Peace Corps Guinea: June 2006

Friday, June 30, 2006

Friends Visit

In June I was fortunate to welcome three visitors from the States to my village. My friend from home, Anna, came with two of her friends from college. We had a great time, despite their visit coinciding with the strikes and riots. It was so interesting to rediscover Guinea again through their fresh impressions.

Lizzie and Jenny (holding Emerson) on my front porch with village girls

Binta leads us to her home the next village over

Anna teaches Binta Jacob's Ladder

Anna and me harvesting peanuts with Binta's family

Local bricks used for building homes

The village brick quarry

Strike and Riots

Here in Guinea the rainy season is underway. My village went from brown to green seemingly overnight; once dusty paths are now tall rows of corn.

The change in seasons has escalated along with changing attitudes amongst the Guinean people. Gas prices have risen to the point where a government worker's entire monthly salary can not purchase a sack of rice to feed his family. The price of gas increased from 4300 Guinean Francs/liter to 5500 GF/L overnight without warning from the government.

Guineans reacted with a national general strike: no taxis, markets, boutiques, schools, or commerce. The teachers in major cities boycotted the national Bac exam on Monday, June 12th, resulting in student riots that led to at least 5 student deaths in Labe and 10 in Conakry.

The Peace Corps took the appropriate safety precautions, and at no point did I feel unsafe. We watched the Labe skyline from the 2nd floor terrace of the hotel outside of town where Peace Corps volunteers stay. What started as cap gun fire progressed to live ammunition. Plumes of smoke rose above downtown as students burned tires in the streets. The military proceeded to walk through the quartiers of the city, firing live rounds into the air of intersections to enforce a street ban. A Peace Corps guard's wife was sleeping in her bed when a bullet went through her roof and into her bed frame. Luckily, she was uninjured.

While we were sitting on the terrace, three military men walked by and shot a round in the air at the intersection in front of the hotel. A man walked by from their direction carrying two large mangoes. He looked up at our terrace and said in English with a smile "Don't be afraid" and continued on his way home. As the riots downtown turned violent, we watched women in neighboring concessions continue their laundry. It was all very surreal.

The government and union leaders have finished negotiations and life is back to normal for the moment here in Guinea. In my village the only way you would know unrest was going on in the big cities was our lack of bread (usually trucked in from two nearby towns). I had three visitors from America with me for the last few weeks, and they definitely got an interesting view of life here.

Tomorrow morning I head back up-country to my village, where I'm out-planting moringa trees. Moringa trees' leaves have a very high nutritional content, so I am encouraging local women to use the leaves in the leaf sauce they serve with rice. We are also working on planting coffee and cashew.

Fish Fete

I met up with Marie, a volunteer friend from the Basse Cote (western coastal region), and traveled out east to Haute Guinea. We met our friend Amanda in her small village, Selouma. It was a great mini-reunion. We went on a walk beneath the mountain overlooking her village (with chimps on it!) and slept in her hut, before continuing on to the regional capital of Haute, Kankan.

Marie and Amanda in Selouma

I expected Kankan to be hot, dusty, and dry, but it was quite green, the streets lined with trees. We enjoyed catching up with volunteers out in that region that we don'’t get to see that often. We visited local craftsmen and I bought wood and cowbone necklaces and passport masks from the forest region. The ebony wood craftsman let Marie try working some ebony.

Marie working ebony in Kankan

We taxied out for the weekend for the fish fete, an annual celebration in many villages off the Niger River. The festival celebrates the start of fishing season for the ponds formed in the floodplain of the Niger. They celebrate fish fete right before the rainy season washes the Niger back into the floodplain, emptying the ponds of their fish. Drummers and dancers come for the celebration.

Dusty after the taxi ride

Sharing a bowl of rice and sauce

We went to a small village named Nounkounkan. There was a huge opening ceremony where all of the performance groups in attendance did a short introduction. There were dancers, singers, traditional instruments, skits, and drummers. They even made the Peace Corps do a performance, so we disco-walked out in the circle and did the macarena with an AIDS prevention chant. Embarrassing, but hilarious. Each evening had small circles of drumming and dancing throughout the small village. We got stuck in a downpour and took shelter with a group of musicians playing the kora, a traditional instrument, and danced until the rain stopped.

