26.2 in Guinea

(You can enlarge any picture by clicking on it)



The last time I left you, I was battling with the French keyboard and slow internet café trying to get out short e-mails and a few blog posts up before I ran out of time and had to hand over another 5000 francs for more minutes. Now, site visit is over and I’ve successfully recharged my laptop, on which I am now happily typing away, making sweet, sweet music with the familiar keys of the good old American keyboard.

After leaving the café, I scoured the market looking for a killer outfit to wear to our Friday night party, themed ‘Hunters and Prey’ (ah! Now you’re laughing at the funny pun about the ‘killer’ outfit, right??). I’m pretty sure the PCV’s in Haute Guinean saw pictures of me prior to my arrival and just wanted a whole army of me’s –you know, because I’m so good-looking. P.S. – if you think I’m cocky now, please read my post titled ‘Good Looks, Model Physique’… and then read then read the post right after it that explains I’m just joking. :)

Anyway, I went to a booth with fabric and came away with two meters of fantastic animal print, which I proceeded to cut into the shape of a lion (or tiger, or other big cat), and drape over my shoulder, like you might see in the great movie, Coming to America. Except mine was better, because it really didn’t look anything like a cat at all. And then I used the scraps to make a loin cloth of sorts. Unfortunately, or fortunately,no pictures were taken of me before I changed out of the loin cloth for fear of splinters, but I’m sure some pictures of the rest of the costume will show up on facebook at some point.

The party ended up being a pretty good time, good enough that I was a little hungover for the bumpy ride out of Kankan the next day. Seeing as my site is the furthest from the regional capital, I was lucky enough to be the one PCT travelling with the Peace Corps truck, while all the rest took their chances in bush taxis. We drove down through lower Haute and into Kissidougou, one of the big cities of the Forest Region in the bottom part of the country. From there, we fixed a flat we’d encountered in some terrific off-roading, then made our way up out of the Forest, through some more lower Haute, and onto my site.

The road between Kissi and my site is excellent, and the landscape is nothing short of breathtaking. The last 50km or so, which I’ll probably be biking a few times a week, is probably my favorite stretch of road in the country. If I were to compare it to something most of you may know, I’d say it looks just the Shire in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, what with the small houses/huts, short doors, and verdant surroundings.

When we finally arrived at my site, 8 hours later, we were greeted by one of my neighbors, who explained that the man with the key to my hut was out of town. Oops! Mais ca, c’est pas un problem. He was very friendly and said Sarah (the PCV doing my site visit with me) and I could stay in his house (which in Guinean means we’d take his bed and he’d sleep on the floor). I’m not terribly comfortable displacing people like that, and we’d talked about a cool hotel back in Faranah with a pool and monkeys, and I just happened to have enough money to afford it for a night. The decision was made to drive back to Faranah, stay the night, then catch a cab the next morning back to my site, where we would hopefully find the man with my key.

The hotel, Hotel Del Niger, was awesome; in fact, I think they have a website – google it, baby. I don’t want to dwell on it too much, but the pool was nice and cold, as was the night air, which was a wonderful treat. I dined on steak et frites – a steak which would probably fail by American standards but which was one of the top culinary moments of my experience thus far in Guinea. The hotel, complete with flushing toilets and electricity after dark, was a welcome change. The cost was 100,000 francs, which is really expensive by my pay (about 10 days pay right now), but really cheap by your standards – about $20 a night. If you come visit we can stay there for a night or two! Here are some pictures of the two monkeys and the hotel (you stay in the huts; as Sarah put it, it’s kind of like the Disney interpretation of Africa living):





After leaving the hotel, we made our way down to the gare, where we arranged for a taxi back to my site. While we waited for the taxi to fill with other passengers, Sarah and I went off in search of egg sandwiches. As we mange’d away, a tall man in a suit came and sat with us; a minute into talking he let on that he was my principal and the man with my key. Imagine that, of all the people in the Faranah market that morning, he was able to single me out! Of course, it probably helped that I was the only white guy for miles and miles…

Anyway, we made it back to my site and into my hut at last. I know you’re dying to see the hut, so I’ll just show you some pictures:






It’s quite small and needs work, but I think it will serve me wonderfully over the next two years. The ‘wrap-around’ porch is something unique to me; none of the other volunteers have one. I’ll also have a ‘cloture’ (or closed fence) installed around the back half of the hut, giving me a private outdoor space. I think I’ll probably suspend my hammock under the roof overhang behind the hut, giving me a nice place to chill out, out of the way of passers-by.

