Another week in Conakry

August 29 2010

 

     This week was interesting in many ways. On Tuesday after school, our driver Bivan took us to this governmental place in order that we may have our “carte de sejour”, a card that states that we are citizens of Guinee. We arrive in this place, a hole in the wall kind of place, puddles of mud and water that we had to walk around to wait in line for a short, important man to interrogate us. They took our passports and made copies of these. Then we were taken to another room where they took our finger prints and a picture. They asked me how tall I was in centimeters and all I could mumble as I looked on to Raymond for inspiration, was “5 foot five”. So the 3 Guineans in this office proceeded to guess my height. One man stood beside me and said “well I’m 175cm, so you must be 165”. We laughed and made light of this, enjoying the humour of the moment! So my card will say how tall I am(approxiamtely!) I was led to another place, a trailer-like place where they took a Polaroid picture of me. Then we walked back to the first place and handed over the pictures. That was it! Not bad  to process all this took about 30 minutes; for Africa time, this was quicker than I thought! True that they let us go before Guineans who had been waiting and because we are white there is a sort of  a reverence towards us. This doesn't always feel very good!

 

     On Wednesday, I met Tanit Carreno; she is the wife of the  deputy consulate, that is the second in command of the ambassador of Spain. Nice girl, who is 33 years old, just had a baby whose name is Patricio, pronounced Patreesee-o. Of course, the 5 month old baby is adorable and reminds me of my son Patrick. I am helping Tanit with her English and French oral exams  as she is taking a board exam to become a diplomat. Spanish is her first language and she needs help with 5 minute speeches that are part of the exam. We’ve decided we will meet 2-3 times a week to give her a boost before the exam which is scheduled in Spain in September. She wants to pay me but I declined and suggested rather that she give a donation to our school, perhaps much needed Library books. The extra money would have been nice as money is tight and we only live with cash here. Visa and Interac do not exist. Nevertheless, Tanit agreed to make a donation which will be greatly appreciated.

 

I was about to leave Tanit’s house at 6pm when her husband called and said that we should wait before leaving the house. The reason being was that there were many military trucks out and about. They were awaiting the arrival of the corpse of the ex-president’s son (he died in Montreal Monday…a drowning accident). It seemed that the entire city of Conakry was on high alert. So I had to wait in Tanit’s apartment for another 40 minutes. Actually we had a chance to talk about everything and nothing, which was great as I got to know her more. Tanit drove me home later in heavy traffic with military trucks visible and despite all this commotion, everything went smoothly.

 

Our driver Bivan’s  four year old son got malaria and Bivan had to bring him to the hospital and buy medications for him. My heart ached for the poor little guy. Of course Bivan has no medical insurance and with the salary of a driver here, I thought this must be a struggle for his family. Still, Bivan is very private and just told us the facts as they were. He reminds me of my grandfather Eloi Gagnon, who just passed away, in the sense of his character. He is quiet, serene and dedicated to driving us from home to school and wherever else we would like. He concentrates on driving when he is with us in the car; at times he talks and though we only understand half of what he says, we can get the jist.

I had difficulty falling asleep that night as I thought about Bivan and his little boy’s serious illness. I wonder what his home looks like and if they sleep under bed nets. So many malaria cases can be eliminated just by sleeping under bed nets. That was the first item that we bought on our arrival because I was well aware of the dangers of mosquito carrying malaria. I can’t help but wonder how many Guineans  have been violently sick or have died from this disease.

 

Today, Sunday was a great day! We walked to the Royal Riviera, the hotel where Raymond stayed on his trip here in May. We started at 10am so we would avoid the afternoon heat. When we arrived after a 40 minute walk, the Royal Riviera appeared like an oasis appears out in the desert. A large pool lined by tables awaited us. Wow! I thought I had died and gone to heaven! We sat and talked for an hour, just enjoying the  breeze and drinking our pop. Life was wonderful  and for an hour, I could forget that I was living in the poorest country in Africa. It was a boost for my morale to be in a lovely, well cared for environment! I was basking in the moment, in the sheer pleasure of finding this place, like someone who finds a treasure. I know where we will be coming next Sunday....we won't forget our bathing suits!

