Back again, huh?  I am.  I'm apparently masochistic, obvious through the fact that I continue to stay where I am at.  How about you?  Do you go through life dealing with situations that you swear "this is the last time...."?

 

We're back in Conakry, the divine city of open sewers, government-controlled radio stations, and all the muffler fumes you can choke on.  I know this has been done already, but I'm going to have to complain about the ride down a bit.

 

You see, we went into the center of our village yesterday morning at about 7:30am and said we wanted to go to Conakry (Menen falla yahude ka Conakry.)  We were directed to a car, a nice Peugeot 505, a newer model.  Much pleased we went over and asked if the car was going to Conakry.  Yes.  Conakry, direct?  Yes.  Do you have places?  Yes.  Do you have passengers?  Well.....  Yes, but we're going to go to Hafia to catch more passengers.  Then to Labe if we have to.  Now, Labe is well out of our way.  In fact, it's in the opposite direction of Conakry.  It would be better for us to go to Hafia, jump out, catch a taxi on the side of the road, and be in Conakry by mid-afternoon.  However, we were psyched about the presence of a Conakry bush taxi in our little rinky-dink village so we got in anyway.  The driver assured us that he'd grab 2 or 3 more passengers and we'd be off in less than an hour.

 

Of course, who's the fool for thinking that might possibly be true?  Me.  Yes, yours truly apparently has an optimist buried deep in her shellaced heart.

 

So several hours pass where we yell at the driver a number of times about getting on the road.  He wasn't looking for a few more passengers.  He was looking for all the passengers necessary to fill the car to maximum capacity before going.  And the syndicate (bush taxi boss) snapped his fingers at me.  Don't ever snap your fingers at me.  Anyway, much yelling aside, we got on the road.  What a nice way to start the day.

 

We get on the road at a little after 10.  By 10:30 the little girl sitting on the lap of her granny behind me starts being sick.  She's sick about every half an hour into a bag I provided for the rest of the trip.  Right behind my ear.  Then the man sitting behind Adam projectile boots onto Adam and the woman sitting on his other side.  The idiot, a full grown adult, wasn't smart enough to recognize that he wasn't feeling good.  Yah, that was really nasty.  You should have heard Adam cussing.  What amused me (if amused could be used to describe any feeling I had yesterday) is that the driver appologized to us about it, but not the man who made the mess.  The poor woman caught most of it.... on the back of her head.  It was nasty.

 

When we stopped for lunch I not only did not eat, I bought a plastic sack for everyone in the back seat.

 

Trouble really started when our driver told us that one of the people in his car is really his buddy that he's giving a ride to for free, and he wants to empty out the trunk for his friend to sit in so he can get another passenger.  Oh, that one set Adam off.  There was a lovely little "conversation" for that one.  The driver won, of course.  What would you expect?

 

Luck stuck with us when we went through 2 gendarme (army) barrages.  "Americain?  Donne-moi l'argent."  "Heh, Americain, mido falla yahude ka ameriki."  Some people may like constant attention based on their looks, but our looks show dollar signs to gendarmeries.  We got through with nothing more than some annoyance, though.

 

We finally got even when we arrived in Conakry.  We argued the driver down until he paid for another taxi to drop us off at the front door of the bureau.  Anything that takes a single franc out of a chauffer's pocket is revenge.  Unfortunately, our arrival was still after dark.  C'est la vie.

 

We've been trying to get our village to stop slaughtering cows in our front yard on market days.  It is not only disturbing to have a cow led into your yard and cut down with a machete while you're "enjoying" some coffee, but it smells really awful when several hours later the full sun has started baking the pile of stuff they pulled out of the cow's intestines.  When I asked the man who owns our house, who happens to be the local magician (he speaks to devils) as well as the local mayor of sorts, if the cow killing could be moved to another locale he responded with basically a "we'll see."  In local speak, that means no.  Adam asked the people that do the bovid murder if they could find a better place.  Unfortunately, the lead man got mad.  We're still puzzled with why.  He informed us that they'd been doing the killings there for 15 years.  Adam said sure, fine, but why do they still do it there.  Because they'd done them there for 15 years.  Yes, but why here.  Because no one lived there.  Well, we live here now and we'd like it moved.  No, the cows have been killed there for 15 years.  Well, what about moving it behind the market?  No, no one likes the smell.  Well, we're people and we don't like the smell either.  Basically the conversation went around like that for a while.  Eventually Adam let the man go because the man kept getting angrier and angrier.

 

So in an act of defiance Adam locked the gate to our compound when we left.  Knowing that the mayor guy doesn't speak French very well, Adam carefully explained to him that he locked the gate against thieves.  The mayor said yes, we should lock our house up tight.  OK.  I'll be entertained to see what happens when we return.  The mayor definately didn't understand that we were talking about the whole gate.

 

But it's really all reasonable.  You see, we'd found that the last time we left the village that someone took several craps under our spare room window.  That's pretty gross.

 

We did some home improvements last week.  Adam made a cover for our pit latrine.  Every night and morning mosquitoes would swarm up out of the hole as someone squated over it and would kindly give us a nice good night or good morning serenade.  I don't want to sound ungracious, but I'd rather that all the mosquitoes died.  Our neighbors are constantly sick with malaria.  I can't be attacked by hundreds of hungry mosquitoes while in a vulnerable situation without thinking about how miserable malaria is.  I'm quite happy with the cover.

