zot in Niger bush camels

I have a bed bug infestation. I am about 99% sure of this. I’d say right now I have somewhere over 100 bites, and I get a few more every night. Today I took my mattress out in the sun and sprayed a bunch of insecticide in my house, but from what I hear, thtat won’t do much to kill them. Apparently there are guys here that will come and spray your house, but of course its also necessary to spray your clothes and probably the books somehow too. I once heard all about bed bugs from Mr. A, and so I don’t have high hopes for actually being able to get rid of them. Right now I am considering the trade off between probably needing someone to spray roughly each month and simply getting rid of all my clothes, sending all the books away, and buying a new bed…

I’d include pictures, but its mostly on my nether regions and I don’t want to get too racey.

Let’s see, what else? Dadis looks more and more certain to run for President, though he hasn’t committed yet. We will see what that does to the stability of Guinea. Most of us are of the opinion that nothing will happen, which has me reconsidering the wisdom of applying to law schools in case we get evacuated. My future is rather deranged right now, but the present is getting along nicely, what with projects and hanging out with the family and all. (The three-year-old in my family just sat down and poured tea over his toes. It had milk and sugar in it, and he was standing on the rug, so it was rather messy.) I am going to Conakry in a few weeks to research, so hopefully I will have a handle on things when that trip is over. I also have to fill out my quarterly report and research visas for surrounding countries (trips in the spring to Mali and possibly Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone). Visas are super expensive, being on the order of $100 or more for each country, so they are sort of a limiting factor.

Oh yeah, and I received the best mail run ever Saturday night. Mary sent me a great package with tons of goodies (I think in the last 48 hours I’ve eaten six packages of jerky). I also got a bunch of notes from other volunteers, and three economists, which I am having mailed directly to me and it seems to be working great. In fact the most recent one I got is only about a week behind the current times. I’m frankly rather amazed.

I should give a shout out to my APCD (Associate Program Country Director? Something like that), who has been awesome and really on top of her work. She actually went through my last quarterly report and responded to every single thing I wrote. She continually impresses me with how much effort she puts into her job and its great having her as a resource to talk about projects with.

I am entering a busy time. My schedule for the next few months is something like this:

Late September: Girls Conference
Early October: 10k race and then Conakry
End of October: Halloween in regional capital
November: Training workshop for trainers of the incoming stage
Late November: Thanksgiving at Paul’s (rumors of real turkey)
December: Train the new volunteers (I think I am going to try for the first week)
Late December: Christmas and hopefully a trip with some Guineans to the Forest Region to celebrate
January: 30th Birthday …

All of that stuff requires travelling, and I have to work my business club, English classes, math group, and girl’s business groups into the spaces in between. After my birthday I expect things to slow down significantly, and may use that time to travel some, though I have to be around to hopefully have a math tournament and to help the girls prep for the high school entrance exam. Then the summer is rainy season again, and hopefully a Niger river canoeing trip as well as a new iteration of projects to coincide with the university starting back up (and grade school in October).

Holy moly, that doesn’t seem like a lot of time. Its funny how I fluctuate between thinking that each day is long and thinking that my service, not even at its halfway point, is almost over. Just part of the ups and downs I guess.

I was in Kissidougou for a few days to go to the bank. The bank itself was crazy, I think because of the upcoming finish to the month of Ramadan, when everyone throws a big party. Anyway, I waited all of Monday for a chance to get money, and finally ended up coming back early Tuesday morning. In the meantime I bought a duffel bag and some fabric to have made into shorts.

Today I have my business group in the afternoon, and tomorrow and Friday I need to get moving on setting up my math tutoring group for girls in the 10th grade, I need to find the girls for girl’s conference, I need to look for possible small scale financing for potential enterprises, and I need to think about how I want to do a project for teaching business skills to teenage girls who have not been going to school.

Things have been kind of rough for the last few days, but life continues on. In Faranah most things are good, and the rain is proceeding on pace, though it is supposed to end this month.

I am back on Ramadan after all. I have been eating with my family every night, which has been generally good, if a little awkward, since I can’t understand what they are saying. Yesterday I didn’t eat anything until dinner with the family, and I am hoping to stay with that until the end of Ramadan. I could get up at 4 a.m. to eat also, but I generally don’t care enough to wake up.

(30 minutes later)

A random guy showed up at my door just now, and talked for a while about how I had said hi to him a couple of times. He wanted something else, but I couldn’t understand what it was. Finally I told him that he had to leave, and my family rallied around and chased him away with sticks. It’s not good because if he was a thief, he was casing my house to come back later. If he wasn’t, he still knows where I live and that could be a problem.

A volunteer’s greatest protection is the community around him. It is trivially easy for anyone who wants to to find out where you live just by asking people. But with your family and friends around you, it is much harder for them to find a good time to steal anything. My concern is always when I leave town and have to leave stuff in my house. It is possible someone could break in without my family hearing them. I may ask to leave my things like my camera and my computer with the family from now on when I leave. There is risk of one of the kids taking something, but there is only one that I would worry about.

Anyway, as I was saying, I am now fasting during the day, except for a cup of tea with milk and sugar in the mornings. Yesterday I had my third business group meeting, and though only six people came, it went pretty well. We discussed the process of determining how much money you need to start your business (the capital de depart), and though it seems like just making a list, it becomes difficult when you start to consider things that will last, like buildings and equipment, versus supplies and stock. Anyway, hopefully next week it won’t be raining and everyone will come, and they will have done a SWOT analysis for their business and taken a first stab at estimating costs.

My English class is now more than full, so I will have to start taking names as a sort of waiting list. That is also going well, though I wonder what I am going to do after we’ve worked through the English book I have. I am also gearing up on a couple of other projects, one working with teenage girls to form savings clubs and help them launch businesses, and the other to have a math study group for girls in the 10th grade. After the 10th grade they take an exam called the Breve (sp?), which determines whether they are allowed into high school. I have heard that only 10% of students passed the mathematics exam this past year. (In high school they have three tracks, social science, natural science, and experimental science. Natural science has some math but a lot of people don’t have the necessary background. Experimental science is like a melange of the other two I think.)

Also, because of protests in Conakry, I have decided to apply to law school this fall. It is unlikely that we will be evacuated, but given the elections in January and the possibility that they will not happen, I wouldn’t be surprised. This way if we do get evacuated I will be able to go to law school in the fall, and if not I can request to defer until my service is finished (assuming I am accepted).