Travels with Nyari

Photos: Soka le n di

2009-05-01T08:01:00.007Z

As my friends in Kankan like to point out, "Soka li di," I'm a villager. Lansine and I are hanging, literally, in some vines up in a tree. As always, he strikes a karate pose. And it's not just him, you see the videos: all the kids here strike karate poses whenever I pull out a camera. Seeing as how it's all they see on TV I can't really blame them, but it is a bit odd.

My stitches. I was worried they were going to heal with a couple holes leading into my hand muscles, but my good old body kept spitting out new bursts of skin until all the holes filled in. This is about as bad a job as you could ever want done, though. Still, it's better than the clothes my village tailor turns out for me.

I've made toh before - though I've never done all the steps at the same time. Nantine (left) was so proud she wanted me to take a photo, but Bourdelaye and Wounmare decided they had to pretend to eat the toh. I just took the picture instead of waiting for the battle to stop.

The first few mango rains showed that yes, my roof still leaked; it didn't magically stop leaking since last rainy season. Well, Madi and I climbed up on the roof to fix it and now my bed is back in its old spot. No leaks! Also, my roof is now capped with an old bike tire; no more twisted vines for me; I'm moving up in the technology world.

As a friend pointed out to me, it's a sad world we live in when 50 Cent is quotable. I told Fanta what her shirt said and she thought it was hilarious. It sort of holds true here, too. Everyone is trying to get rich and eventually we all die.

Lansine, Madi, and I went out to get raffia. I was making a bee hive and they were selling it to the big city folks. This is right after Lansine jumped out of the vines (see above photo).

And after about five seconds, they start giving me karate poses. Naturally.

Lemunun Kouyate

2009-05-01T07:49:00.003Z

When Nyari went back to America with my family, I figured life would be much better because I was finally free of a cat on a leash and he would stop getting death threats for stealing chickens, fish, meat, and oil from my neighbors. Well, no. Instead I got a family of mice who started stealing my food and tree seeds. They dug holes all around the base of my hut (and my family since killed two snakes trying to get into one of those holes at night - two different nights) and would make a ruckus every night and keep me awake.
So the solution was to get another cat. My friend Toure got her from his neighbors. Her mom had killed some chickens and was killed in turn. Her siblings are also all dead and she was the last one around: covered in fleas, filthy, and all bones pushing through her emaciated skin when he brought her to me. I washed her in warm water and started forcing as much food on her as she would eat. In return, it's almost as if she's imprinted on me.
She is colored very similarly to Nyari, but she's got more orange, so her name is orange (as in the the fruit) and her last name is that of the griots because she was a constant crier at first and the best way to deal with it was to pretend she was singing.
She is always looking for me to jump on my lap and fall asleep. She wants to rub on my ankles and is far more affectionate than Nyari.
However, she's nowhere near as effective a killer as he. She's a bit faster with spiders, but a lot slower with roaches. And the mice... One night I woke up to the sound of a chase. I was sleeping in my tent because it had started to rain while I was sleeping outside, so I quickly dragged it in and just kept sleeping in it. A mouse was running back and forth across the top of the tent and Lemunun was running back and forth along the side. This went on for over a minute with no progress, so I launched the mouse across the hut with a slap from below. Lemunun took off after it, but it got away. Nonetheless, they have moved out of my hut; so even if she didn't kill them, they're gone.

The family visit

2009-05-01T07:37:00.003Z

I didn't take too many photos while the family was visiting. Mainly because they were taking a lot of photos. This is one of two pictures, really. I took them up the mountain and we could hardly see anything because of the smoke from all the bush fires. That said, we did see a couple fires go raging over some hills, which was sort of cool.

The real surprise was the morning I saw Amy wearing this shirt. I actually saw the back first, which is a Bagga fertility godess, Nimba. The funny thing is I saw this, the front, when I asked where she'd gotten the shirt: it says "penis" in Maninka.

Apparently the shirt is from a restaurant in Pittsburgh by someone with a rich sense of humor. The fact that she would bring it to the country where I would know what the name means and recognize the godess, though... It was pretty cool.

Mali Part I

2009-04-30T12:16:00.021Z

The main purpose of our trip was to go hiking in Dogon, so we headed there after Segou and got going right away in spite of worries about how things would fare in Guinea with the president's death and the speculation about where the power would fall.

The first village we stayed in was swimming in baobobs. Then I realized everywhere in Mali is swimming in baobobs - there aren't really that many trees that grow there. We travelled light and yet I still feel I was travelling heavy. Next time I'm only bringing one pair of pants.

Our guide Ibrahima was very entertaining - mainly because he was in a rush to get to his village for Xmas and we weren't the best hikers in the world. He ended up paying a couple other people to carry a bunch of our bags just to make sure we could keep a decent pace up. We even got to ditch the path a few times and light out through the bush to cut time from our trip and make it to the next town by dark.

A traditional meeting place.

Astrid looks back at Adam and Ciara, who were slowing her down.

We slept on the roofs of Malian huts that mostly have flat roofs. It's a good place to crash - it actually gets cold and you can get a good night's sleep.

If termites ever move up to the plateau, their bridges are toast.

I had to climb up higher than the rim to make a call to check on the situation in Guinea. Everyone else just hung out on the lip of the valley.

There were a couple of traditional ladders to go down. Luckily they put up branches in case you fall: you won't fall down to the next level, too. Their ladders are tree trunks with notches cut in them.

Jess goes down the ladder.

And this is the chasm those branches keep you out of.

Adam wasn't happy with our lunch schedule and got hungry early.

It's hot and dusty in Mali. We tried to avoid the midday sun at all costs, but it inevitably caught us out a few times.

I had to invent a sun shade to keep it off, but the fact is it hindered circulation, which more than made up for the added shade.

We were down at the end of most days, but the area was still beautiful. Dogon doors take a ton of work to make, but they're gorgeous.

We made sure our daily portion of millet beer was included in the terms of our travel contract.

Sunrise over the baobobs.

And the day after Xmas, we woke in Ibrahima's village.

The Dogon is full of these piles of something that people dry. I believe it's cow fodder, but I'm not sure.

Mali Part 2

2009-04-30T11:54:00.009Z

The first stop on our Mali trip was Segou. About an hour's boat ride up the Niger from Segou is a pottery village. It was our first taste of just how touristy Mali is. It was a weird feeling after Guinea, where the most touristy spots are simply occupied by a couple rich Guineans, missionaries, and ex-pats.

The village is known for its pottery, or else its known for letting tourists in to see all levels of the manufacture of their pottery. Bambara is a Manding dialect as is Maninka, so we were able to talk with the people on a level similar to that of French speaking Africans communicating with the French. So we got to play around a bit, too. After I took this picture, the woman handed me the pot to put in line with a bunch of others. She didn't tell me not to grab the lip, because obviously you don't grab the lip - it's still wet. So I grabbed the lip and she had to redo it.

By luck we arrived on the weekend, which is when they burn/bake the pots. They pile up an enormous mound of dried grasses and bury the sun-dried pots in it. As the pots get fired, they are removed with hooks on very long poles and taken to be dipped in a glaze.

This woman is carrying a pot to a drying area after having taken it out of the glaze dip.

And the benefit of speaking butchered Maninka/Bambara is that they'll let you glaze a pot while your friend takes a photo. They got a kick out of it and got some free entertainment because I had a very hard time getting all the glaze out of the pot.

When the finished products have cooled, they are boated back down to Segou from whence they're shipped all over the place.

Mali Part 1

2009-04-30T11:30:00.005Z

Last December I went to Mali with Adam, Astrid, Ciara, Jess, and Kim. We hiked around for a bit, got to be outside of Guinea when the president died, and had a good Xmas holiday celebration atop the roof of a Malian mud hut, overlooking the rim of Dogon Country's valley.

First stop on the way was to pick up Ciara. She painted the inside of her hut white, which makes it so bright. Nonetheless, I wasn't inspired to do the same.

Decked out to go swimming in the Niger.

Gathered around the communal dinner bowl. Not enough spoons to go around. Jess's new cat, Jufanin refused to eat; he was upset some kids had broken his leg. He's fine now.

Finally in Mali, we passed this bus that had had to stop to rearrange its luggage. Things had apparently been hanging over the edge of the roof and getting in people's view of the scenery.

Dawn and Dusk

2008-11-17T20:47:00.006Z

The regional driver, Conde, packing the Kankan car for a trip across the country. If we don't leave around dawn, we can't make it home by dark. A very long trip.

