It's only been eight days since my last entry but a lot has happened here in that time. For those of you who haven't been keeping up to speed, on Dec 23rd Lansana Conte died after twenty four years as president of Guinea. According to the constitution the president of the national assembly is the successor in the event of the death of the president. However, only a few hours after Conte died the military staged a coup d'etat, suspended the constitution, and dissolved the old government. The leader of the coup, Capt. Moussa Camara, is now the self-proclaimed president of Guinea.
In the time since the military took over all the volunteers in Conakry have been confined to the Peace Corps compound on lock down. So over the past few days we've basically been spending our time waiting and speculating about whether or not Peace Corps was going to be evacuated from the country. In the beginning it looked like it could go either way but now after a few days of playing wait and see it seems like the situation is stabilizing. When the new president was announced people took to the streets to cheer, apparently relieved that there would be a return to some sort of stable government. So, barring any unforeseen circumstances, we're going to be able to go back to our sites soon.
Anyone who's interested in reading more about what's going on here, BBC has been covering the situation really well. Here's a few stories they've run that give a good overview of the events of the last few days.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7797629.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7799279.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7800163.stm
Due to the lock down we had to cancel our trip to Sierra Leone and all of the new volunteers had to stay at the training site for Christmas so we didn't get to meet them. It was a little disappointing having to change all of our holiday plans but at the same time it's been an interesting experience to see how everything has played out so far. After all, how many people can say that they've lived through a military coup?
Regardless of the change of plans we've still been making the best of our time here and it's been nice seeing everyone who made it into Conakry before the lock down was imposed. I've been having a great time hearing everyone's stories from their villages and I've also been spending a lot of time in the kitchen. I didn't realize how much I missed cooking until I got back here. Cooking at site is really time and effort intensive so I hardly ever do it, opting instead to just eat all my meals with my host family at site. But since getting back to Conakary I've been cooking up a storm and having a great time doing it. So rest assured I'm still enjoying the holidays.
Anyways, I just wanted to let everyone know what was going on here and that I'm OK. A lot's been happening over the past few days and I'm sure a lot is yet to come. The new government is still forming itself but as always seems to be the case in Guinea we're just going to have to exercise a bit of patience and hopefully everything will work itself out.
December 26, 2008
December 18, 2008
Fêtes and Freetown oh my oh my!
I'm back in Conakry now for some much anticipated R & R. I got in yesterday from Kankan and I'll be here until the 27th, then I'm going to spend New Years in Freetown with a bunch of other volunteers. I've been anticipating this trip for quite some time and now that it's here I'm really excited for it. I've heard Freetown is beautiful and it will be nice to spend some time on a beach where you can actually go in the water.
Adding to my excitement is the fact that a new group of volunteers just arrived in country at the beginning of the month. The first time I'll get to meet them will be when they come up to Conakry for Christmas, which is just one more thing to look forward to. I'm really excited for the new people because I remember what it was like arriving in Guinea and having everything be new and foreign. It's quite a shock at first and it makes for some interesting times.
As far my own life goes it's moving along, petit á petit. Tabaski, which is the Islamic celebration of when Abraham climbed the mountain to sacrifice his son, was at the beginning of the month. It's the biggest holiday of the year in Guinea. There was tons of dancing, eating, and visiting from extended family. It reminded me a lot of Thanksgiving actually which was sort of a nice substitute for not being at home this November. Plus my family slaughtered some goats and a cow and we ate meat with all of our meals which never happens normally. It was delicious.
Also because of the holiday, school has been closed for pretty much the entire month. Which left me plenty of time to read, dance, read, eat, read, and sleep. It's been a tough month, which is why I need a vacation.
