Kankan Farewells

 My last round of good-byes in Kankan started with PCV Michelle's going-away party. Ethan, her replacement, happened to be in town for his site visit, so it was really more of a Farewell-Michelle-and-Welcome-Ethan celebration, and, because Michelle's host family and work partners really love her, it was really good party. Three were chubby babies, ladies singing and dancing, plates of meat and bread and fried potatoes, and lots of amusing photos of how Michelle is very petite and Ethan is very tall.

There was also this little kid (one of Michelle's host brothers) who was really, really into arranging and re-arranging all the rented plastic chairs, and we thought it was great when he lined them all up in the courtyard, so we took photos and told him how cool he was. He was very pleased; it was adorable.

 

A few days after Michelle left Kankan, it was time for me to say my own good-byes. I gave my nicest buckets and little decorative coffee mugs to the lunch lady down the street who has always been kind to me, and gave most of my clothes and sheet and towels to the ladies next door who washed most of my laundry. I brought my stove and gas tank and things over to the Peace Corps house for one of the new Public Health Volunteers, and I gave most of the rest of my things to the guards at the Save the Children office. Finally, I bought tea, sugar and kola nuts for the office staff and the guards, as a little farewell gift.

On the day that I moved out of my rooms I put on my best complet outfit, made from indigo fabric given to me by my Senegalese host family, and posed for photos with pretty much everyone at the office. There were a couple guards who weren't in that day, and I realized too late that I don't have any pictures of them, which makes me sad - they were really great, always helped me out with whatever I was trying to find or fix or move.

Adama, Adama, and Fatoumata

Save the Children, Kankan, Guinea

Everyone repeatedly complimented my outfit and told me that I should dress like this all the time, and said they were happy to see me looking like "a real Guinean." On behalf of the office Fatoumata and Adama presented me with a bunch of fabric and wished me all the best, saying that they hoped that I would be blessed with safe travels, good health, much happiness, and a handsome husband. (Adama said that last part and then she giggled a lot.)

Fun fact about indigo: It turns your skin quite blue when you sweat. Like Smurf-blue, and you really have to scrub to get it off.

Once I'd said my office good-byes I went over to the neighbors' house, where my friend Halimatou lives. They've fed me, helped me find tailors, and always been happy to have me over to hang out, so they're the closest thing that I had to a host family in Kankan. They fed me rice with Guinean leaf sauce (not my favorite - look at all that orange palm oil! - but I appreciated the gesture) and we took a bunch of photos and they told me to call when I get to America and it was all very bittersweet.

Pular Ladies in Kankan

Halimatou said that they had a good-bye gift for me but that it wasn't ready, so she'd bring it by the Peace Corps house later. The gift turned out to be more fabric and a really cool orange dress that, miraculously, fits perfectly, and I will try to get some photos of that up soon. 

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!

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...

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.

Friday Fryday

At the end of each week, all the Peace Corps Volunteers who happen to be in Kankan have taken to getting together to cook dinner. Friday Fry-Day, as it is known both here and in Senegal, has definitely become a thing. The dinners started out relatively modestly, onion rings and cucumber salad and banana bread, but over the weeks we've gotten more ambitious. Egg rolls with sweet-and-sour sauce.  Chocolate-glazed donuts. Herb-roasted chicken with sweet potato fries and gravy. Pizza with fresh cheese and mushrooms and caramelized onions.  Southern fried chicken and Key lime pie. Soft pretzels. Cinnamon rolls. Apple cake. All delicious. All from scratch, or at least with minimal help from spices brought in from Conakry or America.

Last week Sarah J. spearheaded the effort to make samosas, served with a mint-laced cucumber-yogurt salad and a curried lentil dish that I can’t remember how to pronounce, much less spell. I baked apple cake and cinnamon rolls with cream cheese-style topping – the beauty of Double Dessert is that everyone gets to take leftovers home for breakfast. It’s a great bonding activity, a nice morale booster, and given our kitchen, it’s just plain impressive how well things turn out, most of the time, anyway.

Indian-Italian Potluck Night

The knives we have tend to be either maddeningly dull or jaggedly sharp, we only have one baking pan, we have several enormous pots, two tiny little pots, a selection of frying pans with wonky handles, and I've never seen a measuring spoon, but we estimate pretty well. The oven here is a step up from Senegal – the door stays closed by itself and the whole front isn't held together by baling wire, duct tape, and pure hope – but it doesn't heat evenly (not that you can really set it to a specific temperature) and you can’t use both of the functional burners while baking or the whole thing goes out with a loud and disconcerting WHOOMP. Most of the time there’s running water (for the time being, anyway) and the house recently acquired a mini-fridge that works when the power’s on, which is generally every other evening or so.

The most recent menu included fried cheese wedges with marinara sauce, cucumber salad, and pirogues with sautéed onions, followed by coffee cake crumble and sweet soft pretzels with creamy whipped cinnamon topping, and it was all delicious.