Sent via e-amil 7/5/08
Hello dear friends and family,
Here's a head's up before you read: I wish I could have all my emails be funny and light-hearted, but it wouldn't be a truthful reflection of the reality of life here. This one recounts some community events that occured last Sunday-- please have a read but I warn you: it's a little heavy.
Last Sunday morning-- my first Sunday back in Bouliwel after being on vacation seeing Rene-- I went through my normal routine, excited to be back in my village after long last. I woke up, made some coffee in my newly purchased French press (glorious.), had some prayer time, took my shower, changed, and headed out the door to get a taxi to Dalaba for church. As I walked up the dirt road towards the main carrefour [intersection], greeting people and shaking hands, a car suddenly roared over the hill heading towards the health center, towing a wake of distressed and screaming women and children in its wake. I had to get out of the way to avoid getting hit, and, puzzled, asked one of the men nearby what was going on.
"Il y avait un accident sur la route la bas," he said frankly. There was an accident on the main road my my village's marketplace.
"Un accident?!" I asked. "Qu'est-ce qui s'est passe?" What happened?
"Une petite fille etait tape par un taxi," he said. A little girl was hit by a taxi.
A wave of goosebumps washed over me as I heard that. Oh no. I pressed him for more information-- how bad was it? What was she doing in the road? Whose fault was it? -- but he didn't seem to know much more than that. I turned and joined the crowd of people heading down the road to the health center where they had taken the girl.
When I got there, there was a huge crowd of people already gathered outside: Men, women, children-- all milling around, some yelling, others crying, still others having heated discussions about the unacceptable practices of Guinean taxi drivers. I pushed my way through and went into the health center.
The little girl was in one of the sick rooms. I walked in, expecting to see her being attended to by the health center staff, yet they were nowhere to be seen (turns out M. Diallo was seeing a patient and M. Sow was in Mamou for the day). When people noticed the porto had appeared in the health center they all turned to me, imploring me to do something to help her.
Oh no, I thought. I'm not a doctor, nor am I qualified or comfortable giving this kind of care. Yet there was nothing else to do, so I approached the girl's bedside and walked through my tried-and-true CPR techniques. Was she coherent? No. She was in a state of shock, unconscious, and coughing up blood. Did she have a pulse? Yes, thank God. Was she breathing? Yes, ragged, bloody gasps. She must have had some kind of internal bleeding.
I called her name several times: Safiatou! Safiatou! Her older brother-- a friend of mine-- was next to me, shaking his head and saying we ought to take her to Mamou, where they have a bigger hospital. I just looked at her and said a prayer: God, please let this girl live.
The next moment a consensus seemed to have been made: take the girl to Mamou. I grabbed the brother and another guy and we lifted her carefully off the bed, out the door and into the waiting taxi. As we brought her out the crowd just gasped and chattered, women crying and children staring wide-eyed. We put her in the taxi and it zoomed off to the regional hospital. I just stared after it, watching it go and praying under my breath.
The day passed normally after that: Church in Dalaba, hang-time with the Volunteers there, and a trip to the weekly marketplace. That night, back in Bouliwel, the honks of a car announced the bad news: the girl had died.
Two cars came screeching into Bouliwel in front of my house, and soon the wailing began again, this time in unison, declaring the sadness and pain of another loss.
The arrangements were made quickly and efficiently: the burial was done the next morning and all the proper procedures were followed.
Ah, Bouliwel! So much suffering, so much pain. If only people would drive more cautiously, think with more common sense, act with more care!
My heart just aches sometimes for the suffering of this village that I have come to love. If you have read this, thank you showing compassion (suffering alongside) for a few moments.
Much love,
Andrew
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Ten Things I Hate (Love) About Guinea
Sent via e-mail 6/24/08
Hello all,
So there's a popular girl movie, Ten Things I Hate About You. I saw it once, and vaguely remember hoping that the general chick-flickishness of the film would make one of the two girls I went with develop instantaneous crushes on me. While leaving the cinema, I think I may have mentioned that the plot of the movie is taken from a Shakespeare play (it is, n'est-ce pas?). Middle school not being the age when looking knowledgeable about Shakespeare is cool, I fear this may have tanked my hopes.
Needless to say, Ten Things I Hate About You randomly popped into my head today as I was riding in a taxi in downtown Conakry. I was en ville, en route to the bank. This was my first day being in Guinea after a beautiful, heavenly, 10-day vacation visiting my girlfriend Rene Marshall in England and N. Ireland, and thus was making a few mini-adjustments being back-- firmly-- in the heart of the developing world.
As the chauffeur passed me the car's one handle to roll down the window, I shook my head distractedly at a young man earnestly trying to sell me cheap plastic belts and reflected: "What are ten things I hate about Guinea?"
As soon as I thought that, it seemed like a dumb question. A much BETTER question would be, of course (cue an image of Meg McFadden, sitting across the table from you, holding a mug of tea and looking very interested in what you were about to say):
"What are ten things I love about Guinea?"
Having given it a little thought, here are ten things, in no particular order:
1. Big, beautiful, majestic baobab trees. They line the main streets in Conakry and provide shade, serenity, and splendor.
2. Clearing cows off of my yard in order to reach the latrine where I do my business.
3. Being mobbed by a horde of children every time I return to my village after a trip away (looking forward to that tomorrow evening!).
4. Knowing and being known by every single person in my village.
5. Bartering for everything. You walk to the marketplace-- there are no price tags here! 95% of the vendors can't even read. You approach a woman; let's say you want her tomatoes. You don't, of course, simply ask her how much the tomatoes are. First you ask her how her family is, her children, her work. You both laugh as she compliments you on your ragged attempts to speak her native language. You glance at the tomatoes, then, and venture the question: Ko jelu? [how much?] Let the fun begin! She names a price-- you act deeply offended and make disapproving noises with your tongue. You propose a lower price-- she dishes back the 'tude, complete with tongue noises. You do this for a while, faces stony, until you eventually agree on a price. Whoop! That was easy. Smiles return, tomatoes go into the bag held by one of your eager child helpers, you wish one another well, and continue on your way. Just like shopping at the Acme, right? ;)
6. Bike rides, at sunset, in the foothills around my village.
7. Children here are so helpful-- I can grab any child, at any time, and send them off on an errand. Need water from the pump? Hello, Siradjo! Need bread from the marketplace? Bonjour, Alphadjo! This isn't exploitation, this is cultural assimilation! It's just what people do here. And the kids are generally happy to help. Plus they know that the porto [me] gives out good rewards: candy, piggy-back rides, and old Sports Illustrateds.
8. Teaching children silly things like how to shuffle cards the American way (you know, with the waterfall) or sing properly all the words to the chorus of Akon's "Don't Matter."
9. Meeting up with other Peace Corps Volunteers after a long two weeks at site and enjoying the ease with which the English you speak rolls off your tongue. Wow-- I can actually say what I mean and be understood!! Glorious.
10. Eating bucketfuls of juicy, sweet mangoes.
So there you have it. Guinea (and I) enjoyed the presence of Donnie Stuart for 8 days at the beginning of June. Have questions? Comments? Concerns? Please toss them my way (or his!). It is a pleasure to share little slices of my life here in Africa, and I hope and pray that these little emails would encourage others to deepen their vision and understanding for the forgotten countries of the world.
Til the next time,
Love you all!
Andrew
So there's a popular girl movie, Ten Things I Hate About You. I saw it once, and vaguely remember hoping that the general chick-flickishness of the film would make one of the two girls I went with develop instantaneous crushes on me. While leaving the cinema, I think I may have mentioned that the plot of the movie is taken from a Shakespeare play (it is, n'est-ce pas?). Middle school not being the age when looking knowledgeable about Shakespeare is cool, I fear this may have tanked my hopes.
Needless to say, Ten Things I Hate About You randomly popped into my head today as I was riding in a taxi in downtown Conakry. I was en ville, en route to the bank. This was my first day being in Guinea after a beautiful, heavenly, 10-day vacation visiting my girlfriend Rene Marshall in England and N. Ireland, and thus was making a few mini-adjustments being back-- firmly-- in the heart of the developing world.
As the chauffeur passed me the car's one handle to roll down the window, I shook my head distractedly at a young man earnestly trying to sell me cheap plastic belts and reflected: "What are ten things I hate about Guinea?"
As soon as I thought that, it seemed like a dumb question. A much BETTER question would be, of course (cue an image of Meg McFadden, sitting across the table from you, holding a mug of tea and looking very interested in what you were about to say):
"What are ten things I love about Guinea?"
Having given it a little thought, here are ten things, in no particular order:
1. Big, beautiful, majestic baobab trees. They line the main streets in Conakry and provide shade, serenity, and splendor.
2. Clearing cows off of my yard in order to reach the latrine where I do my business.
3. Being mobbed by a horde of children every time I return to my village after a trip away (looking forward to that tomorrow evening!).