Evening from my back yard. The end of the rainy season brought some beautiful clouds and wonderful storms. I lament the newly arrived dry season - now I can't just get my bath water by putting buckets under my family's roof. And I have to water my nursery every day, too. Life is so much easier when water just falls from the sky.

The Mud Stove, with Steph's help

2008-11-17T20:35:00.004Z

I finally got tired of trying to convince women they should do a small amount of work to save themselves time and work later on by turning their three-rock cooking system into a fuel-efficient stove. So I decided to build my own so I can cook with wood, in public, and demonstrate how, why, and what.

The nice thing is, I can't work alone, ever. There are always children with nothing else to do. So even though I'm not working with the target audience at first, I still end up teaching the inevitable crowd of children how to build a stove, why build a stove, and later they'll cook with me.

At the end, I had a lot of extra mud so I smoothed out the walls perfectly with a wide apron and then built myself a chair in front of the stove so I can sit down in comfort molded to me as I stir my pots of rice and sauce. The stove will be in use about three weeks after construction so it has time to adequately dry (otherwise it will crack severely with the first few cook fires.

First Visitor: Stephanie

2008-11-17T20:01:00.013Z

I tried to keep her work load to a minimum - because she was on vacation and because it's better for my work if I can talk to people about why as a man I, too, can haul my own water, wash my own clothes, cook my own meals, and do all that for her as well. Nonetheless, it's fun to pump water.

One of the first days at site we went to the field with my family and helped them stamp on their rice to shake the grain loose from the straw. My sisters kept asking me how many bundles of rice I'd done so far; I kept replying I hadn't finished my first one. They have to make it a competition to entertain themselves and I didn't know we were counting until they asked...

I made Stephanie bike the 35 kilometers between my site and my regional capital, four times. She would get tired, obviously, so I would nap while she recovered.

Stephanie integrated so well, you wouldn't even be able to pick her out of this photo if you hadn't already seen her in a photo pumping water. My family loved her - they even gave her a gift when she left.

I eat moni for breakfast every morning. The first morning I brought it home in a giant bowl. To cool it off, you have to pour it from a large gourd spoon over and over.

Steph didn't like moni that much and had to look for alternative food sources.

On the way to the field to stamp on rice I took a side trip to photograph my number one enemy: the bush fire. People set them to avoid them later when hunters set the bush on fire to scare out their dinner. It's a nasty cycle that creates large swaths of rock from formerly lush forest.

Like I said, I took advantage of Steph's presence to show people that men work even when they are living with their "wife." Yeah, Steph was my fake wife for a her visit - to avoid people always asking to buy her from me.

Again, doing women's work is a good way to show men they are capable of more than sitting in the shade all day.

At the same time, my work is to share American culture. Granted the kids still haven't gotten the hang of not showing everyone their hand, but what are you going to do?

And I sing for them. When they're good. It's a good way to entertain people with activities they don't consider insane. That said, it's hard to sing and play and say hi to every single person who comes up to watch and listen.

After three weeks, Steph had had enough and we headed back to Conakry to drop her off for her flight home to blessedly cold Belgium, land of chocolate, beer, fries, and waffles.

Photos

2008-09-23T19:24:00.015Z

My village has a huge hill that plummets to a seasonal stream and then climbs up a bit more. This is about half way up the larger hill looking over the village. Unfortunately I don't have a good filter to bring out just how beautiful this cloud was; a giant storm racing over the mountain.

My buddy Musa showed me a nice swimming hole. I'm teaching him to swim. I took a photo of him trying, but I can't publish it because it sort of looks like he's drowning. And he wasn't.

Look at the corn stalks. The tree branches don't quite do justice to the strength of the wind in this gust front. It flattened half the corn fields in the village.

I work with Sidiki to reforest. This is his rice field.

And this is what's behind his rice field. Gorgeous.

This car is loaded down with fire wood. This is a small load compared to what a lot of cars carry. I just happened to have only taken this photo.

Remember that photo of the gust front and the corn? Nyari hid under a chair in my hut.

Cat prison: a rope tied to a zip line. Why? The neighbors want his blood because he's a dirty, rotten thief. Stole chicken eggs, fish, meat... At least the other half of the neighbors liked him because he ate their mice. Nonetheless, he's in prison now. There was an unrelated incident where some kid told me he was going to eat my cat. He backed off when I told him I would eat his legs and arms, one per week until he ran out. You never know what a crazy American is liable to do.

A while back I went down to Gbangbadou to help Jess set up a Moringa plantation at her health center. This is what it looked like the next time I passed through: the start of success.

This is a view from a bush trail. The rainy season is so much better than the dry season. Everything's alive, including the cows.

The evening few from my bathroom. Ah the rainy season is heaven.

2008-09-23T19:21:00.000Z

We learned a song that we've carried around with us and busted out singing it from time to time in public places. It always gets a crowd of children whipped up into a frenzy at which point we leave, abandoning their parents to a scene they probably don't think is too abnormal considering it included a bunch of dancing "white" people.

I don, kinin da ye ta ka
I don, sadi da ye ta ka
I don, sobo da ye ta ka
I don, malo bali lodan te
I don, i don, i don, i don

Dance, the rice is in the pot on the fire
Dance, the rice pudding is in the pot on the fire
Dance, the meat is in the pot on the fire
Dance, he without shame is never a stranger
Dance, dance, dance, dance

Baila, el arroz está en el fuego
Baila, el arroz con leche está en el fuego
Baila, la carne está en el fuego
Baila, el sinvergüenza jamás es forestero
Baila, baila, baila, baila

Danse, le riz dans la marmite est au feu
Danse, la bouille dans la marmite est au feu
Danse, la viande dans la marmite est au feu
Danse, celui qui n'a pas honte n'est jamais étranger
Danse, danse, danse, danse

The Kankan House Spectacular

2008-09-23T18:44:00.005Z

I don't know exactly where the ideas started, but once there was a game created and named Ou Bien (like racquetball) we had to keep building. First we painted the lines for Ou Bien. Then we realized the strip of a walkway in front of the house was perfect for bowling, or even better, N'est-ce Pas? And when I say we here, I mean Alex and Jeffrey Lebowski.

That's when we decided Kankan was going to be the best house of all the regional houses. Alex and I designed a barbecue pit, basketball hoop, and ping-pong table, then spent one of our monthly visits to Kankan building the good times.

We bought materials, bought tools, and commissioned the hoop and poured the foundation for the barbecue pit. When we were trying to negotiate with the carpenters for the backboard and ping-pong table we were given ridiculous prices. We said forget that, if we buy a saw and a plane, we can build it ourselves. So we did.

Except where's the ping-pong table? We didn't have time to properly dry the wood we bought and it was shredding horribly under our plane. Rainy season isn't the wonderful natural kiln Kankan becomes during the dry season. So we scrapped the ping-pong table and made a couple benches instead. We'll make the table later when we can afford to pay for machine planing and it's dry enough to not destroy our wood in the process.

Tip o' the hat to Alex whose perfect serve and perfect shot allowed this film to be made in a single take. Miracle man he certainly is. If only we'd also had the time to grill something on the barbecue pit to finish off the video. Well, perfection and miracles never were guaranteed to be one and the same.

Anecdotes

2008-09-23T18:30:00.004Z

Taxis are dangerous, slow, and not necessarily running on my schedule. So I bike whenever possible. One morning on the way home from Kankan, around 7 a.m., I passed a column of soldiers jogging in pseudo-organized columns. They were chanting "Get up, Stand up, Stand up for your rights" to keep the pace.

* * *

My hut is full of spiders. Most of the are small (size of the joint of my thumb) with a dark brown body and black joints. The body is round up to their spinners where it tapers off. (Read: "Mefloquine Nights") They eat everything else that lives in the hut - except, so far, Nyari and I. Their crowning beauty is the bright red hourglass on their bellies.
The body shape caught my eye - the hourglass made me extra cautious - because it's the same as a black widow's. I asked the Peace Corps medical officer if there are any dangerous spiders in Guinea. I told him we learned a lot about snakes and scorpions, but I see a lot of spiders that remind me of a potentially lethal species we have in America. He said the only way to know would be for me to catch one and bring it to him.
Using a rake and a piece of paper, I managed to catch two in a bottle. They decayed rapidly. So I caught two more and showed them to people around my village. They were all wondering what was wrong with me that I had spiders in a bottle. At least I am now assured that no one knows whether they're poisonous to people because they don't bite. Now they're just my resident roach killers.