My Principal (school principal) is probably one of the friendliest people I’ve met in country; he’s also the largest Guinean I’ve met. No shorter than 6’5 and probably a healthy 240 pounds, he’s the first person I’ve met in country larger than me. When he opened my hut, it was pretty filthy, so once again Sarah and I were offered somebody’s room – this time in his house. We ended up resting there for a while during a rainstorm, but I told him I thought if we cleaned the hut a little it would be fine to sleep in for a few nights. He thought that was a great idea, told us he’d get some students to clean it, and told us to go back to our naps. I love Guinea! Sure enough, an hour later it was clean enough to do for a few days and we made our transfer.

The next morning, Sarah had to catch a taxi back to her town, but he insisted we have breakfast at his house first. I’ve found that when a Guinean invites an American to a meal, it’s nothing like you’d expect. Generally, an invitation to eat with them is actually an invitation to eat their food, at their house, by yourself. This time was no different. He gave us a pot of hot water, tea bags, a can of condensed milk, a bag of sugar (seriously, about 5 pounds of sugar), a loaf of bread, and THE MOST DELICIOUS chicken and pasta I’ve had in country, something like a Chinese pasta (still very greasy). Generally, the chicken here is small and not very meaty, but this breakfast chicken was on par with Mr. Day’s Friday night wings, although with a different flavor, of course. And if you don’t know the wings I’m talking about, please do me a favor and make a trip over to Clarendon and eat some, then tell me how wonderful it was, and then I’ll proceed to live vicariously through you for a few days…

Moving on, literally, Sarah caught a taxi and I embarked on my…… journey.

As I said before, one of the PCV’s who has been in country for two years told me about a missionary family living in my village. Seeing as I had an entire day with nothing to do but explore, I decided it would be a great idea to find them and make some new friends. At breakfast the previous morning, I had asked the principal if there were any Americans in our village; his immediate answer was ‘no’, but about a minute into another conversation, he said ‘oh, but there are some missionaries in Neyla, about 12km down the road.’ 12km isn’t far, right? It’s only about 7.5 miles, and that’s nothing more than a nice two-hour walk. I figured once I got to the village of the missionaries we’d hang out for a while, then they’d scoop me on back to my village. If not, I could at least catch a bush taxi en route. I also figured this would be an excellent opportunity to snap some photos of the beautiful environs to show you guys. Along with the camera, I packed a book, two small, lunch-size boxes of raisins, the book I’m reading on JFK, toilet paper, my knife, cough drops, an iPod shuffle, sunglasses, and a hat – all into my Nike string bag.

I set off on the walk, more enthusiastic than you could imagine. Everything I saw was so beautiful I only wished one of you could be there with me to see it, or that I could at least call someone to describe it. I started taking pictures right off the bat, stopping many times just to observe the scenery. There wasn’t much wildlife to be seen, but there were some crow-sized birds with bright red wings flying about, although I failed to capture them on my camera. I walked along so happily listening to music on my iPod and just enjoying the fact that I was there, in the middle-of-nowhere Africa, the only white person for a hundred miles.

I reached the 5k mark a little less than an hour in, and at this point I encountered a tiny village, nothing more than just a few huts on the side of the road, along with a sign labled ‘Niaya’, pointing down a dirt path. Now, Niaya looks like Neyla might sound, considering sometimes you don’t always understand people perfectly, so I thought this would be a good place to ask about the missionaries. Unfortunately, even though every person within a mile came to see the tubabu, none of them spoke French, so asking about missionaries was not a success. Figuring that if there were missionaries, the people might at least have a clue to take me to them, and that I was only 5k into my walk, not 12, I moved on.

