Orange Dresses and Fancy Shampoo

When I left Kankan my friend Halimatou and her family gave me a party dress made of orange "wax" fabric printed with a money-and-squiggles pattern. I've been meaning to put it on and take some pictures so that I can send them some thank-you photos showing how well it fits and how much I enjoy the the shoulder ruffles. It turned out that Chelsea, one of the other PCVs in Conakry for Close-of-Service, also had an outfit that she wanted to document, so yesterday we got dressed up and took some Guinean-style glamour shots in the yard behind the Peace Corps office. (Except that we smiled a lot. Guineans often avoid smiling in photographs.) It was fun, and some of the pictures turned out pretty well, even though all the bright green foliage gave many of the poses a very I'm-trying-to-sell-you-some-fancy-hydrating-shampoo look to them.

Natural Essences for Natural Shine! 

Also, awhile back we were advised  to make a list of the things we like about living here (so that we don't just remember the rough parts) and also of the things that we dislike (lest nostalgia trick us into forgetting the rough parts). This is what I have so far:

Things I Will Not Miss 

Trash fires, really terrible roads, worse bush taxis, blatant and unapologetic sexism, inflexible gender roles, appalling homophobia, how people just toss trash on the floor, fetid sewage puddles when it rains, being caked in dust when it stops raining, terrible beer, animal cruelty, being called toubab/fote/chinois/la blanche/le blanc when I go out, being told that in America everyone is rich and perfect, being crammed two to a seat in cars, worrying that there will not be any competent doctors nearby if I get sick or injured, everything starting two hours late...

Things I Will Totally Miss 

How far out of their way total strangers will go just to help me out, occasionally seeing monkeys in the wild, neighbors who are totally happy to consider me part of the family, having same-name tokora friends, delighting people with my little bit of local language, super green hills, being able to plan my own day, being part of the PCV community, never worrying about who will pay for my medical care if I get sick or injured, having clothes tailored, good peanut sauce, shopping for fabric, people handing me babies, always being invited over for lunch, T9 texting (I am so good at it now), picking ripe mangoes right off the tree, speaking in PC jargon, different kinds of bananas, constantly being seeing new things, the little old ladies who spent 20 minutes helping me find a squash, really feeling great appreciation for vegetables, hot showers, fast internet and other luxuries...

Welcome to the Peace Corps Palace!

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.

Election Results

So, on Saturday Guinea finally held legislative elections, and voting went remarkably smoothly. We're not quite out of the woods yet - announcement of the results has been delayed and, as elections go, it was far from perfect.

For the moment, though, things are calm, especially out here in Kankan, and hopefully they'll stay that way after the results arr announced. 

Roadtrip!

Last week I went to Conakry for some meetings and a workshop held by Save the Children (SC). It’s a long and bumpy ride, but I was in one of the SC/Ministry of Health cars, so it was a much faster and more comfortable ride than it would have been on public transport – I got my own seat and everything.

The drive out wasn’t so bad. Once we’d cleared the flats of Upper Guinea there were low mountains and rocky cliffs to admire. Everything is excessively verdant this time of year, rivers are full, waterfalls spill over rock-faces, and there’s flooding in some lower-lying areas. (Looking at all the water made me think of the view from the airplane when I landed in Guinea in June – the approach to the Conakry airport starts over the Atlantic and then comes in low over a delta covered in serpentine loops of water and what looked like mangroves and deep mud, and it just goes on and on until you start to wonder if there really is a city and an airport and a runway.)

Aside from the scenery, the most striking thing about the drive was the number of broken-down trucks and wrecked cars, frequent reminders that my borderline phobia about in-country travel is not really so unreasonable.  Thanks to the nice car and good luck we made it to Conakry in about 14 hours, and I was very glad to get dropped off at the Peace Corps office/transit house to stretch, take a hot shower, and get some sleep. The rest of the week was mostly filled with meetings at the NGO Jhpiego’s Conakry office and at the Ministry of Health. The main event was SC’s presentation of the results of the Community-Level Contraception Access pilot project that they’re hoping to expand over the next few years, and it went really well. 

Green on Green...

... is maybe what I should have called this blog. Oh, well.

The night before I left Conakry, the Peace Corps Guinea Country Director Julie (who has been extremely helpful so far) and her husband Paul (who's work extensively with Outward Bound) invited all the PCVs who were at Conakry office for one reason or another over for dinner. It was
delicious by any standard - black bean salsa and guacamole, cold beers and fresh lemonade, salad and lasagna, cake and cobbler - and I did my best to enjoy it, knowing that it would be my last such feast for some time

The next morning two PCVs, Shrey and Sara, and I started the two-day trek to Kankan. It was raining, but not too much, the road was rough, the car was good and the driver was fairly terrible, but we did manage to make it intact and with only one flat.

The scenery along the way was pretty much what had been described to me - lush, green, partially cloudy. The mountains in the middle of the country dwarfed the hills of southern Senegal, but aren't incredibly tall and the driver seemed to think that I was insufficiently awed by their grandeur -  according to Lonely Planet, Mount Nimba, Guinea's highest peak, measures only 1,752 m (5,748 ft), and it's hard not to compare that with California's Mount Shasta, which clocks in at 4,322 m (14,179 ft). They were very pretty mountains, though, and I was quite impressed by how impossibly verdant everything was.

On the second day (we spent the night in a hotel-type place a little over half-way) the landscape flattened out as we approached Kankan. It's in the Haute Region, where things are flat and open and green right now but will dry out once the rains stop. It definitely wasn't the worst drive I've ever been on - I had good company and regular stops at gas stations and vendor ladies - but I can't say that I'm going to be popping in to the Conakry office any more than I have to.

Waiting for the car to be ready on Day Two

Bienvenue en Guinée

My connecting flights all arrived and departed more or less on time (I would have been pretty thrilled to be stuck in Paris for a day or two, but c'est la vie, quoi) and I arrived in Conakry with all my luggage intact.

The airport experience was pretty much as I'd imagined it would be - it was crowded and sweltering, and several fancy ladies (intricately embroidered complet outfits, gold glitter in their elaborate hairdos) accompanied by a small crowd of children in little suits and frilly dresses were ushered to the front of the line, so it took awhile to get through customs. All my papers were in order and everyone was really nice - various gentleman bystanders and security ladies helped me get my heavy suitcase off the luggage belt and through the x-ray machine at the baggage ticket checkpoint (as you leave they verify that the bag-check stubs you got at check-in match the suitcases you're taking). It was fun to hear people speaking Pulaar again, too.

As I left the baggage claim area I was welcomed by Sean, a current Peace Corps Response Volunteer (PCRV), and a Peace Corps driver, and we were off to the Conakry Peace Corps compound, which serves as an office and transit house. A group of current Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) were hanging out and cooking dinner (chicken and vegetables and rice, delicious) and again, everyone was really nice, and overall quite happy to be in Guinea, which is heartening. The whole place feels very comfortable, the compound has a generator, air conditioning, a computer room, hot showers, and, much to my delight, the books in the living-room are arranged in rainbow-gradient order.

A Literary Spectrum

I slept well and woke up feeling pleasantly un-jetlagged and discovered that my Swiss Orange SIM card works here. Impressive. (They'll give me a Guinean SIM today or tomorrow, but it's nice to have a functional phone in the meantime.)

Now, in just a few minutes, I'll head over to the office to start getting oriented. So far so good.