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.

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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.

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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.