Coup d'etats and things like that

Due to the unforeseen coup d'etat, I'll be heading back to my site in just a few minutes, and, alas, my post for this month is not yet finished. Being here during this exciting, historical time in Guinea has generated a lot of new stories including, but not limited to, dodging bullets (not really, but that sounds exciting, doesn't it??), beach volleyball tournaments (naturally), and a completely different demeanor of the Guinean people. While I was hoping to ring in the new year with my fellow PCV's, it looks like it will actually be spent alone in my hut with a candle and a good book. But no worries! This New Years Eve will make all the future New Years Eves that much better :-p

Okay, so I'm going to finish the post on my laptop in my village tonight and hopefully pass it on to my mom via e-mail on Wednesday and you guys will be reading to your hearts' content. (Sadly, though, due to the lockdown and a really slow internet connection, additional photos will have to wait until at least the end of January). I hope you're all well and that you all have a wonderful New Year!

Back for more

Hey, everybody! I'm back in Conakry, here to spend a hot Christmas with my friends from training. This is a short post, but I want to let everyone know things are going well - the acid fly burn is gone and I've been feeling great since the last time you heard from me. I'm going to work on finishing a long entry today and plan on posting it, along with a bunch of new pictures on Picasa, tomorrow when I go en ville to the internet cafe (the connection is much better there).

I have some pretty good stories involving deadly snakes, almost deadly bikes, cow hooves, and devils living in the hills, so get excited!

I'll be in Conakry until the morning of the 27th, when I'll be going down to Freetown, Sierra Leone for New Years on the beach. Whoomp! There it is!

Oh, and here's a joke from my new jokebook:

Why do bears wear fur coats?
Because they'd look silly in rain coats!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here's a little something I wrote for Thanksgiving - you have probably read a lot of these bits and pieces already, but why not read it just one more time?

After a year of sitting in front of a computer eight hours a day, browsing patents at a mind-numbing rate of a few thousand an hour, enough was enough. It was time for a change.

What kind of change, though? I wanted something where I'd be outside more, something where there'd be a sense of adventure. I wanted to go somewhere new, see new cultures and learn new languages. More than anything, I wanted to help people. The Peace Corps fit the bill.

So I filled out the application, had the interview, passed the medical screenings, and a year later found myself standing in west Africa's intense July heat on the tarmac of the Conakry airport in Guinea, ready for whatever the country wanted to throw at me — or so I thought.

In anticipation of my service as a volunteer in Guinea, a lot of time was spent contemplating the difficulties of life in a mud hut, survival without electricity and running water. As it turns out, life in a mud hut is, in fact, pretty great, and who needs electricity? Writing by candlelight is so much cooler. Besides, there are other, deeper issues with which I struggle while making my life in the bush.

Almost 78 miles to the next volunteer, 10 miles to a tree on a hill where there might be cell phone reception, and a constant battle with the local language, Yalunka: all elements of an equation adding up to a life in isolation. It's a life where, along with the homesickness and nostalgia, I also find myself dealing with other challenges like staying healthy — a week with malaria was one week too many — and trying to figure out how to teach math to ninth- and 10th-graders who have spent the past 10 years laying their educational foundation in a concrete of rote memorization, a concept foreign to me.

As these hindrances build, I often find myself growing increasingly frustrated, asking the inevitable question, "Why am I here?!"

In the beginning, all problems were solved by solo screaming bouts in the hut where I live, but more and more, I find myself brushing the bad things aside, knocking the dirt off my shoulders, celebrating the small victories, making the most of each new experience.

Every night, I duck out of my hut and gaze skyward, just for a few moments, becoming lost in the heavens above, the Milky Way so thick and close you can taste it, the moon so bright the children play outside until well past my bedtime.

At that moment, I've found my reward for making it through another day.

But that makes each day sound like a chore, like a 9-to-5 desk job, and, though it is tough work, I can't imagine any desk job where I'd get to see 200 students saluting a boy as he clings atop the flagpole, waiting for his classmates to toss up the Guinean colors. Never during my time as a patent examiner did I get to help stuff a half-ton, live bull into the trunk of a dilapidated bush taxi after being told, "We have to pick up some beef."

Heck, on my third day I had my dinner stolen by a sweet, old lady.

On a walk through town I had been ecstatic to find bread for sale, as it's sometimes hard to come by in the bush. I scooped up a loaf and went off in search of some peanut butter. A woman sold me a lump (that's how they sell it here) and I was headed home to a delicious dinner. I figured I'd eat half the loaf tonight and the other half in the morning for breakfast. A nice little sandwich was made with peanut butter, honey and even a few pieces of chocolate I'd gotten in a care package (insert joke about me being in second grade right here).

Sandwich in hand, I sat in front of my hut, taking the first bite as I wrote in my journal. Just as I was about to take the second bite, an elderly woman walked by on the path that passes just a few feet from my front door. She greeted me in Yalunka, I greeted back, and, in an attempt at integrating, said, "Invitation?" — meaning, "Do you want some?" Guineans love this and always say, "Merci, bon appétit!" and go on their way. But she took me up on the offer. She took the sandwich and sat down next to me.

We sat together in silence for at least a minute, her staring off into the distance, me wondering when she was going to take a bite and hand back my dinner. And then suddenly she stood up, said, "Thank you," and walked off, my entire sandwich in tow.

Thank goodness for second halves.

I went back into my hut and made another sandwich, although this time I was sure to eat it behind the cover of a book. About a hundred yards away, I could see the old woman watching me inquisitively, probably wondering what in the world kind of sandwich I had given her.

While each day here presents new challenges, there are so many things for which I'm thankful and make me grateful for this experience. Loving family and friends back home supporting my journey (and sending great care packages); the compassionate missionary family only an hour down the road, ready and happy to share their home and American food; waking up and saying, "Wow! Africa!"; learning new languages; sharing with others; and growing intellectually, culturally and spiritually.

These are the things I remember "when the dog bites, when the bee stings ..."

Well, except the dog probably has rabies, so I'll need to get more shots.

The roof doesn't leak anymore - it's dry season!

Three things that scare me: bush taxis, black cobras and angry students.

On my last trip back to the village from Conakry, I was lucky enough to be able to ride all the way to Mamou in a Peace Corps vehicle. Unfortunately, the rest of the ride involved me sharing the front seat of a bush taxi with four other men. As horrifying as the nighttime taxi ride into Conakry was, this may have been even worse: this time we could see the things we barely hit… and the things we hit.

The driver was a maniac. When we’d pass through villages, he’d accelerate; when there were four foot potholes, he’d try to jump them at full speed… and bush taxis can’t jump. There were at least three times when I was certain we were going to kill somebody. We’d be speeding through a village, around a blind bend, when a little boy or girl on their way home from school would try to scoot across the road just in front of the taxi. I can’t express to you how terrified I was the one time the little girl actually had to jump out of the way.

At one point, we came across a bunch of sheep in the road. Animals in the road are fairly common – sheep, goats, cows, monkeys, you name it – and, generally speaking, people slow down, you know, so they don’t hit the animals. But not our driver. For the first time (and sadly, surely not the last), I felt and heard the sickening crunch of bush taxi bumper against sheep ribs. The sheep was down for the count, but not the driver – he just kept going, ready to tackle whatever obstacle got in his way! In spite of his maniacal driving, it still took us about four hours to cover the 135 kilometers between Mamou and my village, thanks to stops about every ten minutes to do who knows what. Needless to say, I made a note of the taxi and driver and will not ride with him again.

The other day, I was over at the Andersons when the two sons came running inside, excited about the snake they had heard in the bottom of the garbage pit. They grabbed their guns and hurried back outside. Yet to see a snake in country, I didn’t want to miss this one, so I hustled after them. As we walked up to the trash pit – a 4ft diameter, 20 ft deep hole in the ground, not unlike a well – there came a ferocious “Hsssssss!” It sounded to me like it was much closer than the bottom of the pit and, upon further inspection, there didn’t seem to be anything slithering around down there; meaning the snake must have been much closer, somewhere in the grass right by our feet… the next day, some of the local boys came over and said they saw the snake – a black cobra. Brrr – the thought of being so close to a snake like that gives me the chills. I’ll think twice the next time I go running after a snake!