In other news I finally got my act together and went through the photos I've taken so far in country and posted them online. There's a link on the right hand side of the page but here it is again for those unable to turn their head slightly.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jreffsin
By the way, Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to everyone. It's so easy for me to forget that it's the holiday season since the temperature never drops below seventy here. I don't know what I'm gonna do after I go home, I'm shivering when it does hit seventy and just looking at pictures of winter in Massachusetts makes me cold. Who knows though, maybe by the time my service is up global warming will have taken care of all the snow for me. Fingers crossed.
Adding to my excitement is the fact that a new group of volunteers just arrived in country at the beginning of the month. The first time I'll get to meet them will be when they come up to Conakry for Christmas, which is just one more thing to look forward to. I'm really excited for the new people because I remember what it was like arriving in Guinea and having everything be new and foreign. It's quite a shock at first and it makes for some interesting times.
As far my own life goes it's moving along, petit á petit. Tabaski, which is the Islamic celebration of when Abraham climbed the mountain to sacrifice his son, was at the beginning of the month. It's the biggest holiday of the year in Guinea. There was tons of dancing, eating, and visiting from extended family. It reminded me a lot of Thanksgiving actually which was sort of a nice substitute for not being at home this November. Plus my family slaughtered some goats and a cow and we ate meat with all of our meals which never happens normally. It was delicious.
Also because of the holiday, school has been closed for pretty much the entire month. Which left me plenty of time to read, dance, read, eat, read, and sleep. It's been a tough month, which is why I need a vacation.
In other news I finally got my act together and went through the photos I've taken so far in country and posted them online. There's a link on the right hand side of the page but here it is again for those unable to turn their head slightly.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jreffsin
By the way, Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to everyone. It's so easy for me to forget that it's the holiday season since the temperature never drops below seventy here. I don't know what I'm gonna do after I go home, I'm shivering when it does hit seventy and just looking at pictures of winter in Massachusetts makes me cold. Who knows though, maybe by the time my service is up global warming will have taken care of all the snow for me. Fingers crossed.
November 26, 2008
America, exotic disease, and goats
Well, another month gone by and here I am again. The month's been a bit up and down for me. At the beginning I was having a good time just being back at site after my last trip to Kankan. When I tried to come back after last month's trip I ended up not being able to get a ride and was stuck in the city for a few days. Being stuck like that with nothing to do made me antsy to leave and it was a really nice feeling coming back to site after being gone. My village definitely feels like home now.
On top of that I got a bit of a hero's welcome on my return because everyone in my village was celebrating Obama's win. There was much tea drinking and it was generally agreed that the U.S. is the greatest democracy in the world. It's funny, I often get the feeling that Guineans love my country more than I do. Although I must admit that I'm getting more in the patriotic spirit with Obama taking the reigns. It'll be interesting to see how he fares in the face of such overwhelming (and probably impossibly high) expectations. It's quite a time to be an American abroad, especially in Africa.
As I said though the month wasn't all good and towards the end I started getting a bit down. It was mainly due to a bought of some flu-like illness that left me incapacitated in my hut for a week with a fever and severe fatigue. To make matters worse I felt guilty the entire time because I was missing so much school and I'd already missed some this month when I was stuck in Kankan sans ride. Although when I voiced my concerns to the principal he just laughed it off saying "Don't worry, health above all!"
With me out of the running the school was pretty low on teachers. Before the school year started the principal held a meeting with us to voice his concern over the lack of teachers at our school this year. Although there were 6 different classes at the school at that moment we only had 5 teachers. He had appealed to the head of education for our region to send more teachers and he told us that soon we'd hopefully be getting some more.
Well, as it turns out, they didn't exactly heed his call. In fact the only course of action they took was to transfer the only other math teacher away from our school. After the principal made an attempt to deal with that by teaching some classes himself we had some more bad news.
A few weeks ago I was sitting around with my family at dusk when somebody ran into our courtyard to tell us that something had happened to the French teacher and we should come quick to the health center. All I was able to catch was that it was something serious involving a gun. When we got there I found that the staff was removing the remnants of pieces of a revolver that had exploded while he was out hunting and lodged itself in his right hand. I saw all of this as I walked up to the health center since the staff were doing all of this basically with his hand hanging out the front window. It was the only part of the center at that hour that had enough light falling on it to do the procedure. Although I can assure you that the man was suitably vocal about his discomfort to have alerted me to what was going on had I not seen it.
