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!

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. 

White Elephant Wallet

Since I'm catching up on photo uploads, this is the wallet that I got from Michelle at our Kankan Christmas White Elephant gift exchange. 

It wasn't a real White Elephant - there was no stealing and swapping of gifts - because no one wanted to take gifts away from people who seemed really happy with what they chose, like I was with this wallet. Michelle had it made by one of the local artisans, and it has that little map of Guinea. So cool! 

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!

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.

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. 

Weekend Update: Saturday

After all the time spent on the road last week it was really nice to have a weekend in Kankan. Saturday I caught up on podcasts and cleaned up my rooms, and then went over to have lunch with Fatoumata, my work counterpart, and her family. It turns out that her compound is really nice - a large courtyard with mango trees, orange trees, banana trees, and palm trees, an overgrown garden and a big covered porch. Fatoumata's worked with Save the Children for years, and her husband is also quite successful, so they have two cars and a well-furnished living room decorated with porcelain knickknacks and family photos. Fatoumata's co-wife and all of the kids were really nice - the younger ones a little wary of me at first, but they warmed up to me after awhile. (It didn't hurt that I'd brought cookies.) Fatoumata and a few of the older girls were cooking an enormous tureen of sauce and several smaller pots of fonio (a delicious couscous-like grain) over small fires beside the main house while her co-wife was looking after a couple smaller kids. (Cooking fonio is a lot more expensive and time-consuming than cooking rice, but some of her husbands relatives are in town, so it was a bit of a special occasion.)

Photo of harvested fonio
courtesy of Ecotours-Senegal

Photo of fonio prepared with onion sauce
courtesy of Intrepid Herbivores

I hadn't realized that Fatoumata has a co-wife - she's well-educated, successful and to me seems very modern and Western, so I guess I just assumed that it was just her and her husband at home. I was thinking about it and can see that there are a lot of benefits to a polygamous arrangement for modern Guineans, especially given that they generally grow up with very rigid gender roles and polygamy as the norm. Since women run the household, having co-wife means that daily tasks are shared, that there's someone to watch your kids if you get sick or travel for work, and that you have the status boost of being married to a man who's wealthy and successful enough to have multiple wives. It's not very romantic from an American perspective, but if you think of marriage as a primarily practical institution it does make more sense, and it's also just how things are for a great number of people. I do think that polygamy is an inherently unequal and unfair system, but I don't think anyone here wants to hear my opinion of their marriage any more than I want to hear what they think about my not being married. (I've never had someone make unsolicited comments on my marital status in a way that made me like them more or think more highly of their opinions; without exception it has had the opposite effect.)

In any case, I was totally pleased to be invited over to a comfortable house filled with fruit trees, kids running around, good food, and pleasant people - they even remembered that Americans tend to be particular about water sources and gave me a large chilled bottled water before I had a chance to get out my own warm canteen out of my bag. I sat on the porch and gave kids high-fives for awhile as they ran giddily around in circles, I watched half an episode of the Ivory Coast version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire with Fatoumata's husband and we chatted about important English is for NGO work (his English is very good), and I ate most of a generous plate of steamed fonio covered with a very good meat-and-vegetable sauce. After lunch all done Fatoumata gave me a ride back to my place (on her way to drop off two big lidded pots of fonio and sauce with her in-laws and friends) and I spent the rest of the afternoon running errands in the market and reading and watching TV shows on my Netbook while impressive-looking storm clouds rolled in from the horizon. Not a bad day.