Last Monday, I was sitting at my desk around 9am when I heard lots of shouting coming from the road about 150 feet from my hut. The students, angry that no teachers or administration had shown up (I teach Tuesday through Thursday), were marching into town, where they proceeded to pagaille – meaning they blocked traffic for about an hour until somebody was able to disperse them. There must have been about 200 of them when I saw them marching down the road, fists in the air, yelling out their frustrations at an administration who still, more than a month into the school year, is yet to provide them with more than two regular teachers. I didn’t necessarily feel unsafe that day, but it did get me to thinking that someday those students may finally decide they really want somebody to answer them, and that day I may be the only one there. For now I’ll just hope it doesn’t come to that.

So, that may sum up, just a little, how things are going at school so far, haha. Actually, I’ve been teaching for quite a while, holding all my classes, minus a few when all the students got up and left to go to the market (I still haven’t figured that one out!). The first few weeks were incredibly frustrating – these students have been educated for the last ten years on sheer rote memorization, and it hasn’t worked. I’ll ask my tenth graders what one minus one is, and they’ll say zero. Then I’ll ask how much negative one plus one makes, and they say/guess, in this order, minus one, two, minus two, one, one half, zero. A lack of fundamental arithmetic such as this has proved to be the great impediment to my tutelage. Hopefully, little by little, I’ll be able to fix these problems and move onto the actual coursework of equations, Thales’ Property, and autres choses comme ca.

The students, while they aren’t angels, seem to at last have been scared into submission. There have been a few times when I’ve really had to flex my disciplinary muscles – doing things like throwing students’ notebooks into the courtyard and telling them to leave and come back tomorrow, or slamming a cahier down on the floor and making the student sit on the floor until he finally writes what I’m telling him. Okay, that makes me sound pretty extreme, but these students are used to being beaten as punishment, so a little tsk-tsk isn’t going to get the job done. I’m not doing anything to physically harm the students and, since those episodes, I’ve had no problems at all! I guess it’s not really cool to sit on the floor doing a problem while the rest of the students watch from their desks. This is certainly far different from the states, but, then again, so is everything else!

Aside from school, I have been quite healthy and have been able to exercise a lot at site. I’m back to running five times a week and doing all of my other exercises as well, the result of which is a very happy Hunter. It got cold for a few days, during which I wrote a little essay called “Fall”, which I’ll post below, but since then it’s really heated back up – it got up to 119 the other day! The heat isn’t helped much by the addition of brush fires, which the neighbors have recently started. I’ve started teaching English to the doctor at the clinic behind my hut, and am helping out at the clinic some, too. Hopefully in January I’ll be able to get rolling on some nice secondary projects within the village, and maybe then I’ll be able to recruit the help of some of you readers in getting some things done – I know everybody wants to get involved! ;)

Okay, I think that’s all for today – but I’ll be back tomorrow to post a little on Thanksgiving. Here’s the “Fall” piece, and I’ll “Fall”ow it up with some new photos.

It’s November and fall is in the air. The leaves are changing; smoke wafts lazily about as it drifts from the neighbor’s fire; and there is no mistaking the chill of the crisp, autumn breeze. Okay, so only about half of that statement is true, but let’s be fair – I’m in Africa, and half is good enough for me. Today, for the first time since arriving here in July, I found myself actually feeling a shift in the season, as if summer had snuck out in the middle of the night without even saying goodbye.

The leaves haven’t changed color, but something else has: having not tasted the sweetness of rain in a good two weeks, the grass has evolved from its former verdant self into the most beautiful shade of deepest violet. Riding my bike through the fields outside the village, I’m spellbound as this transformation brings to life the landscape about me, the grass swaying in whichever direction the wind decides to push it.

There is smoke in the air, but it’s not coming from the fireplace of a cozy den. Rather, it’s the product of controlled brushfires, started by farmers as a preemptive measure before the brush becomes too dry and a single lightning strike could ignite a fire capable of devastating the entire village. The smoke lends to the already present haze of the dry season and brings with it an acrid aroma, lingering long after the fires have licked their last flame. While the smoke saddens me in the sense that the dancing fields I love to watch will soon be no more, I welcome it as a precursor to a time when the humidity will be all but gone and I’ll once again be able to breathe easy.

The crisp, cool air is by no means the stuff of a chilly Saturday in October, awakening hats and jackets from their hibernation in the hall closet, but, to an American living in Africa, the fresh air blown in by the Harmattan winds from the Sahel is a welcome change to the normally stifling heat. 95 degree nights are now a thing of the past as the thermometer dips into the 70’s, forcing me under the covers wondering where one buys a blanket around here! I’m happy the cold air has finally come, and it can stay as long as it likes, but I’ll tell you this much – bucket baths just got a lot colder!

Of course, the ‘fall’ I’ve conjured up here could just be the product of my active imagination and my homesickness for a day back home where I could zip up my fleece and hear the crunch of leaves under my feet; perhaps the pure want of a cool night has simply made it so. After all, the Guineans only have two seasons in their culture – the wet one and the dry one. At the end of my fall, there will be no snowy night to which I can look forward. In January and February, there will surely be a ‘light dusting’ on the ground, but it will be exactly that – dust. I suppose for now I’ll just have to take this feeling of autumn I’ve conjured up and run with it while I can, and… who knows? Maybe a few months from now I’ll be writing about the sharp bite of winter in the air, how the African dirt can actually be rolled into balls and stacked up Frosty-style, but I’ll be darned if I can find a top hat and scarf around here!

The following thirteen pictures are all taken from the inside of the hut. The bookshelves are the newest addition - I made them just the other week with the generous help of the Andersons.

Some volunteers have students or petites come hang out on the porch. I have sheep:

The most amazing hut dinner ever - the Andersons brought over a chicken pot pie, cookies, and COLD sweet tea. They are angels.

The next two photos are the starts of brush fires. The fires are yet to become terribly intense, but they sure are loud.




This is the village where I go to get cell phone, reception - Krimbisinde. The hill I have to climb is behind me.
Peace Corps rules make it such that volunteers cannot drive cars or motos. Luckily, there's a loophole involving large construction machinery, and now we each have giant CATs outside our huts to drive around at our leisure...

This is the sunset as seen from my shower. The hills in the background are in Sierra Leone, as is the antenna.





The sunrise, as seen from my bathroom on Monday.

One Month Down

Here I sit, one month into my official service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. It is impossible for me to express to you the ups and downs of the emotions I’ve felt since moving to my site, but I’m at least going to try to give you an idea of what’s influenced those emotions. Where do I start, though? With the good things? With the bad? I have a cute story, but perhaps I’ll save that for the end, just to make you work for it ;)

So I’m going to start with the bad things. Bad is a harsh word – maybe it’s better to say the things that have made my experience thus far rather difficult. It can be broken down into three groups: living arrangements, professional life, and social life.

As you’ve (hopefully!) already read, my the thatch roof of my hut is replete with holes through which the rains leak incessantly, resulting in muddy puddles throughout my hut and, to my despair, even on my bed. Despite moving the bed all about the hut, there is no longer a place for the bed where it can escape the malice of the leaky roof. Lucky, I’ve made my way into the big city of Faranah (big = 30,000 people), where I bought some plastic to line the roof. Unfortunately, I forgot to buy a hammer! But some day I’ll get that plastic up and the leaky roof will be no more. Secondly, I have the rats to contend with. No big deal though, I’m okay with roommates so long as they don’t eat my food.

Professional life? Well, so far I seem to be the only person in my village to be leading a professional life. Aside from a few appearances by the Director of Studies, during the first two and a half weeks of school, I have been the only teacher to show up to school – even the principal has been MIA for about two weeks. A lack of teachers, though, has not prevented 200 students from showing up every day, which makes 200 students I have to ‘control’ while I try to teach. My classes – 10th grade math from 8-10 and 9th grade math from 10-12 – each have about 50 students, which means, while I’m teaching, there are about 150 other kids running wild with nobody to teach or discipline them. As you can imagine, that gets old quite fast. Students will gather around the windows to my classroom, trying to peak in on the lesson, talk to their friends in the class, or just make jokes in general. To date, the only effective remedy has been… throwing rocks. Yes! I throw rocks at the kids. But don’t worry, it doesn’t seem to hurt them because they always come back about five minutes later. During those five minutes, though, I’m able to teach a little, so it’s worth it :) Oh! and if you have a better idea of how to better control 150 kids not in my class, suggestions are more than welcome.