Although he'll be ok with a lot of rest and recuperation it still left our school down another teacher for the moment. So already by the time I got sick we were operating with only 3 teachers and the principal meaning that each period there were two classes of students who were left to entertain themselves without supervision. As far as I can tell their favorite past time during this free time is congregating outside my classroom having contests of who can yell louder. Let me just say there are a lot of strong contestants. I can only imagine the chaos that must have been ensuing at the school in my absence with half the students free to do as they pleased at any given time. But hey, health above all.
Being cooped up in my hut all week worrying about the state of affairs at the school was, to say the least a bit of a downer. Especially lacking the energy to go for a stroll and collect my thoughts. Usually, in my free time I like to walk around my village thinking or talking with friends. It's nice to just take in the sites and everyone's always happy to see me and greet me as I walk by. Apparently this constant aimless strolling is a bit unusual as far as Guineans are concerned.
My behavior has caused one guy that I often walk past to give me a nickname reflective of my new found hobby, Sofé bah. It means the wandering goat (bah being the rather logical name for goat in Malinké). There's a constant stream of goats that roam the streets here eating whatever is in the path, earning their share of thrown rocks and shouting as they get into people's dinners. I've been fortunate to avoid the rocks and angry outbursts so far but apparently my habitual walking is more goat like than human in this neck of the woods and the name seems to have stuck for the time being. Although only with a few guys, most people I pass on my walks still prefer to call me by the nickname I've had since I got here, white man.
~Jesse
On top of that I got a bit of a hero's welcome on my return because everyone in my village was celebrating Obama's win. There was much tea drinking and it was generally agreed that the U.S. is the greatest democracy in the world. It's funny, I often get the feeling that Guineans love my country more than I do. Although I must admit that I'm getting more in the patriotic spirit with Obama taking the reigns. It'll be interesting to see how he fares in the face of such overwhelming (and probably impossibly high) expectations. It's quite a time to be an American abroad, especially in Africa.
As I said though the month wasn't all good and towards the end I started getting a bit down. It was mainly due to a bought of some flu-like illness that left me incapacitated in my hut for a week with a fever and severe fatigue. To make matters worse I felt guilty the entire time because I was missing so much school and I'd already missed some this month when I was stuck in Kankan sans ride. Although when I voiced my concerns to the principal he just laughed it off saying "Don't worry, health above all!"
With me out of the running the school was pretty low on teachers. Before the school year started the principal held a meeting with us to voice his concern over the lack of teachers at our school this year. Although there were 6 different classes at the school at that moment we only had 5 teachers. He had appealed to the head of education for our region to send more teachers and he told us that soon we'd hopefully be getting some more.
Well, as it turns out, they didn't exactly heed his call. In fact the only course of action they took was to transfer the only other math teacher away from our school. After the principal made an attempt to deal with that by teaching some classes himself we had some more bad news.
A few weeks ago I was sitting around with my family at dusk when somebody ran into our courtyard to tell us that something had happened to the French teacher and we should come quick to the health center. All I was able to catch was that it was something serious involving a gun. When we got there I found that the staff was removing the remnants of pieces of a revolver that had exploded while he was out hunting and lodged itself in his right hand. I saw all of this as I walked up to the health center since the staff were doing all of this basically with his hand hanging out the front window. It was the only part of the center at that hour that had enough light falling on it to do the procedure. Although I can assure you that the man was suitably vocal about his discomfort to have alerted me to what was going on had I not seen it.