4. Knowing and being known by every single person in my village.
5. Bartering for everything. You walk to the marketplace-- there are no price tags here! 95% of the vendors can't even read. You approach a woman; let's say you want her tomatoes. You don't, of course, simply ask her how much the tomatoes are. First you ask her how her family is, her children, her work. You both laugh as she compliments you on your ragged attempts to speak her native language. You glance at the tomatoes, then, and venture the question: Ko jelu? [how much?] Let the fun begin! She names a price-- you act deeply offended and make disapproving noises with your tongue. You propose a lower price-- she dishes back the 'tude, complete with tongue noises. You do this for a while, faces stony, until you eventually agree on a price. Whoop! That was easy. Smiles return, tomatoes go into the bag held by one of your eager child helpers, you wish one another well, and continue on your way. Just like shopping at the Acme, right? ;)
6. Bike rides, at sunset, in the foothills around my village.
7. Children here are so helpful-- I can grab any child, at any time, and send them off on an errand. Need water from the pump? Hello, Siradjo! Need bread from the marketplace? Bonjour, Alphadjo! This isn't exploitation, this is cultural assimilation! It's just what people do here. And the kids are generally happy to help. Plus they know that the porto [me] gives out good rewards: candy, piggy-back rides, and old Sports Illustrateds.
8. Teaching children silly things like how to shuffle cards the American way (you know, with the waterfall) or sing properly all the words to the chorus of Akon's "Don't Matter."
9. Meeting up with other Peace Corps Volunteers after a long two weeks at site and enjoying the ease with which the English you speak rolls off your tongue. Wow-- I can actually say what I mean and be understood!! Glorious.
10. Eating bucketfuls of juicy, sweet mangoes.
So there you have it. Guinea (and I) enjoyed the presence of Donnie Stuart for 8 days at the beginning of June. Have questions? Comments? Concerns? Please toss them my way (or his!). It is a pleasure to share little slices of my life here in Africa, and I hope and pray that these little emails would encourage others to deepen their vision and understanding for the forgotten countries of the world.
Til the next time,
Love you all!
Andrew
Saturday, May 31, 2008
"Andrew, what do you actually do? You know, for a job?"
Sent via e-mial 5/31/2008
Hello everybody,
So as you all will no doubt remember, my last soul-less, industrial mass email kicked off a new series of Andrew's Guinea emails titled: "Answers to random questions you may have about my life here in Guinea."
This week's installment:
"Andrew, what do you actually do? You know, for a job?"
Great question. To answer, I will take you inside the planning, preparation, and execution of my latest health sensitization at the local ecole primaire* [please refer to the appendix at the bottom of the page if necessary] in my village.
As I've mentioned in previous emails, malaria presents an enormous problem here in Guinea. As the primary cause of death in the prefecture* where I live, malaria claims the lives of men, women, and children on an almost daily basis, particularly during the first few months of the rainy season (May, June, July). Although it is heavily over-diagnosed in local health centers (due to poorly-trained staff and/or the oversimplification of symptom diagnosis by the Ministry of Public Health here) and thus the numbers tallying the total of malaria patients are almost always inflated, the disease nonetheless continues to be an serious issue-- one made all the more tragic because of its preventability.
With this in mind, two weeks ago I set to work organizing a series of health sensitizations to be given in the local primary school discussing the topic of malaria: what it is, its symptoms, what to do if you get it, and most importantly for my work, how to prevent it.
The process went through several phases:
Phase # 1: Asking and getting permission
So very little gets accomplished in Guinea outside of the traditional, top-down heirarchical structures that are in place. If someone wants to organize a project in the village, they must first talk with the sous-prefet*, the village sages* and the authorities responsible for the sector in which they want to work (in this case, the directeur de l'ecole primaire*). To not do so would be a significant breach in protocol and cause all sorts of silly problems that would hinder one's progress.
Trying hard to be a good culturally-sensitive volunteer, one day last week I went to the sous-prefet's office and told him I wanted to do some presentations on malaria in the primary schools. Fine. No problem. Then, later that day at a baptism, I tracked down the directeur of the primary school and told him I wanted to do some presentations on malaria in the primary schools. Fine. We'd love to have you. I let M. Diallo, my counterpart know, and he told me to go for it.
Perfect! That was the easy part.
Phase # 2: Preparing visual aids
Yeah, here's the hard part. So as I may have previously mentioned, the illiteracy rate in Guinea must be well over 50%. I think there may be one grown woman in Bouliwel who can read and write a little, if that, and the non-fonctionnaire* men aren't much better.
"Well Andrew," you might say, "surely 5th and 6th grade kids ought to be able to read, right?"
Hm. Well, not necessarily. Education in Bouliwel (and the vast majority of Guinea) really stinks. Classrooms are dirty and ill-kept, teachers are poorly trained and poorly paid, kids are often forced to stay home to do chores or work in the fields, and overall a nasty, oppressive system of rote-learning keeps most kids from learning anything significant. All of which is made even worse when you only go to school for 2 hours a day, 4 days a week and your own parents are inalphabets* (as is the case with most children).
So all this is to say, whenever I want to do a health sensitization, I need to have pretty, pretty pictures and not much writing. (Imagine, for a moment, what life would be like if, every time you looked at writing all you saw were black lines and circles and the occasional dot) Which for me is not easy because I stink at art. Oh Mom, how hard you tried to raise your little children to be artsy, and cultured! And how hard we refused, and decided to play sports instead! If only we had known...
Anyway, I needed to make a bunch of posters with mosquitos and sick people and mosquito nets and stuff on them, and I knew I blew at art, so I grabbed my health manual and copied over a bunch of images* from my paludisme* workbook onto some big flip-chart paper. This took me several mornings of work, but after many painstaking hours of tracing and coloring in the health center ("what is that crazy porto* doing today?" people ask), I finally emerged-- victorious-- with three big beautiful malaria posters. Joy.
Phase # 3: Figuring out what I'm going to say
This part was pretty simple. I just looked over my malaria notes, gathered my thoughts, put myself inside the head of a Guinean 5th grader (what would I want to pay attention to during the half-hour before recess?), and trusted in my tried-and-true motto: Just wing it 'cause if you try and overplan it it's just gonna get screwed up anyway. And if it's really bombing just say something in Pular and they'll all laugh. Great motto.
Phase # 4: Actually giving the thing
So obviously this was the most important step, and I thought it went well. I showed up at the ecole 15 minutes early, greeted the 5th grade teacher, M. Sidibe, taped my posters onto the blackboard, and sat quietly at the back of the class, about as inconspicously as a large tapir charging down a group of small children (My approach to dealing with stares, whispers, and giggles varies: sometimes I just ignore it, sometimes I smile back or say hello, and other times I do something really weird like snort, make faces, or pick my nose (although, in retrospect, picking your nose here isn't weird at all ;) ah Guinea). When the kids got done with their exercise, M. Sidibe called me to the front and let me know that the floor was mine. Suh-weet!
To start, I made them all stand up and then I taught* them "heads, shoulders, knees, and toes," just to lighten the atmosphere and make a complete fool of myself to loosen 'em up a little bit. The salle* officially chauffed*, I then launched into my malaria shpiel, explaining that the illness is caused by a pesky blood parasite transmitted by sonsolis*, that you can only get it by way of mosquitos, and if anybody tells you you can get it from mangoes or the sun (common misconceptions) they are wrooooong. Very wrong.
I speak in slow, basic French with a smattering of Pular, looking to Sidibe during moments of confusion for a more detailed Pular translation. There were about 40 kids in the class.
They seemed mostly attentive, laughing at my occasional manhandling of their native language and responding at all the right intervals. They followed me through my symptoms explanation, facilitated, of course, by my beautiful visual aids (although I had this one picture that was supposed to be of a kid sweating, because that's what happens when you get malaria sometimes, and they all thought he had an outbreak of warts. Ehh). When I got to the Comment Eviter le Palu?* section, they latched onto the visual aids, and seemed to absorb really well the importance of mosquito nets, of long pants and long sleeves at night, of filling in or covering up stagnant water sources (mosquitos reproduce in stagnant water like puddles or wells), and several other key preventative measures. I encouraged them to take the issue seriously, recounting briefly the story of the little girl we lost to malaria two months ago in the health center-- a girl who could have easily been in 5th grade. They nodded and seemed to get it.
After probing a little for questions or confusing material, they all seemed ready for a little Porto tomfoolery, so I performed a hearty rendition of "I'm a little teapot" and called it a day, thanking Sidibe and his class.
Phase # 5: The follow-up
Yeah, so this guy seems a little less structured, and in fact, I'm still figuring out how to do it. For now, I mostly corner small children around the village and interrogate them: Can you get malaria by being out in the sun too long? Will you ask your dad to put screens on your house windows? Arrgh. Stuff like that. I am going to continue my series of malaria sensitizations with the other grade levels in Bouliwel-centre and hopefully get out to the primary schools in the districts as well. I'm also working closely with M. Diallo to monitor the number of malaria patients we see at the Health Center on a weekly basis. And, in conjunction with my Health Director and some other Health Volunteers, we're looking for ways to make mosquito nets cheaper and more accessible to everyone who needs one. As they say here in Guinea, "little by little, the bird makes his nest." Good stuff.
That's all for now! Donnie Stuart and his studly pectoral muscles are flying into Conakry on Monday night to visit for a few days, and after that I am taking a brief vacation in N. Ireland to see my beautiful girlfriend, Rene Marshall! Your prayers are much appreciated as Conakry has seen a few issues with some disgruntled military officers recently.