Regarding my social life en village, there’s not much to tell. Very few people in my village speak French, almost none Susu – instead they speak Yalunka, a language which I am still struggling to grasp. Even among my students, I’d say only about 20% of them speak any kind of recognizable French. How the other 80% could make it to 10th grade in a French school system without speaking the language is beyond me, but they made it. With that in mind, maybe I still have a chance of teaching them math.. So, communication with my village is quite limited. Most other volunteers seem to have found families – people they eat with on a daily basis and with whom they spend most of their free time. Although I walk around my village frequently, and often during meal times, I am yet to eat a meal with a family. Apparently, my village is notorious for not being particularly friendly – oh well! Over the last month, I’ve realized that the cultural barrier between myself and the village is simply too great for me to ever have any true friends here – people with whom I can just relate, hang out, and shoot the breeze, you know?

Also, my village is about 125 kilometers from the nearest Peace Corps Volunteer and a good hour-long trip from a place on a hill which has cell phone reception about half of the time. That, along with what I mentioned before, makes for a lonely situation at site. It’s quite difficult; I’m homesick often and constantly questioning how much longer I can stay. That said, I know I’m here for a reason, that I won’t give up for reasons like this, and that this is just another problem I can overcome.

I could give plenty of specific examples of why the first month has been so difficult for me, but I’d rather not dwell too long on the negatives – I have to live here a long time; I need to focus on the positives!

SO! I am finding lots of time to exercise. After months of inconsistent training, I’m finally back on a structured marathon training program, keeping my upper body fit with the regimen I mentioned a few weeks ago – pushups, bucket curls, tree branch pull-ups. Although I’ve been sick for a good portion of the month at site, I’ve been pushing through to work out, as that’s one of the things upon which I always know I can depend for sound-mindedness.

Although living alone in a mud hut can be lonely, it’s also quite nice to shut the doors at night and write by the light of a few candles. Late at night (as in, say, 8:30 pm), when I go to brush my teeth, the night sky is incredible. Stars like a solid mass of light, the Milky Way so close you want to reach out and touch it. Every time I see it, my breath is taken away.

Teaching right now, as I’ve said, is quite difficult. That, though, is something I think will really help to make me a much stronger person in the future. If I can figure out a way to help these students learn, to help them become able to do the math necessary to pass the Brevet at the end of the – well, hell, if I can do that, anything is possible!

Like I’ve said, loneliness has made my time here very difficult. Thank God I found some angels in the form of the Andersons, a family of missionaries only about 45 minutes from my village by bike. They arrived at my door one day, freshly-baked cookies in hand, inviting me to their house any time I wanted. Believe me when I say I’ve taken them up on their offer! Dawn, the mother, is an incredible cook, and over the last few weeks I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy pizza, cinnamon rolls, and cherry cheesecake, among other things. They’ve been a great help to me, my visits to their village at the end of the week looming like the carrot suspended before the donkey, except each Saturday I finally get to eat that carrot! They’re very kind people who take an interest in what I’m doing and what I have to say, and that’s quite refreshing after six days of having no idea what it is everybody is yelling at me in Yalunka, haha.

So here’s a funny story about school the other day:

When the Director of Studies arrived at the school around 8am, he noticed the Guinean flag had not yet been raised, so he found the smallest seventh grader he could and told him to raise the flag. Why did he pick the smallest seventh grader? Well, obviously he didn’t want the biggest kid climbing the pole to hang the flag – the pole could break! So, flag line in hand, the little boy (and by little, I mean maybe four feet tall, 65 pounds max, seriously) started climbing. At the top, his first attempt in threading the line through the hook at the top of the pole failed – he dropped the line all the way to the ground. As some other students attempted to wrap the line around a rock to toss it back up, the boy just waited, chilling out at the top like it was no big deal. Man! I wish I had my camera. There he was, about 25 feet in the air, with the entire school of about 200 students standing in a circle, ready to salute their colors, but instead they were saluting him!

It all worked out in the end, of course. The trick with the rock worked and the flag was up just a few moments later, but those magical few moments while the child sat atop the flagpole, flag missing, students all around – it was one of the moments that reminds me I’m glad to be here.

Unrest in Conakry:

Check out this article on what’s been going on around here:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/05/africa/guinea.php

While there’s been some unrest within the city, I’ve been perfectly safe behind the walls of the Peace Corps compound. Don’t worry – if we were ever in danger, we’d be yanked out of here faster than a seventh grader could climb a flag pole, and, believe me, that’s fast! The other day, though, we finally got permission to leave the compound to go to the market. For the most part, it was uneventful. At one point, though, I felt like the scene in front of me was straight from a book or movie. While I haggled over the price of eggs, a pickup truck full of police officers rolled by. There must’ve been about 20 of them standing in the back, singing Guinean military tunes and hoisting their AK-47s to the sky. I’ll admit, I was a little terrified. Fortunately, they just passed on by. A few minutes later, while buying some eggs, we heard a rapid burst of gunfire, but no response. Honestly, it didn’t really seem like a big deal, but looking back I guess it is a little scary. Things seem to be cleared up now.

As scary as that trip to the market was, it was not nearly as awful as my taxi ride from Mamou to Conakry last Thursday night. We’re not supposed to be on the road at night, and now I know why. Although I’d originally planned to pass the night in Mamou, all the hotels were full, so I was forced to grab a taxi at 4pm, meaning I’d be riding blind for at least 2, maybe 3 hours. Naturally, I picked the taxi with the most complete headlights and the least amount of damage to the windows and mirrors. Given that I’m writing this right now, it’s obvious I made it in one piece. Half-way through the ride though, I’d probably already given up on surviving the trip about ten times over. There is nothing to compare to the terror one feels when passing a truck at 60 miles an hour around a blind bend, in the dark, and finding another trucker coming directly at you, only tens of meters away. I have no idea how that driver avoided making paste of us, but I’m glad he didn’t ;-) Needless to say, it’s going to be a long time before I travel at night again!

Ok, unfortunately, that’s all for now – I have to be up early tomorrow and have a lot more to get done. I hope everybody is doing well back home--tune back in a few weeks from now for some more of my ramblings!

Holla holla
Hunter

For my next post (around Thanksgiving), I plan to shoot more photos of my village and write a bit more about my experiences as a teacher. There will be plenty more bush taxi rides between now and then, and so you never know when we might have to stop to pick up a dinosaur to squeeze into the middle seat, so get excited!

Oh!!! But I almost forgot a few more pictures:

I bought some rope, hung it from a tree, and occasionally use it to do some very difficult pull-ups. If you squint, you can also see my clothesline:

My lovely bathroom (the thing in the center lifts out):

My bathroom and the view I have while showering/bucket bathing:

My bathroom from a little further away. This is also where I put trash before I burn it:

Can you see the branch in the very middle that's almost parallel to the ground? I use it for pull-ups:

Some kids in my village while I waited for a taxi:

The cafe in my village. This is where I come for tea:

The man in the center repaired my shoes, cleaned, and polished them for 1000 francs, or about 20 cents, while I waited for the taxi:

This is the boy who climbed the flagpole, out of uniform. Please notice the pattern of his complet - green background with purses all over.

Pictures on Picasa

As I type this, some of my photos are being uploaded to my Picasa page, which can be found here.
The pictures are pretty much all from training, but in the next few days I will also upload some pictures I've taken in the last month at site. If you read this post right after I've written, check back again for the photos a little later, because they will probably take a few hours to finish uploading.

So far it's been a great weekend in Conakry - parties with expats, embassy workers, and french people. Lots of good food and drink for which I've not had to pay. Beautiful sunsets over the ocean. Air conditioning. Talking to lots of friends and family. Meeting interesting new people. I'll detail all of it over the next few days.

One thing that's been interesting, though, has been talking to my new friend, Daniel Harman. He is staying at my friend Rob's apartment for a few days, resting from his cycling trip. He's come all the way from London, intends to bike all the way to Cape Town, and then return back through Egypt to Europe. So far he's been at it for nearly six months. Very cool guy, and he's keeping a website.

It looks like his travels will have him coming back into Guinea from Sierra Leone by way of Faranah, so there's a chance I may bike down to Faranah and ride with him for a little bit! I'll keep you posted on that - maybe with some good stories come Thanksgiving.

