Hello everyone. I'm finally bored enough with electricity and running water in the compound that I can sit down and write a blog entry. About an hour ago, for the first time in my life, a few other volunteers and I 'hit the deck' and army crawled when machine-gun fire erupted around the compound. It wasn't a gun battle, it was just the soldiers clearing the streets at curfew/celebrating, but we didn't know. It was ten minutes of pretty much constant gunfire, and those bullets have to come down somewhere. We all laughed at ourselves afterward (I mean no one was firing at us), but it was certainly a first and hopefully last time gun fire has made me instinctively drop to the ground. I'll spare you more coup talk, but know that everything seems to be under control. The population is generally happy with the coup leaders and the ex-presidents burial passed without major incident. Hopefully the curfew will be lifted soon and life will return to normal.
Christmas was hot, muggy, and far from hearth and home, but we did the best we could and it came off rather well. Everyone made something (of course I made soda bread...thanks to the raisins my parents sent in a care package...), and the Country director Dan and his wife Julia hosted a wonderful party at their house. I think there are a few pictures on my facebook if you want to see me with no hair and down 15 pounds. Oh yeah, I let the mason cut my hair in my village. That was a mistake. He had clippers in one hand and a cigarette in the other and just cut absolutely everything off. I was left with less than 1/4 inch...and yes, it looked absurd.
Ok lets see if I can tell you a bit about my last two months at site. Around the time I last wrote on this blog my spirits were pretty low. 27 months was starting to seem like a hell of a long time to spend away from home. I supposed I reached a point where I had thought I had integrated pretty much as far as I could, and I still wasn't incredibly happy. I was not unhappy, but I am used to thriving, and anything less seemed like I was wasting my time or failing. In the last couple weeks I have started to break my unsatisfactory stalemate with Guinea. I can't put my finger on exactly what changed, but the arrival of a few younger teachers has given me the necessary ingredients for a social life, I started working out and putting weight back on, and spending Tabaski (2cnd biggest Muslim holiday of the year) at site was a blast. I bought some awesome Fabric in Labe (regional capital) and had my tailor in Fatako make me a Boubou that would shame the African Kings of old it was so good looking. Somehow I'll get you all a picture. Tabaski is the holiday commemorating the time Abraham was supposed to sacrifice his son Issac to show his devotion to Allah, and when he opened his eyes he found that he had slain a sheep instead. So, in the morning the entire community hikes en mass up to the top of a nearby hill to pray in the middle of this big field, and then everyone just fetes all day; every family sacrifices whatever edible animal they can afford, and everyone spends the entire day walking from house to house eating whatever your neighbors have prepared and drinking tea. As you can imagine, this is a heck of a good day. Oh, and all Guineans (all Muslims? I'm not sure...) buy their children a new outfit twice a year--on Tabaski and at the end of Ramadon-- and its great to watch the kids run around in their new threads thinking they're on top of the world. I suppose major holidays have all the same elements all over the world; good company, family, good food and drink. Guinea is no different. They certainly no how to throw a good lamb roast.
The community also put on a series of skits for the authorities to bring up village concerns. It was all in Pular, but according to my friends who translated afterward, the 'women's organizations' were protesting the exorbitant consts associated with the death of a family member, and inadequate transportation to and from the markets in neighboring villages who's markets sport more goods than good ol' Fatako. As a functionaire (important person, teachers, elders, government officials), I got to sit at the side of the stage with all the other administrators, and it felt cool to be part of the process.
Tabaski also involved a concert with a native son of Fatako who is now a major player in the Guinean music scene (Seku Bah Fatako) who came back to throw a concert in his home town. Living here, it is hard not to start loving African music. I already love three or four W.African singers (Akon excluded), especially Amadou&Mariam from Mali, Tikan from Guinea, and an Ivorian singer whose name escapes me at the moment...but they are all fantastic.
What else has changed? Oh, I've become and expert in Sanakuyagol. I shall explain. In the Ghanian empire (err, it might have been the Malian one, I'm already forgetting my history lessons) the King would call together the leaders of the Noble Families from all over the empire to help craft policy and make decisions. Legend has it that the tension between the families at these meetings were so high that no one would say anything for fear of giving offense or starting a feud. So, the king paired off all the noble families-- Diallos with Baldes, Baris with Sows, etc...--and gave each pair a carte blanche to insult the other family without fear of reprisals in order to get everyone laughing and lower the tension. This tradition endures to this day....If a Diallo meets a Balde for the first time or the hundredth time, he or she can and does immediately begin ridiculing the other person's family and character using whatever comes to mind. The classics include calling them liars, thief’s, sorcerers, or slaves, telling them their ancestors were cattle thieves, or comparing them and their relatives to various farm animals. How clever one is in mixing classic insults or making up new ones can win you serious points with Guineans...They never never never get tired of this Sanakuyagol game ever. The Americans have brought our renowned creativity to the table. I am a Diallo so my go-to insults include; Baldes eat babies during Ramadan, Baldes make great slaves but they steal so you have to watch them all the time and I don't have to worry about Baldes because evolution is taking care of the problem for me. I can usually guarantee to have the cafe rolling when I break out the Baldes eat babies during Ramadan...its a winner. So if you see any Baldes in the US, watch your pockets and your children, and tell him I said his ancestors were bandits and if he comes to visit I will make him sleep with the livestock. I have tried to explain to Guineans that I will be shot when I go home talking like this, but I am not sure they understand.
The point of that long explanation was to say that I am getting more and more comfortable with Guineans in general. Comfortable is the wrong word. I am slowly beginning to reset 'normal' when it comes to social interaction. Sometimes I have trouble imagining how Americans would react in a certain situation because I can not shake my Guinean mannerisms. I can give you some simple examples, but most of what I mean is not this easily identifiable; All Guineans hold hands all the time, men and men, men and women, women and women, doesn't matter. If a man is talking to me, there is a ninety percent chance we are holding hands. That took about a month to get used to, but now its not uncommon for a Peace Corps guy to grab another peace corps guy's hand if he is trying to make a joke, or a serious point in a conversation. Or, Guineans love long speeches that would seem absurdly obsequious to Americans. Thanking people profusely, especially older people, now seems very normal to me although some part of my brain still realizes that the thank-you speeches I make after taking tea at someone’s house would probably seem weird in America. These are simple things that I can easily identify as different, but I am sure that my more subtle mannerisms have already changed enough that you would all notice if I came back to the states tomorrow. However, this is a sign, and a confirmation for me, that this is becoming my home. 27 months no longer seems like an insurmountable obstacle. Alright, that was a long one. I am going to go in search of some food. Merry Christmas to all, and a happy new year!
I hope you had a great holiday, safe travels back home.
love,Con
Friday, December 26, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Family and freinds! Its just after midnight Guinean time and I am in the computer room of the Conakry compound trying to follow the news. Rumours abound. International news services are predicting the worst, despite almost complete calm on the streets at the moment. Tanks and military checkpoints are currently set up all over Conakry, but the guns are quiet. State radio just announced the list of mutineers, but it is unclear if the mutineers command the support of the entire army, or merely a faction. Today the Coup dÉtat leaders announced the dissolution of the government, but that statement was immiedietley contradicted by the leader of the supposed civillian governement who claimed that the coup leaders were in the minority. This does not bode well. Despite other Peace Corps programs surviving military Coups in-country (recentley Mauratainia), the rumors and preperations for the worst succeed in charging the atmosphere. Guineans are by nature incredibly peaceful; despite three civil wars in neighboring countries and the associated refugee influx (Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Cote DÍvoire), 50 years of dissapointed hopes post independance, abundant resources, and stark ethnic divisions (three major ethnic groups and dozens of minor ones), Guinea has managed to avoid the type of brutak civil war that ravaged many of their nieghbors. Protestors in neighboring countries have chanted "we are not guineans"outside the parlimentary complex's of their leaders, implying that they will not submit passivley to years of authoratarian rule as the Guineans have done. However, a quick look at transparancey international ( ), or any other development indicators will tell you that the vast majority of Guineans remain in extreme poverty. I will refrain from talking more politics on the blog, but suffice it to say, enough is enough, and Guinea will not slumber forever. I sincerley hope Guinea will avoid bloodshed, and the coup leaders will smoothly transfer power to a civillian governement, but I am not going to hold my breath. We will see...
