On killing chickens, pigs and men

(This post was finished late Wednesday, early Thursday, the 24th and 25th of September. At this point I have finished training in Forecariah and am in Conakry through Sunday, at which point I’ll travel to Kankan for a day or two before setting off for my site. This post will mostly be limited to things which happened before Wednesday – hopefully I will have a new post ready Saturday night to reflect on things like leaving Forecariah, swearing in at the US embassy, and my hopes and fears of being the only white person for 120 km. If you want to catch me in the next few days while I still have good phone service, my number is 224-65805011)

After sharing my last set of adventures with you, I was worried I might run dry on material and return to the blog empty-handed. But then I remembered I’m in Africa and all I have to do is get out of bed in order for something crazy to happen. In this entry, I’ll be regaling you with accounts of mistaken identity, evil sorcery, and gruesome beheadings, among other niceties.

Let’s start with the case of mistaken identity and the evil sorcery.

The story begins a few weeks ago, in my afternoon Susu class. For those of you who have never been in or seen a Guinean school (what’s that, like 90% of you?), I’ve gone to the trouble of providing a few pictures to lend some visuals to the story.







As you can see, there is not much to the school – basically just a bunch of rooms with open windows. These windows can prove to be a problem when teaching, because passersby don’t seem to have any problem stopping and watching your class for ten minutes. They also have no qualms with verbally greeting the occupants of the classroom, generally sticking around and speaking up until they get some sort of response. Most teachers will just shoo away the spectators, but Dr. Diané, being the friendliest person you’ll ever meet, does not hesitate to greet every single person who stops by our class.



On the particular day of this story, a man dropped by just as we were taking a break, with Federico, Tiffany and I stepping outside to stretch and walk around. Dr. Diané talked to his visitor for the duration of the break, handing the man some money as he bade him ‘Bonne chance!’ and turned his attention to us. He could tell we were curious why he gave the man money and provided us with this explanation, ‘That man is in a little bit of trouble. He was out hunting this weekend when he accidentally shot a man. It looks like he might be going to jail.’ We didn’t have much with which to respond, so the subject died away… until a few weeks later.

Now it’s a few a weeks later and, once again, Federico, Tiffany and I are sitting in Susu class. This time, a woman stops by and talks to the doctor for a good five minutes. Afterward, he turned around and explained she was the wife of the man who had been shot. Naturally, we asked how he was, and we found out he’d only been shot in the shoulder and would be okay. The next question, though, was to yield a much more interesting answer. What about the man who shot the guy? Is he in jail? ‘Well,’ the doctor responded (in French, this has been translated for your benefit!), ‘during the day, he stays in the prison across the street, but they let him walk home for meals and at night to sleep. You see, it’s a tricky situation, because it turns out the man he shot is a sorcerer. At the time when he shot him, the man/sorcerer was actually in the form of a pig. However, after being shot, the sorcerer/pig turned back into the man/sorcerer who consequently bore the bullet wound of his former pig/sorcerer-self. Since the man being charged was basically only guilty of shooting pig, since he didn’t know it was actually a man, the authorities don’t know how to justly try him.’

The entire time the doctor was telling the story, I had been recopying some notes, not watching him. Looking up at the end of the story, I was expecting to see a large grin and to hear a loud ‘GOTCHA!’, but I didn’t. He was dead serious. This is Guinea, and in Guinea, if you’re a sorcerer, you can turn into a pig. I guess, seeing as this is a Muslim country, that must generally be a fairly safe transition, what with Muslims not eating pigs ever since the time a pig led a thirsty Mohamed to a water source ages ago (is this really why Muslims don’t eat pork? This is just the explanation I’ve been given over and over here, so don’t hold me to it). Unfortunately, this man/sorcerer/pig picked the wrong time to transform, seeing as one of the very few non-Muslims in the country happened to be hunting right by him. I guess this is just one of the risks you take when you choose the path of pig sorcery.