* * *

A few months after a chameleon fell out of a tree right next to me in my back yard, I almost ran one over in the bush. I stopped just in time, picked it up, and put it in a tree. Before I could even get moving again some women from my village came around the bend. I always want to know the names of things, so I found it, picked it up again, and brought it over to them.
As I was lifting it to show them, they screamed and shocked me so badly I accidentally threw the chameleon up into the air as I spun around to see what was sneaking up on me. Nothing, of course. It turns out chameleons are actually sorcerers. If they change to the color of your skin or your clothing they gain power over you; the kind women were merely frightened for my metaphysical safety. The name in Maninka is pronounced "no see."

* * *

Because I'm white, I am automatically accorded doctor of medicine status. People constantly ask me for medicine or a diagnosis. Aside from one instance where I pronounced a kid a lazy, spoiled slouch, I refer them to their health center and real doctors. They rarely go, claiming poverty. There's a reason so many people here are blind or missing limbs. It's not lack of health care, it's a failure to value one's health. How many people in my village have lots toes, fingers or entire limbs because a small infection, easily treatable with Mercurochrome or soap, was ignored or deemed unworthy of attention? Many.
I recently had a chance to practice what I preach. I had a staph infection on my stomach about two inches in diameter. I started a round of antibiotics when a second infection appeared, but I was having trouble with the draining.
Once I got it to come to a head, I was able to squeeze it. I got about two teaspoons of blood and and a good piece of pus to come out. I'd never seen congealed pus before, so I went to the health center to ask if there was another way to get it all out. Doc said nope, just squeeze. Prends courage, ici c'est l'Afrique. I got most of it out, but there were still pieces embedded in the hole it left behind. I had to get the doctor to do the last scrubbing for me. I brought my gloves, surgical sterilizer, and sterile gauze; bit down on my rolled up shirt (no desire for dental problems resulting from ground teeth); and he cleaned it out.
I was able to save myself two potentially lethal days on the road by forgoing the anesthetic I could have gotten in Conakry. A worthy trade by any measure.

* * *

I've been helping my "brothers and sisters" collect termites when they pop out of the foundations of our huts. We grab the large, winged variety as they attempt to fly off. It was only after a couple weeks of effort that my oldest (still a bit younger than I) sister decided I, too, should eat them. I'd had my share of uncooked ones, but when she brought me the first plate of cooked ones I understood the effort. They're like popcorn with a protein kick.
She eventually showed me how to cook them and I even got a chance to do the whole process myself. Often when I cook with her I end up flinging stuff all over the place when flipping things in the air to remove wings, chaff, dirt, etc.

Around the house

2008-09-23T09:44:00.011Z

My soy, a small nursery, and my cooking hut. The pile of sand in the background is for an eventual new house my family wants to build. They won't have enough money to buy cement for another year or two. Houses are always built bit by bit here. Many of my neighbors grow corn in their houses during the long years between being able to afford the walls and being able to afford the roof.

A view of the same that's less attractive photographically, but will help you see what's actually going on here.

This is my hut, seen from under my family's mango tree. I built the hut on the right and you can sort of see my rain gauge in front of it.

Formerly the hut of the young boys, now the cooking hut of the first wife. Why? Half of her former cooking hut fell down a month ago. The walls on the porch of the house and the walls of the house itself were completed about four months ago.

The cooking hut of the second wife. That's Nyari on the bed out front. He spends his days on a zip line that runs from the mango tree to the far side of the interior of this hut. He plays around behind their hut when they're home amid the lentils and tomatoes I'm growing back there and the mango nursery I planted with my brother.

The rain gauge, and my cooking hut with its newest roof extension. In the background: my neighbor the mechanic. His video club is just behind my hut, hidden from view by my brick wall.

My small garden in the back yard. A giant millet plant, butternut squash, and three pineapples are doing the best. The bushy plants are from bulbs. I constantly harvest the leaves to compost them.

My three compost pits, manure bucket, and gmelina nursery. There are also two lingues in the gmelina nursery for whatever reason.

Overview of the back yard with my small mango tree.

My fancy reclining chair with an expandable footrest in the back yard. Those morgina trees can also be seen in the first photo of this post, lining the edge of the cooking hut where they will grow to one day be a wall. The leaves are edible and make a nice tea. This is how I dispose of my trash.

Bread Economics

2008-09-23T09:20:00.002Z

Ramadan leads to a greater consumption of bread because it's ready as soon as the mosques announce we can eat again. Bread is a fairly new phenomenon in Guinea, and especially in Haute Guinea. Almost 100% of the bakers are Puhls, the denizens of the Fouta Djallon, who make up 40% of Guinea's population and have been repressed by both governments since independence. They still manage to be the most prosperous Guineans, stereotypically being the merchants, bakers, and herders.

The elders in Kankan decided during Ramadan that because bread is so important and the Puhls are to be beaten down whenever possible, the price of bread throughout their jurisdiction would be fixed at 1500 Guinean Francs. To further demonstrate their power over the Puhls, they set the price of beef at 10,000 Guinean Francs.

The price of a standard loaf of bread in the city of Kankan is usually 1500 anyway, so that made no difference. It was in the villages that it changed: either they buy in Kankan and transport to the villages, or there is a baker in town who has to buy his flour in Kankan.

My village has a very good baker. I am working with him to develop different products, but he is already acknowledged as making far better bread than you can get in Kankan. His normal price is 2000.
For several days after the announcement, he continued to sell his bread at 2000 and nobody complained. Then there was a crackdown.

He was thrown in jail overnight for refusing to lower his price. I heard that and was furious. I predicted to my friend that either he would refuse to make bread at a loss, continue getting thrown in jail for selling at a higher price, or make smaller loaves.

Sure enough, there was no bread the day after he got out. Or the next. Or the next. Then someone started shipping bread in from Kankan, but that didn't last. Who wants to sell at a loss? Finally, once he was sure everyone was really sorry they threw him in jail, we were inundated with bread: each loaf smaller than before.

I went to see him once I'd seen he was working again to congratulate him. He was ecstatic that he was now making more money than before because people were now happier with his product even though they now pay more than they did before per measure of bread.

The Turtle

2008-09-23T09:05:00.003Z

My brother caught this turtle and wanted me to take a photo. When I took a video, he insisted I show it to my friends. That's his little sister next to him.

David: What are you doing?

Lansiné: I'm cutting it open.

D: Cutting it open... What's that called?

L: A turtle.

D: A turtle? What are you going to do with it?

L: Cook it.

D: Cook it!?

L: And eat it.

D: And eat it!? Is it good?

L: It's really good.

D: That's awesome.

For those of you who are disgusted by the fact that he's eating a turtle, note two things: One, he's a kid, turtles, lizards, and songbirds are about all kids are able to hunt. If it's his dad who hunts it, he won't get to eat much. When the kids kill something, they all share it with each other. Two: the distended belly his little sister is sporting is caused by a lack of protein in diet, which leads to the under development of her abdominal muscles.

A Tour of My Hut

2008-09-23T08:34:00.008Z

My good friend Musa is like the average Guinean: hard to photograph. They always want to be serious whereas I don't want him to look like he's having his portrait painted two hundred years ago. He obliged.

I built and hung a bamboo shelf above my kitchen/office. The office is a bit cluttered with the kitchen in this photo, but these things happen. Before his incarceration, Nyari used the kitchen as an exit from the hut, pulling down my wall bit by bit as he enlarged the gap between wall and roof. Those bits of metal on the wall (largely hidden by the shelf) are the stars of the constellation Orion, formerly known as the lids of cans of evaporated milk.

My bush boots, water filter, rice-and-corn cleaning thing and the first innovation in clutter reduction: a hanging piece of wood with things tied to it. I didn't think to concentrate on them, but almost all of my tools are hanging from nails behind that door and the filter. Rakes, shovels, machetes, hammers, drills, axes, etc.

The second hanging stick. That purple bucket is my washing machine, aka I keep my soap, brush, and stuff in it and it's the rinse cycle during the dry season. Rainy season I use a stream. It was originally purchased to carry Nyari across the country. My beekeeping equipment is hanging on the right side of this stuff-hanging stick.

My hammock and chair: where most of the reading takes place. This is also the most heavily decorated part of the hut with maps, a thermometer, a soap opera (written by Jess), and work-related propaganda.