Love you all!
Andrew
Appendix:
*primary school (grades 1-6)
*like a region or state
*the guy who's in charge of the village and all the districts in the local county
*all the gnarled old men who walk around in big boubous and who command lots of respect
*you can figure this one out guys
*fonctionnaires are the state-assigned skilled workers in the village-- usually teachers, health workers, civil servants, and others. Bouliwel-centre has around 20 (there are many more when you take into account all the outlyign districts). My counterpart, M. Diallo, is a fonctionnaire, for example
*illiterate people
*you can figure this one out too, I'm pretty sure
*malaria
*white person in Pular
*when I say "taught," I mean I sang and told them to repeat after me, which went something like this: "OK kids, 'heads, shoulders, knees, and toes, knees and toes.'" (beckon for them to repeat) "Haads, blah blah giggles blah blah giggles." Good times.
*room
*warmed up
*mosquito in Pular
*How to avoid getting malaria
Hello everybody,
So as you all will no doubt remember, my last soul-less, industrial mass email kicked off a new series of Andrew's Guinea emails titled: "Answers to random questions you may have about my life here in Guinea."
This week's installment:
"Andrew, what do you actually do? You know, for a job?"
Great question. To answer, I will take you inside the planning, preparation, and execution of my latest health sensitization at the local ecole primaire* [please refer to the appendix at the bottom of the page if necessary] in my village.
As I've mentioned in previous emails, malaria presents an enormous problem here in Guinea. As the primary cause of death in the prefecture* where I live, malaria claims the lives of men, women, and children on an almost daily basis, particularly during the first few months of the rainy season (May, June, July). Although it is heavily over-diagnosed in local health centers (due to poorly-trained staff and/or the oversimplification of symptom diagnosis by the Ministry of Public Health here) and thus the numbers tallying the total of malaria patients are almost always inflated, the disease nonetheless continues to be an serious issue-- one made all the more tragic because of its preventability.
With this in mind, two weeks ago I set to work organizing a series of health sensitizations to be given in the local primary school discussing the topic of malaria: what it is, its symptoms, what to do if you get it, and most importantly for my work, how to prevent it.
The process went through several phases:
Phase # 1: Asking and getting permission
So very little gets accomplished in Guinea outside of the traditional, top-down heirarchical structures that are in place. If someone wants to organize a project in the village, they must first talk with the sous-prefet*, the village sages* and the authorities responsible for the sector in which they want to work (in this case, the directeur de l'ecole primaire*). To not do so would be a significant breach in protocol and cause all sorts of silly problems that would hinder one's progress.
Trying hard to be a good culturally-sensitive volunteer, one day last week I went to the sous-prefet's office and told him I wanted to do some presentations on malaria in the primary schools. Fine. No problem. Then, later that day at a baptism, I tracked down the directeur of the primary school and told him I wanted to do some presentations on malaria in the primary schools. Fine. We'd love to have you. I let M. Diallo, my counterpart know, and he told me to go for it.
Perfect! That was the easy part.
Phase # 2: Preparing visual aids
Yeah, here's the hard part. So as I may have previously mentioned, the illiteracy rate in Guinea must be well over 50%. I think there may be one grown woman in Bouliwel who can read and write a little, if that, and the non-fonctionnaire* men aren't much better.
"Well Andrew," you might say, "surely 5th and 6th grade kids ought to be able to read, right?"
Hm. Well, not necessarily. Education in Bouliwel (and the vast majority of Guinea) really stinks. Classrooms are dirty and ill-kept, teachers are poorly trained and poorly paid, kids are often forced to stay home to do chores or work in the fields, and overall a nasty, oppressive system of rote-learning keeps most kids from learning anything significant. All of which is made even worse when you only go to school for 2 hours a day, 4 days a week and your own parents are inalphabets* (as is the case with most children).
So all this is to say, whenever I want to do a health sensitization, I need to have pretty, pretty pictures and not much writing. (Imagine, for a moment, what life would be like if, every time you looked at writing all you saw were black lines and circles and the occasional dot) Which for me is not easy because I stink at art. Oh Mom, how hard you tried to raise your little children to be artsy, and cultured! And how hard we refused, and decided to play sports instead! If only we had known...
Anyway, I needed to make a bunch of posters with mosquitos and sick people and mosquito nets and stuff on them, and I knew I blew at art, so I grabbed my health manual and copied over a bunch of images* from my paludisme* workbook onto some big flip-chart paper. This took me several mornings of work, but after many painstaking hours of tracing and coloring in the health center ("what is that crazy porto* doing today?" people ask), I finally emerged-- victorious-- with three big beautiful malaria posters. Joy.
Phase # 3: Figuring out what I'm going to say
This part was pretty simple. I just looked over my malaria notes, gathered my thoughts, put myself inside the head of a Guinean 5th grader (what would I want to pay attention to during the half-hour before recess?), and trusted in my tried-and-true motto: Just wing it 'cause if you try and overplan it it's just gonna get screwed up anyway. And if it's really bombing just say something in Pular and they'll all laugh. Great motto.
Phase # 4: Actually giving the thing
So obviously this was the most important step, and I thought it went well. I showed up at the ecole 15 minutes early, greeted the 5th grade teacher, M. Sidibe, taped my posters onto the blackboard, and sat quietly at the back of the class, about as inconspicously as a large tapir charging down a group of small children (My approach to dealing with stares, whispers, and giggles varies: sometimes I just ignore it, sometimes I smile back or say hello, and other times I do something really weird like snort, make faces, or pick my nose (although, in retrospect, picking your nose here isn't weird at all ;) ah Guinea). When the kids got done with their exercise, M. Sidibe called me to the front and let me know that the floor was mine. Suh-weet!
To start, I made them all stand up and then I taught* them "heads, shoulders, knees, and toes," just to lighten the atmosphere and make a complete fool of myself to loosen 'em up a little bit. The salle* officially chauffed*, I then launched into my malaria shpiel, explaining that the illness is caused by a pesky blood parasite transmitted by sonsolis*, that you can only get it by way of mosquitos, and if anybody tells you you can get it from mangoes or the sun (common misconceptions) they are wrooooong. Very wrong.
I speak in slow, basic French with a smattering of Pular, looking to Sidibe during moments of confusion for a more detailed Pular translation. There were about 40 kids in the class.
They seemed mostly attentive, laughing at my occasional manhandling of their native language and responding at all the right intervals. They followed me through my symptoms explanation, facilitated, of course, by my beautiful visual aids (although I had this one picture that was supposed to be of a kid sweating, because that's what happens when you get malaria sometimes, and they all thought he had an outbreak of warts. Ehh). When I got to the Comment Eviter le Palu?* section, they latched onto the visual aids, and seemed to absorb really well the importance of mosquito nets, of long pants and long sleeves at night, of filling in or covering up stagnant water sources (mosquitos reproduce in stagnant water like puddles or wells), and several other key preventative measures. I encouraged them to take the issue seriously, recounting briefly the story of the little girl we lost to malaria two months ago in the health center-- a girl who could have easily been in 5th grade. They nodded and seemed to get it.
After probing a little for questions or confusing material, they all seemed ready for a little Porto tomfoolery, so I performed a hearty rendition of "I'm a little teapot" and called it a day, thanking Sidibe and his class.
Phase # 5: The follow-up
Yeah, so this guy seems a little less structured, and in fact, I'm still figuring out how to do it. For now, I mostly corner small children around the village and interrogate them: Can you get malaria by being out in the sun too long? Will you ask your dad to put screens on your house windows? Arrgh. Stuff like that. I am going to continue my series of malaria sensitizations with the other grade levels in Bouliwel-centre and hopefully get out to the primary schools in the districts as well. I'm also working closely with M. Diallo to monitor the number of malaria patients we see at the Health Center on a weekly basis. And, in conjunction with my Health Director and some other Health Volunteers, we're looking for ways to make mosquito nets cheaper and more accessible to everyone who needs one. As they say here in Guinea, "little by little, the bird makes his nest." Good stuff.
That's all for now! Donnie Stuart and his studly pectoral muscles are flying into Conakry on Monday night to visit for a few days, and after that I am taking a brief vacation in N. Ireland to see my beautiful girlfriend, Rene Marshall! Your prayers are much appreciated as Conakry has seen a few issues with some disgruntled military officers recently.
Love you all!
Andrew
Appendix:
*primary school (grades 1-6)
*like a region or state
*the guy who's in charge of the village and all the districts in the local county
*all the gnarled old men who walk around in big boubous and who command lots of respect
*you can figure this one out guys
*fonctionnaires are the state-assigned skilled workers in the village-- usually teachers, health workers, civil servants, and others. Bouliwel-centre has around 20 (there are many more when you take into account all the outlyign districts). My counterpart, M. Diallo, is a fonctionnaire, for example
*illiterate people
*you can figure this one out too, I'm pretty sure
*malaria
*white person in Pular
*when I say "taught," I mean I sang and told them to repeat after me, which went something like this: "OK kids, 'heads, shoulders, knees, and toes, knees and toes.'" (beckon for them to repeat) "Haads, blah blah giggles blah blah giggles." Good times.
