Photos

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.