At the end of all of this, Federico tried to connect to the story by adding that he’d heard ducks can turn into snakes. The doctor replied that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard – how could a duck possibly turn into a snake??

Please don’t misinterpret this as a knock on Dr. Diané – he is one of the most intelligent people I’ve met here: he earned his doctorate in linguistics while studying in Russia, speaks French, Russian, English, Susu, Malinke, and Pular, and now does linguistics research at the university in Conakry; basically, a pretty sharp dude. Rather, let this serve as an example of cross-cultural learning and understanding. I don’t (or at least I try not to) think less of a person because they believe a person can turn into a pig, just like I would try not to think less of a person in India for believing the cow in the middle of the road is his or her reincarnated grandfather, just like I would hope some foreigner doesn’t come to my house in the States someday and laugh at me for saying I believe in Jesus. All that said, I still think that story is really funny, and I hope you enjoyed it.

Moving on to killing chickens.

The classic Guinean method of killing a chicken comprises 8 magic steps:

1) Pick up the (now living) chicken by the feet. Preferably the feet were already bound when you bought it at the market, otherwise you may need to throw in a pre-step-1 step: catch the chicken.

2) For those of you who have read The Power of One, the next step should be obvious (and if you haven’t read it read, you should probably get on that). Lay the chicken (should we give it a name? How about Montgomery? I just came up with it and think it’s a brilliant name for a chicken with whom we don’t want an over-stayed friendship), Montgomery, down on the ground, beak first. Since the chicken has been hanging upside-down, the blood flows to the head and results in a docile, sleepy chicken. I think that’s how it works.

3) With Montgomery on the ground, spread out his wings behind it and pin them to the ground with a knee.

4) Hold his head with your left hand, being sure to cover his eyes so he doesn’t see the knife – for some reason that really freaks him out.

5) With his head in your left hand, move your right elbow down to pin the legs down, while your right hand reaches for the knife.

6) Use your left hand to spread the neck kind of thin, giving yourself something easy to cut into.

7) Now you have two choices:

7a) Use the vrai-Guinean method and just slice the neck a little, letting the chicken bleed out to death. This will take five to ten minutes.

7b) As an alternative to waiting ten minutes for Montgomery to die, you can keep sawing through after that initial slice, straight on through the neck until suddenly Montgomery is in two pieces.

8) This is the last numbered step because at this point, you just wait for the body to stop moving. The head will move around for a little while – just involuntary nerve-twitching for ten or twenty seconds, but the body is the real champ. That sucker will keep rocking for the next five minutes, as though he’s really got something to fight for. Anyways, I suppose I could go on in a little more graphic detail about what Montgomery is doing at this point, but I think I’ll spare you.

I will, however, tell you the next few steps in preparing the chicken. First, you have to break the legs midway down, so you can cut off the feet. We won’t be eating those. Next, you pour boiling water on it. This will make the feathers easy to remove, which also happens to be the next step. Pluck the feathers. Once you’ve taken care of this, you can hold our friend over a light fire for just a few seconds, charring off any remaining feathers. At this point, you have the same basic whole chicken you might see in the grocery or on a rotisserie spit.

Now that you are equipped with the knowledge of chicken killing, I suppose I’ll give you the actual story. One Sunday, a bunch of the PCTs and a few of the PCVs decided to experiment with cooking over an open fire and make a good meal at the same time. About 15 of us threw money and work to secure a nice meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and chocolate cake. We got 9 chickens from the market (if you’re curious, a live chicken costs between 15000 and 2000 GF, or between $3 and $4). Naturally, the chickens had to be killed. Honestly, I wasn’t terribly enthused by the prospect of killing – once as a child, while I was backing out of the pen, I accidently stepped on and killed one of the seven baby ducklings my parents had gotten for my sisters and me as an Easter gift. Needless to say, I was scarred for a long, long time. Well, Sunday was the day to build a bridge and I got over it. I was able to justify it by the fact that chickens will never be my friends so long as they continue to cluck, crow, and buh-gok! outside my bedroom window from 5am to 7pm every day, even after I throw rocks at them.