I am in no way nervous for my own saftey, but, I am worried about Peace Corps and about Guinea. Though i'd really like to wriet a real blog entry, I am too pre-occupied with the news. A demain...(tomorrow!)
Con
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7797629.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/world/africa/24guinea.html?_r=1
I am in no way nervous for my own saftey, but, I am worried about Peace Corps and about Guinea. Though i'd really like to wriet a real blog entry, I am too pre-occupied with the news. A demain...(tomorrow!)
Con
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7797629.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/world/africa/24guinea.html?_r=1
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Conte's death; military coup
Quick news alert
Last night Guinea's President Lansana Conte died after a beign in ill health for many years. This morning, as expected, the military staged a coup and has taken power. The BBC has the best coverage of all the major international news carriers, and you should all go there for more information. I'm unsure what I am allowed to put on the blog, so I just wanted to let everyone know I am safe. We are confined to the compound in Conakry for the moment, which is really not a bad place to be holed up. The details are scare even in country, but this could be buisness as usual or it could be a disaster...it depends on how unified the army is behind the coup. My phone is on and charged, so if you give me a call I can get you some more details. But everyone should know i'm safe, and even if Conakry did get violent the Peace Corps/embassy wil make make sure we are all taken care of.
I will post a real entry tonight or tomorrow!
Con
Last night Guinea's President Lansana Conte died after a beign in ill health for many years. This morning, as expected, the military staged a coup and has taken power. The BBC has the best coverage of all the major international news carriers, and you should all go there for more information. I'm unsure what I am allowed to put on the blog, so I just wanted to let everyone know I am safe. We are confined to the compound in Conakry for the moment, which is really not a bad place to be holed up. The details are scare even in country, but this could be buisness as usual or it could be a disaster...it depends on how unified the army is behind the coup. My phone is on and charged, so if you give me a call I can get you some more details. But everyone should know i'm safe, and even if Conakry did get violent the Peace Corps/embassy wil make make sure we are all taken care of.
I will post a real entry tonight or tomorrow!
Con
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
hey hey hey. Its killer to think you are all enroute to family and friends, opening up bottles of wine, and getting reaady to mange a turkey..... Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday and spending it so far away from my family makes me miss the land of the free somethin' fierce. I trully hope everyone arrives safe and sound and spends some quality time with their families. I, along with the thirteen or so volunteers in my region, have met in Labe to speak a little english and share some American love. The Peace Corps sends a Turkey to each regional capital so the volunteers can get a taste of home (and protein for the first time in months). Everyone is theoretically cooking something; though I think I strategically landed the 'opening beers for the two real chefs' position- obviously crucial to operation Thanksgiving in Guinea's success. Uncle Pat, Aunt Linda, wor on the Guinean street is that your Throwing Down for Godfrey Thanksgiving....obviously a strong choice, I have no doubt it will go off in fine form....bless the Pecan pie in my name. Oh man. Thats enough talk about Pecan pie, I'n liable to break down and weep on the floor of this internet Cafe.
This month has been rough...not for any reasons in particular, but ive been generally down. Some of it is not having enough to do, some of it is missing home, a little was getting sick, but i think most of it was just readching the point in any long undertaking where the newness is gone and you need to find new sources of energy and inspiration. I have complete confidence that I will find them both. School is now in full swing, and I should warn you, the first day of class I wrote the names of all my family and friends on the chualkboard and let everyone pick and American Name. Execpt for one kid who walked in forty minutes late....whom I christened Anoop. I have about sixtyish students, so pretty much everyopne is represented. So far my superstars are Uncle Mark, Amy, Madeleine, Scott, Taylor, and Christine. I am completley corruptible, care packaegs will give serious boosts to the grades of your Tokara(namesake). So when your having a bad day, remember that African school children are butchering your names in adorable ways a few thousand miles away.
Teaching class is one of my favorite parts of Guinea...I teach two sections of 11th and 12th graders three times a week. Class is a trip...the difference between strong and weak students is vast, I mean really really vast. I may have spoken about this before, but lag is mostly due to French. The kids who mastered French as wee ones having been gaining in scholastic confidence for twelve years while the students who never mastered french are timid, and have no confidence whatsoever. Everyyear this process compounds itself so that the french speakers get more and more posativereinforcement, suceed in their classes, and push their expectations higher and higher, while the other suffer the reverse. Anyway, its difficult to challenge the advanced students while not drowning the others. In terms of discipline, I have zero problems. In fact, my kids are too polite. I would gladly trade a little pagaille(no translation but the best word ever, it means to run amok, chaos) for a little more confident participation. I suppose I do fit all their power stereotypes; male, white, comparativley wealthy; but whatever the reason, from what ive heard, my friends in teach for America have a much harder job in terms of class room discipline. I'm sure my colleuages here would chalk that up to American teachers inability to hit the kids
Ive spent a little time-not nearly as much as I should or want to-trying to master Puular. Learning a language is brutal workm especially for someone like me who does not have a knack for it. It sounds so romantic when your thinking about it....learning an african language in Africa, integrating, slowly gaining confidence until I can truly be myself in a new language. Ehhhh, not so much. Success are small and failures constant. Its tempting to just stick with French and forget abut Puular, but then I'd belimited to talking to men between 15 and 40- the only demographic that speaks french. (with obviouis exception)
Ok, I am coming back tomorrow or Friday for sure, but my hour is up. In labe I have phone service 24 7. Call me! I wish everyone the happiest thanksgiving. To my own fam-I miss you like crazy!!!
love,
Con
This month has been rough...not for any reasons in particular, but ive been generally down. Some of it is not having enough to do, some of it is missing home, a little was getting sick, but i think most of it was just readching the point in any long undertaking where the newness is gone and you need to find new sources of energy and inspiration. I have complete confidence that I will find them both. School is now in full swing, and I should warn you, the first day of class I wrote the names of all my family and friends on the chualkboard and let everyone pick and American Name. Execpt for one kid who walked in forty minutes late....whom I christened Anoop. I have about sixtyish students, so pretty much everyopne is represented. So far my superstars are Uncle Mark, Amy, Madeleine, Scott, Taylor, and Christine. I am completley corruptible, care packaegs will give serious boosts to the grades of your Tokara(namesake). So when your having a bad day, remember that African school children are butchering your names in adorable ways a few thousand miles away.
Teaching class is one of my favorite parts of Guinea...I teach two sections of 11th and 12th graders three times a week. Class is a trip...the difference between strong and weak students is vast, I mean really really vast. I may have spoken about this before, but lag is mostly due to French. The kids who mastered French as wee ones having been gaining in scholastic confidence for twelve years while the students who never mastered french are timid, and have no confidence whatsoever. Everyyear this process compounds itself so that the french speakers get more and more posativereinforcement, suceed in their classes, and push their expectations higher and higher, while the other suffer the reverse. Anyway, its difficult to challenge the advanced students while not drowning the others. In terms of discipline, I have zero problems. In fact, my kids are too polite. I would gladly trade a little pagaille(no translation but the best word ever, it means to run amok, chaos) for a little more confident participation. I suppose I do fit all their power stereotypes; male, white, comparativley wealthy; but whatever the reason, from what ive heard, my friends in teach for America have a much harder job in terms of class room discipline. I'm sure my colleuages here would chalk that up to American teachers inability to hit the kids
Ive spent a little time-not nearly as much as I should or want to-trying to master Puular. Learning a language is brutal workm especially for someone like me who does not have a knack for it. It sounds so romantic when your thinking about it....learning an african language in Africa, integrating, slowly gaining confidence until I can truly be myself in a new language. Ehhhh, not so much. Success are small and failures constant. Its tempting to just stick with French and forget abut Puular, but then I'd belimited to talking to men between 15 and 40- the only demographic that speaks french. (with obviouis exception)
Ok, I am coming back tomorrow or Friday for sure, but my hour is up. In labe I have phone service 24 7. Call me! I wish everyone the happiest thanksgiving. To my own fam-I miss you like crazy!!!
love,
Con
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Well hello there. I would like to start by talking about how I ended up in front of this piece of new fangled technology.... so with no cell service the fastest way to send notes is to grab a petite (anyone younger than you), and commission them to run your note for you....distance is immaterial. This method also works for having your water carried, your house swept, your porch built, tracking down ingreidients, killing scorpions, fighting sorcieres, or anything else someone so dignified as myself does not want to do. Sorry back to my story...so a series of miscommunications/failed deliveries later, I ended up missing the taxi that my freinds were taking to Labe for our Fouta Hallozeen party. After feeling sorry for myself for a few hours, I ;ade myself delicious french toast for dinner, and decided I would man up on the morrow and do it on my bike. So Yesterday morning I woke up at 5am, along with my close personal friends the mice in my ceiling, the lizard who lives on my floor, and the Muzzien who serenades the community everymorning with an Allah hu'Akbar so loud it puts sorority girls singing Journey to shame, threw African music on the IPOD, and rocked out 67km on my bike over brutal terrain. Some parts of the trip were unreal. I go to watch Africa wake up, riding over gorgeous mountains, fording rivers up to midthigh, and getting horrible directions from nene's (Mothers) on the side of the road. With 30km left to go, in the middle of nowhere, the clasp that holds the handlebars to the bike snapped off, which made the last 30k horrendous. But I made it- rolled into the PC office looking like i'd been through a war, and got a heroes welcome from the lesser mortals who took the taxi .