Although he'll be ok with a lot of rest and recuperation it still left our school down another teacher for the moment. So already by the time I got sick we were operating with only 3 teachers and the principal meaning that each period there were two classes of students who were left to entertain themselves without supervision. As far as I can tell their favorite past time during this free time is congregating outside my classroom having contests of who can yell louder. Let me just say there are a lot of strong contestants. I can only imagine the chaos that must have been ensuing at the school in my absence with half the students free to do as they pleased at any given time. But hey, health above all.
Being cooped up in my hut all week worrying about the state of affairs at the school was, to say the least a bit of a downer. Especially lacking the energy to go for a stroll and collect my thoughts. Usually, in my free time I like to walk around my village thinking or talking with friends. It's nice to just take in the sites and everyone's always happy to see me and greet me as I walk by. Apparently this constant aimless strolling is a bit unusual as far as Guineans are concerned.
My behavior has caused one guy that I often walk past to give me a nickname reflective of my new found hobby, Sofé bah. It means the wandering goat (bah being the rather logical name for goat in Malinké). There's a constant stream of goats that roam the streets here eating whatever is in the path, earning their share of thrown rocks and shouting as they get into people's dinners. I've been fortunate to avoid the rocks and angry outbursts so far but apparently my habitual walking is more goat like than human in this neck of the woods and the name seems to have stuck for the time being. Although only with a few guys, most people I pass on my walks still prefer to call me by the nickname I've had since I got here, white man.
~Jesse
November 1, 2008
How Da Business? Fine Fine.
Happy belated Halloween everyone!
I’m in Kan Kan for a few days to relax with some of the other volunteers so I’ve got some time to post here. Sorry for the lack of updates but I’ve been at site for the last month and obviously there’s no internet there. Get used to it, I live in an African village. C’est la vie.
It’s been quite a month. My village is really remote, even by Guinean standards. So I haven’t had any contact with other Americans for the entire month. As you can imagine, that can be quite a plateful at times.
The actual day to day happenings of life are pretty uneventful for the moment. School only started 3 days ago so I’ve spent the majority of the month just trying to get to know my community. Almost nobody there speaks French so I’m having to start all over again with the language learning process, this time with Malinke which is a local language spoken here. There’s no lack of people who want to help me practice, which is great, but there are definitely times when I just want someone who will speak to me in French so I can have a real conversation.
When I’m not wandering around my village trying to blunder my way through a usually nonsensical interaction in Malinke I’m usually spending time reading or with my host family. Activities with them involve eating toh (corn paste served with dipping sauce), teaching me Malinke, eating more toh, and asking me if the things we have here can be found in the U.S. (yes we do have the moon and stars back home). Did I mention we eat a lot of toh?
Tea drinking is also a huge pastime here. Wherever you go in the village you find tons of groups of men sitting around with little charcoal stoves boiling tea. The process of making/drinking the tea takes hours and it’s really more of a way for people to socialize than anything else. The socialization aspect of it is nice but I’m still getting used to the tea itself. It’s made with a really bitter green tea which they then load up with an unbelievable amount of sugar. The result is quite, umm…. sweet, to say the least. As the honorary guest at any gathering I always get the first and biggest cup of tea. Lucky me.
Slowly, the more I get used to my community and venture around further I’m starting to find the little secrets that I missed when I first got here. The market lady who makes awesome peanut butter cookies. Or the goat meat salesmen at night who grills delicious kabobs on an old oil barrel. Or the perfect time to show up at the bakery to get the fresh baked baguettes right out of the brick oven, mmmmm. I’ve also started to explore the surrounding area. There are plenty of paths and hills around here to check out. It’s a good place to go for a hike. Although you always have to be wary of snakes and scorpions.
So I guess you could say I’m slowly figuring out my new life here. The language, the people, the customs. Little by little it’s coming to me. It’s not always easy (in fact I’d say it’s pretty much never easy) but it’s definitely been interesting so far.
