Christmas Stockings!

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and I will be celebrating with seven other Peace Corps Volunteers in Kankan. We're going to do a White Elephant-ish gift exchange, and cook a big dinner together, and lounge around and, electricity permitting, watch movies on the projector and listen to Christmas music.

As I type this Stacy and Carolina are decorating the Kankan house, and if it's anything like Halloween and Thanksgivukkah it should all turn out very festively. My contribution was making stockings for everyone out of fabric from the market and the edge of one of my nice white sheets. I was working on them out on my little patio area the other morning and a girl came over to watch me sew. After awhile she asked if I was making things for a dress and so I tried to explain about Americans and stockings and Christmas and, translated from the French, it went something like this:

"Well, so, in America when people celebrate Christmas they have these things. They are like socks but you don't wear them on your feet, like normal socks. People put them on the wall, near a little place for a fire if they have a little place for a fire. And then.... the story is that a big man comes in the night before Christmas and puts things in the sock things. Like oranges or candy. In the socks. Americans like it. You see?"

This explanation earned me a bemused smile, and she told me they looked very nice. (Once again, I strongly recommend this David Sedaris story about explaining Christmas in other countries.)

Sewing Time

They all turned out pretty well, I put everyone's names on them and am hopeful that come Christmas morning they'll be full of little bags of peanuts and green oranges and weird little candies and all the other things that qualify as stocking stuffers in Guinea. More photos to come, as internet permits.

In the meantime, I hope everyone's enjoying the holidays, where ever you happen to be. Merry Christmas!

UPDATE: Here's a photo courtesy of Michelle's iPhone:

Christmas in Kankan!

House-Warming!

A couple weeks ago a few of us went to Diankana, a village not too far from Kankan, to see Sara T.'s new house. Stacy, Sarah J. and I even brought her a very classy and useful housewarming present - an assortment of CakeTreats and a Hazelnut Nescafe packet, wrapped in a dishcloth and wrapped in plastic twine. 

Happy Housewarming!

We all cooked dinner, watched a movie (Lars and the Real Girl, which I think is kinda adorable but which some people found "kinda creepy") and just generally had a good time. Happy Housewarming, Sara! 

New Senegalese

Last week, Sarah, Sara and I all had lunch at New Senegalese, so-called because it is the newer of the two Senegalese-run lunch places in Kankan. It is generally delicious, and probably the best place in town to get chicken with yassa onion sauce. They also serve what Guineans call riz gras, or oily rice, which is rice cooked with some spices and oil, fish, and some vegetables. (In Senegal the call it ceeb u jen "cheb-oo-jen", which is Wolof for "rice and fish.")

Riz gras, AKA oily rice

That particular day the riz gras happened to come with a piece of bitter eggplant, which has kind of grown on me, a piece of manioc, a piece of normal eggplant, and a hot pepper. Delicious!

Speaking English

Thanks to the wonderful podcasts and television shows available from the BBC, most of the English that I hear on a daily basis is of the British persuasion, more so than usual over the last couple weeks. I've watched all of Sherlock, re-watched some of Downton Abbey, and caught up with the Newshour.

As a result, my internal monologue acquired a distinctly British accent, which isn't bad, I guess, but was a little unsettling once I noticed it.

In any case, I've been hanging out more with Americans the last few days, and my friend gave me some Orange is the New Black to watch, so my monologue is back to sounding more or less American.

Today my Peace Corps neighbors Kenny and Michelle came over to the office to use the internet, and we're planning on making breakfast for lunch later. It's just the three of us in Kankan now, since Sarah J. is in Conakry and will officially finish her service and head back to America tomorrow.

Computer time with Michelle & Kenny

Last week we had one last Friday Fry-Day with Sarah - we made stir-fry, spring rolls, cinnamon rolls, and so many cookies - and stayed up late watching movies a the Peace Corps house. It was fun, and pleasant, and I didn't get really sad until the next morning, when Sarah went to sign out for the last time and all of a sudden her departure seemed real and imminent. (We have a bunch of photos of that, but they have yet to be uploaded.) It helps that Kenny, Michelle and I will all be leaving in January, but Sarah was my closest neighbor and the next few weeks in Kankan will be a little lonely without her. 