Some of the chickens barely bled, but not mine; he was a bleeder. To be honest, though, the whole thing really didn’t bother me; it actually all seemed pretty natural. And I love chicken. The fried result was delicious – we breaded it in flour, lemon pepper, pimont, salt, and many other tasty choses. There’s a good chance you’re also wondering how we had chocolate cake, considering there are no ovens here. Well! We made one! You take a giant pot, put three similar sized rocks on the bottom, but your (covered) cake dish on the rocks, for the pot with water about halfway up the rocks, cover the pot, and let it bake. It takes a while, but it does a pretty good job.





Here are the pictures of the ordeal - please be aware they include me cutting off the head.. and holding it, so if you don't want to see it, just skip ahead.












Practical jokes.

I’m been living with a family of clowns, and, naturally, I love it. Nba loves to prank call me. Some nights I’ll be reading on the front porch surrounded by the family and about 600 others. Just when I’ve really become engrossed in my book, my phone will start to ring. You can only imagine how excited I get when my phone rings – there’s a chance somebody might be calling me from the States! But then I pull the phone from my pocket only to see “Nba Calling”. I let out a defeated “Ohhh! Nba!!!” and they go nuts laughing. Pretending the joke is over, I put the phone back in my pocket, Nba puts his phone back into the bottom of the plastic bag he carries around. Little does he know, I’ve got his number queued and ready to go. A few minutes later --- BAM! His phone rings and he starts digging madly through his bag to answer the call.. but alas, it’s just me, hahaha! ‘Ayyyyy Ablo!!’ is the cry resounding throughout the front porch. They love it, and through this exchange I know I have become a part of the family.

As impressed as you may already be by my family’s sense of humor, I promise it gets even better. The first package I received (from my awesome mom – thanks Mom!) contained some ready to eat bacon, which is a pretty amazing thing in a country where they don’t eat pork. Figuring that my family was Muslim and would not eat the bacon, I had put off the idea of eating until installation at site. However, this all took a turn for the better one night when I ventured into the gray realm of religious discussion with Nba. It would something like this:

Me: “Nba, are you Muslim?”
Nba: “Haha, no!”
Me: “Are you Christian?”
Nba: “Haha, no!”
Me: “Do you practice any religion at all?”
Nba: “No way!”

This came as quite a shock, considering his brother, who lives across the dirt path, awakens the neighborhood nearly every morning with his 5am prayer obligations. Also, seeing that everyone else in the country is Muslim, it would have made sense for my family to follow suit.

I saw this discovery as a window of opportunity and jumped at the attempt to please my family and enjoy a tasty ‘American’ meal all at the same time – I would cook them breakfast! Seeing as I thought ahead and had packed my non-stick frying pan and matching spatula, cooking eggs and bacon over a fire would not be a problem. The morning of the breakfast, I woke up and walked down to the market, hoping to find potatoes, garlic, eggs, fruit, and all sorts of other delicious breakfast accoutrements. Unfortunately, 7am on a rainy Sunday morning is not the best time to go to the market; I ended up going home with a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, and some (expensive) bananas.

Apparently, Fote cooking causes quite a scene, such that approximately two thousand people watched as I cooked. Surprisingly, the eggs I fried over the open fire were the prettiest I’ve ever made and the breakfast turned out to be a great success. The family took after my lead in making bacon and egg sandwiches, followed by some of the bananas. Probably one of my better meals in Guinea.

Now we flash forward a few weeks to the first day of Ramadan… For those of you who aren’t familiar with this Muslim holiday, Ramadan is a month of reflection and prayer during which the followers fast during the day (they don’t eat between 5:20am and 7pm – pretty much sunup to sundown), and pray more consistently, in larger groups, and much louder. The fasting includes abstaining from water, and, in the more devout cases, even the swallowing of spit is denied.