*room
*warmed up
*mosquito in Pular
*How to avoid getting malaria
Saturday, April 26, 2008
What the heck I eat
Sent via e-mail 4/26/08
Hello loved ones,
So many of you have asked me questions about my experiences here in the Peace Corps--"What's Africa like?" "Do you have electricity or running water?" "What's it like seeing poverty everywhere?" "Do you play soccer a lot?" "Do you really go to the bathroom in a hole in the ground?"
My responses are as follows: Friendly. Yes, No. Hard, but not in the ways I expected it. Yes, but not as much as Forecariah. Yes.
Hope that clears up a few things.
I may spend the next few emails trying to respond to some of these in a little more depth, however. Today's question is this:
QUESTION # 1:
"What the heck do you eat?"
I eat rice and sauce usually about 10-12 meals a week. Picture this typical evening scenario:
The sun is setting over Bouliwel. I am riding my bike, careening through the backroads in the hills over the village, relishing in the speed of the bike and the cool breeze that dries the sweat on my forehead and chest. I stop in Hoore Lopi, the small village two km outside of Bouliwel, greeting the Peuhl women sitting by the side of the road on their stools and mats. Each is selling fruit-- papayas, oranges, mangoes, bananas-- arranged in little piles on the ground or on low wooden tables. I need some bananas for my peanut butter-and-banana baguette (PB&BB) tomorrow morning.
"On djaraama, neene! Tana alaa gaa?" Good evening, mama! Are there no problems here?
I smile winningly and enjoy their titters and exchanged glances-- the porto's speaking Pular, after all. That's hilarious.
"Banaanas, ko jelu?" I ask the price.
"Jowi mille francs," the woman responds, gesturing to a bunch of fat green ones. Five for 1,000 francs (1,000 francs= 25 cents). It's a good price, so I hand her the money and put the bananas in my pack, mounting my bike with a word of thanks: "Albarka nani!"
I turn to go, smiling inwardly at the snippets of Pular I pick up from the women chatting behind me ("he speaks Pular!?" "his name's Boubacar Barry, he lives in Bouliwel"). So the Pular studying is starting to pay off a little.
The descent into Bouliwel is the best part of the ride: straight down hill on the paved road. The wind rushes by me as I wave to some kids at the water pump ("Andre! Ca va?!").
Pulling up at my house at last, I greet Mme Diallo, the wife of my official counterpart, the doctor at the health center. Slapping hands with the kids who crowd around me ("Andre, ca va bien?!"), I unlock my door and put away my bike. I strip off my sweaty clothes, grab my towel and my shower sandals and head out back to the well.
"Andre, ko honto yahataa?" the kids ask. Where are you going?
"Mido yahude lootagol." I'm going to wash myself.
I grab my bucket, open the hatch to the well, and lower the rope and bucket down. One bucketful usually does it for an evening bucket bath-- amazing when you think of how much water I used to use taking showers in the States.
Water obtained, I walk over to my douche, a tiny little stall with a wimpy supply of smelly-girly things: A bottle of shampoo, razor, gel, and a bar of soap. I usually deal with lots of smelliness, not much girliness.
I close the door and pick up my goblet, a small cup that facilitates the bathing operation. I dip it into the water and count to three. On three I dump the water over my head. The initial shock is a little jarring, but the three minutes after that have to be the most refreshing of the day. I lather up and rinse.
Having finished my "shower," I head back inside and get dressed. I turn on my little shortwave radio and tune it to the BBC World Service (oh, what a life saver!)-- turns out Zimbabwe is imploding, Barack and Hillary are neck and neck, and a Brasilian priest has accidentally drowned by attaching himself to 1,000 ballons and floating out to sea.
I walk next door and greet Mme Diallo again. M. Diallo, M. Sow, M. Kamano the principal of the Bouliwel school district, and Ousmane the stagiaire are all at the mosque saying their final prayers of the day. I sit next Thierno Mariama, M. Diallo's 8- yr old girl, and shoot the breeze in my broken Pular. She's in the fourth grade and still can't write her name, so of course, conversing in French is not possible. We play the game where one person holds their hands out palms down over the other person's hands palms up and person #2 tries to slap person #1's hands. You know what I'm talking about. This lasts for a few minutes until the men come back.
"Bonsoir, Aboubacar," says M. Diallo warmly. "Comment allez-vous? Vous avez bien peloter?" Did you have a good bike ride?
"Tres bien, merci." Very good, thanks. In fact, it was amazing.
The other men and I exchange greetings and M. Diallo calls everybody inside to eat.
"Aru namen!" Come, let's eat!
We all go inside, taking off our sandals, and pull up stools on the floor. M. Camara, the Sous-Prefet Adjoint, or Vice Mayor, pokes his head in and is immediately invited to come join us.
M. Diallo grabs the large metal platter and sets it in the middle of all of us. We are eight: Mme Diallo, Thierno Mariama, M. Camara, M. Sow, Principal, Ousmane, M. Diallo, and me. Every night it's like that-- meals are very communal. I love that.
M. Diallo empties the pot of rice onto the platter and pours the sauce over it, making sure to get every corner covered-- nobody wants to be shafted with a spoonful of plain rice. Tonight it's fish sauce with potatoes, and when we say fish, we mean whole fish. None of this removing-the-head-and-bones business.
When the sauce is applied, everyone digs in, the men with spoons and Mme Diallo and Mariama with their hands (by choice-- not discrimination). There is little talking while eating. Everyone holds to their little wedge of the platter-- to reach across and take some potato out of someone else's corner would be a major faux pas.
In five minutes the platter is mostly picked clean. I am usually one of the last ones to get up, either because I'm a fat American or because, as M. Diallo says, I'm a "child" and need to eat more than "old farts" like him and Sow.
I spoon up the last bits of the rice and thank Mme Diallo for her good home cooking: "Albarka!" Thank you and God's blessings.
"Barka Alla," she replies. Thanks be to God.
Rice and sauce twice a day is surprisingly enjoyable-- it's easy, it's quick, and it fills you up. Cooking here can be a huge pain; There's no ovens, there's no refrigerators... If you want meat you have to kill something, which can be fun, but is mostly just a huge hassle. So I stick to my PB&BB in the matin and eat rice and sauce for lunch and dinner. When I really do feel like a change, I'll whip up some spaghetti or ramen that I picked up at the Lebanese store in Conakry. Wild, I know.
And that's pretty much it. Very long answer to a very short question, but I figured I'd try and paint a picture to let you see what it's like.
And with that, this is the end of installment number "I'm not sure" of Andrew's Guinea/ Peace Corps chronicles. Thanks to everybody who's responded to these emails in the past and for all who've written. You guys are awesome! And a special shout-out to CMOB and Aunt Debbie for the packages last month. I've taught the kids in my neighborhood Pass the Pigs and been officially commissioned to teach Bouliwel how to make girl scout cookies. Not sure if that's gonna be possible... But you never know ;)
Love you guys!
Andrew
P.S. Check out my pictures too if you get a chance. Alrighty.
Blog poster note: You can also check out the Wiki which has a link to all past messages from Andrew at http://andrewsadventure.wikispaces.com/
Hello loved ones,
So many of you have asked me questions about my experiences here in the Peace Corps--"What's Africa like?" "Do you have electricity or running water?" "What's it like seeing poverty everywhere?" "Do you play soccer a lot?" "Do you really go to the bathroom in a hole in the ground?"
My responses are as follows: Friendly. Yes, No. Hard, but not in the ways I expected it. Yes, but not as much as Forecariah. Yes.
Hope that clears up a few things.
I may spend the next few emails trying to respond to some of these in a little more depth, however. Today's question is this:
QUESTION # 1:
"What the heck do you eat?"
I eat rice and sauce usually about 10-12 meals a week. Picture this typical evening scenario:
The sun is setting over Bouliwel. I am riding my bike, careening through the backroads in the hills over the village, relishing in the speed of the bike and the cool breeze that dries the sweat on my forehead and chest. I stop in Hoore Lopi, the small village two km outside of Bouliwel, greeting the Peuhl women sitting by the side of the road on their stools and mats. Each is selling fruit-- papayas, oranges, mangoes, bananas-- arranged in little piles on the ground or on low wooden tables. I need some bananas for my peanut butter-and-banana baguette (PB&BB) tomorrow morning.
"On djaraama, neene! Tana alaa gaa?" Good evening, mama! Are there no problems here?
I smile winningly and enjoy their titters and exchanged glances-- the porto's speaking Pular, after all. That's hilarious.
"Banaanas, ko jelu?" I ask the price.
"Jowi mille francs," the woman responds, gesturing to a bunch of fat green ones. Five for 1,000 francs (1,000 francs= 25 cents). It's a good price, so I hand her the money and put the bananas in my pack, mounting my bike with a word of thanks: "Albarka nani!"
I turn to go, smiling inwardly at the snippets of Pular I pick up from the women chatting behind me ("he speaks Pular!?" "his name's Boubacar Barry, he lives in Bouliwel"). So the Pular studying is starting to pay off a little.