Okay, enjoy the photos, and there'll be more soon!

New Posts!

Hey Everybody! I'm back in Conakry for an extended weekend. It looks like I'll be here until Wednesday morning, when I'll catch the free PAM flight to Kissidougou and taxi home from there.

I have so much to tell you, which I'll try to put on here through the course of the weekend. Hopefully I'll even be able to upload all of my pictures to Picasa!

In the meantime, below are posted three entries I typed up at site (the one from the 16th is my favorite). Please excuse typos and such - I only had so much battery to work with and for now don't feel like going back to edit all of it!

I hope you enjoy the posts and pictures, and there will be much more to come over the next few days. Since I'll be in town, please call if you'd like to chat; I have a new number - 011-224-66-51-86-03.

Much love,
Hunter

Le 16 Octobre 2008

You can’t buy anything for a buck anymore… remember those old commercials? Well, maybe it’s true, but in Guinea, two bucks will buy you more than you could ever dream. Two bucks, which converts to roughly 10,000 Guinean francs, can buy 20 cucumbers, 50 bananas, or even 150 grapefruit. Or, in the case of travel, it’ll get you about 30 miles in a bush taxi.

Oh! but you’re buying so much more than just a ride in a taxi. On a good day, those two dollars will also ensure you make at least a dozen new friends, in the form of other passengers. It also means you’ll probably get to spend an extra two or three hours at the taxi gare people watching or head shopping, the Guinean answer to QVC – instead of actually having to stand up and walk around, you just sit there while women and children solicit you with anything from clothes to food to radio-flashlights from the piles on their heads. And, just in case you were worried you’d be making it to your destination too early, your two dollars guarantees at least one layover of 30 minutes or more in a village of the driver’s choice.

In an effort of frugality, I generally forego these steals of deals by riding my bike to and from Faranah, a 60-mile round trip journey which takes about two hours each way. In other words, biking is about twice as fast as taking a taxi, once you consider the amount of time waiting for the taxi to fill with passengers and all the stops made along the way. This past weekend, though, I wanted to buy eggs, enough of them that I didn’t trust the suspension on my bike enough to keep them from breaking over 30 miles of the local paving. So, I broke down and decided to shell out my two bucks for the taxi.

Sunday morning, I arrived at the Faranah taxi gare around 8am, ready to get back to my site after an impromptu overnight in “the city.” Finding the right taxi was easy; the first guy I asked was headed in my direction. Unfortunately, I was the first passenger to arrive, so we’d have to wait for more to show up before it would be economically feasible for him to leave. That wasn’t a problem, as I still had to find eggs and some hinges for the screen doors I’d commissioned to be made for my hut, so I set off in search of the goods.

About thirty minutes later, I arrived back at the taxi, eggs and hinges in hand, along with some cheese and a knock-off Caprisun (they’re Capri-Sonne here) for the road. After thirty minutes, I was still the only passenger, so I left to find a snack. I felt like I’d discovered the City of Gold when I stumbled upon a guy on a side street operating a frozen yogurt machine. It may have only been 9:30 in the morning, but my motto is, “When you find ice cream in Africa, you buy it!” Not one to go against my own motto, I bought some, happily eating the frozen deliciousness as I made my way back to the taxi, again.

11:30 rolled around and there I sat, now accompanied by two older women waiting for the same taxi. I’d already finished the book I’d brought with me and had spent the last of my money on the ice cream, so all I could do was sit and wait patiently. Finally, around noon, another taxi pulled up and we were told to get in. I took the front seat, as always – apparently Africans think Americans smell really bad because of the dairy in our diet, so they try to sit as far from us as possible. As a result I always get the front to myself (I’m not complaining..). The two women took the back, all three of us wondering where the other four or five passengers were – surely we wouldn’t leave with such an empty car?? When I asked the driver, he explained he didn’t need the extra passengers’ fare because we’d be picking up some beef to transport along the way. Okay, I’ve seen taxis with slabs of meat strapped to the top a hundred times before. No big deal.

Well, when we pulled into the village with the beef 20 minutes later, I realized the “beef” was, in fact, still alive. The driver fully intended to place what must have amounted to 1000 pounds of live steer directly into the trunk of his 1970 Peugot sedan. Instructed to wait in the shade, I watched as 9 men tied and attempted to hoist the beast into the car. After their second failure, I left my roost to give them a hand – I wanted to get home at some point (I also thought hands-on experience would add some validity to this story). With both of my hands placed firmly under its rump – thank goodness for travel hand sanitizer – we finally managed to get the job done.

Cow in place, the driver remarked that there was still some space in between its legs. As everybody knows, the best way to fill an empty space is with two live, bleating sheep. As much as they protested against their predicament, I really didn’t have much sympathy for them. After all, they weren’t hog-tied and were certainly much more comfortable than the cow who hadn’t as much as mooed since the beginning of his quandary.

Having exhausted the requisite hour stowing the animals, we continued on towards our destination, the rest of the trip seeming slightly pedestrian in comparison, in spite of the fact that at one point there were 10 people packed into the car (drivers will pick up anyone, so long as they have a few francs to spare), and the six or seven near-death experiences we all shared as we blindly passed cargo trucks around dangerous bends. So, you see, one really can do quite a bit with two bucks here, so long as you’re not in a hurry and you don’t mind dealing with all the “bull” that comes with riding in a bush taxi.

Le 10 Octobre 2008

Thunderstorms – at once both the most mesmerizing and the most terrifying spectacles I’ve beheld in Africa. They come at you like a tiger pounces as you turn your cart into the cereal aisle at the supermarket – quickly, ferociously, and most unexpectedly. Clouds black, winds howling, the storm is upon you before you can say, “Man! I’ve never had a storm come upon me this fast! Is it for REAL?”

The other day, shortly after lunch, the sun was shining brightly, fit to bake the earth and any American crazy enough to be here. So, I went into my backyard to set out my solar charger. Leaning over to set it on the ground, I was pushed violently from behind. As I turned around to confront my assaulter, I found nothing; nothing but about 90 miles an hour of wind! The sky turned black, though it wasn’t dotted with the stars and radiant moon which usually accompany such darkness.

Why was it so dark? Maybe it was much later than I’d thought – I’d just finished my regular lunch of bread, fruit, and peanuts, so it could only be about 1:30, right? Then again, I eat the same thing for dinner (and breakfast, too, for that matter), so maybe the hours were all beginning to melt together on me like a Dali painting. I went back into the hut to fetch my watch and verify that I was either a) an incredible keeper of time and the darkness was actually a harbinger of an enormous storm to come, or b) still on American time after three months in Africa.

In the time it took to find my watch, I heard “Bang! Pow! Crash! Pour! Whoosh! Krack!” – all at once. I emerged from my hut to stunning blue skies, two shattered trees clinging to my fence in final attempts to remain vertical, and about a foot of rain as far as the eye could see. Such is the way of storms in Guinea.

Okay, so that was a bit of an embellishment. But that’s what it seems like to me every time I wake up, only fifteen minutes after going to sleep under starry skies, to the sounds and vibrations of a freight train driving straight through my hut.

You see, in Forecariah, I relished the moments when storms raged and I could sit back and enjoy it, pulling the covers a little closer to ward off the breeze. In Forecariah, though, I was protected by a solid roof, concrete walls, and a door free of cracks and holes for fit mice and lizards to seek refuge.

Things are a little different in a mud hut. You wake up to the howling of the gale force wind and the pummeling rain, wondering how much longer it will be before the grass roof gives up the ghost. It’s obvious at least some of the roof already bought a non-refundable, one-way ticket to the neighbor’s yard, as evidenced by the numerous leaks and muddy pools covering the floor of the hut. That’s probably the only drawback to living in a mud hut (cough cough) – when the roof springs a leak, it doesn’t come in the form of rain, but a nice, dark mud. Delicious.

Each time I wake up to a storm, I get out of bed to inspect the damage and make sure everything that needs covering is covered. Assured that nothing will be ruined with the current leaks, I climb back under my mosquito net to settle in and wait for the storm to run its course. This way I can monitor any new leaks in case the rain gets even worse.

