Landscapes and Stomachaches

I just got back to Conakry after a few days at the Peace Corps training center, located about an hour (without traffic, so two hours) from the capital. Despite the smoke-belching trucks, ridiculous traffic, and gaping potholes, it was a nice drive out to the training center. The countryside is beautiful - verdantly dense foliage, lots of houses roofed with red sheet metal, little kids everywhere, very tall hills jutting up into the sky, the waterways on the edge of the mangroves reflecting the sky. Just like you picture it when you think of visiting Africa.

Batik wall hanging in the office

I roomed with some (extremely cool & welcoming) Education PCVs who are there preparing for the upcoming arrival of a new group of trainees. I got a few sessions of French practice, a crash course in Maninka, and a session on the history of Guinea and its regions, which was interesting.

All was well until last night, right around midnight, I got sick. Suddenly and intensely sick. Just like you picture it when you think of visiting Africa… Thankfully, whatever it was seems to have passed, and today I’m much better, a little exhausted but no worse for wear, and am very much looking forward to taking a hot shower and sleeping in a cool room. 

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.