I was curious what it was like for a non-Muslim living in a Muslim society during this time, so I decided to broach the topic with Nba. This conversation went something like this:

Me: “So, Ramadan starts tomorrow.”
Nba: “Actually, it started today. I’m already fasting.”
Me: “Fasting? What do you mean? You’re not Muslim.”
Nba: “Of course I am!”

And that night I even saw Nba pray for the first time. The son-of-a-gun pulled a fast one on me! So, it turns out, I was living with a Muslim family after all… or so I thought!! Because two days ago, I came home from school early, only to find Nba fist-deep in a bowl of rice. Our conversation?
Me: “Nba, you’re eating!”
Nba: “Well, of course I am!”

I don’t know. She gets kicked in the head by a mule – eyes go crossed; she falls in a well – eyes go back. I don’t know!

(Ten points to you if you know that quote)

On Sickness.

Last Wednesday, all 25 of us piled into the Peace Corps bus and made our way into Mamou, located in the center of Guinea. The six hour ride through windy, bumpy roads could not have been better. Oh yeah, except for the fact that about 40 minutes into the ride I got really hot and began vomiting violently. This happened six more times over the next two hours, resulting in one of the most unpleasant voyages ever, even worse than the bumpy ferry ride to Vieques the morning after Ryan and I kept drinking those hurricane glasses of Bacardi. Seeing as I haven’t been motion sick since my childhood trips to Hilton Head, I figured the vomiting must have been due to something I ate that morning (hardboiled eggs, potatoes, cucumbers, a vegetable I’ve never seen before which I hated, and peanut butter on Guinean bread). The doctor was in Mamou when we got there, so I told him about it, just sort of brushing it off as a bad case of food poisoning.

Two days later, after a few bad headaches and some dizziness which I’d attributed to poor sleep, I got a phone call from the doctor. Looks like the nausea and fever were caused by… Malaria! Yep. I became the first volunteer in Guinea to test positive for Malaria this year. You see, we had (sort of luckily) done sample blood slides the week before in a session with the doctor, and they’d happened to examine these right as I was getting sick. Pretty lucky, really. Don’t worry, you can rest easy, because I’m okay. I started the medication right away, and in spite of a miserable (and I mean REALLY miserable – vomiting seven times in forty minutes, curling up on the floor in the corner of my room, and crying) Sunday, I am feeling great now. Some blood was taken today and I should know later tomorrow whether or not I’ve got the all-clear. So, for all you parents out there reading this and worrying about your kids getting malaria, don’t worry! Just like Calvin’s dad always said – it builds character!

On another, slightly related note, I am getting paler by the day. In order to ward off malaria, I am taking Mefloquine weekly. This drug does two things: 1) not prevent malaria, apparently (just kidding! But no, really) and 2) prevent tanning. I can still get sunburned, but the medicine does something to the melanin in your skin and prevents it from coming out and making me pretty. If there’s a dermatologist somewhere out there reading this, please feel free to chime in with a comment on this. All I’m trying to say is, as you look at my pictures, month after month, this is the reason why, in spite of spending day in and day out under the African sun, I’ll be as pale as an snowman (see, that’s funny, because there are NO snowmen in Guinea).

High Culture.

Last night was my last night in Forecariah and, as such, I deemed it prudent to spend time with my family. We happened to have power, so the evening’s activities involved cramming about 40 people into our living room to watch a Susu film. I have no idea what the movie was about, but I can aver to its cultural validity. The movie seemed about one step up from me following two Guineans around with a camera, watching them greet their friends (this movie had no shortage of saluations), eating, and walking home. At one point, as I tried to find something to pay attention to in the movie, I thought about what kind of clothes the actors were wearing. “If this film is vrai Guineen, the actors would be wearing clothes from the dead white people’s market.” Sure enough, the very moment this thought crossed my mind, I looked up and saw the character on screen was wearing a University of Kentucky t-shirt. Booya!! It just so happens Nba was wearing the UK hat I’d brought for him. When I pointed out he and the actor wore the clothes of the same dead white person, the living lost it, with a few more “Ayyy, Ablo!”’s.

