I'm back! It is 800 local time and I just woke up in air conditioning! Through I strongly dislike Conakry, the air conditioning in the Peace Corps compound is hard to complain about. Last night I droped Scotty off after 7 days of intense, distilled Guinea. He arrived last Saturday in the late afternoon, and a few freinds and I greeted him at the airport with a couple of beers to welcome him to the continent. After 20+ hours in transit and a couple of beers he was probally in a good place to absorb Conakry...its a crazy place. That night we watched the sunset on the Beach before catching a cab downtown to see a Jazz band at the French cultural center. The beach bar by the Peace Corps compound is a PC institution. Everynight from 1600 to 1900 (sunset) the beach is covered with kids playing soccer, couples strolling, people swimming (not the best idea in Conakry water), and Peace Corps volunteers catching up after a few months at site. It is also filled with soldiers, prostitutes, and thieves, but live and let live seems to be the reigning philosophy on the beach. The next day we got up early and went to the docks in order to find a boat to take us out to an island off the coast of conakry. This was an experience that promoted Scott to say that I must never under any circumstances bring my parents to Guinea. When you get out of the taxi, 15-20 boat drivers all jump you trynig to convince you in a variety of languages to take their leaky unsafe boat as opposed to the identical leaky unsafe boat moored right next to it. The bargainning is intense and rather threatning, but fun once you get into it. We eventually got a decent deal, and headed out to the islands, bailing water the whole way. AFter fending off the people who want to hustle you on the beach, we had a great day. The next day it was off to the Fouta Jallon! (my region) we got a Peace corps ride a ways up the main road, but then took the taxi feautred on the left from the main road to my freind Luke's site. I have seen some bad taxi's in this country, but this one might have taken the cake. It didn;t even have a steering column, just a mess of wires under the steering wheel. But to our suprise and probally the suprise of the driver, the car made it the nessacary 16k. The next day we borrowed a few bikes and rode down into a valley 15k from Luke's site. At the base of the valley there was a beautiful river that wound its way over several small falls (20-70ft high) before tumbling 500feet in the tallest waterfall I have ever seen. We spent the day exploring and jumping from the top of waterfalls. (The ride out of the valley was rough-- but worth it) The next day we at some kola nuts (ceremonial nut/stimulant) to power up,and biked to another volunteers site in a village about 15k away. There we at delicious Pennut sauce, and spent the night au village. The rest of the trip was spend trekking accross the Fouta by bike and Bush Taxi, eventually ending up in Labe, the capital of the Fouta Jallon. We got to visit with a few volunteers, see a ton of the Fouta, and generally had a fantastic time.
Showing Guinea to a freind forced me to see Guinea with fresh eyes. It threw into sharp relief all the things that no longer merit a second glance for me but are far from normal. I felt a lot of preassure to convey the 'real Guinea' to Scott, when I am just beginning to understand Guinea myself. I wanted him to see how hard life is here, but also how beautiful it is, and I found it harder than I anticipated to convey them both at the same time. In Conakry you are truly just antoher white person unless you know people here. People are constantly trying to hssle you and rip you off-- but that is not Guinea. Urban poverty does horrible things to people. If someone in my village treated me like some people in Conakry, he or she would be outcast.Once we got up-country it was much better, and easier to point out the parts of Guinea that make me happy to call this country my home, but I think it was still sometimes hard to see beyond the poverty and filth that obscures a wonderful people. I think that one of the greatest crimes of the western media is to give off the impression that people are always miserable in impoverished Africa. The classic images-- swollen bellies, angry young men, corruption, disease-- all of which exist in abundance, do not come anywhere close to portraying Guinea (Africa). While people certianly do suffer in may ways, those images all neglect the vibrancy of Guinean (African) life. The mix of ancient and modern ideas, the colors, the languages, open air markets, huge families eating and praying toghether, spontaeneous Reggae conerts, being invited to meals every time you walk by a family eating outside, everything. I hope Scott got a taste of both.
Since I last wrote on my blog life at site has been great. I have been a little bored with teaching, and have therefore been throwing myself into different project. I have built about 10 mudstoves, 2 solar dryers, and will soon be breaking out my compost to plant a garden before the heavy rains start. I love building the mud stoves...you need a bunch of cow manure, hay, water, and termite mound (they have HUGE erminte mounds here)and you can make a sweet stove that lets these women use about 1/3 of the wood and cooks the rice a little faster. I tell all my neighbors that if their kids can gather all the materials that I will come and build it. The first mud stove I built mostly by myself with everyone looking at the crazy white dude covered from head to toe with cow dung, but for the second stove I came armed with all the nessacary vocabulary in Puular and those kids didn't know what hit them. THey thought they could just show up and watch the crazy Porto (white person), but oh no, American's don't give out free lunches... I had them running all over town in 110 degree heat filling buckets of cow dung and termite mound. It was awesome. If I have children at some point in the future, I feel bad for them already. My time in Guinea has garunteed that my kids will be doing about 5 times the chores of any normal American kid, and complaing is going to fall deaf ears.
I am going to jump off and try to write a proposal I am working on (more information coming later...), but I want to quickly thank everyone who sent me a letter through Scott! I can't wait to read them.

I am here all day tomorrow if anyone has a chance to call!

love,
Conor