The Good Disco

Volunteers who live out the village come in to Kankan to check mail, go to the market, and hang out with other Peace Corps Volunteers. One of the places where we all wind up hanging out is Le Bon, a small local bar that's conveniently located, equipped with a TV and fridge that works when the power's on. As far as the bar goes, the clientele is composed of local Christians, foreigners, and Muslims who are flexible with the whole no-alcohol things. There are some guys who just come to hang out, and they drink soda or energy drinks and watch TV when the electricity's on. There's also a "nightclub" (a room with big speakers) that plays music some evenings, but I've never actually been in there. 

We all met up there the other day after work, to enjoy cold-ish beers, roasted peanuts, peeled oranges, and some English conversation, and I took some pictures. Le Bon offers a variety of beers, all well-priced but none of them particularly good. (They also sell liquor in small plastic bottles and little plastic packets but it's pretty terrible stuff.)

Me and Katie B. 

Me and Stacy M. 

Shrey and Sara T. 

Emily and Chris N. 

Snacktime! 

The PCVs of Kankan

While ordering beers someone laughed and said "You know you're in Guinea when instead of asking what kind of beer they have or how much it costs, you just ask for whatever's coldest."

I suppose you also know you're in Guinea when your standards for what qualifies as "cold" expand to include anything that's noticeably cooler than room temperature...

Meetings

Shortly after I arrived in West Africa, I was told by an older PCV to always bring a book, my cell phone, and plenty of credit to any meeting I attended, so that I'd have something to keep me busy. I remember being slightly put off - it seemed so disrespectful, I imagined that I'd want to be attentive throughout any meeting to which I was invited. But that was before I found out just how long it can take for a meeting to get started here, and also just how long it can last once it gets going.

Disclaimer: It is often worth it to go to meetings, and important things do happen at meetings, so it's good to pay attention. It can also be helpful to have something to do for the hour or three before things get started, and to have something on hand to help you stay pleasant during the more frustrating parts.

That being said, here are some things that I would include if I were making up a game of Guinean Meeting Bingo:

• Things starts at least two hours later than scheduled 
• A host country national complains loudly about how nothing ever starts on time 
• A host country national complains that the punctual people aren't giving others enough time to talk
• At least six cell phones go off 
• At least two people answer calls and have a conversation about how they are in a meeting
• Someone hands out plastic folders containing gridded notepads and blue ballpoint pens
• There are at least three fake fruit and/or fake flower bouquets in the room
• It is approximately 95°F/35°C in the room but it feels so much hotter
• The guy in front of you falls asleep in his chair
• A local official shows up, accompanied by an armed soldier, to declare the meeting officially started
• Lunch is served at 3:30 PM or later
• Someone hands out cans of tepid orange Fanta
• Someone asks if you are married 
• The power goes out and it takes at least 20 minutes to get it sorted out
• A long period of time is spent reading text from PowerPoint slides
• A supposed professional says something wildly inaccurate, i.e. "Fistula is a women's problem caused by HIV."
• Someone says "We are running very late so I will be brief..." and then talks for nine minutes
• Someone says "We have already thanked everyone many times..." and then thanks them all again

Oh, meetings. I can't say I'll miss them, but I will miss commiserating about them and trading never-ending-meeting stories with friends and co-workers, at least a little bit. 

Cadeaux!

Last week I got a lovely care package from my friend (and Senegal RPCV) Sarah K. (Thank you, Sarah!) 

It was filled with all sorts of fun things - Starbucks Via (which really is the crème de la crème of instant coffee packets), Clif and Luna bars (so good) and a nice mug (hot liquids in plastic cups = the worst).

Pumpkin Spice is Everywhere. 

