Les Copains d'Abord

I'm a little scared of Conakry and tend to stay at the PC compound once it gets dark. There's a bar that serves pizza and beers on the water (which is SO dirty you couldn't even imagine, much less go swimming) and a guy who makes chwarmas, but they are both close by and are really the only places in Conakry I've been once night falls. But before Christmas we went out downtown to this classy-ish bar that has live music and it was really fun. Then last night we went to this club, Les Copains d'Abord, that's near the PC house and it was awesome. It was a friend's birthday and there were a million people in town, so a group of over 20 showed up there. There was a lot of drunken dancing and then this American guy (we don't know who he is or where he works, but he knows our Country Director) bought us drinks all night! I had Bailey's, beer, wine, all things I normally can't afford. As I was leaving I said to the guy "Thanks so much. I guess if you know Steve you know how ridiculously nice this was of you," and he kind of laughed and said "I know." I bet every American in Guinea knows that PC people are poor. If I end up in the Foreign Service and go to a country with PC in it, I will always buy their drinks.

Another story of people taking pity on us - when we were in Sierra Leone we wanted to go to this beach that was just past River Number 2. So the map must have been inaccurate because we drove and drove and our taxi driver was getting so pissed cause the road was bad. Most West African drivers drive like they have no regard for their lives or their cars, but not this guy. He was driving so carefully it was ridiculous. So he was super-pissed about the road. Finally he stops and is just yelling at us, but his English is nothing like ours and we don't really know what he's saying, although we know he's mad. We tell him just to turn around and go back to River Number 2, but then he says we have to pay him 150,000 Leones (we had agreed on 60,000). We say no. He is really irritated with us at this point and is probably not used to white people haggling so much over prices. Then 2 cars come, which is amazing since we are in the middle of the bush and there's nothing around. Also amazing cause the guy told us that he was mad that there was no one around in case his car broke down and we didn't really know how to respond. They happen to have a bunch of Sierra Leoneans who live in Ohio in them and we explain the situation. Basically, the family ended up paying the guy 40,000 (about $12, but it was extraordinarily nice and a lot of money in SL) to add to our 60,000. I gave the woman my parent's phone number and told her that if they are ever in Wisconsin they should call my family. It was just so lucky for us that they showed up when they did. (**Mom - if someone claiming to have met me in Sierra Leone calls and has a Midwestern meets West African accent, she's telling the truth. Buy them a drink or take them out on the boat or something.)

After leaving Sierra Leone I think I want to write graduate essays on the differences between Guinea, which has been peaceful for 20 some years, and SL, which has not. Because while the peace was good for Guinea while the rest of the region was destabilized, it was pretty clear to me that SL is in a better position to develop now. Not that I'm advocating a war here, but I just thought the juxtaposition was interesting.

I can get a PC ride to Mamou on Monday and miss a day of school or I can just go via bush taxi tomorrow, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Regardless, I'll be safely holed up at home by Wednesday and will make a good faith attempt to get some lesson planning done so I don't have to worry about it once classes start again (what with my 10 hours of teaching and 2 hours of lesson planning I'm awfully busy)...