5k further down the road, I ran into another small village, where the people seemed to get by through bundling and selling wood for cooking fires. This time around, there was an old man around, who, through broken French, informed me that there were, in fact, missionaries. There were in a town called Yatia, and it was either five or ten kilometers further down the road. Knowing that people who travel very little don’t always have an excellent gauge of distances, I figured he actually meant the town was just 2k down the road, and that the principal had been wrong about the name of the village. Well, 5k later I knew, at the very least, that the old man had not been wrong; it would be at least 5k before I found Yatia. 15k in, I encountered a town, probably the largest before Faranah, called Laya, were there were more French speakers, and I received a definitive answer that Yatia was indeed the village of the missionaries, and that it was 6k further down the road. I also received assurance that I was crazy for already having walked so far.

If you know me, you’ll know that I didn’t turn around and go home. Another 6k? That’s nothing! Besides, the missionaries could just drive me home and I could rest for the remainder of the day. Sure enough, the people in Laya had raison – Yatia was exactly 6k further down the road. I knew right away that I was in the right place, because pigs were running all around. What does that have to do with anything? Well, the majority of the country (I think 85%) is Muslim, which means the majority of the country does not eat pork. A town with pigs is sure to have outside influence. Along with the pigs, I sited a building with ‘L’Ecole Evangelique’ painted on the side. Knowing I’d reached my destination, I sought out somebody to take me to the other Americans. Finding a young girl left in charge of making lunch, I asked in French and Susu where I could find the missionaries. Seeing that the girl was either clueless or scared, I grabbed my cheek, shook it, shouted ‘Fotes! Fotes!’ and jumped around, trying to symbolize multiple (crazy) people like me. This got the message through. She took my hand and led me up the hill to the house of the Fotes, where she left me.

After knocking for several minutes to no avail, I looked around and realized the whole area was bien locked – locked well enough for somebody going out of town for a while. I trudged back down the hill (although not before noticing the LARGEST baobab/tree/living organism I’ve ever seen, at the very top of the hill, of which I’ll take a picture next time around), trying to find out more about the missionaries. I found a nice man who invited me to sit on the porch with him and his wife, who had just finished breast-feeding and was reclining, topless. He explained that the missionaries were out of town and wouldn’t be back for at least a week. Great! He was kind enough to supply me with pen and a small piece of paper, on which I wrote a note, hoping they will eventually receive it. After, I said my goodbyes and sadly trudged off down the road.

At this point, I was almost out of water, tired, blisters were commencing to form on my feet around the straps of the oh-so-comfortable-but-not-for-13-miles Chaco sandals. Over the next 6k, one bush taxi passed me, and it didn’t even slow down. I arrived back in Laya, now 27k into my little walkabout. Luckily, we had stopped there in the taxi the day before, so I knew back in the village, away from the road, was a road with drinks and, hopefully, a new bottle of water. I found the boutique, complete with the proprietor sleeping on the bench in front of it. He was OUT. For five minutes, I repeated phrases like ‘bonjour, monsieur!, ‘ ca va?’ and ‘tana mu fenie!’ in escalating volumes, becoming thirstier with every syllable. Eventually, I poked him. He woke up, about as confused as I probably sound if you call me in the middle of the night (that’s ok, though, call me any time!!), and I commissioned him to give me a soda, a new bottle of water, and a caramel sucker. I downed the soda, which is something you have to do at the boutiques here, because they need to keep the bottles for their deposits. After, I once again set off on the road.

It was starting to get hot, and my neck was starting to feel burnt. Although I hadn’t brought sunscreen on site visit with me, I was at least smart enough to wear a long-sleeve shirt and hat the entire way. Between 15k from home and 5k from home, a few more taxis passed, but none stopped, in spite of my desperate flagging maneuvers. In the last mile, as I painfully walked step-by-step, a taxi stopped, this time without even being signaled. Everybody in the truck insisted that I get in, but at this point I was a bit delirious from the sun and was determined to finish the entire damned thing on my own. To their dismay, I said no thanks and trudged on. At long last, I made it back to my village, dead tired. There was still a picture I really wanted to take (you’ll see it below, with two huts and a scraggly baobab behind). Unfortunately, when I took out my camera, about 20 kids on the other side of the street saw and insisted on an impromptu photo session. I obliged and snapped a few, one of which is below.