Since I last posted, I have been installed in my site, spent the first month on my own, started teaching, and life has been full of extremes. I'd like to start with some tragic news. Three weeks ago my 4 year old host brother, Mohamed Dioubate, died of Malaria. I've put up some pictures of him on the left. He was an animated, engaging , adorable kid who had no buisness dying of a diease as preventable as Malaria. Now that I think about it...I can't think of a Guinean family that I know reasonably well who has not lost at leat one child...and they, like Mohamed's mother, soldier on admirably. My last memory of Mohamed is on the day of our departure ceramony...his mom had bought him a new Boubou for the ceramony and he loved it...he became too cool to talk to anyone, and proceeded to parade around the neighborbooh showing off his new clothes, it was adorable. 5 dollar mosquito nets shouldn't stand between kids like Mohamed and a full like...its ridiculous.
On a happier note, life at site is slowly settling into a rythm. But, to be honest, its not easy. Life is so different. Its harrder than I though to force myself out of the house and and into the community. The tempation to bury yourself in a book, and avoid everyone is overwhelming sometimes. Its hard to explain, because everytime I leave the house good things happen. I'm invited to meals, I meet new people, I joke around with my students, people want me to come meet their families, i hang out with my CRD and his 4 wives and 30 children, or I take a great walk or bike trip into the bush. Yet still, even knowing that, living in a fishbowl is hard...people have little patience with your Puular, you never know who is genuine and who is trying to take advantage of you, who is dangerous and who's not. Everyone is observing you all the time, and comparing you to all seven of the other Americans they've ever met...it slowly wears down your reserves.
However, on the flip side, I have had tons of near perfect moments. Sitting under a tree drinking tea with the old guys who play checkers, talking to the otehr teachers about anything and everything, making a few genuine freinds amoung the older students, and slowly getting a feel for the rythm of life in my village. My house is awesome, I would put up pictures, but they take forever to load and I only have 20 more minutes. Its got three 3 small rooms, and an indoor latrine. The Latrine is one of the creepiest places on earth, but I guess you can't haev it all. Its this long tunnel into a dark low ceilinged chamber filled with cockroaches wating to jump you when your pants are around your ankles. The meflequin (malaria meds) have now built up enough in my system that the dreams, combined with creepy images from the latrine, have started to get too intense. Two weeks ago I dreampt that someone was locking my in a dark low ceilnged cha;ber with cockroaches and I was screaming only to wake up and find that I was on the outside of my mosauito net, screaming, trying to get back inside. I have heard variants of that same dream from several other volunteers. Sorry, i got sidetracked.
My health is back on track, im working out a lot, my allergies are under control, and unlike many of my freinds, I have yet to spend a night 'exploding out of both ends'...in fact, that phrase/experience is so common I think its pretty much a required element of all PC stories. You never know where its going to enter the story, but enter it will. It might start out..."so there I was, in the bush taxi on the way to conakry, exloding out of both ends. " Or the storyteller will mislead you, and start his story with, "so there I was, chatting up this missionaries daughter and Labe.......where I went to the bathroom, and started exploding out of both ends." ITs always there somewhere.
In the kitchen, my reportoire expands everyday....notable success include awesome Guava bannana Jam, pot stickers with sweet potato filling, and all manners of breakfast goodies. Failures include...well, everything else. Merci a Dieu my neighbors have arrived and can feed me from time to time....im starting to love rice and sauce.
Im now rushing like crazy because I have 8 minutes left, so I want to slip in some thank yous. First credit where credit is due...Mama and Papa Godfrey are second to none when it comes to care packages. Were talking smoked saucage, soups, spices, back issues of the economist and foriegn affairs, cookies....its out of control. If you see them....give them a huge hug for me. I have also recieved wonderful packages from other family and friends, and they are all truly appreicated.
I will try to get on again tomorrow, but there might not be time. I am thinking about all of you, and missing home remains the single hardest part about being in Guinea. Please call me on sundays from 11 to 1 EST, I will be in my service tree anxiously awaiting your calls. For those who are inclined, please say a prayer for Mohamed Dioubate, or keep him in your thoughts.
much love to all,
Conor
Since I last posted, I have been installed in my site, spent the first month on my own, started teaching, and life has been full of extremes. I'd like to start with some tragic news. Three weeks ago my 4 year old host brother, Mohamed Dioubate, died of Malaria. I've put up some pictures of him on the left. He was an animated, engaging , adorable kid who had no buisness dying of a diease as preventable as Malaria. Now that I think about it...I can't think of a Guinean family that I know reasonably well who has not lost at leat one child...and they, like Mohamed's mother, soldier on admirably. My last memory of Mohamed is on the day of our departure ceramony...his mom had bought him a new Boubou for the ceramony and he loved it...he became too cool to talk to anyone, and proceeded to parade around the neighborbooh showing off his new clothes, it was adorable. 5 dollar mosquito nets shouldn't stand between kids like Mohamed and a full like...its ridiculous.
On a happier note, life at site is slowly settling into a rythm. But, to be honest, its not easy. Life is so different. Its harrder than I though to force myself out of the house and and into the community. The tempation to bury yourself in a book, and avoid everyone is overwhelming sometimes. Its hard to explain, because everytime I leave the house good things happen. I'm invited to meals, I meet new people, I joke around with my students, people want me to come meet their families, i hang out with my CRD and his 4 wives and 30 children, or I take a great walk or bike trip into the bush. Yet still, even knowing that, living in a fishbowl is hard...people have little patience with your Puular, you never know who is genuine and who is trying to take advantage of you, who is dangerous and who's not. Everyone is observing you all the time, and comparing you to all seven of the other Americans they've ever met...it slowly wears down your reserves.
However, on the flip side, I have had tons of near perfect moments. Sitting under a tree drinking tea with the old guys who play checkers, talking to the otehr teachers about anything and everything, making a few genuine freinds amoung the older students, and slowly getting a feel for the rythm of life in my village. My house is awesome, I would put up pictures, but they take forever to load and I only have 20 more minutes. Its got three 3 small rooms, and an indoor latrine. The Latrine is one of the creepiest places on earth, but I guess you can't haev it all. Its this long tunnel into a dark low ceilinged chamber filled with cockroaches wating to jump you when your pants are around your ankles. The meflequin (malaria meds) have now built up enough in my system that the dreams, combined with creepy images from the latrine, have started to get too intense. Two weeks ago I dreampt that someone was locking my in a dark low ceilnged cha;ber with cockroaches and I was screaming only to wake up and find that I was on the outside of my mosauito net, screaming, trying to get back inside. I have heard variants of that same dream from several other volunteers. Sorry, i got sidetracked.
My health is back on track, im working out a lot, my allergies are under control, and unlike many of my freinds, I have yet to spend a night 'exploding out of both ends'...in fact, that phrase/experience is so common I think its pretty much a required element of all PC stories. You never know where its going to enter the story, but enter it will. It might start out..."so there I was, in the bush taxi on the way to conakry, exloding out of both ends. " Or the storyteller will mislead you, and start his story with, "so there I was, chatting up this missionaries daughter and Labe.......where I went to the bathroom, and started exploding out of both ends." ITs always there somewhere.