I don't have all that much time left in Guinea (somehow it is December already) but it was still nice to get a package, and America really is excellent at making well-packaged, palatable, durable, portable food products - nothing like living without refrigeration to make a person really appreciate the usefulness of preservatives. 

Truckwrecks

Guinea's transportation situation is probably the worst in the region - the roads are terrible, vehicles are routinely overloaded with absurd amounts of cargo, nine passengers are crammed in where neighboring countries would only accept seven, and far too many cars are held together with little more than baling wire and hope. In my experience, breakdowns are much more common than accidents, but accidents do happen.

A few weeks back, on the way from Kankan to Conakry, we saw quite a few cars abandoned by the roadside- station wagons, compacts, the odd SUV or truck. Some were rusting and partly scrapped, some seemed to be recent, and all were covered in a thick layer of the dust that swept in as soon as the rains ended. We also saw multiple overturned tractor-trailer rigs. I'm pretty sure we saw three total, two that had tipped over on the same curve, the second sliding over in the mud while trying to get around the first one.

This photo is of the third one, which appeared to be a recent one-vehicle mishap; the cargo hadn't been salvaged yet, and gendarme officers were still on the scene. On the way back from Conakry, nearly two weeks later, all but one of the trucks had been cleared away and we didn't see much in the way of accidents, which was nice.

We did see a cobra trying to cross the road, though, a huge black snake maybe six feet/two meters long. From a distance we thought it was a piece of tire tread, but it reared up as the car veered to avoid it and it was definitely alive, and definitely a cobra. Exciting times.

Celebration!

The Peace Corps Volunteers of Kankan are big on celebrating holidays, especially American holidays, and few things are as quintessentially American as Thanksgiving. Except for maybe Thanksgivukkah. 

We improvised a menorah on the second night of Hannukah and then celebrated with latkes, an improvised menorah, and an entertaining re-telling of the miracle of the oil. The evening's festivities included an inflatable turkey and plenty of palm wine (which turned out to be far too vinegary for anyone's taste) but we waited until Saturday for our big Thanksgiving-style dinner 

All the shopping and cooking went well because Carolina handled all the planning, and because there happen to be a lot of good cooks in Kankan. I was in charge of frying onion rings, which was a sweaty job made much more pleasant by bringing the gas burner outside. Since we were inside the walls of the Peace Corps office compound we were all free to wear running shorts and above-the-knee skirts, which also helped with the heat. Deb helped serve the onion rings, which, despite being non-traditional, were a big hit. 

All in all it was a really pleasant day, everyone helping out and having fun - very Thanksgiving-ish. The menorah and turkey decorations were set up right next to the spiderwebs and ghosts left over from Halloween, and then we added some sparkly Christmas decorations that had arrived early to the ones that were still on the shelf from last year, and the whole place started to look like a party were the theme was just Holidays. Thanksgiving dinner turned out amazingly well - roasted chickens, mac n' cheese, garlic mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce and stuffing, salad and cornbread, pumpkin pie and brownies... the only disappointing part was how we all got so full so fast - Thanksgiving fare is so much more dense, so much more filling than rice and sauce! We did the best we could, and by the end of the night most everything perishable had been eaten, which is good because we don't have much in the way of refrigeration and it'd be sad to see it go to waste. 

So, Happy Belated Thanksgiving, everyone! Also, here are a couple photos from last month, while we were in Conakry. On the left, Lane was re-heating some polenta that had been gifted to us by the Country Director, and we got creative with it. Sarah J. and I are on the right, enjoying a lovely sunset on the beach immediately behind the Conakry office. Good times. 

Note: Despite the photographic evidence, I don't actually wear that blue-and-white t-shirt every single day. I do happen to be wearing it right now, but I'm going to change before I head out to the market later.

Photos courtesy of Sarah J. and Lane G.

The Upside-Down Plastic Fruit Bouquet

This is a fake fruit arrangement that I bought on Halloween. They're popular home and office decorations here, and I love them. I'm not sure why, but I do, with almost the same inordinate intensity that I love True Stories and giant boxes of crayons and that 30 Rock episode with Thomas Jefferson.

