Rain

The rainy season has started. Local mangoes are finished and now I'm stuffing myself with the larger, grafted varieties. They're more fun to eat because they're often full of worms and they therefore give you a greater protein kick if you don't always see them right away.

It also means that on nights I sleep outside I am risking an inadvertent shower. Last night, for example: I've been sleeping on the roof here in Conakry in my mosquito tent. It's basically a mesh on poles - no protection from the rain. That's what the roof is for. But last night the wind was so strong I had to dig around for thirty minutes to find ear plugs and it blew my tent horizontal - I had the mesh pressed onto my face until I was able to put heavy things all around the edges to weigh them down. Life is good, though - it was much cooler with all the wind and rain.

Here Amy and I are trying to collect rainwater to use later for whatever - bathing for example. After Adam finished he came out and asked me if he'd just used leftover rain water I'd brought in to use. I told him yes and he was relieved he didn't just randomly have twigs and leaves stuck in his hair after a shower.

That said, the best bucket baths I've had in country were all during heavy downpours. One of those downpours caught me while I was out jogging and as it continued until after I'd finished my shower, I never even had to worry about sweat breaking out after just having showered. Instead I put on long pants and a fleece jacket. I tell you, 70 degrees is cold!

Una Jornada Típica

Me levanto a las 5:30. Ya me haré despierto hace 30 minutos, pero hace falta un poco de luz para empezar el día. Bueno, para hacer algo útil. Hasta que haya, leo con una antorcha.

Saco mi cubo para bañarme y me preparo para estar a la intersección del pueblo para desayunar a las 7. Siempre lo mismo: la harina de maís y azucar con algo ácido - una fruta trópica que nunca se ve entre todas las cosas allí mezcladas - sólo sabes que hay un poco de su zumo para que la harina se haga bolitas. Saludo a todo el mundo. Puede durar bastante tiempo para cada persona: I ni sööma, I ni sööma, Tana ma si, Here sira, I ni sooma, Mba, I Condé, Mba, Tana ma si, Tana si te, Here sira, Tana si te. Y esas frases se repiten como te de la gana. Mientras tanto estoy buscando la persona con la que voy a trabajar ese día. Muchas veces se le ha olvidado. O puede ser que cojo la bici para ir a otro pueblo de al lado (entre 3 y 30 kilómetros) para hacer un trabajo allí.

En cuanto la halle, voy al campo o al bosque con esa persona y hacemos lo del día - puede ser qualquiera cosa. No es raro que me llevan allí sólo para pedir el dinero de una manera indirecta.

Acabamos normalmente la mañana. Si tengo un programa para mediodía, será algo parecido - o no tendrá nada que ver. Hay mucha variedad. Entre los dos programas, voy al "bar" (una banca que quizás no caiga y quizás tenga un techo/parasol). Como el arroz con una salsa asquerosa que escondo con una montaña de pimiento fuerte.

Hace calor. Si no tengo un programa, me siento bajo un árbol para leer algo escrito en el inglés a los chiquitines o tocarles un poco de flamenquillo. Nunca dura - la música les interesa, pero todos quieren hablar conmigo mientras tanto y es dificíl hacer las dos a la vez.

Voy al pozo para coger el agua a las 4. Si hay mucha gente, puedo esperar hasta una hora para poder pedalear un poco. Cojo lo suficiente para bañarme la noche y la mañana, para regar lo arbolitos que he plantado por todos lados, y para lavar las cosas que están sucias - platos, el suelo, el gato, los niños...

De necesidad paso por el mercado - unas cuántas mujeres que venden lo que han sacado del jardín o que han hallado en el bosque para comprar la cena. Vuelvo después de saludar todo el mundo - una pequeña variación de la mañana. Decido si me interesa cocinar o si me voy a ascostar pronto. De todos modos me lavo y estoy en la cama antes de las 8 para leer una o dos horas con la antorcha y dormirme mientras el vecino, un video club, empieza a hacer más ruido que una discoteca y que puede durar hasta medianoche.

Mañana empieza de nuevo!

Sueños de Cuajada

Aquí no se puede dar dos pasos sin ver una oveja. Las ovejas se han comido todos los árboles que yo había metido delante de mi cabaña. Pero aunque los guineanos viven con ellas, se sientan con ellas, y las ven a todo momento, nunca piensan a beber la leche de oveja. Comersela, sin cuestión; pero la leche nunca jamás.

La tomaría yo mismo pero no puedo pensar de la leche de oveja sin querer el queso o aún mejor la cuajada vasca - comida divina que echo de menos.

Hablo sin parar de la comida española. Una vez me tocó la suerte de ganar un jabalí entero. Fui a cogerlo y lo preparé para hacer cuatro jamones, salchichones, y no sé qué más. Lo que no sabía en ese momento es que el clima de España es perfecto para hacer el jamón ibérico. Creía que fue la preparación sólo que hizo famoso el jamón serrano. Qué tristeza volver a casa al día siguiente para ver el jabalí entero estropeado - salvo las costillas que Nyari y yo habíamos comido la misma noche que lo ganó.