In the kitchen, my reportoire expands everyday....notable success include awesome Guava bannana Jam, pot stickers with sweet potato filling, and all manners of breakfast goodies. Failures include...well, everything else. Merci a Dieu my neighbors have arrived and can feed me from time to time....im starting to love rice and sauce.
Im now rushing like crazy because I have 8 minutes left, so I want to slip in some thank yous. First credit where credit is due...Mama and Papa Godfrey are second to none when it comes to care packages. Were talking smoked saucage, soups, spices, back issues of the economist and foriegn affairs, cookies....its out of control. If you see them....give them a huge hug for me. I have also recieved wonderful packages from other family and friends, and they are all truly appreicated.
I will try to get on again tomorrow, but there might not be time. I am thinking about all of you, and missing home remains the single hardest part about being in Guinea. Please call me on sundays from 11 to 1 EST, I will be in my service tree anxiously awaiting your calls. For those who are inclined, please say a prayer for Mohamed Dioubate, or keep him in your thoughts.
much love to all,
Conor
Monday, October 6, 2008
Conor's Office Hours | 11-2pm EST every Sunday
Conor has been officially sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer and is now in Fatako his permanent assignment. For those interested Fatako is near Labe a regional capital. He has asked me to post his "office hours". To receive a phone call he must climb a hill and then climb a tree (not kidding). He will be in his tree every Sunday from 11-2pm Eastern Standard Time. If you call and its busy keep trying as it can take some time to get through. As a reminder his phone number is 011 224 665 43719. This of course if your dialing from the states. For those that want to call I suggest you download skype to your laptop/PC. IT is only .18/minute to call him this way. Go to http://www.skype.com/ and follow download instruction.
He is doing great. He is healthy and content. His home is a three room concrete duplex. While without running water or electricity he has a bedroom, kitchen, living area and indoor latrine. His biggest challenge is he doesn't know how to cook- he will learn. School starts on Oct 15th so he is preparing for this while learning Pular the local language-which he says is rough going. The village has one generator but is has a 'movie club'. Every now and then the guy who owns the generator hosts movies for the village-and will charge cell phones. Conor of course has joined the club.
Anyway he would love to hear from you during his office hours.
Conor's web lackey- his pops.
He is doing great. He is healthy and content. His home is a three room concrete duplex. While without running water or electricity he has a bedroom, kitchen, living area and indoor latrine. His biggest challenge is he doesn't know how to cook- he will learn. School starts on Oct 15th so he is preparing for this while learning Pular the local language-which he says is rough going. The village has one generator but is has a 'movie club'. Every now and then the guy who owns the generator hosts movies for the village-and will charge cell phones. Conor of course has joined the club.
Anyway he would love to hear from you during his office hours.
Conor's web lackey- his pops.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Affectation!
I'm back. I shall start with some physcial stats. For those of you who thought that I did not have any weight to lose, you were, well correct, but I went ahead and lost some anyway. I have dropped 15 lbs in the last 2 months to my true fighting weight of 169 lbs...they should come up with a new wight loss plan to put on the front of cosmo......"20 pounds in 2 weeks! Come to Guinea" Or they could just call it "completely stop eating anything but rice" I have heat rash covering most of the areas of my body covered by clothes and some that aren't. My feet, previously pretty darn gross, have reached new levels of disgustingness, and my hair cuts have left something to be desired. Ladies look out...I'm pretty damn irresistable. However, this scrawny poorly groomed rash covered white dude is doing pretty well. Over the last two months I have been in training in a town called Forecariah in lower Guinea "Bas Cote". There we lived with host families, and went to school 8-5 for language, technical, and cross culture sessions. Summing it up here would be difficult...but in general it was a great experience. Living with my host family was truly amazing. Today I said goodbye to my family at our departure ceramony and I was genuinley sad...they truly made me a part of their family. Yesterday my mother, through my brother's translation, gave me a beautiful speech about how she will always think of me as her son, and how she admires my character, and is sure I will succeed at my site. This was very powerful for me just because the language barrier prevents us from ever exchanging more than salutations in a lanugauge I don't understand. They were truly a great family.
Part of training was going through three weeks of "practice school"....the PC pays for Guinean sumer school and it doubles as our practice school. So for three weeks we planned and taught lessons to classes that ranged from 20-40 students (nothing like the 80-150 we will have at site). This was tiring and labor intensive, but extrememly enlightning. I'm great in front of the students and control the class very well, but am a complete organizational disaster and don't know a thing about english grammar. All my freinds, family, and previous teachers probally could have told me all this without coming to Africa. But..alas, thats the point of the practice school I suppose. It was confidence building and shaming in equal measure and I feel much more prepared to start teaching.
Ok this entry is boring, and Guinea is not boring. Let me see if I can go better. Lets talk about Ramadan, or as my non-eating masicistic but loving and nurturing guinean family would call it...le mois de Carame. The rules are as follows; you can only eat, drink, or swallow your spit when the sun is completely down. So, if you are a good muslim, you wake up at 415 in order to shovel down a huge bowl of rice and fish sauce, and then you daydream the day away and pretend your not hungry enough to jump a four year old for the bread their brining back to their mother. When the sun goes down-- 715ish-- you drink some tea, eat some rice, go to mosque, come back and eat some more rice, and then chill outside on mats looking at stars, salueing neighbors, and generally loving the fact that you dont feel like your stomach is eating itself.
So you may be curious how I participated in this wonderful month. Here's how it went down. One volunteer (Joe) thought about fasting/maybe told his family he was thinking about fasting/had a dream about it...i don't even know. Then, his host family, told another host family that Joe hadn't eaten for like three days and he was pretty much the best Muslim ever. Than that host family told their own volunteer that Joe hadn't eaten for weeks and that they should be a good Muslim like Joe. So the web of lies spread and spread and spread with the host famlies loving every second of it until almost all the volunteers had given fasting the old college try.
Its freaking hard. Going without food is rough, but going without any liquid all day is the killer. As for swallowing your own spit...i'm not convinced anyone follows that one. I fasted every friday as a gesture of solidarity and dreaded it every thursday evening. One time I went to mosque at 5 in the morning with the fam after destroying a bowl of rice and sauce and everytime I bent down to pray I was sure I was going to vomit on every person within a six foot radius. Only by trying to come up with a speech in french about how sorry I was that I vomited all over prayer service was I able to take my mind of my nausea and avoid vomiting.
Overall, I am becoming more and more comfortable with Guineans. It is so easy to get Guineans to like and respect you. You do not have to be smart, ultra capable, good looking, or have any other attribute that is somewhat beyond your control....all you have to do is be open and freindly and saluer everyone you meet. Ask about their days, their familes, their children, their jobs, it doesn't matter. You an have the same convo with the same person 5 or 6 times a day and that's completely ok. As many of you know....this is a skill I happen to have in spades. I swear I saluer my freind Luke's dad like 10 times a day, with almost the same conversation, and he thinks Mamadi Diobate is the sweetest cat around.
At first, you get frustrated because its hard to ignore the negative consequences of placing so much cultural emphasis on friendliness and hospitality; you can take bribes, mistreat your wife/daughter etc, or engage in all sorts of corruption, but still be treated with much respect if your hospitable and a grade-A Saluerer. One could make similar crituqes of some American values. We value intelligence, specific skills, physcial prowess, ambition etc... and people that do not count these amoung their primary assets are hamstrung from the getgo. While this set of values certainly pushes our society forward in many ways, it also ensures that many peolpe will never have a chance to participate in American sucess. Guinean social values certainly do not promote efficiency, but they do give the vast majority of people a chance to be respected by their peers.
These are of course gross simplifications...and I am merely using them to demostrate that the characteristics a cluture values (are you born with them or do you develop them, can everyone have them or only a few, do they promote social happiness, efficiency, both, something else?) seriously affect a socities trajectory and how people achieve happiness and success. Tons of other social forces interact with this simplistic model and make it almost useless, but I hope it is somewhat helpful to see how Guinean values, though an athema to American emphais on efficiency, achieving objectives, and being the Smartest, fastest, strongest, etc....might be liberating in some ways for some people.