There are many reasons to find them delightful - they're brightly colored, slightly absurd, and an interesting status symbol. Maybe something about that they're a tangible example of how there's a giant part of the world that doesn't even sort of care about American floral arrangement norms. Also, from a distance, they just look like normal fake flower arrangements; it's only when you get close that you realize that what looked to be red-and-yellow tulips were actually a bunch of inverted apples.

I've seen a variety of apples, mangoes, tangerines, bananas, chili peppers, pears, peaches, and lemons. The peaches were especially great because they were slightly fuzzy and laced with little hard plastic dewdrops. If the arrangements weren't so expensive (usually 30,000-70,000 Guinean francs/$4.50-$10.00 USD each, depending on how big, varied and elaborate) I would probably have a half-dozen by now.

Give & Take

One of the highlights of the COS conference was the "Give & Take" activity. We were each assigned a person and then had to go around asking everyone what they would "take" from that person - things they admire or respect about that person- and also the thing that they'd like to "give" them as they head off into Life After Peace Corps.

I had the good fortune of going around to ask about Sarah J., the other Response Volunteer in Kankan. It was really lovely to hear all the things that people said about her - people were happy to talk about her, some felt compelled to tell little stories, and some of the "gifts" were really funny. (One guy just gave everyone baby goats, because they are adorable and everyone should have some baby goats in thier lives.) I was also really impressed at how many details people remembered, and how many people said similar things - if I had been making a wordcloud for her, COURAGE would have been right there in the middle in like 72 point font. (Everyone, absolutely everyone, was impressed at how Sarah has done so well as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer without the benefit a training group and without having done Peace Corps before.)

After we'd collected everyone's quotes and contributions we each got a nice piece of paper and they put out some crayons so that we could compile everything and make certificate-type things for our assigned person. I did my best to fit it all on one page and make it look nice and was again impressed at how much effort a lot of people were putting in, trying to make them meaningful, legible, and pretty.

I was beyond impressed when Lane G. handed me my "Give & Take" sheet. As a relative newcomer to Guinea who doesn't really know anyone outside of Kankan, I'd anticipated mostly generic, cheerful quips ("I'd take her smile and give her a puppy!") but the sheet was beautifully laid out and people had been very thoughtful - somehow, collectively, they all knew me much better than I'd expected.

Aside from being lovely to look at, it confirmed a few things, most significantly that, for better and for worse, I tend to be a know-it-all and also that I talk about Switzerland kind of a lot. Really, though, it's so good, and the whole thing was so heartwarming.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. 

Oral Rehydration Salts to the Rescue

My stomach has been off for the last week or so, nothing terrible, just a vague unease that sometimes seemed like it was about to turn into something unpleasant but never quite did. Until Sunday, when I woke at dawn feeling sweaty, restless, and moderately awful.

I wasn't deathly ill, but my stomach hurt and I couldn't really imagine doing much beyond curling up with a bottle of ORS and dozing through a Downton Abbey marathon. (These are the moments when I am truly grateful that I have a laptop. There's nothing quite like television when all you want to do is lie very still and pass the time.)

Monday morning I felt better (which was good because there was a meeting marathon Monday and Tuesday) and now, on Wednesday, I'm feeling pretty much back to normal. Just in time for Thanksgiving!

The Librarian

I really enjoy my Kindle, but it’s still nice to have access to a collection of paper books like the one that lines the walls of the main room and entryway of the Peace Corps office. Until recently these books were dusty and jumbled and were arranged in what appears to have once been alphabetical order, either by author or title. It was hard to tell.