The other night, I climbed back into bed only to find a nice, fat mouse had nestled his way under my pillow while I had been making my inspections. As I went to the door to shoo him out, his lizard friend was trying to make an entrance of his own through the gap between the door and the floor. No such luck, my man! Turns out brooms can sweep more than just dirt..

Back in bed, I relax as the pounding of the rain slackens. The thunder, though – man alive! Once the rain has been gone for a while you begin to wonder if that’s actually thunder you feel pulsing through your veins or if maybe rebel invaders have launched a blitzkrieg on the village; although, I doubt any rebel invaders possess any firepower to rival this cacophony.

Growing up in the countryside, my sisters and I used to like riding out the big storms in the comfort of our basement. I remember being petrified by the powerful thunderclaps. Erin and Hilary would comfort me by saying it was just God up in Heaven, bowling. Well, when you’re living in a mud hut in Africa, God doesn’t bowl – he drives a dump truck through a nitroglycerin plant… or something like that; ask Ryan, he knows the quote.

Le 30 Septembre 2008

(Warning! this post is super long and is about the last days in Forecariah, Affectation in Conakry, and the first few days at site. Save this for a day when you're really bored and don't mind reading lots of really poor writing!)

And so the adventure begins! Yesterday (Monday), around 11am, I waved goodbye to Ben and Alison, the last volunteers I will see for at least a month, maybe even two or three. You read about volunteers wanting to run after the Peace Corps truck, yelling “Wait! I’m not ready!” In no way was that the case for me; I’ve been ready for this moment for what seems like years. Although my French isn’t quite where I’d like it to be, and my Susu, Yalunke, and Malinke are virtually non-existant, the language barrier does not scare me – hell, I’ve been living lost in translation for three months already, haven’t I? And the prospect of teaching does not scare me, either; the three weeks of practice school took care of that. The only other factor that seems like it may play a role in the “Wait, come back!” scenario must be loneliness. This is something one must take into great consideration even when applying to the Peace Corps. All of us know how lonely this life will be, but I’ve decided to take these last few months to focus on the positive aspects of this loneliness, on how productive I can be over the course of the next two years, of how much I can improve myself.

No, I wasn’t afraid when that truck pulled away, but I won’t deny that the farewell was indeed bittersweet. To reflect on this, I’m going to flash back to my last few days in Forecariah and the ensuing weekend spent in Conakry for affectation.

Going back to Tuesday of last week, I find myself returning to the Doumbwaya’s house for the last time. On this night, the quarter is blessed with electricity, which means the small living room is filled with thirty people, all trying to get a view of the Susu movie playing on a television akin to the I stayed up late watching in my college dorm room. The room is filled with the smell of people have put in an honest day’s work every day of their life, but have never stopped to put on deodorant on any one of those days. Cigarette smoke wafts through the air as babies cry and cell phones ring.

I could easily walk right through this crowd and go straight to my room, as I do most other nights, but on this night I took my seat right next to Nba, the pride in his eyes telling me I’d made the right move. Never mind the fact that I couldn’t understand a moment of the Susu film, the important thing was that I was there, sharing it with them.

As we sat there, I couldn’t help but worry about what I’d wear at the closing ceremony the next morning (you know, because I’m such a diva!). The previous week, Nba came into my room accompanied by the tailor to take my measurements for what they told me would be a boubou to wear to the final ceremony. Trusting this outfit would be ready in time, I’d already packed up the rest of my clothes and sent them off in one of the Peace Corps trucks. At this point, the only clothes I had to wear were the shorts and t-shirt I was currently sporting. As much as I like shorts and t-shirts, this outfit hardly seemed appropriate for giving my farewell speech the next day.

Dieu merci, the tailor arrived Chez Doumbwaya at about 10:15 pm, just as I was about to give up hope and go to bed. Upon seeing my new boubou, I couldn’t help but fall in love with it! It was classy, yet, to steal a line from America’s favorite family restaurant, unrefined. Wearing the boubou made me feel about a foot taller and as though I could carry myself as a true Guinean. The film crowd proved an admirable audience for my fashion show as I paraded about in my new attire, clapping and hooting as I stopped to do a turn here, a little dance step there. Suffice to say, everyone was happy and, boubou in tow, I was able to sleep easy.

Wednesday morning, I awoke with a good three hours to spare before the ceremony began. After my final bucket bath in Forecariah, I donned my new outfit and sat down to do some writing. On my way home the day before, I had stopped to take some photos of my favorite café and of Aissatou, the 12 year old girl who runs the place with her father. As I snapped the photos, a man came up and introduced himself as Makslope, a travelling singer/dancer from Liberia who was in Forecariah to perform at the end of Ramadan. He explained that, being from Liberia, a country colonized by America, he was also American and he and I were, in fact, brothers. According to him, this meant we must exchange gifts so as to always remember one another. Although I agreed, saying I’d bring his present the next day, I thought he was just trying to get me to give him money from my bottomless American pocket. Naturally, I was a surprised when he immediately changed the direction of the conversation and asked that I take a picture of him jumping over the motorcycle which had been standing next to us. I obliged and wound up with a pretty decent souvenir of Makslope, which he then explained was his gift to me. As we parted for the evening, he expressed his regret in my impending departure, wishing that we had more time to discuss our ideas, to talk about changes that needed to be made in the world.

This brings me back to Wednesday morning, where I sat at my desk writing – my gift to Makslope. I wrote three pages on the status of women in West Africa, about how few girls make it to high school and even fewer to university. I wrote about the people who ask me every day for money and the people who ask how to become rich like me and why Americans are so much better off than Guineans. While there are many answers to these questions (one may even wish to argue that, although Americans have more money, they aren’t necessarily happier than Guineans..), I chose to address the issue of women in society. Imagine trying to tackle some sort of task, but only being able to use half of your intellect to do so – you would never finish. Isn’t a society where only half of the population is contributing basically the same thing?

Please don’t think I’m trying to cast a negative shadow on the men of Guinea. Although, at first glance, this may seem to be a society driven by male chauvinists, the women are just as much to blame, that is to say if anybody is really “to blame”. Generation after generation of this lifestyle has made it the cultural norm – one doesn’t see the women fighting or complaining about the fact that they must stay home from school to do the cooking and cleaning while the boys go to class and get their education. In order for a real change to occur, there has to be some sort of great cultural shift, and such was my charge to Makslope. I explained that, as a travelling performer, he had the opportunity to reach the right audiences and to spread the right messages. This may not be the sort of gift he was hoping for, but I was happy with it, and he we very happy when I handed it to him as we drove off, telling me he loved me and he would never forget me. That said, everything I wrote could be totally wrong and I really hope that, 10 years from now, I don’t find out I was the catalyst to the greatest cultural meltdown in West Africa!

With my writing finished, I went outside to meet my homonym, the person for whom I was given the name Ablo. It turns out he’s an old neighbor of the Doumbwayas who is now studying at the university in Conakry. I took this as a compliment because it meant I’d been named after one of the smartest people they knew. To my surprise, he presented me with yet another outfit – a complet from the Forest Region. After taking several pictures with him, the Doumbwayas, and my friend Sekouba, we set off for the Maison de la Jeunesse, where the farewell ceremony was to be held.

We all sat – wait, did I say sat? what I meant to say was we all melted in the Maison for the next two hours awaiting the Peace Corps director from Conakry and the local dignitaries. Perhaps melted is a strong word, but I’m sure we all lost five or ten pounds as we sat in what amounted to a 95 degree barn, dressed to the 9’s in our boubous, complets, and fancy African hats. In spite of the heat, everyone looked magnificent – Joe looked ready to take over the world in his tall maroon outfit and matching mouchoir; John’s family had set him up with a fancy gold lace-lined outfit, complete with close-toed Guinean sandals; Tiffany, in her indigo complet from the Fouta Region, had a wonderful radiance about her.

At long last, the country director arrived and we were able to get started. Apparently, on their way out of Conakry, a riot had erupted, resulting in police-fired teargas. Needless to say, the Peace Corps truck was forced to turn around and take a different route.