The descent into Bouliwel is the best part of the ride: straight down hill on the paved road. The wind rushes by me as I wave to some kids at the water pump ("Andre! Ca va?!").
Pulling up at my house at last, I greet Mme Diallo, the wife of my official counterpart, the doctor at the health center. Slapping hands with the kids who crowd around me ("Andre, ca va bien?!"), I unlock my door and put away my bike. I strip off my sweaty clothes, grab my towel and my shower sandals and head out back to the well.
"Andre, ko honto yahataa?" the kids ask. Where are you going?
"Mido yahude lootagol." I'm going to wash myself.
I grab my bucket, open the hatch to the well, and lower the rope and bucket down. One bucketful usually does it for an evening bucket bath-- amazing when you think of how much water I used to use taking showers in the States.
Water obtained, I walk over to my douche, a tiny little stall with a wimpy supply of smelly-girly things: A bottle of shampoo, razor, gel, and a bar of soap. I usually deal with lots of smelliness, not much girliness.
I close the door and pick up my goblet, a small cup that facilitates the bathing operation. I dip it into the water and count to three. On three I dump the water over my head. The initial shock is a little jarring, but the three minutes after that have to be the most refreshing of the day. I lather up and rinse.
Having finished my "shower," I head back inside and get dressed. I turn on my little shortwave radio and tune it to the BBC World Service (oh, what a life saver!)-- turns out Zimbabwe is imploding, Barack and Hillary are neck and neck, and a Brasilian priest has accidentally drowned by attaching himself to 1,000 ballons and floating out to sea.
I walk next door and greet Mme Diallo again. M. Diallo, M. Sow, M. Kamano the principal of the Bouliwel school district, and Ousmane the stagiaire are all at the mosque saying their final prayers of the day. I sit next Thierno Mariama, M. Diallo's 8- yr old girl, and shoot the breeze in my broken Pular. She's in the fourth grade and still can't write her name, so of course, conversing in French is not possible. We play the game where one person holds their hands out palms down over the other person's hands palms up and person #2 tries to slap person #1's hands. You know what I'm talking about. This lasts for a few minutes until the men come back.
"Bonsoir, Aboubacar," says M. Diallo warmly. "Comment allez-vous? Vous avez bien peloter?" Did you have a good bike ride?
"Tres bien, merci." Very good, thanks. In fact, it was amazing.
The other men and I exchange greetings and M. Diallo calls everybody inside to eat.
"Aru namen!" Come, let's eat!
We all go inside, taking off our sandals, and pull up stools on the floor. M. Camara, the Sous-Prefet Adjoint, or Vice Mayor, pokes his head in and is immediately invited to come join us.
M. Diallo grabs the large metal platter and sets it in the middle of all of us. We are eight: Mme Diallo, Thierno Mariama, M. Camara, M. Sow, Principal, Ousmane, M. Diallo, and me. Every night it's like that-- meals are very communal. I love that.
M. Diallo empties the pot of rice onto the platter and pours the sauce over it, making sure to get every corner covered-- nobody wants to be shafted with a spoonful of plain rice. Tonight it's fish sauce with potatoes, and when we say fish, we mean whole fish. None of this removing-the-head-and-bones business.
When the sauce is applied, everyone digs in, the men with spoons and Mme Diallo and Mariama with their hands (by choice-- not discrimination). There is little talking while eating. Everyone holds to their little wedge of the platter-- to reach across and take some potato out of someone else's corner would be a major faux pas.
In five minutes the platter is mostly picked clean. I am usually one of the last ones to get up, either because I'm a fat American or because, as M. Diallo says, I'm a "child" and need to eat more than "old farts" like him and Sow.
I spoon up the last bits of the rice and thank Mme Diallo for her good home cooking: "Albarka!" Thank you and God's blessings.
"Barka Alla," she replies. Thanks be to God.
Rice and sauce twice a day is surprisingly enjoyable-- it's easy, it's quick, and it fills you up. Cooking here can be a huge pain; There's no ovens, there's no refrigerators... If you want meat you have to kill something, which can be fun, but is mostly just a huge hassle. So I stick to my PB&BB in the matin and eat rice and sauce for lunch and dinner. When I really do feel like a change, I'll whip up some spaghetti or ramen that I picked up at the Lebanese store in Conakry. Wild, I know.
And that's pretty much it. Very long answer to a very short question, but I figured I'd try and paint a picture to let you see what it's like.
And with that, this is the end of installment number "I'm not sure" of Andrew's Guinea/ Peace Corps chronicles. Thanks to everybody who's responded to these emails in the past and for all who've written. You guys are awesome! And a special shout-out to CMOB and Aunt Debbie for the packages last month. I've taught the kids in my neighborhood Pass the Pigs and been officially commissioned to teach Bouliwel how to make girl scout cookies. Not sure if that's gonna be possible... But you never know ;)
Love you guys!
Andrew
P.S. Check out my pictures too if you get a chance. Alrighty.
Blog poster note: You can also check out the Wiki which has a link to all past messages from Andrew at http://andrewsadventure.wikispaces.com/
Friday, April 11, 2008
Hard-core kids and cleaning things (and a little barf)
Sent via e-mail on 4/10/08
Hi everybody!
So I'm currently in Labe for my monthly visit and I figured I would profit and hop onto the internet to give you an update on my wild African existence.
I went hiking in a gorgeous canyon near a little village called Douki yesterday with a couple other Peace Corps friends. It was stunning-- truly impressive-- and we enjoyed a pretty solid hike down into the canyon and back up a trail called chutes and ladders , named such because of its waterfalls ( chutes in French) and its system of ladders (tree branches held together by vines that some dudes had put together).
It was amazing, and not a little scary, as we often had to climb 15-20 ft on these rickety wooden ladders to get up this steep ravine. We all felt pretty hard-core after getting up the steepest section, until we ran into these two kids on the trail.
They couldn't have been more than 7-8 years old, yet each was carrying a huge bag full of mangoes on their heads. They had come up the same way we had and were planning on selling the mangoes in Douki and then heading back to their huts on the valley floor that evening. Each was wearing flip flops (not hiking boots like us rogue mountaineers) and possessed the uncanny balance that most Africans (especially women) seem to possess when carrying extremely large objects on their heads. My fellow volunteer Erich and I both decided to give the kids a little break so we relieved them of their burden for a while and tried the old carry-ridiculously-heavy-stuff-on-your-head-over-mountanious-terrain method.
Lemme tell you: Africans redefine hard core. Dang. We went maybe a few tenths of a mile with those bad boys and we were done. Plus I think we bruised the mangoes way more than we should have. Needless to say, my respect for Guinean women and children has continued to rise-- I'd say they're somewhere between George Bowling and Desmond Tutu on the respect-o-meter (and that's saying something ;).
To continue my email, I'd thought I'd share another journal entry from last month about my first planned project in my village. Don't worry, K-money, it's not a tear-jerker!
3/10/08
Salon de ma maison (living room of my house)
So yesterday was an awesome day and I just wanted to jot down a few thoughts to concretize the memory...
So Saturday evening was pretty rough. The whole afternoon I could just feel that sick feeling coming on: gas, burps that taste like puke, excessive tiredness, achiness-- it sucked. Then I went to Aboubacar Bailo's son's baptism and guess what happened? I was told to eat a massive platter of riz gras... Perfect.
I went to bed early hoping I would just sleep it off.
Hah.
I woke up an hour later, rushed outside and ralphed up all the riz gras I could possibly have eaten, plus some rice from lunch and maybe a little breakfast pain. All this came much to the chagrin of Dr. Diallo (my counterpart and next-door neighbor), who rushed over and mothered me a bit, which I appreciated even if it was a bit overbearing. A little more diarrhea emptied me of everything vilain, and I shortly after hit the hay for good, dreading the next morning's proposed initiative: a grand cleaning of the Health Center with the Association de la Jeunesse [youth association].
Thank you God; the next morning I felt a lot better ( Aboubacar, a diki? ) [you feeling better? in Pular]. I choked down a little bread, threw on some work clothes, grabbed my soap and mops and gloves and headed over to the Health Center.
Sow, Ousmane, Dr. Diallo and I all worked pretty hard for the next couple of hours sweeping, sorting through papers, and tossing out old crappy stuff that no longer had any use. By the time 10am rolled around (the time the youths were supposed to show up), we were all pretty tired, Sow and the Doctor were ready to pack it in, and I found myself saying, well, if nobody shows up, at least we swept some stuff.
And we waited, and waited, and two kids showed up, whom I quickly put to work scrubbing (much to their chagrin-- what's this crazy porto want us to do?) (porto= white person. I hear that one a lot).
And then, just when I was ready to call it a morning (and the grand nettoyage [big cleaning] a bust)? Dr. Diallo calls inside, Aboubacar, regarde! [look!]
I walked out onto the porch and looked down the road. And there, walking in 2 groups (guys and girls), were at least 25 youths; each carrying a bidon full of water. I nearly had tears in my eyes just looking at them, and all I could think of was, thank you Jesus.
They came with tons of energy and liveliness. Guys were flirting with girls, they were laughing and screwing around and hitting each other with brooms-- it was just like an LDP outing to Habitat.