Then Adrienne, who along with me got roped into serving in the Kankan House Committee, decided that we should sort them out into categories and make a Suggested Reading shelf, so we got to work. Over the next few days whoever happened to be around pitched in, stacking volumes into genres including:

·         Exciting Books: Thrillers, Mysteries & Crime

·         Books about Africa and/or Peace Corps

·         Classics: Because When Else Will You Ever Have Time to Read Them

·         Books That Were Marketed to Women

·         Romance, Vampires, & Vampire Romance

·         Books with Magic and/or Dragons

·         Books with Time Travel and/or Space Ships

·         Assorted Non-Fiction

·         Books that Are Supposed to be Funny

·         Terrible Books that Aren’t Worth Your Time

·         Self-Help

·         Card Games, Crossword Puzzles and Knitting

·         Books that Aren’t in English

·         Poems and Plays

·         Professional-Type Books and Reference

·         Jesus and Other Religions

 Once we finished clearing off the shelves and getting the genre piles in rough order, we weeded out the books that were mouse-eaten or missing big chunks, and we got rid of a lot of the dust. We've been putting them back on shelves, grouping them by author, but not really worrying about alphabetical order. It’s been interesting to see what we have, and what we don’t have. We have a bunch of copies of the The Secret Life of Bees, The Lovely Bones, and Seabiscuit. There are several copies of Bridget Jones’ Diary, all of Harry Potter plus Tales of Beetle the Bard, and several copies of Angela’s Ashes. There are two copies of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I have always meant to read, and three copies of The Thorn Birds, which rang a vague bell of recognition. There are a few copies of Into Thin Air, most of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency books, and a few Cutting for Stone, which I liked so much, even though the ending didn't sit all that well with me. (Too symmetrical, I think.)

Unsurprisingly, Tom Clancy occupies the most shelf space, followed by Michael Crichton, Sue Grafton, Patricia Cornwell, John Grisham, Scott Turow, Clive Cussler, in no particular order. Isabelle Allende and Dean Koontz all take up a good deal of space, as does Danielle Steele, who irks me because her back covers are all just big pancake-makeup-ed headshots with the caption EVERYONE READS DANIELLE STEELE, which just isn't true. If it said A LOT OF PEOPLE READ DANIELLE STEELE I would like her more. I read one (I’ll read just about anything) and it wasn't the worst, but it felt flat and bland and slightly preachy. (One might go so far as to call it milquetoast...) Also in one picture she has giant diamond earrings and a polo shirt with a popped collar, which I don’t understand.

There are some good romance writers - I like Jennifer Crusie, Maria Gabaldi, and most of LaVyrle Spencer. The bad romances tend to be really, appallingly, unfinishably bad, but they also tend to have the most entertaining covers –some are just embossed with flowers and wedding rings, but there’s a set of cheap, slim volumes adorned with soft-focus photos of Hot Cops, brawny men in kilts, and shirtless firefighters from the 80s, and Sarah T. and I decided to give Chris N. a legacy by inscribing his name on the inside cover of all the most ridiculously titled romances, in the hopes that years from now he’ll be remembered by PCVs we'll never meet as zealous reader of trashy, trashy romance stories. (These particular books are not substantial enough to be termed novels.) 

There are nine copies of Hough’s Official Rules of Card games and no decks of cards anywhere in the house. There’s also a game book called Solitaire and Other Games of Patience, which I find delightful because that is just the saddest title ever.

I was pleased to find a nice selection of David Sedaris, Carl Hiassan, Barbara Kingsolver, a couple Sarah Vowell books, some Michael Chabon, some Saul Bellow, one Douglas Coupland, and an Ursula LeGuin book that I’m looking forward to reading.

I came across no copies of Infinite Jest, nothing at all by David Foster Wallace. Nothing by Mary Roach, no Hunter S. Thompson, no Mark Twain, no Salman Rushdie. There’s also no Twilight and no Fifty Shades of Grey but there’s some debate as to whether that is because people are hoarding them, downloading them discreetly onto Kindles, or simply not reading them.

Most of the Jesus books are flowery and look exactly like they were sent by someone’s fretful mother, which they probably were. There’s one New Testament, one Book of Mormon, and one Cliff’s Notes for the New Testament.

