Monday, November 25, 2013

Going To Church

Call me a bad Christian, but after nearly 2 years in Guinea, I have finally gone to church for the first time.  I probably should have gone for Christmas last year, when I was in a Christian region, but drinking palm wine with the locals was more appealing than a 6 hour service in a language I didn’t understand. 
Guinea is a majority Muslim country, the actual statistic escapes me, but I imagine it’s around 80%.  Christians are sprinkled all over the country, but most live in the Forest region to the south.  Even in Kankan, almost all the Christians are Forestière (their families come from the Forest Region).
There are two churches in Kankan: catholic and protestant, which are the two sects of Christianity found in Guinea.  We chose to go to the protestant one because that is where one of our old guards goes.  We arrived at 9:30 and the service had already started, but luckily you can never be late in Guinea.  An usher with an orange-blue-red bandana around his neck like a boy scout seated us.  We were a group of four and arriving later, there weren’t many seats left, so it was a tight fit.
The service followed a similar program as in America.  There was singing, readings from the gospel, the Lord’s prayer, the exchange of the Peace.  Everything was said in French, and then repeated in Malinké.  The music was accompanied by a keyboard, djembe drum, and a koran (a gourd surrounded by a net of beads that has a maraca-like sound).  It wasn’t southern gospel church intensity, but there were some raised hands, exclamations of “Hallelujah” and “Amen”, and the music had more rhythm than your average Anglican hymn.
About thirty minutes after we arrived, we realized the church was divided into men and women and my male site mate was sitting on the wrong side.  No one said anything, so I guess it wasn’t a big deal and the gender separation was done more out of habit than enforced by the church.  Was kind of awkward for a second though.  What surprised me the most was the absence of crying babies.  Outside the church, there are crying babies everywhere, so the calming of them during the service is a true act of god.
The sermon was about serving god in different ways, based on that reading about individuals being different parts of the body (hands, feet, head) that together make up the metaphorical body of Christ.  It wasn’t horribly long, which was a pleasant surprise considering most Guinean’s penchant for grandstanding.  During the sermon, the Boy Scout ushers patrolled the pews, waking up any dozing followers.
Next came communion, which was prefaced by a scolding by the reverend about who is allowed to take communion.  Among the excluded: the unbaptized, sinners, casual churchgoers, those who covet, people with any doubts about their faith.  Then he called the congregation to take communion, but after that reprimanding no one stood.  Gradually, they started to line up to take their bread and wine.  We Americans refrained since based on the recently listed qualifications of a good Christian, we didn’t’ seem to fit the bill.  Plus that bright pink “wine” looked too much like kool-aid, and, as a rule, I don’t drink kool-aid in an organized fashion. 
The service ended at noon and everyone milled about outside, chatting with friends.  It was interesting to see how community ties were formed around the church, compared to the mosques that tend to be more of a place to pray than a community center.  The whole experience was surprisingly similar to church in America.  However we all agreed that the biggest thing missing was a nearby restaurant for after-church brunch.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

My Peace Corps Alphabet Part II

M is for maggi, a bouillon type cube that is used in literally all foods.  It is full of MSG and therefore delicious.

N is for Néré, a local tree with bean-like fruits that we eat twice.  First, the yellow powder surrounding the seeds in the pod that acts as an appetite suppressant.  Then the seeds themselves are prepared to make sumbara powder, basically a local maggi.

O is for Oser Reposer (dare to relax) because you have more free time than you know what to do with as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  Many use this time productively: to reread Harry Potter, learn the harmonica, unsuccessfully brew various wines, build a brick oven, or, in my case, learn to snap (but only with my left hand).

P is for the Peugeot 405, perhaps the most durable automobile ever built.  We use the several decades old station wagons from Europe as nine-person bush taxis. Or ten. Or eleven.

Q is for Quinn, my first cat (RIP), who like to sneak into neighbors’ huts and jump on their faces while they slept.

R is for rice and sauce, the staple, and often only, food in Guinea.  Sauce choices are usually one of the following three: 1) soup sauce, which is like a less hearty beef or fish stew; 2) peanut sauce, which is like a watery peanut butter and 3) leaf sauce, which is reminiscent of creamed spinach.  I will have eaten at least 400 bowls of this by the time I leave Guinea. 

S is for Sarata, the best club in Kankan.  Where the beers are cold and the dance floor is hotter than my tin roof in April.

T is for toubabu, or ‘white person’ in Malinke.  This, along with its variations of toubabumuso (white woman) and toubabumusonin (small white woman), is the ever playing soundtrack to my life.

U is for my own little USA, e.g. all the other volunteers who keep me sane after yet another passenger in a taxi throws up into my hair. (Yes, I realize this one is kind of a stretch, but ‘U’ is a difficult letter.)

V is for my velo (‘bike’ in French) that takes me everywhere.  Kankan-centre is about 6 km across, not counting the extra belt of ‘suburbs’ that surrounds it, and I spend the majority of my day biking from place to place.

W is for waiting, which I spend around 30% of my time doing.  I used to get mad, now I just get a lot of reading done.

X is for XXL, the green apple flavored energy drink that basically takes the place of beer in this Muslim country.  When everyone goes out, it’s this that fuels the hours of sweaty dancing.

Y is for yogurt, which is cultured in buckets in peoples’ houses and sold out of plastic bags or plastic cups.  It is delicious though and if you’re lucky, cold and with tiny millet balls or tapioca mixed in.


Z is for the Zagat’s Guide to Ice Cream in Kankan, a dream project of my site mates and I to rate all the soft serve machines in Kankan.