Musa and I pose in the garage. My solar drier is hanging above our heads. My clothing is all on the table behind me, next to the bike. The yellow containers above the solar drier are the panniers I made for my luggage-intensive trips between site and Kankan. I don't use them as much now that I'm mostly moved in.

My mosquito net. And bed. And one-person bed (new) which I take outside to sit underneath the fam's mango tree.

The overview shot. Those two brown things on the bottom left: calabashes. Soon to be beehives. This also gives a somewhat better view of Orion. The hanging cloth is my towel, skirt, sheet, car hammock, pagne extraordinaire. My favorite pants are made of the exact same fabric. It was the first fabric I bought here, too.

Money

2008-09-22T09:40:00.003Z

Peace Corps Volunteers are paid once every three months. The money is sent to a bank account and we are free to leave it in or take it out when we need it. Ironically, the policy about monetary theft encourages us to irresponsibly take out all our money at once. Unfortunately, the poor Guinean banking (up to and beyond five-hour waits in lines with only ten people in them), transportation and communication systems encourage the same behavior for those living in smaller, remote villages. So at times there are PCVs walking around town with millions of Guinean Francs in their pockets.

Nothing - not even Mefloquine - can make you feel as paranoid, posh or powerful as walking around with a sack full of money, which is your food and drink for the next three months.

* * *

Money, even when fresh from the bank, is a health hazard. Literally. It's a major disease vector. Some bills look like scraps of beat-up paper bag. If you remember most people's bowel movements here end up washed away with a hand and no soap (and for young women, so do the bowel movements of their children), you will realize just what's on the money tens of people will handle on a single day in the market. Don't think too hard about the food they hand to you, either.

* * *

The first time I withdrew money from the bank in Kankan was with Adam. The security is mindblowing. An average day sees It's a Wonderful Life-sized crowds huddling aroud three booths mostly enclosed with glass or plastic. The rest of the crowd is gathered around open counters. There is one military policeman outside. Lines are rare and even if present, often ignored: everyone who has business in a bank is "important" and therefore quite used to pushing to the front of any crowd. Order is, after all, overrated. And the tellers facing the mob sit in their boxes among bricks of money sufficient to construct a hut.

When Adam and I got almost to the front, there wasn't much of a crowd left - we're not very pushy guys. Adam turned to me and joked how easy it would be to rob the place what with hundreds of millions of francs within arm's reach of the customer. When we finally got to the front we had to fill out some papers and as we were more or less the end of the line, the teller took the opportunity to stash the bricks of cash below his counter.

Finally with my money in hand, I decided to be Guinean and I counted every single bill. That was 600 sticky, torn pieces of paper and it took a while. Adam waited with me, and said the security had increased dramatically now that the cash was out of sight. It was still funny because when you're one of the last to leave, the front door is locked and you have to exit by going behind the counters through the door that's directly behind the tellers's boxes. Once I'd finished counting, we left and as we walked away the teller politely wished us a good afternoon. In perfect English.

Un sendero en el bosque

2008-09-22T09:36:00.001Z

Fui a ver el bosque protegido de un pueblo cerca del mío. Los habitantes habían plantado la mayoría de los árboles allí, pero la naturaleza también metió unos cuantos.

Los de los hombres crecían rápidamente y tenían mucho éxito. Los de la naturaleza daban a comer y a beber. Probé una variedad de frutas igual a todas las que había comido en mi vida. Bebé el agua de una planta que siempre la retiene, aún en la estación seca.

Llegué al pueblo ya habiéndome dado cuenta que el programa de hacer bosques del hombre no tiene valor. Decidí en ese momento que mi trabajo sería un programa para plantar los árboles que la gente use. Esto se hará al lado del pueblo para que dejen el bosque natural. Así el bosque puede exprimir su diversidad.

Sólo así se puede salvar los bosques trópicales. De otra manera, tendríamos bosques, pero perdimos lo salvaje y acabamos con una ciudad de hombres hecha en madera.

Mefloquine Nights

2008-09-22T09:15:00.002Z

Malaria, likely the number two killer in West Africa behind traffic accidents, affects my life in direct, omnipresent ways.

I sleep in a mosquito net and never spend an evening minute outside the net without first having slathered my exposed skin with insect repellent. The net, at least, serves other purposes. Undesirables (roaches, scorpions, spiders and the many other denizens of my hut) don't sneak into my bed at night. I'm reminded of how wonderful that is every time I find a potentially painful or shocking experience lurking on a wall.

The number one malaria countermeasure isn't the net or the repellent, it's a weekly prophylaxis, Mefloquine (Lariam). It has interesting side effects, though to avoid a closer acquaintance with malaria, I suffer them with joking complaints.

I have woken up a few times with my hut laid out before me in perfect clarity. The most striking thing of those moments was a large yellow bucket with the word Best written across it in bright red script. I own no such bucket. And one of the greatest parts of living in my hut is lying in bed in the morning until I am surrounded by the glowing halo of sunlight creeping through the gap between my brick wall and the straw roof. At night, it's as dark as a cave inside, and I can no more see my hand in front of my face than I can see the contents of my hut.

The first few times I could clearly see my hut at night were confusing. Yet I was able to puzzle it out thanks to an experience one night in January during training.

I had a room in a house there. I was blessed with a window and the town frequently had electricity at night. Sight at night was never a big problem. When I woke up one night to see a lumberjack's torso climbing through my window, I was forced to reconcile myself to the irritating reality of a Mefloquine-inspired hallucination. Vivid dreams are one thing, and often fun, but flat out seeing things can be bit irritating when you're trying to sleep.

Mefloquine has been the alleged cause of mental problems for many people. It causes anxiety and the usual vivid dreams and hallucinations. I've heard it shouldn't be taken for more than six months at a time and every ten days. I've been on it for almost ten months now and I have the privilege of taking it for at least 17 more, every Monday - read, every seventh day.

The real problem for me came the night I woke up in darkness with tiny things crawling all over me. I smacked them for about an hour, waiting for the hallucination to end. It was only when I woke the next morning I found I had had hundreds of baby spiders in bed with me - all tiny enough to crawl through the small holes Nyari had long-ago ripped in my net.

I don't consider myself to be susceptible to mental health problems and I have no intention of getting malaria. I have faith - everyone needs to have faith in something - in my individual biology to be strong against mefloquine's side effects for the long haul. In the mean time, I'm still waiting for my Kublai Kahn.

Rain

2008-07-05T15:49:00.003Z

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

2008-07-05T15:40:00.000Z

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

2008-07-05T01:00:00.001Z

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

2008-07-05T00:39:00.012Z

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

2008-07-05T00:38:00.001Z

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

2008-07-05T00:21:00.000Z

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'

2008-07-05T00:02:00.004Z

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.

Neem Mosquito Repellent

2008-04-29T23:24:00.003Z

One of the wonderful ideas I'd had for my time here came to live in an even bigger form in The Gambia. I sing while washing my clothes, which always attracts a crowd. I've been trying to learn health-related songs in Maninka, but so far I still don't know them well enough to try. Some volunteers in The Gambia, with better local-language training, have written songs and are putting together a concert they will move around from town to town with for a bit, so teach people about various things. This is a clip of a demo song, complete with translation, about how to make and why to use a mosquito repellent.

Short version of Newsletter IST info

2008-04-29T23:18:00.002Z

As Raven kindly pointed out to everyone we met, as soon as we met them, I went to The Gambia because I’m a nerd and she went to put a positive social face on the rest of the PCVs in Guinea. I think we represented our respective roles quite well.
We stayed for sessions they held that we have already covered in PST. Those sessions ended up being very useful because they do things slightly differently than what we have learned, they did additional things there, and in several sessions, they took their learning to a greater depth than what we’ve covered. Some of that can be chalked up to second-year PCVs and the rest is due to their having had time to experiment at site for several months with things they touched on during PST to cover in-depth at IST. Agfos used to write home about playing in poop, now we’re going to start writing home about how you use our own poop to fertilize your garden and our own urine to fertilize our tree nurseries. I also learned how to compost a donkey.
Topics we have new info (different amounts for each topic) about and will always be seeking new info about: beekeeping and its derivatives, biodigesters, woodlots, sustainable motivation techniques, rabbit raising, pest detection, business aspects of beekeeping and agroforestry, out planting trees, running a nursery, neem mosquito repellent, sisal use in live fencing, grafting, germination beds, top working, poultry raising, bio fuels, dealing with diseased trees, propagation and uses of many species of tree, and integrated pest management.

