Homecoming 2007

I finally had the homecoming I've been waiting for. Yesterday a PC car went to get my friend from Mamou so I hitched a ride down for the day. I arrived at my old house at 9am and was able to give Djenabou her gifts from the Frieler girls - new shoes and clothes. She was so thrilled! When she saw me coming she ran up to me to give me a huge hug - she's usually shy and reserved so it was exceptionally touching.

After visiting with them for awhile, and finding out that the Ivoirians were kicked out of my house as soon as people heard I was back (they wanted to make sure I knew it was waiting for me and that I wouldn't stay in Timbi just because I didn't have a house in Mamou), I went to visit El Hadj Barry, the owner of the house. His whole family crowded around and I gave him a watch as a gift and he told me about how he's been wondering about me and that I'm always welcome to come back.

After that I went to Ibrahima's shop, where the best yogurt is sold. I bought a ton and we talked about my plans to try and go back.

Next it was off to Madame Diallo's, where she invited me to her baby's baptism in about a month and gave me a matching tie-dyed skirt and shirt from Bamako that she's been holding for me since December. She is about the most adorable pregnant woman ever. I finally had some time just to sit around and chat, and I told her that I'd come for the baptism and that someday we'll go look at Camilo's flickr account so she can see pictures from all the travels.

Then I ran into the PC car and he said that a bunch of PCVs from Burkina were in town on a COS trip, so I talked to them awhile and brought them yogurt. Hopefully I'll meet up with them again when they come through the Fouta, I was trying to sell them on going to Mauritania and I think it worked...

Finally I found my old admin from the school! They gave me the biggest hugs, which was kind of a shock since it was in front of a lot of people and it's Ramadan right now. They loved their picture frames with the photos of us and told me that my job is always waiting. And they told me that they were thrilled that I'd come back, even if I couldn't return to Mamou. "The continuation of the cooperation between our countries is the most important thing," was what they said. It was so touching.

Overall, it was absolutely the best day I'd had since my arrival, possibly my best day since June. PC admin knows I want to return and now I just need to be patient and do my best in Timbi until that happens.

La Campagne

I've been staying at the hotel in Labe for so long that the owner jokes that it's chez moi...my house. We went to Timbi yesterday to see what, if anything, had happened to the latrine. We discovered that it has officially flooded over (I chose not to go see what that looks like) and that they aren't going to build a new one. They said that it would go back down after the rainy season and that I should just wait 2 months until that happens. In the meantime I was welcome to use my neighbor's bathroom. While that is generous on my neighbor's part, it is not a solution to the problem. While Boiro tries to talk to them about finding me a new house, I'm back in Labe.

Yesterday we were joking about how I'm now Assistant Regional Coordinator (or is it Assistant TO the Regional Coordinator for those of you who watch The Office?) My new job is to try and organize the office here in Labe. There are about 1,000 books that were taken from people's sites and need to be catalogued - plus about 8 shelves worth of resource materials that need to be organized. That should keep me busy for a few days. Then Beth arrives and I'm going to go with her to site - it's always more fun to organize a house with a buddy there! After that I'm headed back down to Conakry to do some work before going to stay with Camilo for a week or so. They just announced on the radio that classes aren't starting until October 22nd, so I have quite a bit of time and just can't bear to spend it in Timbi until my housing mess is taken care of.

Life is pretty boring here in Guinea for the time being - I'll keep you all posted with the details if I don't think they'll put you to sleep...

The Waiting Game

You know how on movies like Pride and Prejudice the women sit around and get so excited about receiving a letter, because it breaks up what is a very boring life/day? That's how I'm feeling today. Like some 18th century housebound woman. Except that I don't have a house and I do have a cell phone, portable DVD player and internet access. Whatever. The sentiment is timeless.

Rose should be arriving, but I'm just waiting for it to happen. My parents should call this weekend, but I'm waiting for that too. Ramadan will be over in less than 3 weeks, and I can't wait for that either. School will give me something to do. And once I overcome my inertia and get my butt running or biking that will keep me occupied as well.

