Stray Cats and Google

Even amid the ongoing saga of Guinea's legislative elections, the United States Government shutdown has garnered quite a bit of attention around here. Peace Corps and Peace Corps Response Volunteers are considered "essential" (insert joke about what-are-they-going-to-do-stop-paying-our-salaries-ha-ha), as are Peace Corps medical and security support staff. The most direct impact that the shutdown has had on my daily life (other than inspiring worry that by the time I get back to America there will be nothing left but stray cats and Google) is that people keep asking me to explain why my country is such a spectacular mess and I keep not even knowing where to begin.

On Sunday I went downtown to buy soap and vegetables and whatnot and lingered in a boutique to watch an early-afternoon newscast about the slow-motion circus-train-wreck of current American politics. After the segment ended, one of the vendor guys turned to me and, in a bemused voice, said "What is the matter with them? Don't they want people to have health care? This is going to be really bad for the economy." I sighed and shrugged in agreement and said "Pffft... politicians..." and was met with sympathetic murmurs; Guineans know what it's like to have a dysfunctional government, more than I ever will, probably. I think they're often just slightly aghast at how a nation as wealthy and privileged and well-established as the United States seems embarrassingly unable keep it together. As are we all, I suppose.

P.S. You may have already seen this delightful hidden message from the National Weather Service. Secret acrostics are an underutilized means of communication. Can we please pay them already?

Banking on Circular Time

I’m still waiting for my Guinean debit card to arrive, so when I need to get money I have to go in to the bank and make a withdrawal.  It was with some apprehension that I went to the bank to make my first withdrawal  (getting money out of the bank in Senegal was usually an unpleasant, hours-long affair involving writing yourself checks and multiple forms of ID) but, even though it was a little confusing, it was a fairly quick and painless experience.

First, I went to a lady at a long counter and gave her my account information card and my Peace Corps ID, and she gave me a little slip of paper with my account balance written on it.  After that I went to a guy sitting behind a window and handed the amount that I wanted to withdraw written on a little piece of paper, my ID, and my account info card. He took them, processed something, and gave me a slip to take to the Bank Manager’s office. I went in, apparently interrupting someone else’s chat, but he cheerfully took my slip, stamped it, signed it, had me sign it, and told me to bring it back to the guy at the window. The guy at the window looked it over and then gave me a stack of bills and a carbon copy of the receipt.

To an American, this system seems ludicrously convoluted and inefficient, but it's ok as long as there aren’t too many people in the bank. The tellers and customers all seem to be keeping track of who’s coming up to the window for the second time, and people genuinely don’t seem to mind other people popping in to have them sign something during a consultation. 

For me, the whole situation really illustrated different cultural concepts of time and task completion - in the U.S. people generally believe in linear time, and, for all the talk of multi-tasking, in a compartmentalized way of accomplishing tasks. We think of events happening one after another, and we like it when things are organized along a timeline – at an American bank people would fill out their slips, form a line, and be helped one after another; this seems logical, efficient, and fair.

But it wouldn't necessarily seem that way to someone accustomed to a more circular concept of time, of things overlapping and looping around, and people being helped according to their status and the urgency of their request. Maybe in the eyes of the bank staff having me make four stops at three desks to withdraw money from my own account wasn't a disorderly source of confusion but a worthwhile way of preventing fraud and overdrafts; maybe it’s just the way that things are done and they would undoubtedly be irritated if I disturbed the routine.

In any case, it only took about 10 minutes to get my little brick of cash (which, despite its size, is not worth much) and even though it being a hot Ramadan afternoon everyone was polite, even the parking lot guard, who found it totally amusing when I almost knocked over a couple bikes while trying to lean my own up against a pole.  

The Cost of Living

It can take a little while to get a handle on how much money is worth and how much things should cost in a new place. I'm starting to get the hang of shopping here, but when I'm asking about prices at the market I'm still constantly converting Guinean francs (GNF) to Senegalese francs (XOF) and American dollars (USD), trying to infuse the numbers with some sort of sense of value. 

There are the official conversion rates... 

1.00 US dollar = 6,908.58 Guinean francs = 504.68 Senegalese francs

...and then there's the actual purchasing power; 6,900 GNF goes a lot farther in Guinea than 1.00 USD does in America. 

Here are some things that I bought yesterday:

                                     

Five small yellow bananas: 2,500 GNF
They turned out to have an odd, mouth-drying, sour residual aftertaste. I think I'll go with the bigger, greener ones next time. 

                                        

Two pieces of fried sweet potato with spicy stuff: 1,000 GNF
Hot and crispy and delicious.

                                             

Two bags of peanuts: 1,000 GNF; four eggs: 6,000 GNF; two tomatoes: 2,000 GNF; three onions: 1,000 GNF
I thought the peanuts were roasted and salted but they turned out to be sugared. Oh, well.

Big and small sheet: 50,000 GNF; three place-mats and a dishtowel: 20,000 GNF

Generally, things seem to be significantly cheaper than in Senegal, but for the most part the things being sold are the same - rice, dried fish, Goodwill clothes piles, greenish-yellow oranges, phone credit, mangoes, bread, palm oil, etc. There are a lot more avocados for sale here, too, and popcorn and lots of fried banana patties, which I'd almost never seen in Senegal.