Finalement, I arrived at the tiny café on my side of town, where I ordered a tea, an energy drink (warm), and three bottles of water. After resting there long enough to gain adequate energy to cross the street, I made my way over to search for bread. My town doesn’t have a baker, so bread is difficult to come by. I asked one of the boutique-men, who explained he had two loaves he’d bought in Faranah, but they were for his dinner. He (with a little regret in his voice) said he’d sell me a loaf for 1500gf, which was a good price considering it was his and he’d bought it 50k down the road. I explained I only had 1000gf, but that I only needed half the loaf. He took the mille francs and insisted I take the entire loaf; people in my village are so nice! Just the day before a Sierra Leonian gave me the last of his bucket of peanuts, for free!

Bread in hand, I made it back to my hut, where I made a DELICIOUS sandwich with some pepperoni sent by my AMAZING mom, put my feet in a bucket of water, and lay on my bed without moving for about an hour. As I was about to drift off, my principal dropped by. What did he want? Oh, just to see if I was interested in taking a walk around town. After explaining my adventure, to which he was incredulous, he was very sympathetic and said I needed to rest. I did. I took a bucket bath and tended to my poor, poor feet. See, in the course of the walk, I covered at least 42k, which is the same distance as a marathon (26.2 miles to you non-metric folk). In my opinion, this definitely counts as my third marathon. It was just as hard as New York City in the carrot, and I was probably even more sore and certainly more sunburnt. I also had a pretty extreme heat rash covering my torso when I took off my shirt, although it’s all gone now. Anyway, that’s pretty much the entire marathon story, so here’s some pictures of the walkabout:

























In other news:

*The day before site-visit, we had something called Free University, where we had to make presentations in French on subjects we knew well and could teach to the other PCTs. My friend, Valentine, and I decided to show everyone how to carry a baby on your back like Guinean women. If you saw my picture of Mama in the last post, this is the same thing, except Valentine is a grown man. As you can imagine, it went over pretty well. Even Monsieur Diallo, who we’ve never seen smile, was forced to cover his mouth to prevent an audible laugh. Here are some pictures:




*COMMANDO BEAR. Could you possibly think of a cooler name for an energy drink? I saw the new poster at my café and knew I had to have it at least once. (If you haven’t seen the powerthirst videos, now is an excellent time to get on youtube and search powerthirst, powerthirst 2, and brawndo). I can definitely see myself going crazy enough in my isolation at site to make an awesome solo advert for this tasty beverage on my camera. It takes like Redbull, but with no carbonation, in case you were wondering, and is made in Thailand. The can:


*Communication when I move to site. When I finish my training and move to the middle of nowhere, you won’t be able to contact me. Very much. There is no cell phone reception in my village. However, a man on the road during my walk told me there’s a tree near Laya where you can get reception on the Areeba network, although I don’t know how often I’ll go there to use it, since I can’t use it to talk to most of you anyways, as I have to be home before dark (travelling on Guinean roads after dark is forbidden by PC, as it is little more than a death wish. Most cars don’t have working lights and won’t stop for anything). That said, Faranah has reception, as well as internet and food. Right now, my plan is to bike into Faranah every Saturday or Sunday (I’ll let you know the week before which day it will be), where I’ll hang out on the internet, sipping cold drinks, and hopefully taking your calls before I head home around 4:30pm my time (12:30 eastern time). So, if you want to chat, you know when your window is! And please call, I will really need that in order to make it through this isolation. Fingers crossed, there will be a volunteer posted in Faranah beginning in February, which means I can probably crash with them on weekends and have phone service from Friday to Monday, but that’s still a ways off. In the meantime, letters are still great, and send a few of the same one, so maybe one of them will get through. I get mail the second Tuesday of every month.


*Driving back from site visit, I finally got that feeling of PC contentment where I knew I would be okay here for the duration of my service. Somehow I got over an emotional hump during site visit where I knew I would be really happy the next 22 months or so. I think the prayer ‘God, please grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the ability to know the difference’ has helped a lot. Let’s just hope I can recognize which things are and aren’t changeable! Here’s a picture taken from the taxi of the beautiful Basse Cote region:




*The beard. Is gone. I needed a change, so now I look like a twelve-year-old again.

Alors! I think this is enough for now. I’m in Conakry now and for the next few hours, which should mean GREAT cell phone reception if you want to call, otherwise call anyway, because it’s not that bad in Forecariah anyway. Much love to all my loyal friends and family who are still reading this, some seven weeks into my journey. I love and miss you all and couldn’t do this without your support.