While training was an absolute pain and left me exhausted for weeks, it served a valuable purpose. In addition to being a good balance between going from seeing all Americans to all Guineans, it also made me happy to finally be at site so I could cook for myself, have control over my own schedule and finally catch up on sleep. This time around I'm having to adjust without the comforts that training brought us. I was so happy to have nothing to do at this time last year, but now I'm just bored!

The Egypt tickets will be purchased in October. I can't believe I've been here 2 weeks and am already buying a ticket to leave. Last time I felt so stuck in Guinea, like it would be too difficult and too much of a pain to leave W. Africa until school was over. This time I don't feel that way at all. The only way to finish another 2 years of service is to be realistic about wanting to travel to more developed places and enjoy the sights, food and trash cans.

Okay, I'm off to try and find some street food to eat covertly so as not to offend those who are observing the fast...even though I'm just sure that many people cheat here. As they should. It's so hot that I can't imagine actually going 30 days without drinking or eating and staying healthy. Besides, why is there street food during the day if no one is cheating? It's not like there are a lot of Christian people around...

Full of shit

The room of potatoes is empty. The 2 civil servants who think they live at my house have not been back. But now I have the biggest problem of all, which is the title of the blog entry. My latrine is FULL. Completely full. And the door is broken, so other people have been using it and I have been peeing in the drainage hole in my shower because it is so ridiculously disgusting! I apologize to all of you who think that's gross, but it's the truth. Yesterday Boiro, our regional coordinator, came to Timbi and I showed him how the situation that was only a little bad a few days ago has reached epic proportions.

Also, some guy is reading over my shoulder right now and it's really distracting me and pissing me off, so if he can read this I hope he takes the hint. (which he did)

Okay, so Boiro came and saw. We then went to talk to some people about how to fix the situation. I'm told that putting motor oil down the latrine would cause everything to go down - one of those funny things that sounds like complete b.s. but would probably work. But the community promised to build a latrine by Sunday. That's 3 days. During Ramadan. If this happens, it will be a bigger miracle than Jesus walking on water. But I'm going to give the people in Timbi the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Rose, a friend who transferred to Burkina, is in town and should be coming to Labe today, which is why I'm here. It was agreed that I couldn't stay in my house until I had a bathroom, so my choices were to visit my neighbor Jacqui, who lives 15k away, or to come to Labe. Seeing that Rose would have no way to find me at Jacqui's site, I'm here in Labe. We'll see how that all turns out.

My friend Beth just arrived last night and will be about 65k outside of Labe, so I'm looking forward to having someone to drink bad, cold red wine with over a pizza at the hotel. Camilo gave her some education materials for me, since I'm an idiot and left Conakry without grabbing anything relevant to teaching English! I managed to get syrup and buckets, but nothing that will help with lesson plans...I'm an idiot. Thank goodness Camilo came to my rescue.

School won't start for another 3 weeks or so, which is weird. When I got to Mamou I had about a week before classes started, so I was really busy and had a lot to accomplish. That's not really the case anymore, so I'm going to have to get creative with how I pass the time. Today I'm hoping to get some furniture commissioned so I have somewhere to put all my stuff! It's hard to feel at home when you have 2 chairs and a table and are living out of duffle bags.

A few funny things have happened that make me happy/relieved/content to be back...

• the boys in my compound, who are about 5 and really cute, have taken to waiting for me while I'm in the latrine and giving me a high 5 as I walk past them. This is good because it makes me feel like I just accomplished something. Also, I'm heading inside to wash my hands, which means that any germs they give me are immediately taken care of.
• I just leave my 20 liter water holders on my porch and they magically fill with water in a matter of hours. I have no idea where the water is coming from and honestly don't care. As long as people are around to take care of it for me, I'm happy.
• there was a huge storm the other night that completely busted the transformer and blew out the electricity in my neighborhood. While completely scary, it was also so amazing. If the storms that happen here were in the US, there would be warnings on TV every day for 6 months of the year. It's just unbelievably strong rain that comes down in buckets and causes flooding everywhere.
• I decapitated the World's Largest Cockroach. Camilo called me out to my living room our first night in Timbi to tell me about it. I then sprayed it with the poisonous bug spray you can get here that will probably cause me to grow another limb. But cockroaches are tough and that's not enough to kill it, so I took my broom and chased it around. When I finally hit it, I screamed and jumped because something hit my leg...turns out I managed to decapitate it and the head hit me on the shin!!!! Once I realized what happened I was bizarrely proud of myself, like I'd passed a "welcome back to Guinea" test of some kind.

