aggienaut | Guinea Days 1 & 2 (Reply)

July 23rd - Quick flight From Accra to Abidjan in neighboring Ivory Coast (11:00-12:50), was slightly stressed because my onward flight was scheduled to leave at 13:05 but also felt confident that if I was unable to make it on account of my flight coming in late (it had departed Accra 35 minutes later than the original departure) they'd have to sort me out. As it was ended up waiting for quite some time on the tarmac-bus while they waited for more people from presumably other delayed arrivals. While the Accra-Abidjan flight had been in a small propeller aircraft (Bombadier Q400?), I was a bit surprised this was a bigger jetliner (I neglected to note the type). As it took off it made some of hte most concerning banging noises I've ever heard a plane I was on make and I casually wondered if I was about to die but as luck would have it I did not.
   Didn't talk to my seatmates on either of these flights, though the guy next to me on this one was nice enough that when the stewardess seemingly couldn't understand my request for a coca cola and was about to move on, he asked her in French to give it to me. I'm not sure what was so hard to understand about coca cola in the first place but hey. And then as I took a picture out the window as we landed he asked me if it was my first time in Guinea -- of which of course I can say no but I haven't been here in six years now, which kind of boggles my mind that I've been going to Africa long enough that there can be such a gap. Actually as of this year it's ten years since my first projects in Africa! Anyway we got to talking and he gave me his card, he's named Mohamed and works in consulting for procurement and supply chains, which could be pertinent to projects aimed at establishing honey supply chains.

   In the airport just before passport control I saw a woman sitting in a booth with a "Visas on Arrival" sign above it. Actually she looked like she might have been asleep in the chair. I went there and asked if she was the visas on arrival person. She looked at me blankly. I said it again while making some gestures I felt portrayed the idea and she still looked at me expressionlessly. So I handed her my passport and the print out of my visa grant and she slowly sat up and gestured for me to sit in the chair in her kiosk. She then started typing on her computer. I noted that while she wasn't wearing a uniform a uniform shirt was hanging on a peg on the wall. She barely spoke, which could have been that she may not have spoken much English, but she didn't seem very communicative anyway. She nodded at the fingerprint scanner and when I asked what fingers to scan she just stared at me expressionlessly again. So I took a wild guess and put the four fingers minus my thumb of my right hand on it and that seemed what she wanted. Mainly by entirely anticipating what was next I then scanned my other hand and thumbs.
   Then she spoke. "you give me fifty dollars"
   I thought I heard fifteen and took out a twenty. She scowled at me and said "you give me smallsmall. fif-tee" So I took out my remaining $20 and $10, which was all I had left of USD (recall, I only had $50 left of $500 I had come to Africa with and I'm really not sure where at least $250 of it got off to). I also hadn't been sure if this was a requirement or not, I had already paid for my visa but who knows maybe that was just the online portion and there was always supposed to be an in person payment at the border too. Though when she immediately placed the $50 in her purse I felt pretty certain I'd just given her a bribe. I've always been proud to have never bribed anyone, I don't want to contribute to a culture of corruption, but usually it's clear someone is asking for a bribe, she in this case had cleverly tricked me into thinking it was an official payment, so maybe I got scammed more than gave a bribe.
   Anyway then she printed out the visa and stuck it into my passport. Then I had to walk around the corner to actual passport control, right beside the big photograph of the current military leader of Guinea looking stern in his uniform. A rather gruff man in a military style uniform in the passport control kiosk bruskly inspected my passport and asked me a few questions like they were challenges. Unfortunately when he got to "address in Guinea" I was unprepared. Recall I had had to dash off for the airport much earlier than I'd planned so I didn't get a chance to make sure I had all this written down. I was really sweating for a bit as I searched my phone, which didn't even have a connection but a surprisingly large number of emails seem to autoload even without a connection, and fortunately I finally found one with the Organization's office address.
   Then he appeared to mumble "come with me" and leave his kiosk and so I hesitantly walked with him towards the baggage claim, worried that this didn't seem good, but then when he turned a different direction I didn't follow and that seemed alright. Collected my bag, went outside, where fortunately a guy with a sign with my name on it was waiting front and center. Outside the terminal there were a whole bunch of what appeared to be all women just returned from hajj to Mecca. It seemed a bit odd to me that it would be a group of only women, like if a flight was coming from there it would include men and women, but I dunno, maybe this was a chartered flight for a women's group or something. Anyway they were all in white robes with arab style headscarves and shiny those ring things that hold it on top of the head (but in Saudi Arabia I don't think women wear those?).
   I had noted in the past how jsut outside the airport the city looks like a shantytown, and my observations this time are that eight years later it's no better, and just coming from Ghana I can confirm it looks a lot worse than anywhere I saw in Ghana. Not only do all the buildings look decrepid with corrugated roofs that look like they're comign off, and trash lying around everywhere, but because it rains a LOT here there's veritable rivers (literally at least streams) running down every river, major erosion of the embankments beside the road in places, huge potholes, and lots of mud covering everything.