Photos from beekeeping IST in The Gambia

2008-04-29T22:10:00.005Z

The Gambia: home to one of Peace Corps' best agroforestry programs, site of a beekeeping IST I was fortunate enough to attend with Raven. Unfortunately, she took most of the good pictures on the trip, but doesn't want to share them with me. I'll keep working on her and maybe I'll get some posted after several months. Until then, here are a few:

The beach. Our last afternoon in The Gambia saw a little time to relax tossed to us like a bone still covered in fresh, well roasted beef. It was a lot of fun.

Much to my relief, the director of Peace Corps, whom I met in The Gambia, meant at least one of The Gambia's newspapers decided to tell everyone we're not affiliated with American intelligence. Keeping with the theme of important people I saw in The Gambia, we saw the president of The Gambia in a middle of a session where we learned how to fertilize with urine. Being truly apolitical, I didn't go shake his hand, but all the Gambian PCVs did. Check their blogs, I know at least two of them took photos of him.

Crossing a river in Guinea on a ferry. I made sure not to waste any time and ate two mangos during the less-than-ten-minute crossing.

This ferry apparently doesn't sink, even with heavily loaded Peace Corps cars.

Critter Encounters Part 1

2008-04-17T08:21:00.003Z

Friday, April 11, 2008

One of the advantages to living somewhere instead of just passing through is you have a much greater ability to see animals. They have no trouble hiding from you for a day, a week, or even a month. Yet as those months pile up it gets harder and harder to miss seeing your cohabitants.

They range from the mundane - a pet baboon on a chain - to the fascinating - ants that create a living tunnel with the soldiers' bodies to protect streams of workers within. Those soldiers are tiny, but as my colleague found out, they bite hard enough to draw blood.

Duuduu

Ant lions, from what I thought I knew about them, are both disappointing and phenomenal. They're a lot smaller than their name suggests. I first saw one when two bees were rolling around in a trap. I thought they were killing each other, but my homologue commented that one was so nice as to try to save the other. That piqued my interest, and I had to get closer to the action. One died in the trap, the other got away. I've experimented by dropping ants into the traps and rescuing them after about a minute.

I once managed to dig up an ant lion and toss it in a fellow lion's trap. The latter tried to eat the former, but in the end they both scuttled away and abandoned that trap. After I finish playing with them, they fix up their traps, flinging sand around until once more they're laying patiently at the apex of a slippery, inverted cone.

Koson

Just over a month ago I was collecting cow manure to fertilize a garden bed. It was normal agroforestry work; I rip chunks of manure up from the giant heap, smash them into small pieces, toss them into a bucket, and bike them back to the garden bed. I used to bring along my daba - a hoe-like tool - to chop up the pieces, but it kept falling apart and then off my bike. It was a bigger headache than help. Since abandoning it, I kick chunks loose, or else dive into the hardened mass with both hands to rip off larger chunks.

This fine day, I ripped up a particularly well-sized chunk and luckily staggered back to catch my balance as it came loose. A red scorpion scuttled from the new top of the chunk and into a hole on its side. My thirst for knowledge ever present, I flagged down a passing Guinean to ask him what the local name for scorpion is (koSON). His eyes widened nicely, but then he decided I should play with it. He broke off the stinger with a stick and started tossing it from hand to hand. I refused to touch it, and he finally disposed of it in the bush.

The entire day's lesson came to nothing for me. Several weeks later found me moving bricks from a pile in front of my hut into my enclosed backyard where I'm building a tower to smoke meat. As I hoisted the last few bricks, the kids who were helping me shouted "Koson!" By the time I remembered what that meant, it was too late, and it had stung me on the thumb.

I danced around hollering and cursing poisonous animals to the concerned amusement of the usual crowd of curious Guineans. Then I found the scorpion, obliterated it with a broken brick, and dug out my health manual. The wonderful advice therein said if I wasn't allergic, I wouldn't die. It recommended Aspirin and a papaya compress to denature the scorpion's toxin. Perhaps the papaya would have worked if I'd been able to either inject it or ask the scorpion to sting me through a layer of papaya, because I didn't feel any better after using it. The Guineans wanted me to put gasoline on it, but I decided one type of injury was enough for the moment. I did consent to a toothpaste poultice so they would feel helpful. I don't mind saying the toothpaste did not help.

While the pain was still fresh, I was able to think clearly enough to make an awful video (see post Videos 2) that does no justice to the eventual swelling of my hand, and shows industrious ants already carting off the remnants of the smear the scorpion had become. I thereafter devoured my remaining comfort food - I knew I was saving it for something good - and opened up a letter my mother had packed away for me before I ever even left the States.

Apparently I was supposed to have opened it on my second day in country, but whatever, I appreciated it a lot more while searching for something to take my mind off the pain.

I sang with my iPod, I tried to read a comfort book, then I gave up, sprawled on my bed, and tried to pretend I didn't have a right arm. I was up until three or four a.m. in intense pain, which spread through my shoulder and very slowly receded. Twenty-four hours later, the pain was confined to my thumb and I was able to pretend I was interested in work again.

Lee (those es sound like the e in egg, not like the jeans)

Muslims don't eat pork, but all the hunters here kill warthogs left and right. Being both numerous and a terror in every farmer's fields, they really can't expect much else.

After much searching, I finally was able to contact a hunter who had killed one and was willing to take me to it. It was straight out of The Lion King, except it weighed easily 200 pounds, had ticks, and didn't sing. Before we even began to butcher it, we were distracted by a nearby fire from some guys who were harvesting honey. They were chopping away at a tree, sticking smoking sticks into the hole, and withdrawing dripping chunks of honey comb. Sometimes they even pulled out chunks of brood comb (full of larvae, not honey). We watched them until they finished, they gave us some bee-covered honeycomb, and then they put out the fire and left us with our hog.

It took over two hours to cut up the hog and get it home. Then it took over two more hours to skin and butcher it. I stuck half of it into brine and set the other half aside for the only other non-Muslim in town. Unfortunately, what I learned after the fact, is that it's way too hot here to even think about curing ham in brine in Haute Guinea and all my meat, with the exception of some excellent ribs Nyari and I enjoyed the night I butchered it, rotted.

Since then, I have continued construction of the aforementioned smoking tower. I haven't yet gotten another hunter to bring me a warthog, but I did make a valiant effort to chase down four warthogs I saw while riding my bike last week. It's just as well that my water bottle fell, because my visions of jumping onto it like a rodeo-style calf tying competition probably wouldn't have ended well.

Photos 2

2008-04-17T07:35:00.005Z

One of the last mornings we had to travel for a training session I was able to capture this image crossing a bridge in Basse Guinea. It has a bit more special meaning for me now because I saw fog again this week for the first time since I took this photo when coming into Conakry from Haute Guinea. I have to admit I got pretty excited to see so much water just dancing around the morning breezes. We get particles waltzing through our air in Haute Guinea, but dust is never so nice as water.

It's pretty hot in Haute Guinea, so there are nights we all pull our mattresses into the living room and crash on the floor en masse. Lately, though, we've taken to pulling the mattresses outside onto the porch (see photo below) where we're each able to set up a mosquito net.

Just before installation, I was able to capture a wonderful moment at the Kankan transit house. Reading is a popular hobby here, as is washing clothes.

Videos 2

2008-04-16T18:23:00.006Z

The mine is the favorite pasttime of all the youth and most of the women in my town. It's unfortunate because they don't make much money there, people frequently get hurt, and they could actually make a lot more money if they improved their agricultural skills and expanded production. But the dreams of getting rich quick usually win out - look at all the gold rushes in American history.

This is not the big spider, but I finally remembered to video the hunt. You see how he doesn't see the spiders, but the moment they move, they're toast. It takes a while to get him going - you can hear me trying to blow on the spider to get it moving, but since the cat was in one hand and the camera in the other, it was hard to blow accurately so I had to simply push him into it in the end. And as you can see, that was the end.

I claim it was a tie score. The reality, as you can see, is that the scorpion is already being devoured by ants and I am still alive to video the aftermath. I should have given myself two points.

Packing information for future volunteers

2008-04-15T21:26:00.006Z

This post will be boring to anyone who is not soon to be a PCT in Guinea; or at least West Africa. Else I'm a horrible judge of what's interesting and this post will be the most phenomenal window into my life ever.

