October 10, 2008

Friday, October 10, 2008

It’s Friday night here in the Fouta – my second Friday in my new home. Village life is quite different from my first 3 months here – for instance, I’m handwriting this entry by headlamp light because there isn’t electricity in the village. To make a phone call, I walk 20 minutes up a hill to (fingers crossed) get reception. The first day I had my new phone number that matches the available service on the hill, I was so anxious to get up there and dial a number. I marched up that hill, got to the spot where others had service, waited – and nothing. No service that day. I was so frustrated and annoyed that at no point did I look out at the view of my village from the top of the hill – it is really quite gorgeous. My compound is tucked away in a hill, I can pick out the school because of the big Peace Corps map, there are green pastured with cows grazing, all sorts of trees, conical roofs of the cooking huts, corn fields, and ladies in brightly colored fabrics working the peanut fields (it is the end of peanut season – I have more peanuts than I know what to do with!) In the distance, I can see other villages. All of this tucked into the mountains of the Fouta. Gorgeous.

The villages here are very very small. For me, I feel like I see more animals that people when I walk to the water pump or phone hill. It has to do with how remote it is here – I’m really out there! I’ve been here 2 weeks and I’ve seen one car. One. And I only saw it because my neighbor, Halimatou, woke me up at 7am last Saturday to show me the tree where the taxi comes on Saturdays to go to Conakry. And that is the taxi service of my village! Tomorrow I’m embarking on my first bike attempt at leaving my village – several PCVs in the area are going hiking. If I want to take part, I’ve got to pedal 4 hours to get there. My neighbors helped me form a list of all of the villages along the way – bike to one, ask someone how to get to the next – I wouldn’t quite describe my sentiment as “excited” for this initial trip, but I’m really looking forward to a weekend with friends. I also need to get somewhere with a real market to load up on things like garlic, potatoes, onions, and fruit of any kind since my “market day” offered tomoatoes, corn, peanuts, pimant, eggplant, and…that’s about it! On Thursdays under the biggest tree, a few women come in to sell their produce. I’ve seen several market days here in Guinea, and my village’s is more like a roadside stand. Actually, the roadside stands here in Guinea seem to offer more than my market. This trip is essential for supplies!

My house is an amazing space. I had no idea what I was going to walk into – but it is open, bright, and a blank canvas for my market searches. It is a very comfortable place, so comfortable that the front room is a favorite with the neighborhood kids. For a couple of hours each day they stop by and draw or practice writing their letters while I study or clean (no one has lived here in two years – lots of cleaning needed to be done!)

School starts Wednesday, “si Allah jabi.” (Si Allah jabi is “God willing” – when you say “see you tomorrow” or “talk to you later,” it is always followed by “si Allah jabi” – if Allah wills it, it will happen!) I’m very very ready for it to start. The two weeks here have been very productive in terms of settling in. My “kitchen” is clean and organized, boxes are unpacked, and I spent a whole day scrubbing the “bathroom” down – but I am ready for students and mathematics. There is a rumor that it might not start until the 20th. I am hoping it is just a rumor; however the fact that not a single other teacher is here in the village and the school looks abandoned makes me thing it might not be a rumor.

Other happenings of the two weeks of living in the village – Ramadan ended and my host family took me along to the end of Ramadan fete. There was lots of food and everyone was dressed in their finest things. I’ve learned where to fetch drinking water and where the well for other water is. My neighbor led me to a nearby village that bakes bread; it is a magical little house you can find with your nose – a man bakes the bread in a wood burning oven. The bread is still warm even after a 20 minute walk home. This week I had a neighbor kid help me draw a family tree of the family in the compound. That day I had sat most of the day with Halimatou and Hadiatou, two of the women of my compound. I thought Hadiatou was Halimatou’s mother-in-law, but as we sat there that day making the Kaba (a corn dish) it was revealed that there are 18 children in the family. The women tried explaining but I nodded politely not really knowing what was being explained. Turns out, my landlord has three wives. Hadiatou is the first wife, Halimatou is the second (she has taken me under her wing) and Ejiatou is the third. One of the wives passed a way. Among the four wives, there are 18 children. All three wives work very hard in the peanut fields and in their homes. The first wife is older and none of her six children live in the compound. There are 9 kids from the wives and then a handful of other kids that are in another house.

Without cars or trains, sirens or people out and about on a Friday night, Friday night here is quite, very quiet. For me, still too quite, so I’ve turned into a BBC addict. The past two weeks have been focused on the financial crisis of the world, and I wonder how will it will affect a place like Guinea. Food prices over the past year have increased dramatically because of the price of oil. It will be interesting to see what else happens in the months to come.