I took a trip to Mamou this past weekend, which ended up being a rather large pain, mostly because I decided to bring my cat with me (I recently got a baby kitten, who is fast becoming an annoying teenage cat). She hates cars.
In Mamou we went shopping for jeans. They are all crazy Chinese brands that of course I’ve never heard of. It was a little like the mall, only much smaller and without air conditioning or annoying background music. I tried on clothes in a little closet crammed with storage supplies. We also built a solar drier, or at least put the screen, plastic, and rice sacks on a wooden frame. I think it came out fairly well. It has me thinking about how I can do a solar drier at my site. The biggest obstacle for me is that I’d have to move it in and out of my house every day, since I don’t have a court to keep people from taking it. So it would have to be smaller and I haven’t decided if dried mangos would be
worth the effort. I suspect I’ll do it though, just because probably when November and December roll around I’ll be very glad for all the effort I put into it.
On the way back from Mamou my first taxi broke down, and we waited in a small town for a few hours while they tried to fix it. Eventually the passengers convinced the driver to higher a new taxi, and we left in that. I got good natured flack from them for not helping to argue with our chauffeur, which surprised me, but in retrospect I probably could have pulled a lot of weight with him. Then our second taxi got a flat tire, so I didn’t get into Faranah until about 21:00, when I realized that I had left the keys to my house in Mamou.
Fortunately I left an extra key with the volunteer who lives closest to me, and I was able to find a car out to his site that night. The driver turned out to be really nice. Many people here have known a Peace Corps volunteer at one point or another, but this particular person actually knew a lot about what this volunteer had done and when he had been here. He also gave me a discount, which was sweet.
So I spent the night at that volunteers site (it being too late for a taxi and anyway, we aren’t supposed to travel at night), and caught a taxi back the next morning. Everything worked out just fine. My cat spent the night with my family in Faranah.
Monday I had a meeting with a student from the university who wants to start an ONG. He asked me to meet with him, so I was a little surprised when he asked me what we were going to do… His organization is a catchall of current buzzwords. I told him he had to pick something and focus on it, and that he couldn’t simply through everything that people wanted to do into one organization. It seemed he had plainly written the description out with the intention of getting funding, a thought that was confirmed when he didn’t know what to pick, waiting for me to tell him (since I’m white, I must know the other white people and what they would like to fund). I tried to explain that he should not just pick something that could get him money, but also something that he actually knows something aout and would want to do. I didn’t make much headway, especially since we ended up working on another ONG idea of his. We worked on it because I told him I liked the idea, and that was enough. His idea is to organize groups of young people all through Guinea to meet regularly and work to promote democracy and peace. Not a bad idea, but again happening only because he thinks that is where he might get some money. The aid culture at work.
He also wanted me to write out the introduction, do some research, and write out the objectives, at which point I told him that it was his organization and that he needed to do the work for it. I could only advise and refine. He is a pretty nice guy, and if he is somewhat money driven is that any different than anywhere else? He invited me to go with him to the forest region of Guinea to celebrate Christmas and the new year. I want to go there at some point (there is supposed to be a lot of wildlife and a game preserve down there, as well as Guinea’s tallest mountain), so I will probably take him up on that.
Tuesday I headed back to the other volunteer’s site to see what kind of health work he does and what his health post looked like. I also brought him a 25 kilo sack of potatoes (his market is small and only once a week). When I got there it turned out the chef de Santa for the sous prefecture (like a county) was meeting with them to go over paperwork and medical supplies, so I got to sit in on that. It was interesting, if frustrating. In the vein of many meetings here, they seemed to focus on some rather inane details, like that one entry of a patient for 2009 had the date written as 2008. They are lucky that this post even keeps records, as many don’t, and the guy who works there is only a volunteer anyway. After that I tried to get a taxi back to Faranah, but luck was not with me and by the end of the day I was resigning myself to spending another night away from my site. Fortunately though a car from the Direction Regional de Sante for Faranah passed me, and were kind enough to
pick me up and give me a ride (it was a very nice ride in an air conditioned truck with a
whole back seat to myself).
And that is what happened in the last several days. It feels good to be doing some work. Even if it isn’t super productive or world changing, baby steps are good. In the words of Guster, “Its simple, so says the Captain. Face forward, move slow, forge ahead.”
The mailrun should also be coming this Sunday, which I’m excited about. I don’t know if I have any packages, but I should have a few letters and the Peace Corps Guinea newsletter, and who knows what else. So far I’ve read each newsletter at least twice, and letters tend to get reread also. Sometimes you need something that isn’t a fluff novel and isn’t Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, and the newsletter is a welcome change.
The next few weeks before IST are going to fly by, and then I’ll spend a couple of weeks in Mamou for additional training, mostly in Maninke, the local language. After that I’m home free at my site for the next (gulp) 21 months. Of course, there will be lots of traveling in Guinea, and Mary is comign to visit in June and July, and perhaps my Mom and Chuck in November or December.
I have to remember to see about two things: the possibility of selling a donkey or several donkeys in Faranah, and the number of people and cost of a pirog. There is a group of volunteers from an earlier stage who have taken my Niger river trip idea and changed it a bit, now being a donkey ride from Kankan to Faranah and a canoe ride along the Niger back to Kankan.