Having had a very difficult time finding information relevant to what I should pack, I will be frank and up front about what I brought that is very relevant and what I've bought online or had sent to me. I probably forgot stuff and that means it's not all that important to me.

IMPORTANT: buy quality. Do not sell yourself short; you will regret it. This refers to shoes and gear. I will refer to some specific stuff later on and make comments all along the way - I'm trying to make this list as easy to read and as informative as possible. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you have. I am more than willing to answer questions and help as much as I can - just keep in mind my Internet access is sporadic. I will reply as soon as I get a question, though. Just comment, and it will go into my inbox at which point I can reply to you, well I don't know how, but I'll be cold in Guinea before I put my e-mail address up in a public place for the world to see.

Clothing:

You should believe people who tell you clothing is for Pre-Service Training only. It is very easy and cheap to get clothes made here. Also, there are markets, which are either called friperie or the dead-white-person market, where you can buy American or European clothes that have been donated by various charity organizations. Yes, dead-white-person market; why on earth would someone give away perfectly good clothing? That question makes a lot more sense when you realize people wear clothes beyond the point at which they're falling off their bodies.

Also, keep in mind two things: I'm male and I'm an agroforestry volunteer (you will probably be expected to dress nicer than I did both during PST and at site - you won't be playing in anywhere near as much cow and chicken manure as I have). I've asked a female for input, but as I am not a female, well, read my last post to decide for yourself whether I really am.

For PST:

Pants - three or four pairs: zip-offs are great, khakis (one pair) will come in very handy, and I brought and absolutely love to pieces (literally, they've been patched twice already by a very cheap tailor) my cargo pants; no jeans - it's way too hot.

Shirts - I brought four collared shirts that are supposed to draw sweat off you, etc. and I love them. I brought four T-shirts; you can buy a slew here, but they were useful. I also brought three collared, button-down shirts; they're useful for being in the various Peace Corps bureaus and I wore them frequently during PST.

Socks - I stopped wearing shoes after three days and now only wear them in the bush at night. Bring some socks you'll play sports in - aka to run or shoot hoops in (there's a basketball court at the training site). Again - education volunteers are told to wear shoes, but from what they say, it's too hot and most wear nice sandals (this information from a male volunteer in the coldest region in Guinea).

Underwear - I brought seven pairs of briefs and four pairs of boxers. I think boxers are worse in intense heat; others disagree. Go with what you prefer in heat. Katie's advice (http://tckinguinea.blogspot.com/): If you don't want to do laundry often, 70 pairs of panties (she admits she's extreme), and 13 bras (3 are sports bras). Obviously others bring fewer pairs. Here's a kicker: I get underwear sent to me as padding in boxes because they really don't survive the washboard. I have a stock of new pairs that I rotate in when an old pair disintegrates. I know that last sentence just made my mother happy; I don't like to throw away clothes until they're absolutely useless - I have some very old things here with me.

Hat - I brought an awesome hat with a wide, floppy brim and a mesh/solid top combo. It's fantastic for the heat. It doesn't matter if you think it will make you stand out and look stupid - you will anyway because you're American and you just won't be able to hide it. The two black girls in our group have complained that Guineans called them white simply because they're American. So a hat will just make you comfortable. Besides, the Guineans will all be jealous of you anyway. I also bought a straw hat because I was tired of my brim always blowing in my face when it's windy. I still use the one I brought all the time, though - it travels much better than a straw hat and is cooler.

Katie also recommends Underarmour sweat stuff and any lightweight pants as well as lots of shirts because you will sweat a lot - especially during PST as your body still gets used to the heat. Can you tell I'm sitting next to her as I write this? Anyway, it's good to get multiple opinions.

Bring one light-weight sweater. It is sometimes chilly and you will feel cold eventually - again when you get used to the heat, or in the mornings and evenings at different times of the year according to your region.

I did not bring any light-weight, long-sleeved shirts. Some would recommend one or two just to help keep the sun off. Seeing as how I now often wear mesh A-shirts, you should be able to figure out that I use sunscreen (several times a day) to avoid sunburn.

Shoes:

Close-toed shoes are a must for the start and you will find a use for them at important functions.

Running shoes or shoes to exercise in are key.

Good sandals: I was under the impression the Peace Corps discount Chaco gives us would be taken care of in country. Not so. Go ahead and e-mail them now (help@chacousa.com), sending along a scan of your invitation or whatever official letter Peace Corps sent you saying you are going to serve here in Guinea. They don't ship abroad, so get them before you come.

Flip-flops - for flip-flopping around the hut/house. I've been wearing mine into the bush. I got them resoled very well for about a buck, but then the strap broke. I sewed it back onto the shoe with dental floss, but I had to break down and buy some Guinean sandals because it wasn't going to last and I've got a long trip ahead of me for the next week. I, stupidly, did not get nice, strong American sandals before coming to Guinea and now I'm paying the price.

Boots - I brought them to wear in the bush. I wore them once, when I was in the bush at night. Not sure how much I'd wear them if I had sandals. As I was choosing between hauling a warthog around the bush in the dark with flip-flops or boots, there really wasn't a question (upcoming post).

Katie also brought a pair of dress shoes. I don't like to go out dancing, frankly I'm happier spending the night in the bush. But I'm not stupid; most volunteers go dancing in their regional capitals and Conakry. So bring stuff that'll make you feel good if you want.

That's an important factor: many people take great joy and comfort in clothing. I'm more practical and to be honest, I've owned most of the clothes I brought since high school (and some things even longer - and I didn't come here right out of college...). If clothes are important to you, bring stuff that will make you feel good. Examples: clothes to feel good about yourself if you want to feel sexy, or something comfortable to lounge around in when in your own home (I just wear a piece of cloth I got here that serves as a skirt - very comfy). This section is grateful to Katie's kind input and I give credit where credit is due.

Gear:

Two crank flashlights QUALITY!

Headlamp - I'm going to criticize Black Diamond here; DO NOT buy their headlamp; I love a lot of their gear, but four different people have had Black Diamond headlamps break on them. I don't use my headlamp, though. Instead I took some cloth, went to a tailor, and had him make a head strap to hold my crank flashlight as a headlamp. I figure I won't blaze through batteries unless I absolutely have to.

Leatherman or other multi-tool

Pocketknife without all the gadgets. I always carry my knife with no frills with me and I use it daily for everything - making slingshots, cooking, skinning mangos, skinning warthogs, cutting rope, everything. I also wash it when necessary - health is key!

Solio - great for charging your iPod; I'm scared to use it on my phone because I've read it can fry those; but it's gold with an iPod.

iPod - you know you love technology. Lots of people (not me) loaded theirs up with movies, TV shows, and other things they enjoy beyond music.

Cassette converter - being able to plug your iPod into a tape deck is a phenomenal thing here in Guinea. Long road trips in Peace Corps cars and bush taxis become so much more bearable. And it works much better than the small broadcasting devices (iTrip?).

Laptops (I bought an XO thinking it would come with the crank charger and man was I unhappy when I saw it didn't.) Everyone who brought one is happy about it. I don't know anyone who brought a solar panel to charge theirs. I bought a Weza (http://www.freeplayenergy.com/product/weza) online, hasn't arrived yet, and will post my thoughts on it after it arrives and I can say something about it (I also got something to plug into a cigarette lighter to transform it into a wall plug). My thought about a solar panel is that I'd have to put it somewhere everyone could see just to charge it; I'm not comfortable flashing that kind of property in front of a village of poor people who might be tempted to steal it and sell it for two bucks.

Carabiners - I brought six; I use them all the time

Watch - with an alarm

Compass - I have one built into my watch, and yes I do use it.

Sunglasses - I wear glasses (I have worn contacts in the past; some people do here, but I didn't want to deal with the hassle - it's a cosmetic choice) and bought some clip-ons. They're fantastic. I wouldn't buy the Guinean sunglasses; if sunglasses don't offer full UVA/UVB protection, you're just frying your retinas.

Small speakers for your iPod

A mosquito-net hammock; I bought one online, and brought a Bug-Hut from REI; I love my Bug Hut and many PCVs are jealous of my hut. I got the one for two people; phenomenal for sprawling or making space for your Nyari-in-a-bucket (he destroys mosquito nets if I don't protect them from him).

A very light-weight sleeping bag - excellent for cold nights (yes, there are some), especially if you get posted in the Fouta, or Haute in the "cold" season.