Tomorrow we affecte! Swear in! I don't actually know how to translate that word...but regardless were going to the U.S. embassy to take our oath, chill in the AC, rock our African clothes, and rub shoulders with some of the Guinean Ministers. I will be giving a speech at the ceramony in French and I'm a little worried, but I think it will be fine. I'm more worried about forgetting to thank the huge list of invitees in the right order and causing a scandal (thanking people from the top rank down is a huge deal....you can't mess it up) . Afterward we have an american style bbq at the Peace Corps directors house to celebrate, and then on Sunday or Monday were off to our sites! Today I went to the bank in the Capital, Conakry, and withdres my move-in allowance and my living allowance for the first three months. I took out 4,000,000 Guinean Francs in 5 thou notes! It was like a movie...huge bricks of bills that I and everyone else stuffed in duffel bags. To give you some reference pts for how far money goes here...a 50k sack of rice that will feed a family of 6 for a hair less than a month goes for 55 american dollars or about 225 gf depending on the daily exchange. A loaf of bread is 1.5 thousand G.F. An egg is 800. A beer or an hr at the internetcafe is 5000. A nice dinner at a resturaunt in Conakry would run you 120,000 gf. Food in W. Africa and all over Asia is absurdly expensive right now and seriously hurts families.....the government doesn't subsadize rice costs they just forbid selling it above a certain price....i'll let my economist freinds figure out how that will work out. Anyway. the point of this story was that I have a duffel full of cash and I'm looking for a party.
Ugh, I'm finding it frustrating to write this because I get the internet so seldom that there is too much to cover in the 45 minutes i'm allotted before i have to give up the computer. I have recieved wonderful letters and care packages from a wide range of family and freinds and each one has made me extemely happy. I have been able to sneek a few letters home with freinds that were going back to the states, and more are on their way more and more of the older volunteers leave for the U.S. But, I want to thank each and everyone of you for your calls and letters...they're perfect. Oh, for those of you who are on skype...bien fait. Everyone should get on! Its dirt cheap and absurdly easy to set up! My phone number is one of these posts.
Much love to everyone. I hope to speak with you soon!
Much love to everyone. For those
Part of training was going through three weeks of "practice school"....the PC pays for Guinean sumer school and it doubles as our practice school. So for three weeks we planned and taught lessons to classes that ranged from 20-40 students (nothing like the 80-150 we will have at site). This was tiring and labor intensive, but extrememly enlightning. I'm great in front of the students and control the class very well, but am a complete organizational disaster and don't know a thing about english grammar. All my freinds, family, and previous teachers probally could have told me all this without coming to Africa. But..alas, thats the point of the practice school I suppose. It was confidence building and shaming in equal measure and I feel much more prepared to start teaching.
Ok this entry is boring, and Guinea is not boring. Let me see if I can go better. Lets talk about Ramadan, or as my non-eating masicistic but loving and nurturing guinean family would call it...le mois de Carame. The rules are as follows; you can only eat, drink, or swallow your spit when the sun is completely down. So, if you are a good muslim, you wake up at 415 in order to shovel down a huge bowl of rice and fish sauce, and then you daydream the day away and pretend your not hungry enough to jump a four year old for the bread their brining back to their mother. When the sun goes down-- 715ish-- you drink some tea, eat some rice, go to mosque, come back and eat some more rice, and then chill outside on mats looking at stars, salueing neighbors, and generally loving the fact that you dont feel like your stomach is eating itself.
So you may be curious how I participated in this wonderful month. Here's how it went down. One volunteer (Joe) thought about fasting/maybe told his family he was thinking about fasting/had a dream about it...i don't even know. Then, his host family, told another host family that Joe hadn't eaten for like three days and he was pretty much the best Muslim ever. Than that host family told their own volunteer that Joe hadn't eaten for weeks and that they should be a good Muslim like Joe. So the web of lies spread and spread and spread with the host famlies loving every second of it until almost all the volunteers had given fasting the old college try.
Its freaking hard. Going without food is rough, but going without any liquid all day is the killer. As for swallowing your own spit...i'm not convinced anyone follows that one. I fasted every friday as a gesture of solidarity and dreaded it every thursday evening. One time I went to mosque at 5 in the morning with the fam after destroying a bowl of rice and sauce and everytime I bent down to pray I was sure I was going to vomit on every person within a six foot radius. Only by trying to come up with a speech in french about how sorry I was that I vomited all over prayer service was I able to take my mind of my nausea and avoid vomiting.
Overall, I am becoming more and more comfortable with Guineans. It is so easy to get Guineans to like and respect you. You do not have to be smart, ultra capable, good looking, or have any other attribute that is somewhat beyond your control....all you have to do is be open and freindly and saluer everyone you meet. Ask about their days, their familes, their children, their jobs, it doesn't matter. You an have the same convo with the same person 5 or 6 times a day and that's completely ok. As many of you know....this is a skill I happen to have in spades. I swear I saluer my freind Luke's dad like 10 times a day, with almost the same conversation, and he thinks Mamadi Diobate is the sweetest cat around.
At first, you get frustrated because its hard to ignore the negative consequences of placing so much cultural emphasis on friendliness and hospitality; you can take bribes, mistreat your wife/daughter etc, or engage in all sorts of corruption, but still be treated with much respect if your hospitable and a grade-A Saluerer. One could make similar crituqes of some American values. We value intelligence, specific skills, physcial prowess, ambition etc... and people that do not count these amoung their primary assets are hamstrung from the getgo. While this set of values certainly pushes our society forward in many ways, it also ensures that many peolpe will never have a chance to participate in American sucess. Guinean social values certainly do not promote efficiency, but they do give the vast majority of people a chance to be respected by their peers.
These are of course gross simplifications...and I am merely using them to demostrate that the characteristics a cluture values (are you born with them or do you develop them, can everyone have them or only a few, do they promote social happiness, efficiency, both, something else?) seriously affect a socities trajectory and how people achieve happiness and success. Tons of other social forces interact with this simplistic model and make it almost useless, but I hope it is somewhat helpful to see how Guinean values, though an athema to American emphais on efficiency, achieving objectives, and being the Smartest, fastest, strongest, etc....might be liberating in some ways for some people.
Tomorrow we affecte! Swear in! I don't actually know how to translate that word...but regardless were going to the U.S. embassy to take our oath, chill in the AC, rock our African clothes, and rub shoulders with some of the Guinean Ministers. I will be giving a speech at the ceramony in French and I'm a little worried, but I think it will be fine. I'm more worried about forgetting to thank the huge list of invitees in the right order and causing a scandal (thanking people from the top rank down is a huge deal....you can't mess it up) . Afterward we have an american style bbq at the Peace Corps directors house to celebrate, and then on Sunday or Monday were off to our sites! Today I went to the bank in the Capital, Conakry, and withdres my move-in allowance and my living allowance for the first three months. I took out 4,000,000 Guinean Francs in 5 thou notes! It was like a movie...huge bricks of bills that I and everyone else stuffed in duffel bags. To give you some reference pts for how far money goes here...a 50k sack of rice that will feed a family of 6 for a hair less than a month goes for 55 american dollars or about 225 gf depending on the daily exchange. A loaf of bread is 1.5 thousand G.F. An egg is 800. A beer or an hr at the internetcafe is 5000. A nice dinner at a resturaunt in Conakry would run you 120,000 gf. Food in W. Africa and all over Asia is absurdly expensive right now and seriously hurts families.....the government doesn't subsadize rice costs they just forbid selling it above a certain price....i'll let my economist freinds figure out how that will work out. Anyway. the point of this story was that I have a duffel full of cash and I'm looking for a party.
Ugh, I'm finding it frustrating to write this because I get the internet so seldom that there is too much to cover in the 45 minutes i'm allotted before i have to give up the computer. I have recieved wonderful letters and care packages from a wide range of family and freinds and each one has made me extemely happy. I have been able to sneek a few letters home with freinds that were going back to the states, and more are on their way more and more of the older volunteers leave for the U.S. But, I want to thank each and everyone of you for your calls and letters...they're perfect. Oh, for those of you who are on skype...bien fait. Everyone should get on! Its dirt cheap and absurdly easy to set up! My phone number is one of these posts.
Much love to everyone. I hope to speak with you soon!
