Friends & Amenities

I have some nice photos from Christmas and News Year's Eve that I would like to post, but the internet connection I'm currently using can't seem to upload or download anything, so that will have to wait.

With everyone out of town on their year-end holidays, the generator on my compound hasn't been turned on in over a week. This means no wifi, which is fine, there are cyber-cafes downtown. It also means that the water pump isn't turned on, which is more of an inconvenience. The water tank went dry nearly a week ago, and my personal water buckets ran out a couple days after that, so I'm back to fetching water from the nearest pump, just like I used to do when I lived in a village.

Happily, I still have a decent amount of electricity, thanks to the solar panels having been cleaned two weeks ago. The panels had been caked in such a thick layer of fine, red dust that they had all but stopped functioning, but now they're back to providing about eight hours of electricity every day, which is fantastic. (City power, which comes from giant gas-fueled generators, comes on about every third evening, for six or seven hours at a time.)

Hopefully my at-home internet access and running water will return next week, and in the meantime I'm enjoying the quiet afternoons, totally free of the roar of the generator. Happy New Year, everyone! 

Leaks and Buckets

The right-hand shower faucet-knob (is that what you would call it?) in my bathroom has been leaking, seeping through the wall and making a puddle near my bedroom door. leaking through the wall. The morning after the puddle appeared I went and told the guards that I thought a pipe was cracked, and they looked at it and told me it needed new grout. I made a vaguely skeptical noise and they said in any case someone would come look at it on Monday, and I thanked them. (The guards here are really nice, and in addition to their guarding duties they help out with pretty much everything from building maintenance to flagging down door-to-door food vendor ladies.)

Yesterday a guy came by and took my shower apart, revealing that the pipe just behind the faucet-knob thing was indeed cracked. He plugged the pipe-end MacGyver-style (there was a fair bit of splashing and spouting water during the first plug attempt) and hopefully he'll come by tomorrow and put it back together. He and the guards were concerned about what I would do without a working shower for a few days, but I assured them that after two years au village I'd be just fine, and in any case I had plenty of water stockpiled and pointed at my buckets. They seemed surprised that I'd had the foresight to store water (even though water goes out a lot so most people do) but also seemed reassured that I'd be able to manage just fine.  

Not having a shower really isn't so bad, I don't mind bucket baths, especially since I have a stove and can heat up my bathwater. Once cold season sets in I'll probably be opting for a warm bucket bath over a cold shower most of the time anyway, it's just so much nicer. 

Rain boots & Rainbows

Last week Ramadan ended on the rainiest day I've seen so far in Guinea. The morning was overcast and calm until the wind kicked up, bringing in the kind of horizontal rain that makes you circle around the house double-checking that everything is closed and latched and that water is not streaming in under the doors. (Happily, my rooms stayed dry.) After awhile the wind tapered off but it rained steadily for most of the rest of the day, putting a damper on everyone's end-of-Ramadan festivities. 

The next day people were out and about and making up for lost time, all dressed up and carefully skirting the pond-like puddles on their greeting rounds. The theme of the day seemed to be Small Children in Sunglasses, and it was adorable. Just on the streets right by my place I saw at least a couple dozen little kids in brand-new frilly dresses, little brightly striped t-shirts, fancy new sandals and neon sunglasses. (I really wanted to take pictures, but feel weirdly about taking photos of people I don't know. One of the big drawbacks to not living with a host family is not having a constant supply of people around who're more than happy to pose for the camera.) 

It rained a lot yesterday, too, and I took some pictures of the street-turned-stream outside the Save the Children office, and also of the amazing complete double rainbow that followed. (It was a lot more impressive in real life, but you get the idea.)

This is why I brought rain boots to Guinea. 

After work I walked around the neighborhood, surveying the water levels and picking up things for this morning's breakfast. I tried to make it over to the Pulaar vendors who were so amused by my mediocre Pulaar the other day that they gave me a free loaf of fresh bread, but I didn't feel like wading so I settled for bread and eggs from the vendor lady just down the way.

The vendor lady is also nice, as are her kids, who very expectantly watched me leap over a decent-sized puddle and were impressed (and possibly disappointed) when I made it. She wears a black burqa-type veil, made of very thin fabric that she seems to be able to see through just fine. (I can't recall seeing any burqas in Senegal, but I see them here pretty frequently.) As someone who hasn't done much interacting with burqa-clad women, when I first went by her boutique I wasn't sure if I was supposed to look at her face-area while talking to her or what, but I think any awkwardness on my part probably blended in with the general awkwardness of being a foreigner who doesn't know where to find pasta or what that white powder is or how much anything costs. In any case, she seemed pretty relaxed about everything, and I go by there pretty regularly, partly because she's patient with my questions and partly because she always has fresh eggs. I've been by around prayer-time a few times and noticed that she just flips up her veil to do her ablutions there in front of her shop and doesn't seem to mind coming over to sell me some eggs and onions while bare-faced, which I found slightly surprising. I suppose I didn't expect her to be so laid-back about it, but then I'm the one who's not used to veils and washing up at prayer-time and running a little side-street boutique and all the rest.

Anyway, yesterday her shop was not totally surrounded by a rainwater moat, so I stopped and bought my bread and eggs and continued on my way. It's remarkable how quickly the earth soaks up the water - roads that are completely flooded can be partially clear after just a few hours, and dry up almost completely if the next day is a very sunny one. On the days when it isn't raining it's been really nice out, blue sky and extremely green grass and billowing clouds. Here's a recent sunny-day photo of the welcome sign on the main road not far from the Peace Corps office, the phone company Orange puts them up at the edges of cities and towns all over West Africa. 

Ramadan

Today marks the first day of Ramadan in Guinea, and so many observant Muslims are beginning a month of prayer and fasting during the day – no water, no food, no sinful thoughts or acts – and breaking the fast with sweet things at night.

I don’t plan on fasting at all this year, as I am not Muslim and I already know how it makes me feel to not drink any water all day. (During both Ramadans I spent in Senegal I fasted for one day only, out of curiosity and solidarity with my host family and also just to show that I was completely capable of fasting if I chose to do so; I wrote about Ramadan 2011 here and Ramadan 2012 here.) Honestly, the whole idea of being compelled to not drinking water all day in a hot climate doesn't sit well with me, but for many people here participating in the fasting and praying is a profound experience that strengthens their faith and their sense of community, and there are provisions to exempt people who should not be fasting - children, diabetics, pregnant and breastfeeding women, drivers of big buses full of people, and so on. 

I’m interested to see how Ramadan plays out here, but don't imagine that it will be wildly different than it was in Senegal. I am expecting that things at work will be slow, that some people around town will be more tired and cranky, that roads will be more dangerous, and that shops and vendors will be closed more often than usual, but I've been though it twice before and it wasn't so bad. Since I have my own private little kitchen set up now, I don't think I'll have to change my own little routine any more than I want to, and I can always head over to the Peace Corps office if I get tired of discreetly ducking out to eat lunch by myself. 

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.