And I loved it. Couldn't stop smiling the whole time.
And then they cleaned the place. Inefficiently, perhaps somewhat haphazardly (c'mon, this is Guinea we're talking about-- nothing is orderly) (George would have had a fit if this was Chibougamau clean-up :), but dang, they cleaned it good. M. Diallo came and told me that in his three years here he had never seen this done before. And all I could think of was, thank you Jesus.
It was a great day.
Anyway, there's another taste of life in Guinea!
Love you all, and thank you so much for all who have sent letters and packages! I'm writing back-- it takes forever and the mail system blows but knock on wood, it'll get there someday.
'Til the next time,
Much love,
Andre/ Aboubacar/ Porto
Hi everybody!
So I'm currently in Labe for my monthly visit and I figured I would profit and hop onto the internet to give you an update on my wild African existence.
I went hiking in a gorgeous canyon near a little village called Douki yesterday with a couple other Peace Corps friends. It was stunning-- truly impressive-- and we enjoyed a pretty solid hike down into the canyon and back up a trail called chutes and ladders , named such because of its waterfalls ( chutes in French) and its system of ladders (tree branches held together by vines that some dudes had put together).
It was amazing, and not a little scary, as we often had to climb 15-20 ft on these rickety wooden ladders to get up this steep ravine. We all felt pretty hard-core after getting up the steepest section, until we ran into these two kids on the trail.
They couldn't have been more than 7-8 years old, yet each was carrying a huge bag full of mangoes on their heads. They had come up the same way we had and were planning on selling the mangoes in Douki and then heading back to their huts on the valley floor that evening. Each was wearing flip flops (not hiking boots like us rogue mountaineers) and possessed the uncanny balance that most Africans (especially women) seem to possess when carrying extremely large objects on their heads. My fellow volunteer Erich and I both decided to give the kids a little break so we relieved them of their burden for a while and tried the old carry-ridiculously-heavy-stuff-on-your-head-over-mountanious-terrain method.
Lemme tell you: Africans redefine hard core. Dang. We went maybe a few tenths of a mile with those bad boys and we were done. Plus I think we bruised the mangoes way more than we should have. Needless to say, my respect for Guinean women and children has continued to rise-- I'd say they're somewhere between George Bowling and Desmond Tutu on the respect-o-meter (and that's saying something ;).
To continue my email, I'd thought I'd share another journal entry from last month about my first planned project in my village. Don't worry, K-money, it's not a tear-jerker!
3/10/08
Salon de ma maison (living room of my house)
So yesterday was an awesome day and I just wanted to jot down a few thoughts to concretize the memory...
So Saturday evening was pretty rough. The whole afternoon I could just feel that sick feeling coming on: gas, burps that taste like puke, excessive tiredness, achiness-- it sucked. Then I went to Aboubacar Bailo's son's baptism and guess what happened? I was told to eat a massive platter of riz gras... Perfect.
I went to bed early hoping I would just sleep it off.
Hah.
I woke up an hour later, rushed outside and ralphed up all the riz gras I could possibly have eaten, plus some rice from lunch and maybe a little breakfast pain. All this came much to the chagrin of Dr. Diallo (my counterpart and next-door neighbor), who rushed over and mothered me a bit, which I appreciated even if it was a bit overbearing. A little more diarrhea emptied me of everything vilain, and I shortly after hit the hay for good, dreading the next morning's proposed initiative: a grand cleaning of the Health Center with the Association de la Jeunesse [youth association].
Thank you God; the next morning I felt a lot better ( Aboubacar, a diki? ) [you feeling better? in Pular]. I choked down a little bread, threw on some work clothes, grabbed my soap and mops and gloves and headed over to the Health Center.
Sow, Ousmane, Dr. Diallo and I all worked pretty hard for the next couple of hours sweeping, sorting through papers, and tossing out old crappy stuff that no longer had any use. By the time 10am rolled around (the time the youths were supposed to show up), we were all pretty tired, Sow and the Doctor were ready to pack it in, and I found myself saying, well, if nobody shows up, at least we swept some stuff.
And we waited, and waited, and two kids showed up, whom I quickly put to work scrubbing (much to their chagrin-- what's this crazy porto want us to do?) (porto= white person. I hear that one a lot).
And then, just when I was ready to call it a morning (and the grand nettoyage [big cleaning] a bust)? Dr. Diallo calls inside, Aboubacar, regarde! [look!]
I walked out onto the porch and looked down the road. And there, walking in 2 groups (guys and girls), were at least 25 youths; each carrying a bidon full of water. I nearly had tears in my eyes just looking at them, and all I could think of was, thank you Jesus.
They came with tons of energy and liveliness. Guys were flirting with girls, they were laughing and screwing around and hitting each other with brooms-- it was just like an LDP outing to Habitat.
And I loved it. Couldn't stop smiling the whole time.
And then they cleaned the place. Inefficiently, perhaps somewhat haphazardly (c'mon, this is Guinea we're talking about-- nothing is orderly) (George would have had a fit if this was Chibougamau clean-up :), but dang, they cleaned it good. M. Diallo came and told me that in his three years here he had never seen this done before. And all I could think of was, thank you Jesus.
It was a great day.
Anyway, there's another taste of life in Guinea!
Love you all, and thank you so much for all who have sent letters and packages! I'm writing back-- it takes forever and the mail system blows but knock on wood, it'll get there someday.
'Til the next time,
Much love,
Andre/ Aboubacar/ Porto
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Rice, toothless men, and malaria (or, my first month in a village in Africa)
Sent via e-mail 3/16/2008
Hello dear friends and family,
So it has been quite awhile since my last email. Sorry. I've been living in a rural African village, pulling up water from the well every morning for my bucket bath, eating rice off the floor twice a day, and going to the bathroom in a hole. Wireless technology hasn't exactly made it's way to this part of the Fouta Djallon...
That said, I am in Labe for the weekend and have taken advantage of the internet cafe to get off an email with some thoughts and experiences from my first full month at site.
This last month has been unlike any other in my entire life. I am truly, truly -- tigi tigi as they say in Pular-- the only white person in the whole Sous-Prefecture. I am somewhat of a local celebrity. I often catch grown men and women just staring at me as I sit in the health center studying Pular, or as I buy bread at the marketplace. Most women in town have either offered their daughters or themselves to me in marriage-- offers which I invariably accept, with a grin, and assure them that in my culture, men cook and do dishes all the time. It's like a dream come true, right? Although at this rate, I'm piling up enough wives that people might start to talk, even here in Guinea (after all, the Koran says you're only supposed to have four-- after that you're in trouble). Still, part of me wonders, isn't it weird to be offering a 20-something guy your 5-year old daughter as a wife? Ahhhh, Guinea.
The pace of life in Bouliwel is slower than Shawn Kemp running the fast break in his so-called "pudgy" days as a Cav. Most men spend the day like this:
--get up, pray
--go sit outside your house/ hut
--walk to the market
--sit there for awhile
--walk back to your house/ hut
--eat the food one of your wives prepared
--pray
--nap
--sit around and talk
--pray
--sit around and talk
--pray
--sit around
--pray
--eat dinner that the other wife prepared
--sit around, maybe listen to the radio
--go to sleep
Even Shawn Kemp might get bored after awhile with that schedule, but most men here don't seem to mind. (Women, on the other hand, work harder in a day than I've ever worked in my life: Cooking, washing the dishes, cleaning the house, getting water from the well, tending to the needs of the men... In Guinea, all men are not created equal, sadly enough-- and no one seems to question it) (except me, who receives laughs or blank stares as responses to the "why don't men get water from the well every now and then?")
There is so much more I could tell you. I taught three guys poker-- texas hold 'em, mostly-- which we play with scrabble tiles as poker chips and biscuits as money. Remember the scene from Ocean's Eleven when Brad Pitt is teaching the teeny-bopper movie stars how to play poker (Joshua Jackson confidently lays down his five cards: "All reds.")? Yeah, it's kinda like that. I got some care packages last week on the mail run (thank you thank you thank you mom and Julia Maxwell and Northfield Presbyterian Church!) and wow, an alien could have beamed down a foreign object of some sort for all the kids in my neighborhood were concerned. Fritos? Cracker Jack? The Atlantic Monthly? The likes of these have never been seen in Bouliwel, ever.
This may give you a tiny glimpse of what life is like here in My Random African Village.
On a more serious note, two weeks ago a little girl died of malaria in the health center. It was an emotional day and took some time to write down some thoughts, which I thought I would share with you here. This will make this email excessively long, for which I apologize. Still, it seems important to communicate the reality of suffering here in Guinea. Anyway, here's my journal entry (edited slightly for brevity), written that night:
2/27/08 Dr. Diallo's Porch
'It has been a crazy past couple of hours and I wanted to get down some thoughts while everything was still fresh. I spent nearly four hours today at the stream washing clothes with Rugiatu and Lazare. It is amazing how long simple stuff like doing laundry takes here! When I came back, I ducked into the Health Center to see what was up there, and I found Dr. Diallo and Mr. Sow tending to a young girl, who was lying on the cot with her mother. She had an IV in her arm and was moaning and moving around. I didn't think much of it for whatever reason-- I may have been more worried about acquitting myself for spending all morning at the river (or perhaps, I was wondering about lunch)-- and I was told to go next door and have my rice. I ate and then went back to the house and laid down for a nap.