Much love to everyone. For those
Monday, August 18, 2008
On Jarama
Hey! This is Mamadi Diobate checking in from Labe (regional capital of the Fouta Jallon). Internet access has been completeley unavailable for the last month so i am sorry i havent been able to post in so long....but, c'est la Guinea, n'est pas? So so much stuff has happened in the last month i have decided to start free associating starting right now so I dont overthink it...in the last month I have been given my Guinean name Mamadi Diobate(africanized Mohamad), I have danced in Guinean night clubs where some dude sat in the corner and flicked the light on and off for three hrs to create a strobe affect, had my name and occupation announced over the loud speaker at that same night club, followed my grown men searching out the white dude in the club and hugging me. I have eaten no less than 1,000 bowls of rice and assorted sauces, learned how to say 'god willing' or 'thanks be to god' in at least 7 languages, been prostylatized by 'my muslim brothers from the Gambia', killed a snake with my host brothers that got inside our house, travelled on the worst roads mankind has ever seen, learned how to ask after peoples families in 4 languages, been called Fote (white person) by thousands of small susu children, sampled the assorted, and all bad, beers that Guinea has to offer, done socially unaccaptable things to a pizza we found being sold in Labe, cursed loudly at Guinean Basketball players in English so they could not understand me, got my soccer skills up to a new level, made a disastrous but still awesome breakfast for my host family, found myself being grilled by a guinean 22 yr old about how much porn americans watch, been through the craziest lightning storm I have ever seen, learned that I live in a region inhabited by black mambas (3 meter snakes that kill you in 20 minutes if they bite you), ate the most delicious pineapple on this side of the afterlife, lied outrageously about my age on a consistent basis, frolliced with my group in a gorgeous waterfall, smoked hookah on top of that same waterfall, missed my family and freinds intensley, and have had my tounge burned off on nunerous occasions by the piemont pepper that Susu's seem to think no dish is complete without.
A few things need a a little flushing out. My host family, the Dioubate's, are awesome. My mother, whom I call Na, my brothers Cidi'ki (18), Mamadi (23), and Mohamad (4), my sisters 'lily' (9), Bintu (20), and Jaqueline (25ish), are all fantastic. lil Mohamed is an adorable devil, and everyone else is patient and helpful to varying degrees. Everyone except my mother and the wee one speaks french, so communication is never a problem expect when my older brothers try and have a conversation with me about something complex when i'm really tired. For example, I have bombed one convo about sharia law, and another about excism (female circumsision), both of which are topics that I would love to talk about with my family but need a clear head and command of all my french to talk about with the verbal dexterity required to be both polite and well understood.
Right now I am on a trip up to the Fouta to see my future home! I am actually no allowed to put the name of the village on a blog, but I can tell you in personal emails or phone calls so you can look it up on a map. Yesterday a peace corps car(read: tank with unbreakable suspension) took me and some of my closest neighbors on a whirl wind tour of our future villages. At each village we met the local officials, 'salued' (said what up, hows the fam, and the work, and the children, and the day...), some of the older men and women, saw the school we will work at, and check out our house.
At my site I got to meet the CRD (i forget the French akry.), the only elected local official. He was 70 plus in a country where the life expectancy is somewhere in the 50's. He spoke no french, but I was able to have a french-puular conversation with the help of my driver cum translator cum cultural liason. I asked my translator to thank the man for his welcome, and his hospitality, and tell him I looked forward to living and working in the community. My awesome driver turned that 20 second welcome into a 4 minute address complete with all the embellishes and cultural nuances one must use when talking to very important people, and by the end of it the CRD loved me...it was that easy. I then presented him with a bag of kola nuts (kola nuts work kind if like flowers in the western world, but are perhaps a bit more ceramonial), and went inside to meet his family. The CRD than said a benidiction for me in Arabic which the driver said was a very good sign. Although I knew none of the responses, I allah-hu-akbar'd my way through and they loved it. It was an emotional welcome, and it got me pretty psyched to finish up training and start my life in the village.
I only have ten minutes left in this internet cafe, so I will try and close out. Everything that is hard about Guinea involves missing friends and family, and from time to time, being unable to be yourself because you do not have the words. My french is more than adequate for conversation, and even for some complicated discussions, but tackling emotional or controversial topics is often beyond me capability because I an scared that if I get backed into a whole I dont have the words to get out and save face with my host family or community. My point being that pit latrines and never ending rice and sauce and heat and 12 hrs of rain a day all take less than a month to get used to. Lonliness and feeling like a different person will likely persist in some form for my entire experience.
To those who have sent letters, I can not tell you how much it means to get a letter here. I love it. Truly, you become an instant celeberty to me when I see your name at the bottom of the letter....as soon as I get to Conakry, which si allah Jabi will be soon (god willing), I will get the return letters in the mail.
PHONE NUMBER: To call me, dial 011 224 66-54-37-19. I would love to talk to you! and you should call just to give me your phone number as well!
I miss everyone, and hope you and your families are happy and healthy. And for my own family, please tell my Cousin Beck that I love him very much and know that he is way too strong for anything to bring him down.
A few things need a a little flushing out. My host family, the Dioubate's, are awesome. My mother, whom I call Na, my brothers Cidi'ki (18), Mamadi (23), and Mohamad (4), my sisters 'lily' (9), Bintu (20), and Jaqueline (25ish), are all fantastic. lil Mohamed is an adorable devil, and everyone else is patient and helpful to varying degrees. Everyone except my mother and the wee one speaks french, so communication is never a problem expect when my older brothers try and have a conversation with me about something complex when i'm really tired. For example, I have bombed one convo about sharia law, and another about excism (female circumsision), both of which are topics that I would love to talk about with my family but need a clear head and command of all my french to talk about with the verbal dexterity required to be both polite and well understood.
Right now I am on a trip up to the Fouta to see my future home! I am actually no allowed to put the name of the village on a blog, but I can tell you in personal emails or phone calls so you can look it up on a map. Yesterday a peace corps car(read: tank with unbreakable suspension) took me and some of my closest neighbors on a whirl wind tour of our future villages. At each village we met the local officials, 'salued' (said what up, hows the fam, and the work, and the children, and the day...), some of the older men and women, saw the school we will work at, and check out our house.
At my site I got to meet the CRD (i forget the French akry.), the only elected local official. He was 70 plus in a country where the life expectancy is somewhere in the 50's. He spoke no french, but I was able to have a french-puular conversation with the help of my driver cum translator cum cultural liason. I asked my translator to thank the man for his welcome, and his hospitality, and tell him I looked forward to living and working in the community. My awesome driver turned that 20 second welcome into a 4 minute address complete with all the embellishes and cultural nuances one must use when talking to very important people, and by the end of it the CRD loved me...it was that easy. I then presented him with a bag of kola nuts (kola nuts work kind if like flowers in the western world, but are perhaps a bit more ceramonial), and went inside to meet his family. The CRD than said a benidiction for me in Arabic which the driver said was a very good sign. Although I knew none of the responses, I allah-hu-akbar'd my way through and they loved it. It was an emotional welcome, and it got me pretty psyched to finish up training and start my life in the village.
I only have ten minutes left in this internet cafe, so I will try and close out. Everything that is hard about Guinea involves missing friends and family, and from time to time, being unable to be yourself because you do not have the words. My french is more than adequate for conversation, and even for some complicated discussions, but tackling emotional or controversial topics is often beyond me capability because I an scared that if I get backed into a whole I dont have the words to get out and save face with my host family or community. My point being that pit latrines and never ending rice and sauce and heat and 12 hrs of rain a day all take less than a month to get used to. Lonliness and feeling like a different person will likely persist in some form for my entire experience.
To those who have sent letters, I can not tell you how much it means to get a letter here. I love it. Truly, you become an instant celeberty to me when I see your name at the bottom of the letter....as soon as I get to Conakry, which si allah Jabi will be soon (god willing), I will get the return letters in the mail.
PHONE NUMBER: To call me, dial 011 224 66-54-37-19. I would love to talk to you! and you should call just to give me your phone number as well!