As a whole, this ceremony was not terribly different from the opening ceremony, save for a few things:
1) This time, PCT’s gave 4 speeches, instead of just the one given in French by Valentin at the opening ceremony. Rachel gave the Pular speech, Tiffany the Susu speech, Carolina the Malinke speech, and I ended it with the French speech.
2) Although the DJ was back, this time he wasn’t playing the same lively dance music. Rather, he was playing much more subdued, almost mournful, Muslim music. I imagine this was die to the ceremony falling during Ramadan, which also probably explains why there wasn’t any dancing this time.
3) There was no feast following the ceremony, which was most definitely due to Ramadan and the associated fasting.

I was really excited about giving the speech. Although I’d like to say people voted for me to give it, that would be far from the truth. Basically, I wanted to give it and nobody else did, so it was mine. It probably sounds silly that this would be something I’d want so badly, but I’ve never really given a speech before. Sure, I’ve played my violin and viola in front of large audiences before, and I’ve read at church and things like that, but I’d never really had the chance to present my own thoughts and words to a group like this. With Valentin’s help I put together my speech, of which I’d hoped to post a video. Unfortunately, you can’t really hear anything I’m saying in the video because the sound system left a bit to be desired. For those of you who are interested, here’s the speech I gave (it’s short and simple, but I like to think it’s also kind of sweet :) ):

De la part de tous les stagiaires, je voudrais vous remercier pour votre hospitalite, votre gentillesse, et votre patience. Quand nous sommes arrives ici en Juillet, il y avait vingt-cinq stagiaire. Aujourd’hui, nous partons avec le meme groupe de vingt-cinq stagiaires. Ceci est, sans doutes, grace a votre hospitalite et votre gentillesse.

Pendant ces trois mois, vous nous avez appris comment vivre comme les Guineens. Vous nous avez aide apprendre le francais. Vous nous avez prepare les plats Guineens, comme le riz et sauce, et vous nous avez meme montre comment s’habiller comme les Guineens, par exemple comment nous sommes habille aujourd’hui.

Ce que vous nous avez appris sera, sans doutes, indisposable pendant les deux prochaines annees. Par exemple, pour trois semaines, nous avons enseignes vos enfants, mais en realite, en enseignant nous avons appris comment devenir de meilleurs professeurs.

Tous les moments n’etaient pas faciles, mais vous nous avez aide a surmonter les moments difficiles comme nous etions malades ou comme nos familles nous manqeouns.

Je me souvendrai toujours de mes trois mois passé a Forecariah. Cette ville est benie d’une beaute naturelle exemple par ses montagnes ou sa riviere. J’espere que le Corps de la Paix continue a envoyer de future generation de volontaires pourqu’ils puissant beneficier de cette ville comme nous l’avons puis.

Maintenant que nous allons franchir un nouveau palier en quittant Forecariah nous nous sentions prêt, grace a vous, de commencer notre aventure en Guinee pour les deux prochaines annees. Merci encore pour tout que vous avez fait et nous esperons vous revoir dans le futur. Merci a touse.

Or, in English:

On behalf of all the trainees, I would like to thank you for your hospitality, your kindness, and your patience. When we arrived here in July, there were 25 trainees. Today, we leave with that same group of 25 trainees. This is, without doubt, thanks to your hospitality and your kindness.

During these three months, you have taught us how to live like Guineans. You helped us learn French; you cooked us Guinean food, like the rice and sauce; and you showed us how to dress like Guineans, for example, how we’re dressed today.

That which you taught us will be, without doubt, indispensible during the next two years. For example, for three weeks we taught your children, but in reality, in teaching we were learning to become better teachers.

All the moments were not easy, but you helped us to overcome those difficult times when we were sick or when we missed our families.

I will always remember my three months spent in Forecariah. This town is blessed with a natural beauty exemplified by its mountains and its river. I hope that the Peace Corps will continue to send future generations of volunteers here so they can benefit from this town the way we were able to.

Now that we are going to cross over to a new stage in leaving Forecariah, we will be ready, thanks to you, to begin our adventure in Guinea for the next two years. Thanks again for all that you did and we hope to see you again in the future! Thank you, everyone.

Surely you can imagine everyone standing up, clapping before I had even finished, the men giving each other high-fives, the women in tears of joy and sadness. Well, that’s how I like to remember it.. although that really wasn’t the case, because, due to the sound system and my inability to hold the microphone the perfect distance from my mouth, I don’t think anyone understood a word I said. Oh well – at least they didn’t boo!

And for all those people in Forecariah right now, sipping your cappuccinos as you browse my blog at the internet café on Main Street, or to my neighbors, the Toures, who are probably reading this via wifi on their laptop as they watch the Georgia Tech football team pummel Georgia on their wall-mounted flat screen – now you finally know what I was trying to say that day as I gave my speech at the closing ceremony!

That, of course, was just a joke. Everyone knows Guineans really don’t care much for American football.

With the speech and ceremony over, it was finally time to say goodbye to our families. Just how do you say goodbye to the people who raised you from a drooling toddler, through that awkward teenage phase, and into full-grown, Guinean adults? Honestly, I still don’t have the answer. I would have liked to have given them all hugs, but I’d read somewhere that Africans don’t give hugs at departures – that means you won’t be coming back.

Things were easy enough with Nga – she lagged behind and just sat on the ground in the shade; she had been fairly sick the last few days (although I later heard she had gone through the same symptoms with the three previous trainees). I walked over, took her hand, and thanked her many times in Susu. I finished with my favorite Susu phrase, “n bara sewa,” which means, “I’m happy,” smiled, and returned to the others.

My heart was at once broken and warmed when I walked back and saw Nba close to tears. It was obvious they didn’t know how to say goodbye, either. It’s so strange that, three months ago, I was experiencing some of the unhappiest moments of my life, most of which I attributed to this family, but there I was at the end of training, a changed person, at one of the happiest moments of my life, and it was all thanks to these same people. It’s safe to say I’ve developed an admiration and love for this family as though I really was one of their own, and I will never forget it.

Not knowing what to say and not wanting to prolong the farewell, I thanked them again, told them I would miss them but would return again someday, shook hands, and left. When I turned back around a few seconds later, they had already disappeared through the crowd of well-wishing families and other trainees. In a way, this farewell was almost harder on me than when I left my real family behind at Bluegrass Airport in July; I managed not to cry either time (hey, I’m a man. I save my crying for those first nights alone in a foreign country for two years, or when I’m curled up on the floor vomiting with malaria…), but this time around I couldn’t deny the fact that I may never see the Doumbwayas again.

No matter what happens, I know my mom, Tom, Erin, and Hilary will always be there; I know, God willing, that I’ll see them many, many more times over the years. The Doumbwayas, though – that’s a different matter. Peace Corps could get evacuated again or I could get sick and sent home, never to see them again. Another possibility is that one of them could get sick or hurt – Mama and Torres are still at ages where they are very vulnerable to diseases like malaria and pneumonia. Heck, two days before we left, a boy from the high school was struck by a car and killed in the market just up the street. I know this all sounds morbid, pessimistic, and maybe just a little scary, but now you also have a better idea of what it’s like to say goodbye to people you love in Africa.

(And as for our safety here, we’re always the first ones pulled off the street by a helpful petit when an approaching vehicle is still 100m distant)

To wrap up on the Doumbwayas, I’ll miss them while I’m here at site, but I know I haven’t heard the last of them, either. Nba called me three days in a row in Conakry, just to check up on me, to say hi, just like a parent should. :)

I often think back to the summer before my senior year of high school, probably one of the greatest summers ever. It started with a week of all-male mock legislation at the American Legion run Boys’ State. Okay, so it doesn’t sound great, but my friends and I had a blast getting under the skin of the super serious, I-want-to-win-the-scholarship-to-Boys’-Nation kids by trying to enact laws like the requirement to rotate your tires every day – boy, did that one grind some gears! Then, I got to spend a month at the Governor’s School for the Arts, where I played my viola all day with some great musicians and spent the rest of the time living, learning, and creating with other, like-minded artists – not a bad way to spend a month, no matter how old you are. One of my fondest memories of that summer, though, comes from the two week backpacking trip in the southern Rockies with my scout troop right after the arts school finished.

On this particular day we had a 12-mile hike, up and down several ridges, ending in what was affectionately known as “the seven switchbacks from Hell”. The campsite for the night was Apache Springs, and we soon found out that up by the springs we could set up an authentic Indian sweat lodge. After building a giant fire and heating up the rocks, we stripped down to our underwear and crawled through the tiny opening into the animal hide covered dome. Pouring water over the hot rocks to make it steam and feel even hotter, we timed ourselves to see how long we could last, how tough we all were. About twenty minutes later, the five of us burst out of the lodge, dumping buckets of ice cold spring water over our heads. It was, easily, the most refreshing moment of my life.