 

My camera is dead.  It appears that one tiny drop of water got into it an fried it.  I'm really quite sad.

 

Adam bought a bracelet in our market.  It said "Le souffrance est un conceil".  It means more or less "Suffering brings wisdom".  Adam gave it to a man he met who deserved it even more.  He only had one arm.  He had quite the story to go with it.  I got a bracelet too.  It says " Mieu vaut tard que jamais."  Better late than never.

 

That's what's up in our world.  My mom and grams will arrive tomorrow evening.  Guinea is not exactly what I would call wheel chair accessible.  This should be interesting.

 

More another day.  I stink and I'm hungry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christine, my dear friend who is one of the few who doesn't really believe I've dropped off the face of the earth, has asked me to post something onto this thing called a "BLOG".  Personally, "BLOG" sounds to me like an RKO production, complete with Faye Ray and chocolate pudding special effects, but who am I to complain?

 

After all, these blog thingies came out after I left the western world.  After I entered the heart of darkness.  After I decided to explore strange new territories.  You get the idea.

 

So, here I am, in a safe little razor-wire enclosed circle of heaven.  Here I have a shot at computers, electricity, and most of the time, running water.  I am in Conakry, the capital city of Guinea.  I have safely and successfully navigated my way through the unknown world of msn and found a way to post whatever I want onto the internet where unknown people will accidentally find what I have to say.  I'm not sure if I think these things are good ideas or not.  After all, despite the fact that I am a law abiding, tax paying, reasonably educated, and all around decent American, not all feel like Peace Corps volunteers have much to say.  After all:

 

 

I wish I knew which one I am.

 

Tomorrow morning I make myself scarce again.  Once back to the village, in the bush, out of site, out of mind, I will be but a memory for our American government. I will, however, once again be the local "porto".  Porto can be loosely translated as "the local white human specimen to be laughed at, poked at, and generally used as a trophy piece."  At all times, it is to be remembered that Portos are not real humans and therefore any activity that Portos undertake are to be watched, no, stared at, with much whispering and laughing behind hands of the audience.

 

You try living like this for two years and tell me how sane you are at the end.  Couple this with no electricity, running water, telephones, and having to learn languages that no one in their right mind would normally ever come across and you have Danielle, aka Dalanda Bah.  Dalanda Bah is a simple minded girl, lucky enough to be the only wife of a rich American.  Unfortunately, she can't cook, and she has no children.  We weep for Dalanda Bah, she has no had the blessing of 6 young children, all hungry and snot nosed, all without much hope for a future.  Poor Dalanda Bah.  I ask you to understand that Dalanda Bah is Danielle from a Guinean's perspective.  I am pitied for my lack of children and scorned because I do not cook all of my family's meals.  Oh, and I am simple because I do not speak fluent Pular.

 

When you look at other cultures and laugh because they seem backwards or pity them because they seem slow, I ask you to remember that the differences are simply that...cultural.  We are judged by our culture as much as we judge theirs.  Remember that and feel humble.

 

So I have occasionally had the chance to raise my head up out of development work mire and see what was going on in the world I left.  It seems that my part of Africa keeps throwing hurricanes your way.  Seems this continent can give as good as she gets, meteorologically speaking, that is.  It also appears that the ecologists have been right in what they've been saying for years.  Change the hydrology of an area and you leave it vulnerable to outside forces.  New Orleans is a tragic example of that.

 

I've been able to periodically find out what's happening in Hollywood as well.  Brad and Angelina?  Sounds good to me.  It might be a reflection of my personallity, but I much prefer Angelina to goody goody Jen.  There's all of these young girls all over the media who I'd never heard of.  They all look the same to me, so I can't much comment on them.  Just that they're often my age and yet have the sensibilities of my cat.  Here I am 26, married, finished college, Peace Corps volunteer, and card carrying member of the Moose Lodge, and I'm supposed to idolize Paris Hilton?  Pardon me while I switch off my brain...  Ok.  Like, oh my gosh, can you believe that there's only one season left of The Simple Life?

 

Oops.  I forgot.  I've never seen an episode of that.  Maybe it's quite good.  Perhaps I'm being to judgemental without any proof.  Maybe it gives an in depth commentary on the seperation of class in the US.  Maybe the point is to show how the ever widening economic gap is creating an entire type of person who doesn't know how the world works.  Maybe the producers of the show are trying to comment that it is the children of the extremely rich who are running the show, and yet they have no grasp on reality.  (If you read between the lines, then you will realize that I may be referring to our politicians.  I feel compelled to say this because I am discovering that people spend more time watching reality TV than reading and are therefore no longer capable of "reading between the lines.")

 

And maybe I'm really Sarah Mae, locked in a padded room.  We'll never know, this is the internet.

 

I believe that Christine pointed out that I've never had the joy of seeing an episode of The Desperate Housewives.  I'm pretty sure that's what it's called.  She did indeed send me the personality test to see which one I'm most like.  After taking the test, fielding my way through questions having to do with pop culture that I no longer understand, I found out that I am most like Edie.  I'm not sure what this means, maybe one of you could explain it to me.  But, there you go.  An insight into my personallity.

 

I've attached a couple of photos because I'm egotistical enough to want to force people to look at them.  After all, that's why we put photos on the internet, right?  If it doesn't work, blame it on the fact that afte 2 years away, I'm a bit rusty on the ole computer business.

 

I'll write to ya'all again when I can in October.  This is more fun than I thought it would be.  Ciao.  On jaramma, naani!