 

 

Sunday August 22: one month in Conakry

     Today we celebrate our month arrival in Conakry. What a month it has been! A month of grieving, observing and learning. It has also been a month of big changes: changes in the weather, culture, food and politics. Today we walked in a few new areas of Conakry. We went to a park, called Parc du 2 octobre....don't know why it is called like this but I'm sure there is a story. Raymond said that during his orientation trip in May, he was told that before the coup d'etat of last September, this park was full of people, vendors were everywhere and families would come in large numbers. Today we were the only 2 people walking around. There is potential for this park to be really nice! The bonus of walking in the parc, was that it was slightly cooler than walking on the road. Notice the long roots hanging from this tree.

     A favorite statue of mine is this statue of a black man freeing himself from chains. I find this statue very powerful! It speaks of freedom. The statue stands over 6o feet tall so it has a presence. You can't miss it!

     

On my way to school: Friday August 20 2010

This week was the first week of school. It went well! For me teaching Middle School is brand new. I never really liked this age very much, actually I found kids at Middle School excited, loud and generally annoying. Now I have to make my peace with Middle School students. After my first week, I can say that I quite enjoyed my students. True, I only have  7 students, so this gives me a unique experience of working with a very small group. Nevertheless, they keep me on my toes! My students are interesting but the drive to work is even more interesting, unpredictable and sometimes mind blowing. So I took pictures to document what I see on my way to school every day. The first picture is on a piece of aluminum fencing. Someone spray painted: Do not urinate here: 50000 francs fine ($8US). Isn't this is a hoot?

      The next picture is a closeup of an aluminum fence. These are all over the place. There are many holes to let the wind blow through. This is probably the cheapest material available in Guinee, which explains why there are so many of them. The fences can be found just about everywhere. I wouldn't want to fall on the sharp edges!

School

August 14 2010

Earlier I spoke of our little school and how it was in bad shape. It would need several thousand dollars to help clean it up, paint it and get it in very good shape. Actually the school looks better on the pictures than it does in reality, but the electric wiring is sketchy. Have a look!

Nudity

Thursday August  5 2010

 

Nudity-----I need to talk about nudity. Here in Guinea, there seems to be an ease with nudity. I saw a young boy, about age 10 washing himself from a basin  right on the street. I see women with open blouses. I see women with dresses and the shoulders fall off and they leave it that way. It surprises me. It shocks me at other times. Now I reflect that from my North American paradigm, nudity equals sex. People here are comfortable with their bodies. There is no shame and no reaction to nudity. Life and bodies….everything is in sync.here. Interesting.

Wednesday July 28 2010---Day 7----one week!

 

     We had a terrible night’s sleep. At about 2 am,  another power outage occurred. This time, it never came back on again, so it was getting very hot in our apt with the air conditioner off. We looked outside and the lights in other places were working. We couldn’t understand why our little apt was afflicted with this and not others. Raymond moved to the living room couch and opened the patio door; he did get some relief and was able to fall asleep again. I on the other hand, got sweatier and stickier and felt like I couldn’t breathe. I decided to also open my door which brought in a breeze, even if it was a warm one. The problem with opening a door is that you let in the noises of the night, like the dog barking and the grasshoppers whistling. We later learned that the breaker was down for our apt and the workers downstairs needed to be told  so that it could be  turned back on. Only in Africa! 

     We have a leisurely breakfast this morning, talking about our first week and how we have  overcome  some of the obstacles that come with a move to a third world country.  It has been the most challenging week, as we had to figure everything out by ourselves and everything takes time to understand and then to organize. We sure can be proud of ourselves for having undertaken such a challenge as this, a move to Africa in the most corrupt country at a time of political crisis. At lunch time, we set off to undertake the payment of our television subscription. Organized with our driver and Djana, we start off down the street, only to stop at the end of our street where Bevon knows that a guy  exchanges money right there at the corner. Funny how business is done here. Djana rolls down her window and asks today’s exchange rate, disagrees with the money guy and instantly makes a call on her cell to someone who seems to know about the US exchange rate. Finally, the money guy hands over wads of money to Djana who counts it carefully and gives her final ok; this pile of money is given to us in a little black plastic bag. This looked like  something from a movie, like a deal done on the black market, no pun intended! Raymond hands over his 10 US 100 dollar bills and the deal is done, right there at the street corner as we were driving by. Who would have known? Isn’t life more simple the North American way?