La cerveza de Guinea no es una de las mejores del mundo. Tampoco está muy buena. Cuántas veces he dado las gracias a España por haberme enseñado la clara - la cerveza con limón para vosotros los madrileños. Tenemos el vino de mesa aquí también - marca Don Simón, claro que sí. Nunca me lo bebo sino que sea en forma de tinto de verano.

Me he prometido ir a España para veros todos antes de empezar otra vez la vida en otro lugar. Ahora es más seguro que nunca: veo la necesidad de comer a la española otra vez y prontito.

Julián, para que sepas, una vez me tomó la cerveza en un coco para ti.

Random Photos

Atop the Peace Corps car so I could take a photo of other volunteers; our car broke a brake pad and got a flat, extending our trip by several hours and giving us that much more time to sing songs and enjoy good conversation and good company.

The Peace Corps vehicle I took in to Conakry for July 4 and a JET meeting was a bit packed. Having nowhere to lean and sleep, I made a sling for myself with my pagne/towel.

I was weeding in my back yard one day when a chameleon fell out of either my mango tree or the neighbor's, landing right next to me. I picked it up on a stick and played with it for a while before it got too boring.

The mango tree in my back yard has huge mangos, but the majority of them are harboring worms. Bad luck.

Working hard, making raised beds for the rainy season garden at Jess's site. Also while visiting Jess, we intended to work with the school to help them create a garden to improve their nutrition. Unfortunately, they stopped going to school before term ended and the project didn't get too far. Jess lighting charcoal on fire to cook me a fantastic dinner at her site while I was in town to work on a Moringa olifera garden at her health center.

In honor of our successful arrival to IST and the end of our first three months at site, I decided to decorate myself with a map of Guinea - company for the moustache contest we had that ended up just being a moustache having. We never did decide who had the best one officially, though unofficially Alex's moustache was fantastic.

This is another holdover from training. I left this chicken behind by accident. I'm sure someone's eaten it by now. No matter; I have my cat. And I can always get a new chicken if I get hungry some day.

I took this photo during training. Buildings often have doors long before they are finished. Had I been a day earlier with my camera, it would've been even better: there was a bare minimum frame, the door, and the windown: not even all those sticks for a wall were there yet.

The Dancing Collection

A recent trip to Jess's site saw me learn a lot about how to prepare a project, make avocado jam (still not black after a month!), and give up on my woodworker - I ordered bookshelves out of town due to overcharging (by American standards, even) and wood-lacking (doesn't like working for someone who requires sturdy, non-nail-dependent joins) carpenters. I also went to church for the first time in almost three years.

At first I was placed up front behind the preacher as a first-time guest. They quickly moved me next to Jess and her translator, who did an admirable job transforming Kissi into French on the fly for two hours.

Being next to Jess just made me stand out even more than I would have with merely my melanin deficiency. The men sit on the left side of the church and the women, plus one white guy and a translator, sit on the right side.

At the beginning it was great - there was singing accompanied by drums and calabaches in sacks of beads. The music was uplifting and invigorating. People were smiling and enjoying themselves. It was everything religion should be.

Unfortunately the sermon ended up being a long-winded speech about how the children of the rich are awful; state employees are rich, lazy, and awful; and people don't give enough money to the church. I didn't ask them to remind me why I hated going to mass growing up, but they did it anyway and as the guest, I just listened quietly. Redeeming note: everyone up front behind the pastor fell asleep during the sermon and they were all out cold by the end.

The holy sermon, once blessedly over, saw the greatest church collection ever. Both the men and the women chose a representative and a secretary. The competition was clear: who could raise more money, the men or the women. I put my money in with the men, but I was betting on the women.

There was music while each group gave, then a first-round count was intended to drive them to greater charity. The men's secretary preceded his tally with a short speech about how men, who earn money unlike women, were surely the victors and he went on in a bit of flowery trash talk. The women's secretary simply stood up and announced they had collected more than two times what the men gave. The second round ended much the same way; the women obliterated the men.

They cheered and danced their representative back to her seat as the men's rep walked back to his alone and in shame. Our translator was laughing like he was the happiest person in the world, glorying in the humiliation of the men and the joy of the women. On my other side, Jess probably was the happiest person in the world: she had finally shared her African church experience with another American.

I Can't Believe It's Not Yet Butter

I finally got back to my town after two weeks of a beekeeping training and three at a training for all of G15. My hut was a disaster for over a month after my return (finally clean as of one week ago). Why? How? Simple: it was full of junk I picked up on the trip and I still have no bookshelves. It was easier to leave the hut than stay in it and clean. Note: bookshelf problem is now resolved - I bought two in Kissidougou and I hung a bunch of stuff from the bamboo rafters.

