but I rang in the New Year playing Freecell on my laptop (I’m currently riding a win streak of 26 straight – believe it!). I forgot to watch the clock and looked down when it was 12:01. HAPPY NEW YEAR! Honestly, I’m not terribly bitter about having to leave Conakry – the house was starting to get pretty gross, and I wanted to start exercising regularly again. Besides, this New Years will make all future New Years, no matter how lame, about 100 times better. Also, a mouse took over my hut and there was poop EVERYWHERE; I can only imagine the kind of damage he may have been done if I’d been gone a whole extra week.

Going back to the coup – I’m actually really excited about the new leader, Captain Camara. This guy has the potential to either turn into a notorious kleptocrat or, as all Guineans are hoping, the savior of the country and West Africans everywhere. If he can restore some sort of order in this country, schedule elections by 2010, and step down from power after the elections, he’ll go down in history as one of the great heroes of Guinea. In any case, I’m hopeful. Guinea deserves a break.