I know what I have to do to make Timbi home. Now it's just a matter of taking care of it. But so many things here take so much time - for example, finding educated women to befriend. I don't want to make friends too quickly because the people who try and find you first are generally the sketchy people. So I just have to be patient - I've done it before, so I can do it again. Now I'm off to get some furniture made - until I have a comfortable place to sit I know it won't feel like home. I also need to investigate the cost of a new mattress. Mine is so thin that I am basically sleeping on wooden slats!

An added bonus to spending so much time in Labe is that I've gotten to know Boiro and the guards and driver, who are extremely nice and interesting and have been helpful with getting me back into the habit of speaking French.

I'll keep you all posted...cross your fingers that my latrine gets fixed quickly!!

Exactly as it was before...

Well, things have not changed. Some of that is a good thing - I stopped in Mamou for a few minutes and got to see Madame Diallo (who's 7 months pregnant...her oldest daughter is 20 and she's only 35!) and my family and my yogurt guy. Everyone was happy to see me and it was amazing to see them - sadly I only had a couple minutes because of the bitchin' travel day I'd had.

I was told to be ready at 8am to make the 7 hour trip to Labe. I had all my stuff waiting outside, but the car didn't arrive until about 9:30. Then I found out that we were taking 4 other people with us and picking up a PC staff member and his wife in Mamou to take them up to Labe as well. Again, not that much of a surprise. The car was PACKED, though. So we load up and are ready to go by 10. Then we find out that the cashier's brother, one of the people hitching a FREE ride with us, needs to go get his bags from his house. Why didn't he bring them with him in the first place? No idea. I was pretty pissed, since I had been promised a few hours in Mamou, but because of all this I wouldn't have much time, since we aren't supposed to be on the road after 6:30. There are bandits (who people think are sent by the ministers who were fired to make people think that the new ministers aren't in control of the country) and driving is really scary in the dark.

So we get to Mamou, where we spend 20 minutes taking care of the PC staff member and his stuff, which required a complete shift of everything we had with us. Camilo and I finally left and walked to go visit everyone, since it was already 4 and we had a 3 hour drive ahead of us. The car was going to meet us at my old house. By the time they arrived there we were pretty much done with our perfunctory hellos and goodbyes. No one could understand why I could go to Timbi Madina, where there was also violence during the strikes, but that I couldn't go to Mamou. I'm with them on this. It's absolutely stupid. When I asked about the reason, I was told that they'd evacuate me from Timbi before any problems started. Why that same reasoning doesn't apply to Mamou, I'm not sure. My theory is that the people in PC Washington and the embassy wanted to see some concrete changes made before reopening the program, regardless of how much sense they made. But I'm also bitter about it, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

We arrived in Labe at 8pm and Camilo and I ate pizza and drank wine, which improved our moods considerably. I also had a talk with the PC staff person who is helping with this and told him about how mad I was that we were on the road that late at night and how unacceptable that was, especially since it was because we were taking care of PC staff member's families' requests and not doing official business and I'm completely scared of driving in the dark here.

We went to Timbi yesterday, only to find out that my house is occupied by a family. The man of the house is on vacation, so they are supposed to move by tomorrow, but we'll have to see. Also, my latrine has no door, which is a bit awkward! And when I asked the official we were talking to to speak in French instead of Pulaar, he totally ignored me. It's never a good sign when people who speak French refuse to speak it, because it means he was telling Dioulde (PC staff) something that he didn't want me to know. I saw the inside of the house and it's pretty nice. Not nearly as gorgeous as my old one, but that's to be expected. I have a lot of cleaning to do, though. And right now it's full of other people's things, including the 3rd bedroom, which housed a huge quantity of potatoes! What the hell, right?