I miss everyone, and hope you and your families are happy and healthy. And for my own family, please tell my Cousin Beck that I love him very much and know that he is way too strong for anything to bring him down.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
i kena,
That was good morning in Susu. My current vocabulary can also handle salutations, basic questions about work and living arragements, and how to ask whether or not a woman is married. Which, translated, means 'have you ever sat in the house of a man?'. However, if my conversation partner deviates from the script by one word, i am doneski. Today is our last day in the PC compound. TOmorrow we load up and drive south 45 k to Forecariah for the rest of our training. More importantly, tomorrow we get 'adopted' by our host famlies with whom we will live for the next three months. Oh boy. We have had a lot of cross-cultural training sessions to prepare us for the host-family expereince, but according to the other volunteers it is a trying, if essential understaking. All the host famlies must meet certain requirements and go through specific training in how to handle whack americans. These are the requirements as laid down by the Guinean host-family training staff; logistically, the host famlies must feed us breakfast and dinner everyday and there meals a day on the weekends, they must give us our own room with a door that locks, they must make a special meal (something other than rice and sauce) 2x a week, feed us meat 2x a week, and eggs 3x a week. Socially, they undergo some pretty intense training. This includes how to preapre some American food (spaghetti......on top of rice and sauce), how to use potable water for cooking and cleaning, how Americans like to be comforted, and some of the whacky things that Americans do that the host family should ignore or just laugh about behind closed doors. For example-- alone time. They don't get it. In Guinean culture everyoe hangs out toghether all day every day. If someone is stressed or depressed, than all the more reason for toghetherness. The trainers say that a common host family expereince includes a stressed and frustrated volunteer retiring to his/her room to decompress, not speak susu, or continually entertain a army of Guinean children, and the host mom recognizing the volunteers stress level. In order to cheer up her host son/daughter, the host mom organises and band of local children /family members and charges into the volunteers room to comfort them. This of course usally leads to the volunteer breaking down and balling on the spot and the host mother calling the PC trainer to say that Americans are crazy and she thinks she offended her volunteer.
Monsiuer Bari, one of my favorite trainers, is responsible for our cross-culture sessions. He is a forceful looking older Guinean man who seems to command serious respect from the other trainers. As a youngster, he got a scholarship to Study in Britain and stayed in a home-stay for several months. He remembers coming up to the front door and ringing the door bell, waiting for a few minutes, and then being greeted by the nuclear family. To him-- this was bizzare/impolite/quiet/scary. In Guinea, visitors are greeted by the community. Neighbors and extrended family members are always on hand to welcome visitors and each person tries to talk over the next.
On that note, I have to say a few things about our Guinean trainers. They are the best. In the beginning, a combination of the language barrier and ingrained strereotypes about Africa (the trainers and trainees are encouraged to speak only in French of a local lang) kept me from realizing what an extraordinary group of people work for the Peace Corps. Amoung the Guineans who we work with, two studied in the U.S. on Fullbrights, almost all the senior trainers have undergrad degrees from good African Universities and Masters degrees from the U.S., and one or two have PHD's. At first, when surrounded by people from another culture it is difficult to notice anything about them except that they are from that culture. After that newness wore off it was easy to see that our training staff is highly intelligent and motivated, and has likely overcome serious hurdles to get where they are.
Umm, thats all I have time for at the moment, but be preapred for hilarity when I let you know how adoption goes. Mom and Dad, don't worry, there merely surrogates.
l
That was good morning in Susu. My current vocabulary can also handle salutations, basic questions about work and living arragements, and how to ask whether or not a woman is married. Which, translated, means 'have you ever sat in the house of a man?'. However, if my conversation partner deviates from the script by one word, i am doneski. Today is our last day in the PC compound. TOmorrow we load up and drive south 45 k to Forecariah for the rest of our training. More importantly, tomorrow we get 'adopted' by our host famlies with whom we will live for the next three months. Oh boy. We have had a lot of cross-cultural training sessions to prepare us for the host-family expereince, but according to the other volunteers it is a trying, if essential understaking. All the host famlies must meet certain requirements and go through specific training in how to handle whack americans. These are the requirements as laid down by the Guinean host-family training staff; logistically, the host famlies must feed us breakfast and dinner everyday and there meals a day on the weekends, they must give us our own room with a door that locks, they must make a special meal (something other than rice and sauce) 2x a week, feed us meat 2x a week, and eggs 3x a week. Socially, they undergo some pretty intense training. This includes how to preapre some American food (spaghetti......on top of rice and sauce), how to use potable water for cooking and cleaning, how Americans like to be comforted, and some of the whacky things that Americans do that the host family should ignore or just laugh about behind closed doors. For example-- alone time. They don't get it. In Guinean culture everyoe hangs out toghether all day every day. If someone is stressed or depressed, than all the more reason for toghetherness. The trainers say that a common host family expereince includes a stressed and frustrated volunteer retiring to his/her room to decompress, not speak susu, or continually entertain a army of Guinean children, and the host mom recognizing the volunteers stress level. In order to cheer up her host son/daughter, the host mom organises and band of local children /family members and charges into the volunteers room to comfort them. This of course usally leads to the volunteer breaking down and balling on the spot and the host mother calling the PC trainer to say that Americans are crazy and she thinks she offended her volunteer.
Monsiuer Bari, one of my favorite trainers, is responsible for our cross-culture sessions. He is a forceful looking older Guinean man who seems to command serious respect from the other trainers. As a youngster, he got a scholarship to Study in Britain and stayed in a home-stay for several months. He remembers coming up to the front door and ringing the door bell, waiting for a few minutes, and then being greeted by the nuclear family. To him-- this was bizzare/impolite/quiet/scary. In Guinea, visitors are greeted by the community. Neighbors and extrended family members are always on hand to welcome visitors and each person tries to talk over the next.
On that note, I have to say a few things about our Guinean trainers. They are the best. In the beginning, a combination of the language barrier and ingrained strereotypes about Africa (the trainers and trainees are encouraged to speak only in French of a local lang) kept me from realizing what an extraordinary group of people work for the Peace Corps. Amoung the Guineans who we work with, two studied in the U.S. on Fullbrights, almost all the senior trainers have undergrad degrees from good African Universities and Masters degrees from the U.S., and one or two have PHD's. At first, when surrounded by people from another culture it is difficult to notice anything about them except that they are from that culture. After that newness wore off it was easy to see that our training staff is highly intelligent and motivated, and has likely overcome serious hurdles to get where they are.
Umm, thats all I have time for at the moment, but be preapred for hilarity when I let you know how adoption goes. Mom and Dad, don't worry, there merely surrogates.
l
Friday, July 11, 2008
the real world; Peace Corps Guinea
I am writing from a plush office inside the Peace Corps compund in Conakry, Guinea. At the moment, I am very thankful and proud of our Government. The compound is extremely well organized, staffed by talented, multi-lingual Guineans, complete with western Medical facilities, a general Medicine MD, and a tropical disease Specialist.
I arrived in-country yesterday after a long and uncomfortable, but very tolerable flight from JFK to Dakar, Senegal, and a short and far less comfortable flight from Dakar to Conakry, Guinea. The other P.C. volunteers (PCV's) that happened to be in the Capital showed us around, and took us out for a beer at a bar on he beach near the compound. Truly-- it was great. If yesterday was indicative of Peace Corps service, I would advise every able bodied man and women in the U.S. to sign up immiedietly. However, as you might guess, they followed our lovely excursion with some less lovely details concerning medical problems, saftey problems, and personal hygene.
*note...we have been given a very stern warning by the PC staff to be careful in our blogs not to say anything that would appear to denegrate the local culture, or that might color Americans perceptions of Guinea in a negative light. This policy makes sense; when reading this blog, please, to the extent possible, control for your American cultural assumptions and values in order to consider Guienan culture and lifestyle as an entity unto itself, rather than something to be compared to America or evaluted in an American context.
Tha being said, I shall give you some informative or amusing cultureal tid-bits I have picked up thus far. (most of these come from a few cultual training sesions, seeing as I have only been outside the compund once in the last 36 hrs.
-Guineans love Americans. American humanitarian organizations have made huge strides inside Guinea and many Guineans have been taught by P.C. voluneers or worked with them. Obviously, there are bad apples, but I encountered far fewer hostile people walking around than an average american might encounter on the streets of New York City.
-Toilet paper in the villages is considered an unnessacary expense. The standard method for cleaning up after a toilet break is euphamistically refered to as the water method, which involves one's left hand, and some soap and water.