     We continue our drive downtown Conakry to the television business office in the pouring rain, stagnant traffic and huge potholes and mud. I notice people are walking in the puddles, whether they are wearing sandals or shoes. Some women lift their long skirts and some men pull up on their pant legs to facilitate the process of crossing the street. What a mess of mud! This is the rainy season and it goes on for another month like this, so I better get used to it. The television office transaction gets done in 10 minutes with part of the huge wad of money handed over to a naïve young girl who barely knows her job. How frustrating this is! Once this is done, we drive over to the Turkish restaurant with Djana; we want to thank her for all her help so we pay lunch for all of us. It is delicious Turkish food  as it always is and this is an islet of comfort with expatriates sitting  at tables next to us. I could be anywhere in the world right now. I just feel comfortable and happy. As we exit the restaurant, we enter an appliance store. I am looking for an ironing table and an iron. We are astonished at the prices: $130 for an ironing table and $120 for an iron. Dissapointment sets in. I turn to Djana and ask her: “what do you do to iron your clothes?” She answers that she has an iron and uses a towel at the end of a table. My quest for irons is finished for the day. I accept in my mind that I will walk around with wrinkled cotton blouses, linen skirts and pants, so be it. It is a lesson in humility.

     Our last shop of the day is a small store that looks like a Dollar Store. I feel more comfortable here then in the expensive appliance store. Here we buy a broom, a few plastic containers and other household items. A good day is done, but I am getting very restless inside. I want to meet people that live here and I want to get involved. Spending time reading and writing my blog is not enough to keep me happy and energised. Hopefully soon I will meet new people!

 

Thursday July  29 2010----Day 8

     This morning, the television technician is scheduled to arrive at 8:30. I’ll believe it when I see it. By 10 o’clock, no sign of anyone and a few calls revealed that the technician could not come today but he was sending someone else. At 1 oclock technician #2 arrives and works all afternoon; he goes on the roof of the building, connects wires somewhere else in the building and at 4;30 tells us it is time to see how the TV works. He works and works with the remote controls only to tell us that the TV is defective. Raymond is extremely disappointed. What now? We will have to think carefully about this; buying a new TV at $200 is not something we can afford right now. Frustrating though as we had bought this TV from the previous director. The only explanation we can come up with is that it was broken during the move from his apartment to our apartment. 

     Two highlights of my day was meeting Ashmarah the amazing bread maker. I stepped out of the apt around noon to go buy fresh, out of the oven warm baguette and there he was, a big burly man standing in front of his oven with a parade of fresh baguettes lined up in front of him. He handed me a warm baguette for the price of 1,500 Francs (18 cents).  Needless to say, we had a great lunch  of avocado, baguette and fresh tomatoes.   Again, we are enjoying a feast of fresh produce!

        My second highlight was walking to Marche Super Bobo by myself, leaving Raymond in his depressed state over his not yet installed TV. I took my time to really rake through that little store and I found an ironing board and a clothes rack for 200,000 Francs ($30) each. I am pretty excited with this find as today Jeanne and I figured out how to work the washing machine but had to get creative as to how to dry the clothes. We ended up carefully draping the wet clothes over the balcony ledge in the hope that the wind wouldn’t blow our t-shirts and (heaven forbid!) our underwear down in the street!  As I write this, I realize that it must sound petty to report about underwear and socks drying in the sun, but for us everything is a challenge and every success is  met with celebration! I’ve seen people here hang clothing on clothing lines,  lay clothing on the ground and drape it over small bushes. So my own efforts at drying our clothing fall in the normal category, at least according to African standards.

 

Wednesday July 28 2010---Day 7----one week!

 

     We had a terrible night’s sleep. At about 2 am,  another power outage occurred. This time, it never came back on again, so it was getting very hot in our apt with the air conditioner off. We looked outside and the lights in other places were working. We couldn’t understand why our little apt was afflicted with this and not others. Raymond moved to the living room couch and opened the patio door; he did get some relief and was able to fall asleep again. I on the other hand, got sweatier and stickier and felt like I couldn’t breathe. I decided to also open my door which brought in a breeze, even if it was a warm one. The problem with opening a door is that you let in the noises of the night, like the dog barking and the grasshoppers whistling. We later learned that the breaker was down for our apt and the workers downstairs needed to be told  so that it could be  turned back on. Only in Africa! 