So. I’m not sure what all this says about the PCVs of Kankan past and present, or if it says anything at all, but it's been fun to sort through. 

The Other West Coast

A couple weeks ago eight of us set off on the long journey from Kankan to Komsar for a Close-of-Service (COS) conference. We filled up our own "taxi" station wagon and made good time on drive from Kankan to Conakry (only 18 hours!) and then a Peace Corps bus took us the rest of the way.

While were in Conakry we got to see the impressive solar eclipse - Sarah J.'s mom had been thoughtful enough to send solar viewing glasses called Eclipsers so we could actually look at it -- they looked a lot like mirrored 3-D glasses, the kind with paper frames. Everyone looked very retro-futurist, all lined up on a rooftop, little mirrored eyes all pointed up to the darkening sun. It was a fun day.

The next day we arrived at a very nice (by Guinean PCV standards) hotel in Komsar, a coastal town just on the edge of a wide swath of mangroves. This COS conference was really for the G21 group of Volunteers - the 21st group to come through Guinea - but they were kind enough to include the three Response Volunteers who'll also be departing early next year.

G21 in Komsar

COS conference is where PCVs (and PC Response) start getting prepped for re-entry into American life - there was a lot of discussion about paperwork and benefits, some good sessions aimed at reflecting on our service, and strategies for dealing with the inevitable onslaught of people half-interestedly asking "So, how was Africa?"

It was a really good conference - the sessions were good, the general mood was relaxed and happy, the rooms had water and electricity in the evenings (for the most part), the food was fine, and there was a pool. A pool that grew increasingly murky with each passing day, but everyone still had a good time. G21 is a remarkably pleasant group of people - they play chaise-ball (a highly spirited pool version of basketball but with chairs instead of baskets), they had an awesome group t-shirt, and they all chipped in to give a very sweet gift to their training manager (a Kindle, because he likes to read and libraries are not a thing here.)

All the questions I had about COSing as a Response Volunteer were answered, I worked on my resume and got all the forms I'll need - medical, legal, financial and so on - to fill out before I leave Guinea. Even with all the D.C.-mandated PowerPoints and going over paperwork, it was a really enjoyable week, and it made me feel like my departure is right around the corner.

(People took many more photos, but they haven't been uploaded yet, so more on that later.)

Out of Office

I've been out of Kankan for the last couple weeks and haven't had much internet access. (I actually tried to post about the recent eclipse from Conakry office but the extremely outdated version of Explorer that they run on the computers there is incompatible with Blogger, standard Gmail, and pretty much whatever else you happen to be trying to do online.)

I'm now back in Kankan and am going to go catch up on e-mail, attempt to upload some photos, and hopefully have some new posts up by tomorrow.

Gone with the Wind

I had a pleasant weekend. On Saturday I made pancakes, did yoga, cleaned up a little, and read Gone with the Wind.

This was on the cover of the copy that I read.

(Spoiler alert in case I wasn't the last person ever who didn't know anything about Gone with the Wind.)

I've never seen the movie, but I'd absorbed enough information from crossword puzzle clues and just living in America to know that it’s an epic romance about a pretty lady on a plantation during the Civil War. I knew there was a part about Atlanta burning, something about curtains, a house called Tara, and Clark Gable not giving a damn. I figured that there would be a lot of picturesque landscapes and racism and accounts of historic battles and people falling in love under difficult circumstances.

As it turned out, there were indeed long and captivatingly yonic descriptions of the countryside, and the tumult and history of the war and the deterioration of the social order all made for good reading. I was distracted but not surprised by the racism, both depicted and inherent, and kept being reminded of a part of this David Sedaris short story called Six to Eight Black Men that goes "history has proved that something usually comes between slavery and friendship, a period of time marked not by cookies and quiet hours beside the fire but by bloodshed and mutual hostility." 

The thing that caught me off guard was the ending. I just wasn't expecting “the greatest love story of our time” to finish with a fatal miscarriage and the post-mortem of a broken marriage. Tomorrow may be another day, but I still closed the book feeling slightly gut-punched. 