When I emerged from the house after an hour and a half with my National Geographic, I noticed a small crowd of men in boubous and women in headscarves gathering outside the Health Center. Sow walked by and told me that the girl who had been in the Health Center had died.
"La petite fille-la est morte," he told me. [the little girl is dead]
"Morte?!" I asked, surprised.
"Oui," he said matter-of-factly. "Palu grave." [serious malaria]
"Oh, wow..." I said, somewhat stunned.
"Tu connais le palu?" he asked. [do you know about malaria?]
"Ouais, ouais," I responded, dazed. Of course I know about malaria.
The next hour and a half or so passed by slowly, crawlingly, confusingly. The whole village seemed to turn out, men lining one side of the dirt road, women on the other. I sat outside the health center for awhile, the young white Westerner dressed in slacks and a button down jostling for position on the bench next to old gray Africans in their boubous and skullcaps.
One of these things is not like the other.
Sitting there, I listened to the women across the way wailing and crying, performing their all-too-familiar ritual to mourn the passing of a child of God. Soon enough I noticed the sages of the village gathering, talking lowly and rapidly and exchanging money, and I immediately went to ask Dr. Diallo if it was appropriate to give some. He said sure and I grabbed a wad from the house-- 50,000 francs-- and went over asking what might be an appropriate amount to give.
"Deux mille. Donne deux mille," he said, [give 2,000 francs] looking at my wad of 5,000s. I wonder what he was thinking, really thinking, at that moment. I gave him 10,000. A little more than two bucks.
Upon delivery of the money, all the old men of the village came up and shook my hand. Maybe I imagined it, but it even seemed that their eyes were wide; In surprise, in thanks, in scrutiny; I couldn't tell.
I received their thanks ungraciously, shaking my head and frowning.
It's nothing.
De rien.
No really. It's nothing. Two measly bucks for a woman who's just lost her ten-year old daughter to malaria--a preventable disease-- when I've got a stack of bills just sitting in a trunk in the house.
And it was probably the largest contribution of the village.
And "I'm not rich."
Je suis pas riche.
After they loaded the body (wrapped in a prayer mat) onto the roof of the bush taxi (5 men sitting on the roof flanking it as they drove off), I went inside and ran into Dr. Diallo.
"Merci." he thanked me. "Vraiment, merci. T'as vu, tous les vieux sont venus pour te saluer." [Did you see, all the old men of the village came over to thank you]
We went into his office; he closed the door.
"Vraiment, c'est gentil." [seriously, it's very nice of you] The man just watched a small girl die in his hands--in his care-- and for some reason he thinks I want to talk about my contribution of two damn dollars.
This is not about me.
"Docteur, vraiment, vraiment, c'est RIEN. C'est deux dollars americain." [it's nothing-- it's two American dollars] I could feel the flood of emotion welling up, the tears beginning to flow. Couldn't help it. After all, I was lying in my bed reading Nat'l Geographic-- reading about oil, and pygmies, and AIDS-- when next door a little girl died of a preventable disease.
"Il faut pas faire ca," he said, [you shouldn't do that] and I couldn't tell if it was with reproach, or compassion, or condescension. Perhaps a little of everything.
"C'est la volonte de Dieu," he went on [it's the will of God], "Il y a beaucoup de gens-- beaucoup-- qui meurt tout le temps du paudisme grave, du malnutrition, des choses comme ca. Personne peut savoir pourquoi Il fait ceci ou cela." [lots of people--lots-- die all the time from malaria, malnutrition, things like that. No one can know why God does what He does.]
Hmmm. It's the will of God that children die of preventable diseases? It's the will of God that here in Africa, people die all the time, whereas back home, in the world of stuff, children get sent to hospitals to get treated by real doctors with real medecine in real facilities. We don't even have malaria there.
Yet it's the volonte de Dieu.
I don't know. Is it God's will? Or was He with weeping with those women, wailing at the injustice, the suffering, the heart-rending normalcy of it all?
Does God dream of something different?
If so, I want to be a part of seeing that Dream come about. God, make manifest your dream here—on earth—as it is in heaven.'
Well, that's the whole entry. A bit emotional, melodramatic perhaps, but it's what I was really thinking and feeling at the time.
And with that, the only people who are left reading this are either my mom or people with way too much time on their hands. But seriously, thank you so much for taking the time to read about life here.
Til the next time,
Much love,
Andrew
Hello dear friends and family,
So it has been quite awhile since my last email. Sorry. I've been living in a rural African village, pulling up water from the well every morning for my bucket bath, eating rice off the floor twice a day, and going to the bathroom in a hole. Wireless technology hasn't exactly made it's way to this part of the Fouta Djallon...
That said, I am in Labe for the weekend and have taken advantage of the internet cafe to get off an email with some thoughts and experiences from my first full month at site.
This last month has been unlike any other in my entire life. I am truly, truly -- tigi tigi as they say in Pular-- the only white person in the whole Sous-Prefecture. I am somewhat of a local celebrity. I often catch grown men and women just staring at me as I sit in the health center studying Pular, or as I buy bread at the marketplace. Most women in town have either offered their daughters or themselves to me in marriage-- offers which I invariably accept, with a grin, and assure them that in my culture, men cook and do dishes all the time. It's like a dream come true, right? Although at this rate, I'm piling up enough wives that people might start to talk, even here in Guinea (after all, the Koran says you're only supposed to have four-- after that you're in trouble). Still, part of me wonders, isn't it weird to be offering a 20-something guy your 5-year old daughter as a wife? Ahhhh, Guinea.
The pace of life in Bouliwel is slower than Shawn Kemp running the fast break in his so-called "pudgy" days as a Cav. Most men spend the day like this:
--get up, pray
--go sit outside your house/ hut
--walk to the market
--sit there for awhile
--walk back to your house/ hut
--eat the food one of your wives prepared
--pray
--nap
--sit around and talk
--pray
--sit around and talk
--pray
--sit around
--pray
--eat dinner that the other wife prepared
--sit around, maybe listen to the radio
--go to sleep
Even Shawn Kemp might get bored after awhile with that schedule, but most men here don't seem to mind. (Women, on the other hand, work harder in a day than I've ever worked in my life: Cooking, washing the dishes, cleaning the house, getting water from the well, tending to the needs of the men... In Guinea, all men are not created equal, sadly enough-- and no one seems to question it) (except me, who receives laughs or blank stares as responses to the "why don't men get water from the well every now and then?")
There is so much more I could tell you. I taught three guys poker-- texas hold 'em, mostly-- which we play with scrabble tiles as poker chips and biscuits as money. Remember the scene from Ocean's Eleven when Brad Pitt is teaching the teeny-bopper movie stars how to play poker (Joshua Jackson confidently lays down his five cards: "All reds.")? Yeah, it's kinda like that. I got some care packages last week on the mail run (thank you thank you thank you mom and Julia Maxwell and Northfield Presbyterian Church!) and wow, an alien could have beamed down a foreign object of some sort for all the kids in my neighborhood were concerned. Fritos? Cracker Jack? The Atlantic Monthly? The likes of these have never been seen in Bouliwel, ever.
This may give you a tiny glimpse of what life is like here in My Random African Village.
On a more serious note, two weeks ago a little girl died of malaria in the health center. It was an emotional day and took some time to write down some thoughts, which I thought I would share with you here. This will make this email excessively long, for which I apologize. Still, it seems important to communicate the reality of suffering here in Guinea. Anyway, here's my journal entry (edited slightly for brevity), written that night:
2/27/08 Dr. Diallo's Porch
'It has been a crazy past couple of hours and I wanted to get down some thoughts while everything was still fresh. I spent nearly four hours today at the stream washing clothes with Rugiatu and Lazare. It is amazing how long simple stuff like doing laundry takes here! When I came back, I ducked into the Health Center to see what was up there, and I found Dr. Diallo and Mr. Sow tending to a young girl, who was lying on the cot with her mother. She had an IV in her arm and was moaning and moving around. I didn't think much of it for whatever reason-- I may have been more worried about acquitting myself for spending all morning at the river (or perhaps, I was wondering about lunch)-- and I was told to go next door and have my rice. I ate and then went back to the house and laid down for a nap.
When I emerged from the house after an hour and a half with my National Geographic, I noticed a small crowd of men in boubous and women in headscarves gathering outside the Health Center. Sow walked by and told me that the girl who had been in the Health Center had died.
"La petite fille-la est morte," he told me. [the little girl is dead]
"Morte?!" I asked, surprised.
"Oui," he said matter-of-factly. "Palu grave." [serious malaria]
"Oh, wow..." I said, somewhat stunned.
"Tu connais le palu?" he asked. [do you know about malaria?]
"Ouais, ouais," I responded, dazed. Of course I know about malaria.
The next hour and a half or so passed by slowly, crawlingly, confusingly. The whole village seemed to turn out, men lining one side of the dirt road, women on the other. I sat outside the health center for awhile, the young white Westerner dressed in slacks and a button down jostling for position on the bench next to old gray Africans in their boubous and skullcaps.