Arriving back in Conakry was kind of like that; except, instead of twenty minutes, we were in that sweat lodge for two months. Stepping through that door to the volunteer house was such a wonderful sensation, and I still can’t really put my finger on why.

My first explanation would be immediate access to air conditioning, television, and the internet, but that wasn’t it. I’m not a big TV junkie and I’ve got a bunch of shows and movies on my iPod anyways; air conditioning is nice, but after a few months you get used to the sweating and stickiness; and the internet – well, I don’t really get that many e-mails anymore and I only have enough good material to be able to post on this sucker every once a month or so, anyway.

No, that great feeling when I crossed the threshold was not a result of material products. I guess it must have has something to do with a freedom associated with the visit. The last time we visited the Peace Corps compound in Conakry was during our first few days in the country, when PCV’s and staff held our hands everywhere we went. Then, over the next eleven weeks in Forecariah, we always had classes to attend, classes to teach, and homework to do or grade. When we had spare time, we had to report our every move to our families. For the first time in almost three months, we were able to do what we wanted, when we wanted, without the stress of languages, passing the cross-culture exam, or simply fretting over what our families would feed us next.

For me, getting to spend time with the other G-16ers without those stresses was like getting to know them all over again, in a good way. Towards the end of our time in Forecariah, I was getting tired of always hanging out in the same places, for the same limited periods of time, always talking about the classes of that day or the next. For once, we were able to shed those restrictive shackles and just be ourselves. I got chances to really get to know some people I really hadn’t “met” during training, and the friendships I already had only became stronger.

On Thursday morning, we piled into the Peace Corps bus and made our way en ville to get some money from the bank and subsequently spend it all, gorging ourselves on “American” food. Peace Corps had already deposited our move-in allowance and the next three months’ living allowance, resulting in a whopping 4.3 million francs; we’d finally struck it rich! I withdrew three million, not sure of the next time I’d be in Conakry and wanting to make sure I had enough for the next few months. Since Guineans don’t have any bills larger than ten thousand francs, this resulted in quite a few bills, enough to need a backpack, but not so many that I wasn’t able to refute the lyrics of the great V.I.C./Soulja Boy song “Get Silly”, where they say “but forget a rubber band, cuz you can’t put a rubber band around a milli-ann!” Sorry Soulja Boy, but you CAN put a rubber band around a milli-ann!

With our money stowed safely away in our bags, a group of us made our way over to La Gondole, where I filled up on a large, fried egg (what the..?) pizza and a chocolate-banana milkshake. While it wasn’t a bad lunch, I’m not sure it was worth the 60 mille I had to fork over at the end. The cravings for American food, while they’re certainly still there, aren’t at the forefront of my mind anymore, which I suppose is actually quite a good thing, n’est-ce pas?

After leaving the restaurant, the plan was to go to the Leb store (run by Lebanese people) to pick up food and cooking supplies to take to site. The local authorities, however, had a different plan for us. When we got to the corner where we were going to turn towards the store, a police officer stepped in my path and saluted me. Confused, I half-saluted him and said “bonjour” as I tried to move around him. Staring me down with a look of incredulity, he stuck his arm out across my chest and demanded everyone’s documents. We obliged, passing over our Peace Corps ID cards and our cartes d’experts – our official Guinean documentation of our work here in the country. He claimed this wasn’t good enough, asking why we weren’t giving him our passports. We explained that our passports were held in the safe at the Peace Corps compound, resulting in him marching of down the street, taking our IDs with him and barking for us to follow.

I’m sure everybody has seen the movie or read the book where the unsuspecting foreigner falls prey to the crooked cop and winds up locked away in a dark prison cell for years, forgotten. Well, I wasn’t about to be that guy! I took about ten stops before I stopped, letting the police officer disappear into the crowd of people down the street; it would be much easier to get myself a new Peace Corps ID than get myself out of the back of some locked, windowless van… but just then our hero arrived in the form of Sam, the chief of the Peace Corps motor pool. We explained the problem and he immediately chased down the police officer, eventually returning with our IDs and an explanation. Apparently, security has been raised in Conakry such that all foreigners must now constantly prove they have not illegally entered the country. Why a bunch of Americans would try to sneak into Guinea, I don’t know.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully – olive oil, baking soda, and popcorn kernels were bought at the Leb store, then the afternoon was spent watching “Out of Africa” with Conor, Luke and Tiffany. The movie was alright, but I won’t be in a hurry to watch it again; it was quite slow-moving, and if I really want to re-watch a Robert Redford movie, it would probably be “The Sting.”

Friday – the day to which we’d all been looking forward for months, the day we could finally shed that nasty title of “trainee” and toast one another as “volunteers”! The swearing-in ceremony was held at the U.S. embassy, and oh! how good it felt to be back on U.S. soil, in a sense. The swearing-in ceremony was similar to the farewell ceremony in that four volunteers gave speeches, along with the some speeches by the Peace Corps administration. It differed in the fact that some more important Guinean officials spoke, the ambassador spoke, and, of course, at the end of THIS ceremony, we were all volunteers.

Understandably, we were all a bit disappointed when we’d been told there would be no food following the ceremony – it would be rude to eat in front of the fasting Guineans. So, you can imagine our delight when the last speech ended and we turned around to find tables of delicious finger foods and pastries. Not only were we on American soil, but we were eating bologna, mini-pizzas, cake, and drinking soda – can you get any more patriotic than that?

Dan, the Peace Corps country director, and his wife, Julia, had planned a pool party and barbeque for us at their house starting at four. Seeing as we had a few hours between our time at the embassy and the impending bash, we couldn’t think of a better way to get ready than with a few cold beverages, so a group of us headed down to the beach bar, my first visit since July. Showing up to the beach on a Friday (the Muslim holy day) during Ramadan was like landing on the moon – it was completely empty. Well, empty of people; there was still plenty of trash to go around! Needless to say, we had the bar to ourselves.

A few beverages later, the time was right to dive into the pool party. had one thing on my mind – swimming in that cool, clear water!

The food was ready a few hours later and we enjoyed some of the most delicious, and I must add, bone-free, hamburgers I’ve ever had, along with beans, potato salad and some fantastic dirty rice. To top it all off, we had fruit salad and brownies! for dessert. Throughout the barbeque, various embassy staff dropped in to eat and say hello, including the ambassador herself, who had arrived at her post in Guinea only a few days before.

Towards the end of the night, I made my way up to the roof, where I could watch the storm roll in from the Atlantic. A nice breeze blowing in across the ocean kept things cool the lighting closed the distance between us. I must have been up there for about two hours, just watching. Every now and then somebody else would pop up and we’d talk for a bit. All in all, it was a pretty cool end to a marvelous day.

Saturday was a day meant for shopping and preparing for site. A large group of volunteers hustled off in the morning to fight the crowds (and pickpockets) en ville at Medina. I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of being with such a large group, and I figured I could probably find most of what I needed at the nearby Towya market, so I stayed behind. A few hours later, Conor, Valentin, Tiffany, and I decided to splurge on one last meal, so we deplaced a taxi (meaning we were the only occupants) to Le Damier – one of the nicest restaurants in Conakry. When I say nicest, don’t go conjuring up images of the Mayflower Hotel or the 1796 restaurant in Georgetown. Instead, imagine a quaint, clean, little French café. While the waiter was appropriately snooty, the food was appropriately good. I ordered a croquet madame, a slice of chicken/tomato pizza, and a cappuccino. My bill came out to 78 mille, only about 40 mille shy of what we’ve all decided will be our next great Conakry adventure – Le Damier’s Saturday buffet! I could talk about it now, just based on what I saw, but I think I’ll wait until I’ve actually had the chance to enjoy it and can do it justice – perhaps I’ll treat myself to the buffet for Christmas?

Later in the day, I made my way down to Towya and picked up a few of the essentials – bed sheets, pots, dishes and utensils, and some screen to make screen doors for my hut. The hard thing about buying stuff in Guinea is that you always have to haggle over the prices and, being Americans, we have to haggle that much more. Due to this, no matter how much I pay in the end, I always walk away with the suspicion that I’ve been ripped off. That said, I was very pleased to later find out that I’d paid less for my goods than everyone else.

