(So this post is going up the same day as the previous one, but I felt like I needed to break off the old post and start a new one… I was having to backtrack too much to see what I had and had not said, and felt like the post was getting a little out of control.)
As I type, it is 7pm on the 12th of August. We only had about 30 minutes of good rain today, so the air is still sticky and hot. The sun has tucked itself in for bed behind the mountains; shadows are growing longer by the minute. When I finish typing, I’ll turn off the computer, light my kerosene lantern, and go to work preparing a lesson plan for tomorrow.
Physically, I am once again sick, but all is not lost – my spirits are still high and I’m on medication to help kick the cold. I’ll spare you the long story and give you the symptoms: vomiting last week, turning into a swollen throat, chest sore from coughing, dizziness, constant fatigue, achy muscles, this disconcerting freezing of my neck muscles when I sleep. Fingers crossed, I’ll be better by Thursday, when I depart Forecariah for my site visit.
On Thursday, 8 of us will pile into one of the Peace Corps Land Cruisers for an 11-18hour trip to Kankan, the regional capital of Haute Guinea. We’ll spend the night in Kankan, where I’ll be posting this guy, on espere. Friday, I’ll be getting into a bush taxi with a volunteer who has been here since December, and we’ll beat our way back across Haute, on another 12-18 hour journey, to my site. Today I was the recipient of some OUTSTANDING news. One of the trainers told me she’s friends with a missionary family living in my town. Apparently there are a husband, wife, and twin 13-year-old sons. If they’re still there when I move, I’ll probably be about the happiest guy in Guinea. Why? For one thing, instead of having to go 100 miles for the next person from the same side of the world as me, I’ll only have to go as far as across town. Supposedly, missionaries live a pretty decent life, by PC Guinea standards, so they’ll probably have good food and maybe even their own electricity! I’ll post more on this after the fact.
Training has been going well. My French has continued to improve and next week we begin teaching Guinean students, instead of just our peers. Teaching math in French is a fairly intense experience, but I feel like it will only take a few months to really get acclimated to the system and in the flow of things. I hope. When I return from my site visit, I’ll interview for my language proficiency again, which should be around intermediate high or advanced low. If that’s the case, my French classes will be traded for Malinka, the local language of Haute Guinea.
It’s been really great hearing from those of you who have called and been able to get through – I understand some people have been having a lot of trouble getting through to Guinea. Apparently tel3advantage doesn’t get a great connection when I’m in my house, so some of the calls never even make it to my phone, and the ones that do are often dropped. If you want to talk to me and are willing to sit at your computer while you do, the connections people have had using skype (sp?) have been the best so far. That said, I’m near the antenna for my phone every Tuesday and Thursday from 12:30-2pm my time (8:30-10am EST), and the calls always seem to make it through there. I’m happy to call people, and while it’s only about 50 cents a minute for me to call you, that 50 cents actually represents a healthy portion of my day’s pay, so don’t be upset if I call just to say hi! Also, text messages don’t seem to be getting through to me, but that could be the region – I’ll post if that changes. At the moment, I have two phones using different networks. The first one you should try is my cellcom number:
011-224-65.80.50.11
(011 is the international dialing code; 224 is the Guinean country code)
If you can’t get through on my cellcom number, try the areeba phone:
011-224-66.51.86.03
Hopefully one of them will work! (Also, my number may change when I move to my site in October, as they may have different coverage)
About a week and a half ago, we took a Saturday field trip to Les Cascades de Soumbara, north of Conakry near the town of Dubreka. This took place of the internet trip to Conakry which I had been eagerly anticipating, but once we got there I was not disappointed. We turned off of a paved road to what basically qualified as a widened trail.
We followed this trail through the brush and into the forst for 6km until we arrived at a sign that said parking. Immediately upon exiting the car, you could hear the sounds of the waterfalls on the other side of the hill. We climbed the steps up the hill and we greeted with a lovely site on the other side. In the middle of nowhere, a Lebanese man, raised in Iowa, had managed to build a beautiful outdoor restaurant into the side of a waterfall. I don’t really think my words can do it much justice, because it’s hard for me to get the idea into your head of what we’d been living in the past few weeks, and this place seemed beyond luxurious. After swimming in the falls and the river, we bought some expensive but delicious Lebanese pizza and enjoyed it as we watched the water tumble over itself, again and again.
At one point, we all looked up to see monkeys leaping from tree to tree across the very top of the falls – an awesome site. There were three or four monkeys total and every time one made his leap was a nail-biting moment – there must having been about fifteen feet between branches, and when they’d land the branch would bend down to just above the water, nearly sending the monkey down the river to its early demise.
Coming back from the falls, the skies opened on us and we got nice and wet after being dropped off at the bureau, about a mile from my house. This is an excerpt from my journal that same night:
'Ben and I walked back in one of the heaviest downpours we’ve yet seen in Guinea, probably a harbinger of the storms to come in August, the wettest month of the year. While we’d normally pass 20 or 30 people on the road between the bureau and our neighborhood, this time we only passed two. Others watched us pass from the relative safety of their mud cooking huts.
The overflowing rainwater raced down the hill in deep, muddy ‘gutters’. Reluctantly, we trudged through puddle after puddle, trying not to think of all the awful things we knew were running over our feet and between our toes.
All this meant a long bucket bath when I got home, followed by some quality time with my feet, making sure they were clean. After finally emerging from my room, my family presented me with my most delicious, most American meal to date. Cucumber and avocado salad, and spaghetti with tomato sauce served over rice. A delicious meal like this meant I had to finish every bite; you can’t chance having your family think you turned your nose up to a meal you’d like to eat every night! But that wasn’t a problem, because I was famished.
Following the wonderful dinner, I dove back into The Sun Also Rises, a book I’ve read once a year since the 10th grade. The first three times I read it, I hated it. The next four times, I was indifferent. The last two times, I loved it. I know it doesn’t make any sense to reread a book so many times, especially when you didn’t enjoy the first seven, but Hemingway is one of my favorite authors, and I’ve always heard that this book is supposed to be one of the great pieces of 20th century literature. Obviously, I’m thankful I stuck with it so much, because now it’s one of my favorites and I look forward to each read like a reunion with an old friend.
Tonight, I was reading the chapter where Jake and Bill have reached the hotel for fishing, and Jake is describing how cold it is and how he has to bundle up to keep warm. As I was reading, I felt chills, as though I was really connecting with the book and actually feeling the cold of Jake in his hotel room. Turns out it was actually chilly in Forecariah and a nice breeze was going through! This was one of those moments when I felt perfectly content and at peace with myself, after a long, wonderful day. Sometimes, even in Africa, things can come together just right.'
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