Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Two Years in Guinea : The Highs and the Lows

Well my Peace Corps service is almost over and I am about to embark on a great adventure across West Africa, but first some highlights (and lowlights) of my time in Guinea.

That Time I Felt Like a Stereotypical Peace Corps Volunteer: On one visit to Balandou, where I did a big reforestation project in 2012, the farmer we were working with gave me a live chicken.  I had biked there, loading my bike into a wobbly canoe to cross a river, but it would have been rude to not accept the chicken.  So I took it, threw its tied legs over my handlebars and biked back through the villages, holding it in my lap as we paddled across the river.  And yes, I did eventually eat it, and it was delicious.

That Time I Forgot I Was in Guinea: Going out to eat at a fancy restaurant in Conakry.  You can eat a burger, have a drink that is truly cold, and listen to live music.  Also, basically the whole time I was in Dakar.  That place is literally Little Europe.

They even have trampolines in Dakar
One of My Best Days: Going to visit my host family’s maternal village for someone’s village wedding.  It rained all day and we had to ford several rivers, so we were soaked through when we arrived.  But everyone there treated me like a member of the family, even though we had never met, welcoming me into their huts with open arms.  And not a single child screamed “Toubabou” at me.

One of My Worst Days: One of my first days living in Kankan.  I didn’t have a gas stove yet, so was cooking over charcoal outside, which isn’t bad in itself, except everyone in the whole neighborhood comes to watch the toubabou cook.  And they have no problem telling you that you are doing it wrong or just reaching their hands right into your food to add a whole handful of hot peppers.  Eventually I had had enough of being a show for everyone, and at this point I was hungry and frustrated, so I shouted at them all to go away, screaming the few Malinke words I knew.  Then I felt guilty for acting so rashly and, even worse, the food wasn’t very good.  How was I going to live in this country if I couldn’t even make lunch? Luckily, since then I have developed a tough enough skin that people can shout at me and stare all they want and I can just ignore it, or deal with it more tactfully (i.e. tickling all the kids until they run away).

One of My Best Bush Taxi Rides: That time I was lucky enough to catch a ride with the professor of the study abroad program in Kankan.  We made it to Conakry in 16 hours and I had a whole bench to myself!

One of My Worst Bush Taxi Rides: Basically every ride going to or from Mamou, my own personal transportation hell.  Returning from our In-Service Training, there were enough PCVs to rent out a whole car, but there were no cars at the station.  Eventually one came and we left by 2 pm, but had to stop by the garage on the way out because it turned out the gas tank was leaking.  They removed it from the car and ran off into the woods with it.  Two hours later they were back with a “repaired” gas tank and we were off.  Then we got flat tire after flat tire, eventually forgetting our jack at a pit stop.  And that repaired gas tank was not doing so well, so our driver patched it up with a paste of instant coffee and soap.  All that in mind, we were making pretty good time until it was reaching midnight and we kept getting flat tire after flat tire, always waiting for a sympathetic passerby to lend us their jack and a ride into town to patch the tire.  Running on fumes, we finally made it to Kankan, where we promptly ran out of gas about 3 km from our destination.  The only saving grace was I had all my friends to keep me company.  And a cat.

That Time My Project Was a Success: Watching the development Green Hand Action, the NGO I work with, has made over the two years.  The first year we did our reforestation project, I felt like I had to hold their hand at every step and there were so many logistical problems.  This year, after I helped with the preparations, all I had to do was show up and they organized themselves into work groups and managed all the details on their own.

The boys of Green Hand Action 
That Time My Project Failed: Let me paint a not so hypothetical picture. When planting trees in an urban area, there are so many things that can go wrong.  Children can come play soccer on top of your seedlings, so you meet with them and tell them about the importance of trees.  Then a fire comes, burning them all to crisp, so you remove all the weeds and dried brush surrounding the trees.  Then a herd of sheep arrives, munching all your trees down to a short stump, so you put up fencing, keeping all the herbivores out.  Then, in the middle of the night, a mysterious someone comes and steals all your fencing, trampling the trees in the process.  Then you give up and think maybe planting trees there wasn’t such a good idea after all.

A Thing I Will Never Accept in Guinea: The crying baby ringtone.  I had a neighbor who had no music on his phone, so would just listen to this on repeat, the loudest most jarring cry I have ever heard.  Isn’t everyone supposed to instinctively hate this sound?