Nalgenes - widemouth and skinnymouth (very good for biking)

Camelback - I bought one, then didn't bring it, and now wish I had - for biking.

Gel seat for bike - vital; again, I bike a lot.

Small screwdrivers - great for fixing other people's stuff (read: sunglasses) and my crank flashlight (twice) as well as my glasses, should they ever meet with bad luck

Cell phone - I have one from Europe, so it's compatible with the GSM network; get the codes to unlock it before you come; it's a headache here.

Mess kit - as I intend to take long bike trips, I have decided I should buy one and have it sent here; I might try to build one in a market here, but so far I haven't been able to find what I'd like.

There are a million things I've forgotten and will append after I take inventory at site.

Stuff to do:

I brought watercolors (with watercolor paper); Scrabble; UNO; two packs of cards; dice; backgammon; checkers and chess (cut up a dowl and I'm carving my own pieces); a carving knife and tool with two whetstones; a guitar (Martin backpacker - it doesn't even sound like a banjo to me after four months and wonderful to carry around in bush taxis, etc.); a journal - I write nearly every day; sketch pad with pencils (different weights as well as colored) as well as erasers, sharpener, and an eraser shield; and probably a lot of other stuff I can't remember.

Some people bring lots of books; I decided to depend on the selection in country and only bring a few books - so far, so good.

Those with laptops brought DVDs, too.

The most important things I brought are things to do. Without question; it's how I entertain myself in the evenings, during prayer, or just whenever I've got some down time.

Luggage:

One backpack, large

One backpack, carry-on; with hip and chest straps - those make carrying for a long time or all day, or in hot weather so much more comfortable; mine has a mesh on the back and two mesh sidepockets, all three of which I use constantly. Once my host mom during PST knew I was going on a trip and gave me two pineapples, mimicking my movement of putting food into the side pockets. That was without question, the greatest moment of communication we ever had - even better than the first time I said "rice and sauce" in Susu, poorly: bande boray.

I brought a duffle bag. When I load up, I sling it over my shoulders, on top of my large backpack. I have my small one in front, and the travel guitar was smashed between my small backpack and my chest.

Most people brought one large backpack (carry-on) and two wheeled suitcases. Then again, most people brought a lot more stuff than I did (in spite of what you're reading - seriously, I didn't bring much in the way of clothing; I do my laundry once a week and went to town on the free box at site and the mesh shirts in the market).

I got a shoulder bag from the free box and I love it. If you're still in country when I leave, it just might become yours, because it's not going home with me.

I am woman, hear me explain

2008-04-14T10:52:00.002Z

In spite of offers I've had to do the work for me - at a price, of course - I still do my own laundry. I've been told many times it's a woman's work, but then that's the reason I won't let a woman do it. Even if I were to pay her.
Women aren't politically or culturally equal to men anywhere, though in Guinea the inequality is more pronounced than in most Western countries. Even though women can be seen riding motorcycles, driving cars (neither very often because of poverty), and holding political office (less than a fraction of one percent), Guinea has a long way to go. I figure at least the children near me will grow up aware that men - even if only white men - are capable of doing their own laundry.
It goes beyond that, however. Between laundry, the tree nursery, washing dishes, and bathing, I haul a lot of water out of a 50-foot well. (When I get home, don't ask me if I've been working out, I haven't. I just take two bucket baths a day.) Getting water, as I'm told at least three times a week, is women's work.
The other day the women and men near the well were ragging on me for wearing a couple bracelets. Men here wear metal bracelets; mine, a gift from a friend and therefore worth wearing, are beads on a string. Très feminin. It didn't help that I was hauling water at the time, either.
My usual retort about the water is that in America, whoever needs water gets it for themself. If Guineans don't know what a faucet is, it's not my fault, but the ease with which Westerners obtain our bath water doesn't mean we still don't get it for ourselves.
I won't change attitudes: when some women were asking me why I'm not married, we got onto the price of marriage. I tried to explain that we don't purchase wives in America (conveniently ignoring engagement rings for the sake of argument), but one of the women told me she was worth five cows and I forget how many bags of rice. For her, the high price was a point of great pride.
The best part is, I can't get away from being called a woman even when I come into the big city. My fellow Americans label me woman for my excessive love of/devotion to chocolate and for wearing a skirt-like panya around the house.
No, I won't change attitudes anywhere, but I'll continue to be an example of the way things could be. It's just as well that I enjoy destroying fabric on a ridged plastic board while harsh soap eats holes in my chocolate-stained skin.

Black and White, addendum 1

2008-03-19T11:51:00.005Z

While shopping for various products one finds useful in daily life in Guinea (plastic buckets, plastic teapots, plastic screens, plastic insert object here), I wandered into a store that hads lots of skin creams. I could pretend I wanted to keep my skin moist and healthy in this hot, dry climate, but the truth is I was shopping with a couple young ladies who wanted carrot cream or something.

I've read articles about the horrors of skin-lightening (depigmentation) beauty products for sale in various parts of Africa. Since most Africa-related news centers on the more developed nations or else nations with big animals, I had never imagined most Guinean skin products would also contain skin-lightening chemicals. It certainly makes sense, though.

I could harp on how silly it is to use these products, which can have ghastly, long-term or permanent side effects, except that would require I completely ignore my audience. With the tanning and beach tourism industries as strong as they are in Western culture, there are different questions that come to mind:

1. Why are so few people content with who they are or what they look like?
2. If we're going to idolize the tanner-than-white, but lighter-than-black, cafe-au-lait skin, why aren't interracial couples more acceptable in cultures around the globe?

Note: I am not, nor will I be, tan. Not only do I consistently apply sunscreen, but Mefloquine, my malaria prophylaxis, inhibits tanning. I'd rather not have malaria than encourage long-term skin damage just to be a slightly darker shade of chalk white.

Videos!

2008-02-09T21:24:00.002Z

In agroforestry, there comes a time when you simply have to smash a termite mound into powder to use in a mud stove. Luckily, when I was doing that for our presentation to the citizens of our training town, Julie was smart enough to want to take a video and I had my backpack with camera on hand. This is the best job I've ever had.

And like any good human beings, we agroforesters know how to relax. We go swimming in the river. But since we're on bikes, even the ride home is a good time. A good time to reflect on Guinea, bells, and life.

But again we must work. Gardening is vital to people's health and life. There are already enough problems without having a population devoid of vitamins, minerals, and healthy food. So we build raised beds and transplanted tomatoes into it. This is the end of the bed-making, if I had stopped to film during the middle, well, that would have been just lazy of me.

Of course what kind of blog can be named Travels with Nyari and yet have no photos of Nyari himself? This one apparently; so I'll have to settle for a video, which happens to be the first video or photo I shot in country. This is from the front porch of my home during training, eating breakfast with Nyari when he was just a kitten. He's about twice as big now, and many more times as deadly.

There was one morning I woke up and had electricity to light the room. After I'd gotten completely ready for the day (field trip) and prepared the key to give to the neighbors (family was out of town), I saw a spider walking across my wall. Not just a spider, but the king of spiders. Look at Katie's blog if you need a visual, she has a photo of a spider carrying a baby mouse, which she said was bigger than her hand. Well, I described my spider as big enough to strand over my face with ease and I didn't waste time trying to take a photo. I grabbed a machete and a daba and tried to kill it. But it was too fast and hid in my books. And I couldn't find him.

That evening, my neighbor, who was guarding the key, lost it, so I had to run off to work on a project (see the termite mound video, yup that same day) and come home after dark. Julie suggested I use a broom on the spider instead of a machete. Well, I got home and the electricity wasn't on, but I saw the spider anyway; it was too hard to miss, even with a tiny flashlight. I grabbed a broom and started sweeping him. The whole venture seemed futile to me until Nyari saw the spider and decided he was still hungry. He pounced on it and I'm guessing it was dead after the first bite. It took him a while, but he finished the whole thing and I had never been happier since arriving in Guinea.

Spider problem? Get a broom and a cat!

Photos from Stage and Site Visit

2008-02-09T20:07:00.000Z

Voila part of my hut and my backyard. Yes, that's the toilet/shower in the background with the teakettle (toilet paper) and the bucket (shower). And I suppose those are my clean underwear drying there which I've only now noticed. That's my mango tree, too.

People tend to think my hobbies are funny. Here i'm sawing a boar tusk I was given at site to make it into a knife handle. That's not Nyari; it's Loki, the cat Julie saved from death by being an amazing animal mother substitute.

