That's how much I've lost since I came to Guinea. I was 220 pounds the day we left for Forecariah; 187 the day we finished in Forecariah and come back to Conakry.
Sorry there's not a new, large post on leaving Forecariah and swearing in at the embassy, but there's a lot to swallow in the process, and I'd like to do it justice. Hopefully I will be back on here before Halloween with a decent wrap-up.
Until then, please know that I am incredibly happy right now; the last few days in Conakry have been some of my happiest, most euphoric moments. The friendships I have made here are great and will only become stronger. And, I am very proud of everyone in our group - all 25 of the people who started that first day in Philly have made it all the way here, a rarity for Peace Corps.
I'd like to give special shout-outs to the parents of Tiffany, Alison, and Valentin, and of course to all those other G-16 parents out there reading this right now. Your kids are all wonderful people and I consider myself very lucky to have them in my life. Except for Jesse, of course. We could all really do without him...
Joking. I love Jesse; there are none better than said guy.
Lastly, for those of you who would like to leave a comment but don't have a google account, I've updated the settings so that anonymous comments can be made. So go ahead then, make 'em!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
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?
And now, it is getting very late here, so I must bid you adieu. Until Saturday!
Love to all,
Hunter
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).
And now, it is getting very late here, so I must bid you adieu. Until Saturday!
Love to all,
Hunter
Saturday, August 23, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, August 15, 2008
I Ate Four Avocadoes Today
(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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