I realize that this entire email is a gigantic whine about what's happening, but it's Guinea and it should all be expected. That being said, I'm actually thrilled to be back. I know everything will get taken care of and school will start and I'll make friends no matter where I am, so it's all good. Sometimes you just need to get some complaining off your chest! My friend Rose is arriving soon from Burkina, where she transferred. Any my other friend Beth is coming in a couple days and will be relatively close to me, so I'm really looking forward to seeing them.

And my French isn't as bad as I thought. It's mostly coming back to me, I just need to expand my vocabulary so that I don't have to ask for "that thing there" when at the market and can just use the word for the thing I want!

Hopefully the next time I write I'll have a home. And I'm going to try and respond to everyone's emails quickly, but it's hard with such limited internet time. I appreciate everyone's thoughts and stories! Also, I did see the video of Britney at the VMAs and was thoroughly disappointed. Was she drugged up? She moved like she was underwater. My comeback in Guinea is going much better than her comeback in the US!

I'm assured my parade will happen after the rainy season...

And I'm back. The blog is back. I'm in Conakry, after a crazy 35 hours or so of travel. Also, I think I look like the kind of person that people on planes start conversations with - I had interesting conversations with an Indian man (who has the EXACT same taste in books as me) from MKE to ATL, then with the guy who collects the carts at the Paris airport and lastly with a French Canadian guy who assists with environmental research on the ride to Guinea. I ate approximately 5 dinners during my travel time and they were all delicious. Thank goodness I'm here and can't access any more ham and cheese sandwiches, my body couldn't take any more!

I got off the plane all smiles, ready to greet Camilo, Jan and Ousmane. My smile quickly faded as I realized that no one was there to greet me! Turns out our inside connection at the airport no longer works there, so there's no way for people to get in to the baggage claim. But Camilo busted out his Susu and paid a little bribe (which we pretty much NEVER do, but he was worried that I wouldn't be able to take care of all my stuff alone...and he was right about that). I was so relieved! Since I knew they hadn't forgotten about me, I had immediately worried that they'd been in a car wreck or something...I am my father's daughter. Anyway, they had come prepared with a banner and everything, which they rolled out once we got back to the transit house. My bags arrived with no problems, except I wrapped a bottle of Absolut Raspberry in a skirt and a plastic bag and it leaked a little...no harm done, though. The bottle didn't break and the skirt can be washed. It would have been tragic if that bottle had bit the dust on the trip, you all know how much I love the raspberry vodka and Sprite combo!

So far I haven't seen too much of Guinea, but it looks exactly the same. Rainier (I'm looking forward to the dry season already!), but other than that the same. The transit house is clean - shocking, since it's always been a disgusting place. When you have volunteers who can't pick up after themselves for 20 straight years without a great cleaning, it shouldn't be surprising that it gets gross. Kind of like my grandparents' house after they'd lived there for 50 years. Things just tend to accumulate. Anyway, today we ate some yassa poulet (I was reminded that I don't like chickens that haven't been subject to genetic modification) and I organized my stuff...I'm leaving a lot of my junk food here in Conakry so I won't be tempted to eat Skittles and fruit snacks for dinner. Today hasn't been a day of accomplishments, since the office is closed and I slept until 1:15pm. Oops. Looks like it won't take me long to get back into the routine of having little work to do!

Tomorrow I'm headed to the markets to attempt to remember my French and buy some stuff for my house. We are leaving Tuesday to head upcountry and are spending the night in Mamou, so I'll get a chance to stop by and see everyone. I hope they will be as excited to see me as I am to see them!

Keep the emails coming, I'll be checking it a couple times a week...assuming the email in Timbi is still working. Oh, and we heard that the elections that were scheduled for December are pushed back to March, so I'm not sure if I can still go back to Mamou at Christmas or not. I guess I'll wait and see if I like Timbi - perhaps I'll decide I want to stay there, or maybe I'll hate it and want to get back to Mamou as soon as possible. As it's been for the last year, I have little to no control, so there's no use worrying about it...