Agfo affectates! Aren't we all pretty?

Back row: Annie, Buttercup, Teale, Caleb, Alex, Monica (trainer extraorinaire), Brienne, Jean, Sarah, Justin

Front row: Me, Raven, Julie, Ciara

This is me with the family that hosted me during training. When I finally left, the old lady sort of tried to cry; I think it's culturally rude for her to do otherwise.

In the bush. Guinea is a beautiful country.

Among the many nicknames I've been given my my agfo buddies is "the cultivator."

January 6, 2008 Meat and Morals

2008-02-08T22:53:00.001Z

I have been told there are supermarkets in Conakry, but I haven't been, so I don't know whether they're anything like those in America. What I do know is meat cannot be purchased in plastic bags after a life of being force-fed a diet of corn and antibiotics, which evolution never intended it to eat. I also witnessed the killing and butchering of three sheep during the Tabaski celebration in December, not to mention the chickens I've seen old women tearing to pieces with their bare hands.

Last night we used our barbecue pit again to make "pizzas." They were very good. If you need confirmation, ask Julie, she enjoyed it more than anyone else. We also used one of the chickens Caleb and I had previously acquired. I got a lot more close and personal to the death this time, killing the chicken myself. Apparently my knife wasn't sharp enough, but I was happy about that. It seems more humane to me to break something's neck than to slit its throat. I've seen bullfights; I know how quickly an animal dies when the spinal cord is severed. Lacking the proper knife, I wrung the chicken's neck. It is possible, not just a saying. I said the required Muslim sayings, Thank God, God is great. Or something like that; I've forgotten, but I said it right at the time. I was approved by the only Muslim present.

I'm not going to get into the physiological details of the event, but I will say I was very aware of what was involved in eating dinner that night. It was almost a spiritual experience when I ate my piece of barbecue chicken pizza. I had held the animal days before, I had fed it some bread and water when its life was originally spared because a sheep showed up. I rounded it up when its time really was up, and I took its life with my hands.

I'm not yet one hundred percent certain how I feel about it; I've heard people say it's easier to take life the more you do it. I would bet that's true of animals and humans. Certainly, working in an assembly line of killing is a lot more desensitizing than killing one chicken for dinner. And I feel it's a lot healthier for me to know exactly what went into procuring that meal. I'm certainly more aware of what eating meat means now than I was before when it was nothing more than a product on a shelf. It's good to think about these things.

Eating is one of the most important things we do as humans; losing touch with how and what we eat is almost like losing a part of what it means to be a living creature. I'm not saying I feel more human than everyone in America right now. If anything I feel like a took a step closer to understanding what it means to be a part of a food chain.

I have to doubt vegetarianism would be anywhere near as popular or resemble anything like the movement it is in America if our meat lived a happy life like it does here. Imagine PETA trying to run a campaign with posters of happy chickens running around eating grass and grubs; or cows happily grazing in fields of lush green grass. I don't care how little clothing their supermodels would wear, PETA just wouldn't be able to run an effective campaign with pictures of happy animals.

On that note, one of the three vegetarians here (I should also say one of the three now eats and likes fish, too) ate a barbecue chicken pizza. I'm sad I wasn't there to see it, because I've been told she couldn't stop raving about how good it was. She said she was comfortable eating it because it hadn't lived the life of the typical unhappy American chicken. The third vegetarian also confirmed to me later that she would be able to eat meat if she knew the animal had lived a natural life.

P.S. It's also worth noting the meat tastes really good. It's nothing like what you buy in a supermarket in an American grocery store.

December 30, 2007 Black and White

2008-02-08T22:45:00.002Z

Everyone here is black, a foreigner, or an albino. It's known and accepted. The Lebanese are the majority of the non-blacks, so I've been told. I haven't seen any, but I trust the people who've passed along that information. There is a word for white person in most of the local languages. In Susu, that's fotay. Everywhere we go, kids chant fotay, fotay, fotay. It's a fun game for them. I started out teaching them my name. I would ask their names, too. Pretty much everyone here is Mohammed. Makes it easy. There are several factors at work that have led me to change my strategy. First, other trainees started coming up to me to inform me they had been called David. Male and female. Apparently that telephone game has real-life implications. I can imagine how it goes:

1. I met this cool fotay named David. He asked me what my name was.
2. Mohammed met this cool fotay named David.
3. Mohammed said Mohammed met a fotay. Apparently we should call him David.
4. Mohammed said Mohammed said Mohammed said all fotays are called David.
5. Really? That's weird, because David is a name here and it's only for men.
6. No way, Mohammed part 5, if the fotays all want to be called David, so be it.

And by that point, we've covered everyone in town and the old people near me have decided it's better to call me Doudi (dowdy).

Factor number two:

I was riding my bike to the pineapple plantation and some kids near there started chanting fotay. I stopped and rode over to them to introduce myself. A little kid, maybe two years old, was the one who had gotten closest to me, so I rode up to him. I couldn't even tell him my name wasn't fotay, because he threw his bowl up into the air, raining rice all over his dirt yard, and he sprinted into his house, sparking a stampede of fleeing children. His mother had a pretty good laugh as I cornered the only remaining kid to introduce myself. Those kids still all call me fotay, but for the sake of saving rice, I just let it go.

And that's part three - when you call them fohray, which is Susu for black person, they find it hilarious. There is so little racial tension here, skin color is largely a joke. People are curious about white skin (and freckles). I made a group of teenaged girls laugh (at me) when I explained why white skin is a horrible handicap because I always have to put on sunscreen or I'll get burned.

That said, yes, white skin is a status symbol. In spite of everything it is in America, too. People make assumptions. Here, since white people are largely aid workers, the assumptions is that white people have come to give away money, seeds, or infrastructure for free. But it's not a question of tension or stress. Except for the rice boy. And several babies who scream and cry when they see me.

My "first" post

2007-12-25T14:05:00.001Z

Since I was just copying some e-mails before, this is the first post and it will be short! Especially since no one knows I have a blog yet.

I will be writing as I go from now on, I guess. When I get around to having Internet access, I will probably just post a million things at once. You can read it or not read it at your leisure. Also, this way I won't be bothering you will e-mails every month or whatever. Unless of course someone prefers that; I can always do both!

And since I know you want to read a story, not just something stupid: the name of my blog.

Nyari is the word for cat in Susu, which is the language my host family speaks. A few days after I arrived in their home, their kid came home with the cat. Most of the kids are terrified of the cat and I've been teaching them how to pet it, hold it, etc. I just found out Sunday the cat is a gift to me from the neighbor. I'm calling him Nyari, because to me that's a name and for the Guineans, it's normal to call cats Cat. So this way everyone will call it by its name and when I come home with it, it will have a unique name. The only question is: how on earth do you travel with a cat? I will be exploring the answer to that as it's the real reason I have never before had a cat.

In other news I went swimming Saturday. A bunch of us biked to a river some distance from our training town. About half the people I asked said crocodiles live there and half said no. I asked some people who were actually at the river and they all said yes, but the crocs like to stay in the areas with lots of trees and deep water and they almost never see them. So I still don't know whether they're really there. I do know that I only saw two kids swimming and while they were, their best friend in the world stood about two feet upstream and peed right on them.

Dec 5 mass e-mail

2007-12-25T13:58:00.000Z

I'm in Conakry right now, and probably this is my last email access for a while. So far it's pretty hot and extremely humid. The airport was an insane mess of people grabbing bags, politely shoving each other around, etc. Some woman kept running her cart into me until I looked at her and still didn't move. It was a lot of fun.

Since then we've been in the Peace Corps compound for orientation. So basically lots of meetings and more vaccines. Tomorrow we have interviews to determine our level of French. I'm hoping to move straight into local language training. If I don't get that, I'm going to feel rather bad about myself. I'm sure I will, though.

We stepped out of the compound onto the insanely dirty beach nearby and played football with some Guinean(s). It was really just one guy we threw the ball to. His return throws were good sometimes, but mostly wild. Still, it was a lot of fun.

Contacting me during the next two years

2007-12-25T13:53:00.000Z

My address:
David Solana
Corps de la Paix Americain
B.P. 1927
Conakry, Guinea
West Africa

I have been told that religious messages will help letters on their way, for example:
Dieu Merci.

Packages, on the other hand, will have a better chance of arriving if they have no stickers on them, look professional, and have computer-printed address lables.

This is what I've been told, whether it's true, well; time will tell!