Friday, March 30, 2012

Stuff PCVs Like


For those of you who have internet at work and get bored of wasting time on Facebook all day, you are probably familiar with the blog, turned book, turned multimedia power Stuff White People Like. For those of you who probably aren’t aware of this internet phenomenon (Hi grandma!), SWPL discusses the fads of surburban America (i.e. frozen yogurt, North Face jackets, the Wii) in a humorous, but pretty spot-on, way.  I hope that’s what my version will be like, although probably much more focused on food because, as anyone who knows me is aware, I like to eat.

1. Ice
            Guinea PCVs (not sure about those in colder regions) love ice!  Those of us in Kankan are lucky enough to have an ice vendor right in town, although only for those us who know where she is.  Kenny, the other PCV in Kankan, and I spent about two weeks looking for the ice lady before actually making a purchase.  We were told she was in a house next to the bank, but from there we would be directed back towards the bank (‘over there’ is a legitimate direction in Guinea). 
Eventually, a kind stranger directed me to what looked like a private residence.  Approaching with a bit of caution, I looked around the compound and could find no one selling ice, until someone walking out the front gate told me to try the front door.  I knocked, said “kon-kon”, but no one answered.  The door was unlocked, and I figured that person leaving sort of gave me permission to go in, so I opened it.  To find a little girl eating lunch at a kitchen table.
Being the awkward toubabu (white person) I am, I asked this small child if she had any ice.  She merely stared at me as I stood in the entrance to her home, until her mother walked in.  Half expecting to need to make a very quick exit, I mumbled something about wanting ice.  Thankfully, the woman asked how much I wanted and didn’t come after me with a broom.  Although she was pretty peeved when I hadn’t brought my own plastic bag to put it in.


2. Harmattan Haze
            West Africa is home to climatic phenomenon known as the harmattan.  It is basically a dry air mass that moves North-South throughout the year and is partly responsible for the seasons here, of which there is ‘hot and rainy’ and ‘hotter and dry’.  In movies, the harmattan is portrayed as this giant dust storm raging across the African desert, engulfing century old mosques and cursed Egyptian mummies.  In real life, it is much less dramatic (at least in Guinea) and is only accompanied by a kind of haze that rests in the sky.
            Most Guineans I talk to really don’t like the harmattan haze, the usual argument being that it makes the weather too cold and makes people sick.  It also dims the sun, lending the horizon an “end of the world” kind of feel to it.  This happened my first three days in Kankan, and I was a little worried that the sun was going to disappear behind a mammoth dust cloud that would bury Kankan in sand. I guess I’ve watched The Mummy a few too many times.  What did happen was that the usually stifling 115 F weather became a balmy 95 F, allowing me to drink coffee on my porch in the morning without sweating through my clothes before it even hit 8 AM.  And that is why PCV’s love the harmattan haze.

3. When a New Vegetable/Fruit Comes Into Season
            Living in a country without mass refrigeration and produce imported from far off lands means I am at the whim of the local market when it comes to fresh fruit and veggies.  This certainly has its pros and cons.  For one, the produce I get is fresher than you will find in any American grocery store.  Sometimes I’ve literally just picked it myself at my groupement’s garden.  It also means my food hasn’t amassed an oversized carbon footprint from its red-eye flight in from Brazil.  This makes the blue-blooded environmentalist in me a little proud.
            The disadvantage of the local market however is that it doesn’t offer much in the way of variety.  Usually I go to market and see the same line-up of tomatoes, onions, lettuce, cabbage, okra, eggplant, and chives.  But as the seasons change, I may stumble upon a cucumber or even an avocado.  This is when I tend to make the rookie mistake of getting overly excited about a new food and buy 15 mangoes (which it turns out is possible to eat in one day).  But my own gluttony issues aside, the changing seasons bring some much needed variety into a PCV’s diet, when they’re not helping to eat the ten pounds of Velveeta cheese a neighboring volunteer received in the last run of packages (Thanks Max’s family!).

Aside from enjoying the SPCVL (stuff peace corps volunteers like), I have been continuing my work with Fasso Demen, the gardening groupement, and Green Hand Action, the reforestation NGO, in Kankan.  There is still a little over a month until our in-service training (IST), where I will present all the information I have learned about my community these past few months.  The next month, then, will be spent continuing my community assessment and writing the report that accompanies the presentation.

There was also, as you may or may not know, a coup d’etat in Mali, which lies directly to Guinea’s east.  From what I can gather from French radio and limited news sources, the military took over the government because they weren’t receiving the funds and resources for their campaigns in the north of the country against Toureg and Libyan rebels.  This came as a surprise to all of us here because, until last week, Mali was considered to have the most stable democracy in all of West Africa.  Fortunately, the political situation next door hasn’t affected us in Kankan much at all.  There was a midnight curfew imposed in the city last weekend and the borders between Guinea and Mali are currently closed to those who don’t have a military order to cross and/or a bribe.  We are all hoping, of course, that a compromise can be made and the country can be returned to order quickly and without any conflict, setting a much needed example for any future power disputes in West Africa.

I hope everyone is enjoying their spring break vacations and for those of you who worked so hard on their tan at the beach, I recommend the savannah of Guinea as a great place to work on that golden brown hue.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Give a man a fish...


After reading that title, you probably think this is going to be some diatribe about sustainable development and building local community capacity instead of simply throwing money at projects.  And while I do agree with that, this blog post is simply about fishing, specifically the Fete du Mar.