I’ll leave you with a little story from one of my first weeks at site, before everyone there knew there was a white guy in town. I was lying under the mango tree in the middle of my family’s concession one night when a man walked through on his way home. In the dark, only sensing that there was someone there and not knowing who I was he gave me a polite “I ni wura” (good evening) and kept going. When I responded in my obvious American accent he stopped, did a double take, and came up to me. “Eh! Tubabu! (White person.)” he said excitedly. “What’s the matter? Are you lost?”
I sat up and looked around at the rows of huts and my African family sitting with me. I listened to the drumming coming from the shortwave radio. I thought of the fact that the closest American was 5 hours away and that it was pretty much impossible for anyone I know to contact me. I shrugged, “I guess so.” He smiled and told me over his shoulder as he walked away “Have courage.” As he disappeared down the path I settled back down against the tree. Have courage indeed.
I’m in Kan Kan for a few days to relax with some of the other volunteers so I’ve got some time to post here. Sorry for the lack of updates but I’ve been at site for the last month and obviously there’s no internet there. Get used to it, I live in an African village. C’est la vie.
It’s been quite a month. My village is really remote, even by Guinean standards. So I haven’t had any contact with other Americans for the entire month. As you can imagine, that can be quite a plateful at times.
The actual day to day happenings of life are pretty uneventful for the moment. School only started 3 days ago so I’ve spent the majority of the month just trying to get to know my community. Almost nobody there speaks French so I’m having to start all over again with the language learning process, this time with Malinke which is a local language spoken here. There’s no lack of people who want to help me practice, which is great, but there are definitely times when I just want someone who will speak to me in French so I can have a real conversation.
When I’m not wandering around my village trying to blunder my way through a usually nonsensical interaction in Malinke I’m usually spending time reading or with my host family. Activities with them involve eating toh (corn paste served with dipping sauce), teaching me Malinke, eating more toh, and asking me if the things we have here can be found in the U.S. (yes we do have the moon and stars back home). Did I mention we eat a lot of toh?
Tea drinking is also a huge pastime here. Wherever you go in the village you find tons of groups of men sitting around with little charcoal stoves boiling tea. The process of making/drinking the tea takes hours and it’s really more of a way for people to socialize than anything else. The socialization aspect of it is nice but I’m still getting used to the tea itself. It’s made with a really bitter green tea which they then load up with an unbelievable amount of sugar. The result is quite, umm…. sweet, to say the least. As the honorary guest at any gathering I always get the first and biggest cup of tea. Lucky me.
Slowly, the more I get used to my community and venture around further I’m starting to find the little secrets that I missed when I first got here. The market lady who makes awesome peanut butter cookies. Or the goat meat salesmen at night who grills delicious kabobs on an old oil barrel. Or the perfect time to show up at the bakery to get the fresh baked baguettes right out of the brick oven, mmmmm. I’ve also started to explore the surrounding area. There are plenty of paths and hills around here to check out. It’s a good place to go for a hike. Although you always have to be wary of snakes and scorpions.
So I guess you could say I’m slowly figuring out my new life here. The language, the people, the customs. Little by little it’s coming to me. It’s not always easy (in fact I’d say it’s pretty much never easy) but it’s definitely been interesting so far.
I’ll leave you with a little story from one of my first weeks at site, before everyone there knew there was a white guy in town. I was lying under the mango tree in the middle of my family’s concession one night when a man walked through on his way home. In the dark, only sensing that there was someone there and not knowing who I was he gave me a polite “I ni wura” (good evening) and kept going. When I responded in my obvious American accent he stopped, did a double take, and came up to me. “Eh! Tubabu! (White person.)” he said excitedly. “What’s the matter? Are you lost?”
I sat up and looked around at the rows of huts and my African family sitting with me. I listened to the drumming coming from the shortwave radio. I thought of the fact that the closest American was 5 hours away and that it was pretty much impossible for anyone I know to contact me. I shrugged, “I guess so.” He smiled and told me over his shoulder as he walked away “Have courage.” As he disappeared down the path I settled back down against the tree. Have courage indeed.
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