Practice School.

I realize teaching is the reason I’m here, so I should dedicate at least a small section of the post to it. Granted, I’ll be teaching full-time once I move to site and will have many more stories to share, so this section won’t be too long. As trainees, we spent three weeks teaching Guinean students in a sort of honorary summer school – only students who registered themselves were allowed to come. During the first week, I taught 7th and 8th grade each day, one hour for each class. During the second and third weeks, I taught 9th and 10th grade on alternating days, one two hour class each day.

Believe it or not, getting in front of a class of Guinean students and speaking French for two hours was no problem at all. I find that the first few minutes are kind of like waking up in the morning – you’re not exactly sure what you’re saying – but after a few minutes you’ve gathered yourself and are ready for the day. One of the great challenges came during tests, when every student, even the smart ones, tried to cheat. It must be in their blood. This subject really deserves its own post, so I’ll hold off on its elaboration until I’m at site.

Buff.

During the first month of training, I avoided my training in the other sense, that is, running, lifting and just fitness in general. I was worried that by leaving the family to run, I would be alienating myself and not becoming “bien integre”. As I may have already said once or twice, it’s really hot here. When I run, my body becomes very hot, so it takes a LONG time to cool down afterwards. If I go straight from the run to the bucket bath, I’ll end up spending the remainder of the evening sitting on the porch in a second bath – a bath of sweat. In an effort to prevent said sweat bath, each run/exercise session is followed up by thirty or forty minutes of laying, quite still, on a pagne of cloth on my floor as I listen to music. I’m pretty sure this ritual has convinced the family I’m nuts, but to me, it’s a moment of pure euphoria, one of the reasons I’m here. Unfortunately, it eats up a good chunk of the evening, which would have been a bit too anti-social for the premier month of stage.

During the second month, though, I hopped out of my funk. I was tired of feeling homesick, out of shape, and generally not myself. Although I don’t currently have a specific training plan to follow, this is what I mapped out:

Monday: 4 miles run, pull-ups and chin-ups at the stade 1 mile from the end of the run, core stability once I get home

Tuesday: 6 miles run, 10 sets of 25 pushups (wide grip, close grip, narrow/tricep, incline, and decline), and Basedow abs 1 (laugh if you want, but it works)

Wednesday: same as Monday

Thursday: 10 sets of 25 pushups (wide grip, close grip, narrow/tricep, incline, and decline), and Basedow abs 2

Friday : 7 miles run, pull-ups and chin-ups at the stade 1 mile from the end of the run, core stability once I get home

Saturday: 10 miles run, 10 sets of 25 pushups (wide grip, close grip, narrow/tricep, incline, and decline), and Basedow abs 3

Sunday: Off

The miles have varied as the weeks have progressed, and I’ve taken off of working out since the malaria hit, but the result is the same – I am happier and healthier now that fitness is a part of my life again. I can’t wait to get to site and put in some serious Hunter time on the road! This will probably play a big role in my future posts.

Some might be interested to know that I weighed myself today. However! I’m not going to tell you my new, African weight… yet. I want people to guess, and the winner will get a prize. Post your guesses as comments to this blog post, and I’ll put the answer and winner on the next post, Wednesday.

Hunter. What are you going to do after Peace Corps? Do you have any awesome ideas?

Of course I do! I’ve been planning on starting a snail farm for years, and now I think I’ll finally be able to realize that dream. Okay, no. Realistically, I am planning on taking the GRE and LSAT next summer, with the possibility of enrolling in graduate or law school in the fall of 2010, after I’ve finished over here. Right now, though, I’m looking at that as a backup plan. Here’s my grand Plan A:

Upon finishing my service in Guinea, I’ll travel to South Africa, where I’ll run the Comrades Ultramarathon (56 miles) with Noah, kicking off a year-long tour around the world of all the world’s great sporting events. In June of 2010, I’ll watch the World Cup in South Africa. From there, I’ll scoot up to France to see the Tour de France. Ensuite, I’ll catch the Henley Royal Regatta in England. Ultimately, I’ll see the whole world: ping pong in China; cricket in India; sumo wrestling in Japan; rugby in Australia; the Superbowl and World Series in the States. Naturally, I’d finish up the tour with the Kentucky Derby in May of 2011, at which point I’d write a book about the experiences around the world, documenting the different cultures, atmospheres around the events, and the crazy tailgating/after-parties.