-People rarely go a full sentence in the same language. In Guinea, the School system runs on French. But french is a second language for almost all of the students. So adults (who on averyage did not attend high school), speak the french they learned in school (a long time ago), combined with the local language(s) they speak with their family. Imgaine a school system taught in a language that is the native tounge of neither the teachers nor the staudents. Though I suppose the alternative is to have a country where every person can only comunicate with the other 20-50 percent of the country that speaks their language.
I have many more already, but other volunteers need to use the computers to tell their famlies they arrived safely.
Truly, Guineans seem like special people. Obviously there is a selection Bias in the Guineans I have meet thus far (educated, French speaking, most work for the U.S.), but from the Man I sat next to on the plane to the Compound Staff to my brief walk around, I have a very favorable impression.
I miss everyone, and
I hope to post again very soon.
best,
Conor
P.S. thank you to all the people who emailed me recentely to wish me good luck or say goodbye. I feel very supported-- truly. For the next 3 months I will have frequent internet accress, though only for a short time each session. So please, email me with questions or just to say hi, and I will do my absolute best to email back.
I arrived in-country yesterday after a long and uncomfortable, but very tolerable flight from JFK to Dakar, Senegal, and a short and far less comfortable flight from Dakar to Conakry, Guinea. The other P.C. volunteers (PCV's) that happened to be in the Capital showed us around, and took us out for a beer at a bar on he beach near the compound. Truly-- it was great. If yesterday was indicative of Peace Corps service, I would advise every able bodied man and women in the U.S. to sign up immiedietly. However, as you might guess, they followed our lovely excursion with some less lovely details concerning medical problems, saftey problems, and personal hygene.
*note...we have been given a very stern warning by the PC staff to be careful in our blogs not to say anything that would appear to denegrate the local culture, or that might color Americans perceptions of Guinea in a negative light. This policy makes sense; when reading this blog, please, to the extent possible, control for your American cultural assumptions and values in order to consider Guienan culture and lifestyle as an entity unto itself, rather than something to be compared to America or evaluted in an American context.
Tha being said, I shall give you some informative or amusing cultureal tid-bits I have picked up thus far. (most of these come from a few cultual training sesions, seeing as I have only been outside the compund once in the last 36 hrs.
-Guineans love Americans. American humanitarian organizations have made huge strides inside Guinea and many Guineans have been taught by P.C. voluneers or worked with them. Obviously, there are bad apples, but I encountered far fewer hostile people walking around than an average american might encounter on the streets of New York City.
-Toilet paper in the villages is considered an unnessacary expense. The standard method for cleaning up after a toilet break is euphamistically refered to as the water method, which involves one's left hand, and some soap and water.
-People rarely go a full sentence in the same language. In Guinea, the School system runs on French. But french is a second language for almost all of the students. So adults (who on averyage did not attend high school), speak the french they learned in school (a long time ago), combined with the local language(s) they speak with their family. Imgaine a school system taught in a language that is the native tounge of neither the teachers nor the staudents. Though I suppose the alternative is to have a country where every person can only comunicate with the other 20-50 percent of the country that speaks their language.
I have many more already, but other volunteers need to use the computers to tell their famlies they arrived safely.
Truly, Guineans seem like special people. Obviously there is a selection Bias in the Guineans I have meet thus far (educated, French speaking, most work for the U.S.), but from the Man I sat next to on the plane to the Compound Staff to my brief walk around, I have a very favorable impression.
I miss everyone, and
I hope to post again very soon.
best,
Conor
P.S. thank you to all the people who emailed me recentely to wish me good luck or say goodbye. I feel very supported-- truly. For the next 3 months I will have frequent internet accress, though only for a short time each session. So please, email me with questions or just to say hi, and I will do my absolute best to email back.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Last night in Princeton
Family and Friends,
Tomorrow I head to Philadelphia for a brief meet and greet with the other Peace Corps Volunteers, and on Wednesday I am off the Guinea. For those of you who believe Guinea is a colorful pet rodent who defecates an absolutely mind-boggling amount…(as I did pre-June)….check out Google Maps. It’s the Kidney bean shaped country near the center of the W. African Bulge. I have assembled this list of college and high school buddies, teachers, family friends, basketball coaches, family, and others that have helped and cared throughout my life- in the hopes that moving to Africa will be an excuse to keep in touch rather than fall out. While Guinea is richly endowed with natural beauty, wildlife, and flies whose larvae destroy your eye and cause river blindness, it does not boast widely available Internet access or cell phone coverage. How often I email, talk on the phone, or post to my blog (info to follow), will vary depending on whether or not I am posted near a major city (of which there are about, umm one). This however, only excuses me. The unfortunate recipients of this email are charged with keeping me in their thoughts, prayers, letters, and emails, as often as possible. Letters take 4 weeks to get to the capital (Conakry), and that is only if they are not opened and ransacked by an underpaid customs official or waylaid en route to my village. Yet letters will be my lifeline to home and the world I know, please please please send them anyway! Word on the Guinean street is that marking the front of your letter or envelopes with ‘feminine products’ or ‘religious materials’ drastically increases the likelihood of safe delivery. Go figure. Also, if you send me something, I promise I will write you back. Circumstances permitting I will periodically be posting to my blog at http://congod.blogspot.com. If you promise to peruse my posts from time to time, I’ll promise to keep them lively and humorous and chalk full of earthshaking insight into West African life.
This will be a crazy adventure. I even have a floppy brimmed safari dude hat (courtesy of the Lavery's), and you know that crazy things happen when you where those hats. Please share it with me, and also share adventures of your own. Try your best to hold off any major events until I can be there to share them, but if they have to happen, I definitely want to be in the loop. Much love to all, and stay tuned for more news.
Address:
Conor Godfrey, PCT
Corps de la Paix
BP 1927, Conakry
Guinée (West Africa)
P.S. I will post this email as the first entry in my blog at congod.blogspot.com as a reference.
P.P.S This email list is not complete! It is pieced together from old email lists and random facebook searching. If you find out someone is not receiving it, please email me and let me add them.
Tomorrow I head to Philadelphia for a brief meet and greet with the other Peace Corps Volunteers, and on Wednesday I am off the Guinea. For those of you who believe Guinea is a colorful pet rodent who defecates an absolutely mind-boggling amount…(as I did pre-June)….check out Google Maps. It’s the Kidney bean shaped country near the center of the W. African Bulge. I have assembled this list of college and high school buddies, teachers, family friends, basketball coaches, family, and others that have helped and cared throughout my life- in the hopes that moving to Africa will be an excuse to keep in touch rather than fall out. While Guinea is richly endowed with natural beauty, wildlife, and flies whose larvae destroy your eye and cause river blindness, it does not boast widely available Internet access or cell phone coverage. How often I email, talk on the phone, or post to my blog (info to follow), will vary depending on whether or not I am posted near a major city (of which there are about, umm one). This however, only excuses me. The unfortunate recipients of this email are charged with keeping me in their thoughts, prayers, letters, and emails, as often as possible. Letters take 4 weeks to get to the capital (Conakry), and that is only if they are not opened and ransacked by an underpaid customs official or waylaid en route to my village. Yet letters will be my lifeline to home and the world I know, please please please send them anyway! Word on the Guinean street is that marking the front of your letter or envelopes with ‘feminine products’ or ‘religious materials’ drastically increases the likelihood of safe delivery. Go figure. Also, if you send me something, I promise I will write you back. Circumstances permitting I will periodically be posting to my blog at http://congod.blogspot.com. If you promise to peruse my posts from time to time, I’ll promise to keep them lively and humorous and chalk full of earthshaking insight into West African life.
This will be a crazy adventure. I even have a floppy brimmed safari dude hat (courtesy of the Lavery's), and you know that crazy things happen when you where those hats. Please share it with me, and also share adventures of your own. Try your best to hold off any major events until I can be there to share them, but if they have to happen, I definitely want to be in the loop. Much love to all, and stay tuned for more news.
Address:
Conor Godfrey, PCT
Corps de la Paix
BP 1927, Conakry
Guinée (West Africa)
P.S. I will post this email as the first entry in my blog at congod.blogspot.com as a reference.
P.P.S This email list is not complete! It is pieced together from old email lists and random facebook searching. If you find out someone is not receiving it, please email me and let me add them.
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