One of these things is not like the other.
Sitting there, I listened to the women across the way wailing and crying, performing their all-too-familiar ritual to mourn the passing of a child of God. Soon enough I noticed the sages of the village gathering, talking lowly and rapidly and exchanging money, and I immediately went to ask Dr. Diallo if it was appropriate to give some. He said sure and I grabbed a wad from the house-- 50,000 francs-- and went over asking what might be an appropriate amount to give.
"Deux mille. Donne deux mille," he said, [give 2,000 francs] looking at my wad of 5,000s. I wonder what he was thinking, really thinking, at that moment. I gave him 10,000. A little more than two bucks.
Upon delivery of the money, all the old men of the village came up and shook my hand. Maybe I imagined it, but it even seemed that their eyes were wide; In surprise, in thanks, in scrutiny; I couldn't tell.
I received their thanks ungraciously, shaking my head and frowning.
It's nothing.
De rien.
No really. It's nothing. Two measly bucks for a woman who's just lost her ten-year old daughter to malaria--a preventable disease-- when I've got a stack of bills just sitting in a trunk in the house.
And it was probably the largest contribution of the village.
And "I'm not rich."
Je suis pas riche.
After they loaded the body (wrapped in a prayer mat) onto the roof of the bush taxi (5 men sitting on the roof flanking it as they drove off), I went inside and ran into Dr. Diallo.
"Merci." he thanked me. "Vraiment, merci. T'as vu, tous les vieux sont venus pour te saluer." [Did you see, all the old men of the village came over to thank you]
We went into his office; he closed the door.
"Vraiment, c'est gentil." [seriously, it's very nice of you] The man just watched a small girl die in his hands--in his care-- and for some reason he thinks I want to talk about my contribution of two damn dollars.
This is not about me.
"Docteur, vraiment, vraiment, c'est RIEN. C'est deux dollars americain." [it's nothing-- it's two American dollars] I could feel the flood of emotion welling up, the tears beginning to flow. Couldn't help it. After all, I was lying in my bed reading Nat'l Geographic-- reading about oil, and pygmies, and AIDS-- when next door a little girl died of a preventable disease.
"Il faut pas faire ca," he said, [you shouldn't do that] and I couldn't tell if it was with reproach, or compassion, or condescension. Perhaps a little of everything.
"C'est la volonte de Dieu," he went on [it's the will of God], "Il y a beaucoup de gens-- beaucoup-- qui meurt tout le temps du paudisme grave, du malnutrition, des choses comme ca. Personne peut savoir pourquoi Il fait ceci ou cela." [lots of people--lots-- die all the time from malaria, malnutrition, things like that. No one can know why God does what He does.]
Hmmm. It's the will of God that children die of preventable diseases? It's the will of God that here in Africa, people die all the time, whereas back home, in the world of stuff, children get sent to hospitals to get treated by real doctors with real medecine in real facilities. We don't even have malaria there.
Yet it's the volonte de Dieu.
I don't know. Is it God's will? Or was He with weeping with those women, wailing at the injustice, the suffering, the heart-rending normalcy of it all?
Does God dream of something different?
If so, I want to be a part of seeing that Dream come about. God, make manifest your dream here—on earth—as it is in heaven.'
Well, that's the whole entry. A bit emotional, melodramatic perhaps, but it's what I was really thinking and feeling at the time.
And with that, the only people who are left reading this are either my mom or people with way too much time on their hands. But seriously, thank you so much for taking the time to read about life here.
Til the next time,
Much love,
Andrew
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Boring email (no poop sorry)
Sent via e-mail Saturday 2/9/2008
Bonjour mes amis,
So it's official. I have finally achieved the goal that I came to Africa to realize. All that planning, all the preparation, the arduous application process, the hand-wringing over the country placement, the frequent bowel movements once here, the lack of running water, the lack of electricity, the lack of virtually anything nice: it was all worth it.
I have finally updated my "facebook: where I've been" map, and put it so that now it says I've lived in Africa. It was a big moment for me and the other volunteers in the computer room; if we had had champagne I'm sure we would have toasted the occasion. As it was, I had to settle for a big pat on the back from my friend Astrid. I could have gone for a butt tap, but there were no male PCVs present, and as you know, I am not an equal opportunity butt tapper.
So there's something else that's happened to me that's also somewhat official, but far less momentous and exciting: I am now a bona fide Peace Corps Volunteer. No more of this trainee business. After two+ months of training, numerous language and technical classes, cross-cultural sessions, lots of "francais massacre," many long talks with my cousins and Guinean friends, basketball games (including an "all-star game," fotes vs. fores, to celebrate our time in Fo-cah), soccer matches (including the intra-Peace Corps cup championship won-- sadly-- not by Team Public Health, but by the Guinean language instructors) (it's not fair-- they're African), and a sad farewell ceremony in Forecariah (replete with tears), yesterday we were all sworn in as Volunteers.
The ceremony was amazing, actually. Speeches were made by the Peace Corps Guinea Director, the US Ambassador to Guinea, the Guinean Minister of Public Health, four different trainees (each doing a speech in one of the four languages we've been learning--French, Susu, Pulaar, and Malinke), and this dude Tom Gallagher, a US Consul who was a member of the first Peace Corps group ever, commissioned in 1962 by JFK himself. He served in Ethiopia, and gave an amazing speech. After the speeches we all swore in, raising our hands and pledging to defend the Consitution and serve faithfully as PCVs here in Guinea. Then we all shook a lot of hands, got a lot of "felicitations," and headed for the buffet table, where they had croissants and--get this-- cold orange juice. Amazing.
So there's much much more to tell, of course: I am in Conakry for the weekend and head off to Boulliwel by way of Labe on Tuesday morning. On the 15th I will be officially installed at my village and will begin my service! These next few days are for shopping, R&R, prep for site, and familiarization with our not-so-beautiful capital city. I will try to get out another email in the vein of the last one I sent before I leave on Tuesday. But, more importantly, I am also putting up PICTURES! It takes forever here, but when I get a decent number uploaded I will send them out via snapfish. Then you can finally get to see a little slice of life here in crazy, noisy, smelly, beautiful Guinea.
More coming soon.
Much love,
Andrew
P.S. When you send letters now, make sure to put Andrew Haile, PCV, not Andrew Haile, PCT. Bully for officiality (word?).
Bonjour mes amis,
So it's official. I have finally achieved the goal that I came to Africa to realize. All that planning, all the preparation, the arduous application process, the hand-wringing over the country placement, the frequent bowel movements once here, the lack of running water, the lack of electricity, the lack of virtually anything nice: it was all worth it.
I have finally updated my "facebook: where I've been" map, and put it so that now it says I've lived in Africa. It was a big moment for me and the other volunteers in the computer room; if we had had champagne I'm sure we would have toasted the occasion. As it was, I had to settle for a big pat on the back from my friend Astrid. I could have gone for a butt tap, but there were no male PCVs present, and as you know, I am not an equal opportunity butt tapper.
So there's something else that's happened to me that's also somewhat official, but far less momentous and exciting: I am now a bona fide Peace Corps Volunteer. No more of this trainee business. After two+ months of training, numerous language and technical classes, cross-cultural sessions, lots of "francais massacre," many long talks with my cousins and Guinean friends, basketball games (including an "all-star game," fotes vs. fores, to celebrate our time in Fo-cah), soccer matches (including the intra-Peace Corps cup championship won-- sadly-- not by Team Public Health, but by the Guinean language instructors) (it's not fair-- they're African), and a sad farewell ceremony in Forecariah (replete with tears), yesterday we were all sworn in as Volunteers.
The ceremony was amazing, actually. Speeches were made by the Peace Corps Guinea Director, the US Ambassador to Guinea, the Guinean Minister of Public Health, four different trainees (each doing a speech in one of the four languages we've been learning--French, Susu, Pulaar, and Malinke), and this dude Tom Gallagher, a US Consul who was a member of the first Peace Corps group ever, commissioned in 1962 by JFK himself. He served in Ethiopia, and gave an amazing speech. After the speeches we all swore in, raising our hands and pledging to defend the Consitution and serve faithfully as PCVs here in Guinea. Then we all shook a lot of hands, got a lot of "felicitations," and headed for the buffet table, where they had croissants and--get this-- cold orange juice. Amazing.
So there's much much more to tell, of course: I am in Conakry for the weekend and head off to Boulliwel by way of Labe on Tuesday morning. On the 15th I will be officially installed at my village and will begin my service! These next few days are for shopping, R&R, prep for site, and familiarization with our not-so-beautiful capital city. I will try to get out another email in the vein of the last one I sent before I leave on Tuesday. But, more importantly, I am also putting up PICTURES! It takes forever here, but when I get a decent number uploaded I will send them out via snapfish. Then you can finally get to see a little slice of life here in crazy, noisy, smelly, beautiful Guinea.
More coming soon.
Much love,
Andrew
P.S. When you send letters now, make sure to put Andrew Haile, PCV, not Andrew Haile, PCT. Bully for officiality (word?).
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