With the shopping finished, Ashley, Tiffany, Valentin, and I walked down to the beach bar to join Ben and Luke, who had spent the entire day at the beach in lieu of shopping. As the sun began to set, the sand-soccer games began to thin out and once again we had the beach mostly to ourselves. The two hours we spent there that evening were some of the happiest, most euphoric hours I’ve had in country. I was in great company, watching the sun set over the ocean with islands off in the distance, the day before we all set off on our great adventures. It was like fitting that last piece into the jigsaw puzzle – everything was finally in its right place, and the picture it made was beautiful. Oh, and having a few beers didn’t hurt, either.

That night, we feasted on a pig Ian had killed and roasted, along with coleslaw, deviled eggs, and a crème brule to die for. Caron had organized a rooftop carnival involving twister, flip cup, and beer pong. Tiffany and I exercised total domination in beer pong, clinching the championship title… okay, let’s be honest – the last game was taking so long we had to declare it a tie and move on… Added on to the victory list was G-16’s triumph over G-15 in a best two-out-of-three flip cup challenge. What were the prizes? Bear beer! (See the picture above)

The perfect weekend in Conakry came to an abrupt end Sunday morning when Ben, Alison and I hugged everybody goodbye, climbed into the Land Cruiser, and left. While I will see a few other volunteers in the next month or two, it will be at least Christmas before I see the rest of them, which is what made my farewell to Ben and Alison so bittersweet on Monday. As ready as I had been to set off on my own when we left Forecariah, the time spent in Conakry reminded me of the good friends I’d made and how much I would miss them over the next few months. Of course, all you friends back home reading this shouldn’t feel bad – it was much harder leaving you guys! But I think you already knew that :)

So, that brings me (quasi-)up-to-date. After the Peace Corps truck pulled away, I got to work settling in. One of my first moves was to commission screen doors from the carpenter, who’s ‘shop’ is only about 100 meters from my hut. It’s Friday as I write (this entry started on Monday – little by little, a bird builds its nest, right?), and the doors aren’t ready yet; I’m hoping they’ll be waiting for me when I get back from Faranah tomorrow evening.

When we first pulled up to my hut Monday, there must have been about 50 people waiting to greet me. At first, I was really stressed – how would I be able to get anything done with all those people around?? Within an hour of the truck leaving, though, everyone else had also left, the crowd having lost interest pretty quickly. It’s been wonderful having the last few days carefree and to myself. I’ll wake up around 7:30, roll out of bed, step into my backyard (which is now enclosed and private), where I’ll relax into my hammock. There, I’ll pick up my book of the moment (I’m on my third already), read for an hour or so, and doze back off. I’ll typically only sleep 20 or 30 minutes at a time in the hammock, but there have certainly been a few afternoons when I’ve put away a good hour or two…

At some point, around 9 or 10, I’ll pull myself out of the hammock and take off for a run or bike ride. I’ve not run terribly far yet – only six miles yesterday – I’ll have to get up a lot earlier for the distance runs, because by 9 am it’s already terrifically hot and humid, and there’s not beaucoup de shade on my road. I was curious as to how the locals would react to my running and was pleased with the result: although there were a few puzzled looks, there were plenty more smiles and cheers.

On Wednesday, I took off on my bike to Laya, a village about ten miles distant which I passed through on that 26 mile tour de force during site visit. When I passed through last time, a young man walked with me for a bit, explaining Laya had a tree where you could go for cell phone reception, so I thought I’d see if it was true. When I arrived, a petit named Haround, maybe around 14 or 15 years old, and three of his friends took me to the tree. I stood under the tree, staring at my phone, waiting for a signal, oh, and feeling just a little silly, too – the signal never came. When Harouna saw this, he said there was one other spot, pointing to the top of a large hill off in the distance. It seemed a long way, but I’d already come ten miles, and what else was I going to do? Go home and take another nap?

So we went. Halfway up the hill, he told me I’d have to leave my bike, and I could see way – from there on, the trail was barely visible through the jungle dense with trees and 8-foot tall grass. Although it wasn’t far, it wasn’t the easiest of hikes. The view from the top, signal or not, made the whole trip worthwhile. You could see the entire village of Laya laid out in the distance and then for miles past it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera – but now that gives you a reason to tune back into my next post!

So, aside from reading, napping, exercising, and writing endlessly in my journal, what else am I doing? Becoming bien integre, of course! On Tuesday, I spent a few hours walking around with the principal of my school, Monsieur Camara. Our first stop was the market, which is only held on Tuesdays. Wanting some fruit, I was shocked to find out how expensive it was.. or, should I say.. inexpensive! I bought twelve grapefruit for 800 francs (about 16 cents), 11 oranges for 1200 frances (about 24 cents) and 10 bananas for 2000 francs (about 40 cents). In all, I bought more fruit than I could carry for less than a dollar. You can bet your bottom dollar that I used that last 20 cents to buy a bag!

Afterwards, we went about the village, greeting all the local big-men. The imam presented me with two mille to buy myself kola nuts as the customary welcome gift, as did the president of the quartier marche. It didn’t feel quite right just mixing that money with the rest of my money, so it’s sitting in an honorary spot at the corner of my desk/table/counter, kind of like how people frame the first dollar they make, until I figure out something better to do with it.

Each day at site, I make an effort to spend at least a few hours integrating into the community, which basically means a walk through town, in my Sunday best, to the café, where I’ll drink tea with the older men who can only speak a little French. Most of the people here speak a language called Yalonke, which it either the basis for Susu or is based off Susu, depending who you ask. Nevertheless, I am the only volunteer in a Yalonke village (I think there are only about 10,000 people who speak it in the world, and most of them are in my village), so I just studied Susu with the others. I can pick up words here and there, but it is a very subtle language and it will be quite a while before I am comfortable with it.

My only real setback in moving into my hut was the realization that two of my bags had not made it onto the truck in Conakry. It’s not a big deal, hopefully they will arrive when the mail-run comes. It is, however, a little inconvenient because those two bags were the bags with all the stuff I’d bought in Conakry for site – i.e. my sheets and my cooking gear. Like I said, it’s not a big deal – I have a sleeping bag until the sheets come, and my neighbors will cook for me until my cooking stuff arrives… or so I thought!

When I walked through town during my site visit about a month and a half ago, I must have received 20 invitations to eat with various people. Naturally, I figured the same thing would happen when I moved here.. only, that wasn’t the case. My first night I ended up eating some care package snacks for dinner. The second night, though, I did receive a delicious chicken dinner from my principal’s wife, as well as some rice for Wednesday’s lunch, but other than that, I’ve been on my own. Luckily, I have that care package food and the fruit I bought the other day, so I’ve actually been eating quite well. On this day, though, I spotted some bread for sale on my walk through town. I scooped up a loaf and went off in search of some peanut butter. A woman sold me a lump (that’s how they sell it here) and I was headed home to a delicious dinner! I figured I’d eat half the loaf tonight and the other half in the morning before the 50km bike ride into Faranah.

I fixed myself a nice little sandwich with peanut butter, honey I’d bought in Conakry, and even went a bit overboard by adding a few pieces of some fancy bittersweet chocolate my friend had been so kind as to send. Sandwich in hand, I sat in front of my hut, taking the first bite as I continued to write in my journal. Just as I was about to take the second bite, an old woman walked by on the path which crosses just 20 feet from my front door. She greeted me in Yalonke and I greeted back, and, in an attempt to be vrai Guinean, said “invitation?” Guineans love this and always say, “Merci, bon appétit!” and go on their way. Well! I’ll be damned if that old woman didn’t take me up on it! She took the sandwich and sat next to me. Expecting her to take a bite and hand it back to me, I was rather surprised when she stood up, said thanks, and walked off, my whole sandwich (and dinner), minus a bit, in tow!

Thank goodness for second halves, right? I just went right back into my hut and made up the sandwich I was going to have for breakfast, although this time I was sure to eat it behind the cover of a book whenever somebody walked by… I guess the moral of the story is that whenever you invitation someone on a sandwich, unless you want them to take the whole dang thing, break off how much you really want to share…