Mango season is just now changing from local to grafted varieties. I wanted to dry as many as possible and get people to do it for themselves, too. So I biked to the next town over, where there's no ban on bamboo. I spent the morning teaching them to build a simple solar drier. They were so happy they immediately built a second one with their own modifications - improvements based on a lifetime of working with bamboo. They gave me the second one, refused payment, and then thrust a calabach (see "Gone Fishin'") full of milk at me.

It was finally decided I would chug over a liter of water and fill two bottles with the milk. I did, took the milk home, and left it until the next day.

When I first got the milk I knew I had to make butter. Margarine is disgusting and I had a sudden craving for a hunk of bread with slabs of real, spreadable milk fat all over it. I opened the first bottle, found it had fermented a bit, and thought pasteurization would surely kill the fermenting bacteria and perhaps boil off the alcohol. I put it into a pot and got the second bottle of milk. I could feel the pressure in it and figured the easiest way to avoid spillage would be to point the mouth of the bottle into the pot of milk before opening it. I cautiously set up the pot on my table, started to loosen the cap, lost control of it, and had a milk explosion.

My hut at this time was hard enough to walk in - I had to dodge piles of junk everywhere and in some places the only viable foot room was created by tossing inhibition out the door and walking on stacks of papers. The explosion did not improve anything. Chunks of fermented milk were everywhere, stuck to everything. As the days passed, I did eventually get it all cleaned up - hunting down different chunks by smell - but that was yet to come. My mind was still set on butter-smeared bread. I pasteurized the milk, let it separate for a day, made butter with the fat, and made hot chocolate with the milk.

My first clue something was wrong came when I had to scrape the fat off the bottom of the pot. Still, no one joins Peace Corps unless they're optimistic. My second clue was when I had to spit out a swig of hot chocolate and dump the rest of that cup. Optimism.

I threw out half a loaf of bread I'd attacked with the butter. On the bright side, the solar drier works. On the bad side, I still haven't managed to get milk home before it ferments.

Gone Fishin'

I missed the initial rush. Too busy walking around the huge, pond-like body of water, which is part of a river during the rainy season, looking for someone to hold my clothes, I lost the best chance I had of pitching head-first into thigh-deep mud.

I didn't intend to go to the fish fête at first, but when my boss - who's never been - went out of his way to convince me it was worthwhile, I knew it had to be.

Amy, Adam, Ciara, and I got some fabric with fish pattern and made ourselves some matching outfits. Then, renting a cab, we headed out of Kankan at 6:30 a.m. to avoid a potential lock-down of the city - irrelevant political turmoil.

The first day we wandered around the fête-swelled market, bought garbage (my necklace broke after less than 24 hours), and waited for everyone else to show up. We presented a Ciara-decorated bowl - made from a giant, dried-out squash (a calabach), several meters of the fabric our outfits were made of, and the traditional 10 kola nuts to Cathleen's former family. They took good care of us.

The fête opened Saturday evening with dancing, singing, and a good amount of speech-making. Early Sunday morning people started filing down to the water, but we chose to see the ceremony prior to fishing.

Per Guinean regulations, it didn't start on time and we ended up with a nice crowd of kids staring at us (whose number now includes Caron and Alex). With nothing better to do, we started fooling around. We were sitting in plastic deck chairs surrounded by at least 200 kids - probably closer to 400. At first we slapped hands down the line and back. Then we did the same with leg crossing. That evolved into a full-blown effort to teach our crowd how to do The Wave. After even that didn't take off, we resorted to singing Raffi's "Down By the Bay." That was a hit and kept us going until the real party started - by blasting music and watching the Tubabus dance.

After our entrée, the main course of drumming, traditional dancing, and theatrical, acrobatic dancing started. The three PCVs who are here for a third year were getting involved in the traditional dancing; I had the bad luck to jump in only moments before it ended. Then to the water.

I lost everyone else on the way down and had to give up on finding everyone. I decided to slog through the mud holding my clothes. Once I found Caron, though, I was able to ditch my clothes and fish. Melinda had bet me 5000FG, not really a bet, more incentive, I couldn't catch a fish with my hands. I'd thought it might be possible - the water was nowhere more than a foot deep. The mud, though, was nowhere less than knee-deep.

I gave up on my hands quickly – my only good shot at that was the initial rush. As I had a mesh shirt (A-shirt cut) it was only a couple knots before I had my own fishing net. I caught 8 finger-sized fish like that before I found a fishing buddy. Ciara grabbed the other side of my shirt and we charged through the mud, dragging the net. That was fruitless, so I suggested simple sweeping while standing still. On our second swoosh through the mud, pay dirt. We got a catfish about 6 inches long - small, but more than big enough to keep by local standards.

That was the only keeper for me in what was the most intense over fishing I'll ever see (until next year). Unfortunately for use of Ciara and a mesh shirt, Melinda only gave me 1000FG. Twenty cents.