After a few days of dancing and drumming, Sunday morning the village made the call to fish. Everyone streamed down the path to the fish pond, carrying fishing implements. People rushed the water all at once and fishing began. It was a madhouse, the water packed full with people. I walked the perimeter of the lake and a man threw me a big fish from the water. From then on everyone there thought I had caught a fish and were quite impressed. A group of sword dancers singing and shaking their swords in single file around the lake changed their song to "the white girl caught a fish"” in Malinke.

After the fish fete ended, a few of us continued on to a neighboring village, Niandankoro. We swam and did laundry in the lazy Niger and slept in our friend's hut. Her homestay family served us the main dish, To, made of pounded manioc, spongy and slimy in consistency. They serve it with a salty green sauce. Her homestay mom gave birth to her 13th baby that night!

Walking to Melinda's hut in Niandankoro

The Niger River

Colin carrying laundry back to the hut

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Puppy and Mali-ville

A friend in Labe found a puppy in the street and gave her to me. I biked her home in a cardboard box on the back of my bike. Later that week she biked to my neighbor’s site for a weekend dinner party. She’s quite an adventurous pup. I called her Seeda (say-duh, it means “small” in Pular), and then when she got bigger, Emerson. She loves romping around the corn field in my front yard, going on walks, and runs in the countryside. She also travelled up to Mali-ville in the north for a weekend. We went up to check out our friend Molly’s Family Planning Campaign, which finished up with a soccer tournament.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

G11 Moves to Site

After my 24 day initial settling-in period, I made a quick trip down to the capital, Conakry, to reunite with G11 and attend the affectation ceremony, when they were sworn in as volunteers. Peace Corps Guinea was celebrating its 20th year in Guinea, and Peace Corps overall was celebrating its 45th anniversary. Many visiting officials attended and the Peace Corps Guinea staff wore matching outfits in African fabric.

The new Fouta volunteers were welcomed to the Labe regional house by a group of Fouta volunteers, who made sure we were all well fed and having a great time as G11 prepared for the big move. One day we all traveled to Porto Falls, a waterfall about an hourÃ‚’s drive north of Labe, for a day of relaxation and good times.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

To the Village, On Strike

After site visit I went to my regional capital, only a 35 minute car ride away (on a good day, depending on the car), to say my goodbyes to the rest of my training group. It was exciting to hear the stories of first impressions of where each volunteer would spend their two years. One of my friends got sick on her work colleague’s floor, where she had to spend the night!

And so I began that first bit at site, which every prospective volunteer eagerly anticipates during training and dreads at the same time. Guineans nation-wide went on a strike during my first week alone in my village. The price of a sack of rice had exceeded a government worker’s salary, so they were striking for salary increases. Markets were closed in big cities, taxi transport ground to a halt, and government workers (including teachers) stayed home. Though there weren’t cars running on the dirt road of my village, and kids didn’t have school, you could barely tell there was a strike in my village.

On market day, women walked from across the district carrying produce and goods as per usual. At one point a local government official drove through town on his way to a meeting and chaos broke out in the market. Everyone rushed to gather up their goods and flee, afraid that they would be beaten for boycotting the strike. My house sits right behind the market. I was entertaining a couple of teenage girls on my porch when suddenly women came running through the alley-way from the market, produce tumbling from the sacks they were gathering up as they ran. It was just a miscommunication and the market resumed. Later I biked the 1.5 hours to Labe to celebrate my birthday. After 5 days of striking, an agreement was reached with the government and the strike ended.

I settled in at site for 24 days. Though there were times of boredom, confusion, frustration, and helplessness, I was so excited to finally start my service. I worked on the local tree nurseries, greeted in Pular, entertained visitors on my porch, and settled into my house. Despite the challenges, it didn’t take long to realize that my village was a perfect match for me.

I live in a small village that serves as the market hub for even smaller villages in the countryside of my district. Depending on their location, some people also go to markets 7km and 12km away on the weekend, mostly by foot. My house is alone in a walled yard, which gives me some degree of privacy. The Peuhls (the ethnic group of my region) are notoriously calmer and quieter than other ethnic groups, which really helps when living in a fish bowl for 2 years. I have a village telecentre (a staffed phone booth), which makes communication with the Peace Corps easy. I have even received phone calls from my family, though it is so difficult to get through, we now wait for my trips to the regional capital. Though the Fouta Djallon is densely populated, I can still wander in the rolling hills of the countryside in any direction from my village center. I also have Peace Corps volunteer neighbors 12km, 29km, and 35 km away. A listening ear (in English!) is just a short bike ride away.