     We have a leisurely breakfast this morning, talking about our first week and how we have  overcome  some of the obstacles that come with a move to a third world country.  It has been the most challenging week, as we had to figure everything out by ourselves and everything takes time to understand and then to organize. We sure can be proud of ourselves for having undertaken such a challenge as this, a move to Africa in the most corrupt country at a time of political crisis. At lunch time, we set off to undertake the payment of our television subscription. Organized with our driver and Djana, we start off down the street, only to stop at the end of our street where Bevon knows that a guy  exchanges money right there at the corner. Funny how business is done here. Djana rolls down her window and asks today’s exchange rate, disagrees with the money guy and instantly makes a call on her cell to someone who seems to know about the US exchange rate. Finally, the money guy hands over wads of money to Djana who counts it carefully and gives her final ok; this pile of money is given to us in a little black plastic bag. This looked like  something from a movie, like a deal done on the black market, no pun intended! Raymond hands over his 10 US 100 dollar bills and the deal is done, right there at the street corner as we were driving by. Who would have known? Isn’t life more simple the North American way?

     We continue our drive downtown Conakry to the television business office in the pouring rain, stagnant traffic and huge potholes and mud. I notice people are walking in the puddles, whether they are wearing sandals or shoes. Some women lift their long skirts and some men pull up on their pant legs to facilitate the process of crossing the street. What a mess of mud! This is the rainy season and it goes on for another month like this, so I better get used to it. The television office transaction gets done in 10 minutes with part of the huge wad of money handed over to a naïve young girl who barely knows her job. How frustrating this is! Once this is done, we drive over to the Turkish restaurant with Djana; we want to thank her for all her help so we pay lunch for all of us. It is delicious Turkish food  as it always is and this is an islet of comfort with expatriates sitting  at tables next to us. I could be anywhere in the world right now. I just feel comfortable and happy. As we exit the restaurant, we enter an appliance store. I am looking for an ironing table and an iron. We are astonished at the prices: $130 for an ironing table and $120 for an iron. Dissapointment sets in. I turn to Djana and ask her: “what do you do to iron your clothes?” She answers that she has an iron and uses a towel at the end of a table. My quest for irons is finished for the day. I accept in my mind that I will walk around with wrinkled cotton blouses, linen skirts and pants, so be it. It is a lesson in humility.

     Our last shop of the day is a small store that looks like a Dollar Store. I feel more comfortable here then in the expensive appliance store. Here we buy a broom, a few plastic containers and other household items. A good day is done, but I am getting very restless inside. I want to meet people that live here and I want to get involved. Spending time reading and writing my blog is not enough to keep me happy and energised. Hopefully soon I will meet new people!

 

Thursday July  29 2010----Day 8

     This morning, the television technician is scheduled to arrive at 8:30. I’ll believe it when I see it. By 10 o’clock, no sign of anyone and a few calls revealed that the technician could not come today but he was sending someone else. At 1 oclock technician #2 arrives and works all afternoon; he goes on the roof of the building, connects wires somewhere else in the building and at 4;30 tells us it is time to see how the TV works. He works and works with the remote controls only to tell us that the TV is defective. Raymond is extremely disappointed. What now? We will have to think carefully about this; buying a new TV at $200 is not something we can afford right now. Frustrating though as we had bought this TV from the previous director. The only explanation we can come up with is that it was broken during the move from his apartment to our apartment. 

     Two highlights of my day was meeting Ashmarah the amazing bread maker. I stepped out of the apt around noon to go buy fresh, out of the oven warm baguette and there he was, a big burly man standing in front of his oven with a parade of fresh baguettes lined up in front of him. He handed me a warm baguette for the price of 1,500 Francs (18 cents).  Needless to say, we had a great lunch  of avocado, baguette and fresh tomatoes.   Again, we are enjoying a feast of fresh produce!

        My second highlight was walking to Marche Super Bobo by myself, leaving Raymond in his depressed state over his not yet installed TV. I took my time to really rake through that little store and I found an ironing board and a clothes rack for 200,000 Francs ($30) each. I am pretty excited with this find as today Jeanne and I figured out how to work the washing machine but had to get creative as to how to dry the clothes. We ended up carefully draping the wet clothes over the balcony ledge in the hope that the wind wouldn’t blow our t-shirts and (heaven forbid!) our underwear down in the street!  As I write this, I realize that it must sound petty to report about underwear and socks drying in the sun, but for us everything is a challenge and every success is  met with celebration! I’ve seen people here hang clothing on clothing lines,  lay clothing on the ground and drape it over small bushes. So my own efforts at drying our clothing fall in the normal category, at least according to African standards.