In any case, I found myself reading so much of the novel from the perspective of a Public Health Volunteer - I liked how often dysentery was mentioned, interested that diarrhea was given a place of prominence among the many undignified ravages of war and poverty. I liked that the notion that women invariably possess a “maternal instinct” was thoroughly dragged through the mud. I liked that reproductive health issues kept coming up – the unmet need for reliable contraception, the burden of unwanted pregnancies, the many forms of prostitution, the grim dangers of childbirth and back-alley abortions. (I feel compelled to point out that these are still very real problems for women and girls around the world.) I couldn't help but think that modern contraception and obstetric care could have saved Scarlett from resenting motherhood and Melanie from suffering horribly and dying. I feel like Scarlett would have been all about birth control. 

But I suppose that if Scarlett had been on the pill and Rhett had just talked about his feelings then maybe they would have figured things out and built a happy life together, but it wouldn't have made for such a dramatic saga. 

Also, I now really want to read/watch 12 Years as a Slave. I've been hearing wonderful things about how harrowingly good it is, and I feel like it would be a good counter-balance to Gone with the Wind's rosy portrayal of slavery and the whole master-slave relationship. 

"Race for Survival"

As a part of Save the Children International's global EveryOne campaign Save the Children/Guinea organized a "Race for Survival" event to raise awareness of child survival issues and to advocate for policies that benefit maternal and child health, such as increasing national spending on health and supporting access to essential health services. 

While a lot of progress has been made of the last decade, Guinea still has a relatively high infant mortality rate. For every 1,000 children born in Guinea, 126 will not live to age five. For comparison, in the United States, about 8 children out of 1,000 will not make it to age five, and in countries like Sweden, only 3 out of 1,000 children will die before age five. (UNICEF, 2011) So, there's a lot of room for improvement. 

The first day of the "Race for Survival" in Kankan consisted of a gathering of decision-makers and prominent community members, including the Governor, the Head of the Health District, representatives from various NGOs and partner organizations. The guest that everyone was most excited about was the official representative of the First Lady of Guinea, accompanied by a man from the First Lady's charitable foundation. 

The "Family Photo" from the Day of Advocacy

I didn't take any of these photos, but the guy who took my camera did a good job, and seemed to be completely comfortable about getting in there for close-ups. You can see me, or the top of my forehead, anyway, it the upper left of the doorway in the photo above. Below from left to right, we have the representative of the "Parlement des Enfants" children's group, giving a speech for the local radio, my supervisor, Fatoumata D., who is fantastic, and my colleague and same-name "tohoma" Adama D., who was in charge of getting the Day of Advocacy together. 

 

Below, left to right, are the Honorable Governor of Kankan, me, and the Official Representative of the First Lady. (They both were very polite but we didn't actually talk much. 

The Fancy Table

(One of the things that I love here is that the floral bouquets that are generally used to decorate tables and offices and whatnot are usually made with fake fruit instead of fake flowers. The little blossoms above are actually small, fake, upside-down peaches. There were two others made with apples, and in the market I've seen everything form chili peppers to bananas - someday I want to buy a mixed-fruit bouquet, but they're actually kind of expensive.)

The next day the relay-style "Race for Survival" was held at the Kankan stadium. (Save the Children held similar events were held in countries all around the world on the same day.) Local school kids raced from prizes, local officials showed up, there were radio and TV reporters, and some of my Peace Corps friends came. Michelle, below right, even got to hand out some of the prizes! Cellcom, a mobile phone company sponsored part of the event, which is why there are big red umbrellas out on the field for no practical reason.

There were speeches made about child survival and maternal health, t-shirts were given out, a military band played, the kids were all really happy, their parents were all super proud, and everyone had a good time. 

Fun fact: Lily, on the left in the photo on the right, was the wonderful who brought my fancy shiny new computer with her when she came to visit her friend (my neighbor) Michelle.