Now you’re thinking, ‘Hunter, what an awesome idea! But how will you pay for it??’ Ah-hah! That’s where you come in, kind of. If you enjoy reading this blog, and especially if you don’t even know me, tell your friends and family about it and spread the word. More people reading it means I might actually work a little harder at providing you with something readable and entertaining, and maybe, with some absurd amount of luck, become a decent enough writer to pen a book. Hopefully that absurd amount of luck will also carry with it a wonderful benefactor who will know how to help me fulfill this dream! Or, if you have any ideas, feel free to share them.

Another idea, and possibly a better one, is to get some legitimate publishing credit – perhaps I could submit an article about running in Africa to a magazine like Runners’ World or Outside (thanks, Noah) and get something published (this is something I actually need to review with Peace Corps, because I’m fairly sure we can’t be paid, during service, for any writing done involving our service, a conflict of interest of sorts. However, if I refuse pay, maybe I can get around this. If, by some miracle, I can get a few things published, maybe I can convince a published to front me the money to write the book. It’s a work in progress, but I’ve got two years to try to flesh it out, so why the hell not??

And now for my shameless plug on sending me stuff.

Thanks! To everyone who’s sent me stuff. Granted, I’ve only received a handful of letters, but I’m sure the others will get here at some point. There has been a slight change to the address, such that PCT has been amended to read PCV (whoomp! there it is!), so the new address is:

Hunter Dreidame, PCV
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 1927, Conakry
Guinea
West Africa

Once again, I think drawing crosses and writing ‘Dieu Regarde!’ on the boxes/letters helps; I’ve seen that some people go as far as pasting religious images on the packages – hey, it can’t hurt.

Lots of people have been asking what to send, so here are some (okay, a lot of) ideas of things I can’t get here but love:

Twizzlers
Snickers (bite size)
Laffy Taffy
Chex Mix
Pepperoni
Jerky
Granola Bars
Camping meals (add hot water)
Fruit cups
Trail mix
Little Debbies
Sparks
Cold Beer
Woodford Reserve
Magazines (The Economist, Sports Illustrated, People – any news!)
DVDs
Good books you think I should read
Music! Mixed CDs are great, or CDs with mp3s.
NY Times/Washington Post crossword puzzles
Photos

This is just stuff I’m thinking of late at night – but I will love anything that you take the time to send. Keep in mind I only get mail once a month once I’m at site, so it may take as many as two months for your stuff to get to me. If it does get to me, though, I PROMISE you will get a response in the mail. Who doesn’t love snail mail??

Oh, and for the DVD’s – if you’re a computer buff and want to rip the movies into iPod format and just throw a bunch on one disc, that would be awesome as well (since that’s most of what I’ll be watching at site). I use DVD Decrypter to pull the movies onto the computer and Videora iPod Converter to convert the movies – if you google it there’s a great walkthrough.

Of course, a nice handwritten letter is just as good as any box packed full of candy, so write away!

If you've read this far, how about some pictures as a reward?

This is to show the giant, diagonal tree behind the house on my walk home. I love this tree.
Me and Tim, one of the Physics trainers.
This is the path I walk to my house, which is in the upper, left corner.

The Catholic church in Forecariah
Some guys playing the balafone at the maison de la jaunesse. I hope to upload a video of this soon.
Guinea's answer to Sparks Plus (although without alcohol).

The cafe I frequented before Ramadan.

And now, it is getting very late here, so I must bid you adieu. Until Saturday!

Love to all,

Hunter