A Thing I Got Over Pretty Quickly:  The water method.  Suffice it to say that sometimes you are visiting a village or your car breaks down and you desperately need the bathroom, but you have no toilet paper.  Luckily water is always available.  Please at least use soap afterwards though.

Worst Meeting I Ever Attended: During the first week of pre-service training, we attended a meeting at the local office of environment.  The official didn’t seem to be informed we were coming and proceeded to give veiled, defensive answers to all our questions.  Added to the fact that few of us understood French at that point and the room was uncomfortably hot, I would venture to say at least half of us, including our trainer, dozed off.

Best Meeting I Ever Attended:  A meeting put on for all the local gardening associations by a group that offers pest control training.  They used powerpoint to show graphs of the attendance of each group and the increase in their earnings and projected future activities.  Most of the crowd was illiterate, so they explained the meaning of every image in the local language, and you could see the appreciation these old ladies felt in being treated as equals.  Plus, it started on time and we got lunch.

Thing I Use Everyday Day: Feel free to judge me, but it’s my smartphone.  I can GPS my farmer’s land, look up proper spacing for watermelon mounds, and check my e-mail, all from the field.

Thing I Never Use: A watch.  Most things start late anyways, so wearing a watch just makes you anxious about the fact that it is two hours after the start time and only five people are there.

Guinean Skill I Have Mastered: The social joking that gets everything done here, from scheduling a meeting to buying tomatoes.  I call all Traores thieves and ask everyone coming from a trip where my gift is.  I even manage a laugh when all those old men say they will marry me, although I usually tell them they will have to be my fourth husband and do all my laundry, which shuts them up pretty fast.

Guinean Skill I Still Fail At: Carrying water on my head.  I have to fill all my buckets up only 4/5 of the way or it splashes all over me.  Luckily I live very close to the well, so I can carry the buckets by my side and stay dry.

Favorite Town In Guinea: Besides Kankan, which I really believe is the best, I would have to say Lola, which is where we stayed before hiking Mt. Nimba.  The people are polite and speak great French.  It is at the start of the mountains, surrounded by forested countryside.  Plus, because it is a Christian village, there is pork and palm wine everywhere.
A vine bridge near Lola
Least Favorite Town In Guinea: Linsan, the truck stop between Kindia and Mamou.  This town located along the main road is always full of traffic because people will park their cars along the side of the road, turning a national highway into one lane.  There are hundreds of vultures and a disproportionate amount of beggars and general crazy people, making the whole scene like something out of a horror movie.

Hottest I’ve Ever Been: Anytime during hot season in Kankan.  Most days, I would come home after lunch, strip down and pour a whole bucket of water over me, then lay on the floor fanning myself until the temperature dropped enough to be a real person again.

Coldest I’ve Ever Been: Coming back from the forest, which is much colder than the rest of Guinea, in winter in our taxi with the windows down.  It may have only been 60 degrees out, but wearing a tank top and having the wind in your face for three hours made it feel like 30.

Favorite Child: I know you’re not supposed to choose favorites, but mine is definitely Le Vieux, the youngest child in my family.  We eat breakfast together every morning and chat as we both speak about the same level of Malinke.  Since he is the baby of the family, he has everyone else wrapped around his finger and gets away with everything and totally knows it too.

Least Favorite Child: Just kidding, that would be too mean. Although those kids that bang on my door at 6 in the morning are pretty close.

Best Thing I’ve Eaten: This really has two categories.  One is all the amazing things the Kankan volunteers make for our weekly dinners: cinnamon rolls, fried cheese, onion rings, egg rolls, pizza, lime pound cakes, smoothies.  The other category of Guinean food would have to be the pork we got special ordered for New Years in the Forest region.  It was grilled and came with plantains and pineapple.

Worst Thing I’ve Eaten: Toh. This is ball of play-doh consistency usually made from rice, corn, or manioc flour mixed with water.  It is not the toh itself, I dislike, but the sauce it comes with, made with okra and usually dried fish.  The okra makes it slimey and green, and as everyone eats it with their hands, you can’t help but be reminded of snot.

(EDIT: It seems unsavory to end my blog post with the word "snot", so here's some more highlights)

Some of my Best Memories: Squatting in the garden, planting onions next to my host mom.  Dancing with the members of my gardening groupement.wearing our matching outfits.  Digging up a wild yam with my master farmer and roasting it over a fire in the middle of the woods.  Dancing in the first rain of the season with all the kids in my compound.  Selling my family's produce in the market, bartering with all the market mamas.  Biking at night and looking up to see the whole milky way turning around me. 

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