Fete du Mar (Festival of the Lake) is celebrated all over Haute Guinea, the region I’m in.  The specific date of the festival changes depending on which lake it is at.  Our nearby lake in Bordo just had their fete on March 14th, but Balandou, a neighboring village, had theirs in February.  The date also changes from year to year, so how anyone plans it is beyond me.  I, in fact, wasn’t even aware that our lake took part in Fete du Mar until about an hour before it actually started (hence why I showed up in the unfortunate clothing choice of white pants).

So what is the Fete du Mar? In these lakes, fishing is only allowed on one day a year, and that is the Fete du Mar date.  People seriously come out of the woodwork to come fish in the lake.  Sitting at the lake before it started, I watched a steady stream of people approaching for at least an hour, carrying all types of fishing devices, though mostly nets.  Everyone gathers around the edge of the lakes, in some places in crowds 15-20 people deep, waiting for the signal to enter.

Then a village elder (ours was 90 years old) lifts his net in the air and brings it down and everyone runs into the lake.  I like to compare it to what must happen when the crazed preteen mobs at Justin Beiber concerts rush the stage. What follows is a whole lot of fishing.  Because fishing is banned the rest of year, the lake is extremely well stocked, and with everyone crammed into it, the fish have nowhere to go but into one of the 800 nets.

The best part is when an especially excited participant gets their first fish of the fete and comes running out of the lake with it, proudly displaying it to the hordes of kids watching from the bank.  One talented fisherwoman had caught so many huge catfish that she tied them to her back like they do their babies here, because the sac was too heavy to carry.  Most others simply float a large bowl beside them, attached around their waist like a belt, and put their catch in that.

Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera because I didn’t know I would be going until I was basically there, but Kenny, another volunteer in Kankan, posted a video of the whole thing, for those of you have the motivation and free time to find his blog (I will try and post a link later).  My counterpart has also promised to take to me to the festival in Barro in April, which is the biggest Fete du Mar in all of Haute Guinea, with people coming from other West African countries to attend.  It is also the president’s hometown, so the government puts on a pretty legit festival, with music and dancing and all.

I do however have pictures of my house in Kankan!


The sticks in front are a fence my counterpart and I threw together to protect the flower beds he planted there from the roaming sheep and goats.  And that’s le vieux sitting on my front porch eating a Starburst!

Until next time!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Frozen chickens, Ironbeer and Manioc Balls


Well I have successfully made it through almost three weeks at site.  I moved into my new house in Kankan February 7th and have been getting to know my women’s group and surrounding community.  I’ve started a vegetable nursery in the garden area and go each day to water and greet all the members.  I have my own smaller watering can and bucket because my host mom is convinced that a bigger bucket will be too heavy for me to get water out of the well.  She might be right, that well is pretty deep.  The ladies in the garden are so nice and love greeting me in Malinke, as very few of them speak French.

There is also an NGO here called Green Hand Action, founded by an American English teacher when she was here in 2007.  They are an environmental group of university students who are interested especially in reforestation.  This year, they will be starting the pilot stage of a cashew plantation project that I will be helping with.  In an almost amazing chance of fate, the founder happened to visiting Guinea during my first two weeks in Kankan, so I have been able to meet her and all the members several times and work with them as they plan the first logistical steps of the projects.  The members are all super motivated and many speak English, which makes working together much easier for me. 

I live only about a ten minute walk from a big market, which means it is easy to get any type of produce or food to prepare over my charcoal stove every day.  There is also (as the title of this blog suggests) a relatively wide variety of food available in Kankan.  Only about 50 ft. from my house is an intersection where ladies sell bui, a rice porridge, and beans in the mornings, keke (a wonderfully salty couscous type dish) at lunchtime, and rice with at least three choices of sauce at night.  This is great for the days when I don’t have the couple hours necessary to cook with charcoal or am just feeling a little lazy. 

En ville (in town), there is a lot of great food available since it is the second biggest city in Guinea.  A Lebanese man runs a fish and poultry importing business, which means frozen chickens for PCVs!  The gas station has cold soda (Coke products and Ironbeer, which is kind of like a mix between root beer and cream soda), Pringles, and real chocolate bars.  There are also several other West African restaurants I eat at with other Kankan volunteers several times a week. The Togolese lady makes amazing manioc balls, also called fufu, and the fried rice at the Senegalese restaurant almost tastes like Mexican rice.

Being in Kankan has been great because I am near a lot of other volunteers and we get together a couple times a week for lunch and English conversations.  It is the opposite of how isolated I imagined I would be in the Peace Corps, but I am certainly not complaining.  Besides the social aspect of having Americans nearby, there will hopefully be a lot of opportunities for collaboration with volunteers from other sectors.

I feel like I should devote some part of this blog post to le vieux, the 18 month old baby in my host family (le vieux means ‘old man’ in French, and he is named after his grandfather).  We definitely have a love/hate relationship between us at the moment.  Every morning he offers me part of his bread or rice that he is eating (although sometimes the bread is already half chewed) and wishes me good morning with screams of “Ai! Ai”, as he doesn’t really speak yet.  However, he also tends to pee on my porch and knock over my charcoal stove or steal my spoons while I’m cooking.  As my family likes to say, he is very impolit.

My next couple weeks will be a lot of exploring of Kankan and my neighborhood as I try to get to know the layout and the community.  I will also start conducting some community analyses, which is just a fancy way of saying holding some discussions with my women’s group to talk about their needs and what projects they would like to work on.  After our first three months at site, all the G21 volunteers will meet back up in Mamou to present our findings from our community analyses and we will write a report to give to our counterpart and communities.  It is exciting to be out of training and actually beginning the things I came here to do!

Oh and I uploaded some pictures from the end of PST! None from Kankan yet, the internet just takes forever. But soon, hopefully.

Hope everyone is doing great!