   While we were driving the driver, Bailo, who spoke imperfect English, informed me that he had been my driver on my last assignment, when we had been held up by drunk soldiers for over an hour at night. Slightly embarrassing that I didn't recognize him but hey it's been a long time and I think at the time he didn't really speak any English at all. Also I am really terrible at recognizing people, I mostly have to depend on people acting like they recognize ME to give me cues as to if I should know them, until I've actually really got to know them well.
   They put me in a different hotel this time. The one before (Golden Plaza?) was pretty mediocre at best. I think one of the rooms they put me in only had a tiny window so it felt like a cell. The hotel they brought me to this time is officially 4-star but feels like it might qualify as 5-star even. In the evening there's a steady stream of well dressed Guineans coming just to take their photos by the pool and lobby, which the hotel seems fine with. And by well dressed I mean the women, because, amusingly to me, these really well dressed women are often accompanied by young men in t-shirts and torn jeans. Which, also, I thought torn jeans would just be a passing silly fashion trend but its going on what twenty years now at least and if anything getting worse (more common and bigger rips). I never understood it but hey I'm not a fashionista.
   But yeah so there's a pool and the decor is beautiful, artfully chic. The room is very nice too. I ordered a pizza and it was very good. I was afraid the prices would be on par with the Conakry Hilton, which a snooty volunteer had dragged me to years ago and I'd paid $25 for a sub par hamburger but the pizza was pretty good and about $10 -- which would be cheap in "the West" but is expensive for Africa but at least not Hilton expensive.
   The hotel is literally right on the beach, which is cool. It's nice to hear the waves while sitting at the restaurant, but if one goes over to the wall and actually looks at the beach .... it's quite alarmingly covered in garbage. ):

July 24th - Rained heavily through the night. Spent the day catching up on livejournal and doing some other report writing. Feeling awkwardly poor being as I don't have any USD at all, but I'm hoping if I visit a bank an ATM will give me local currency.
   Breakfast was good, croissants were as delicious as I recall -- as a lasting French influence the croissants here are exponentially better than any croissant I've had in the States or Australia.
   One of the Organization's staff, Ousmane, came to meet with me in the afternoon. He called up from the lobby and I once again employed going down there and waiting for someone to act like they knew me. I guess I've met him before because he seemed to know me. Though it could have just been from pictures, as he didn't specifically say we'd met I think?
   Learned some interesting and gratifying things from him, such as (1) I'm apparently the first volunteer they've brought in since covid, which I like to think is no accident -- they really seem to like me and I think I've proven I will go the extra mile to make things work whatever Africa throws at us, which not every potential volunteer is capable of doing (for example, when they tried to cancel this very project and I hung on like a bulldog on a bone and made it happen); (2) that the organization my previous three projects had been with is doing great now, producing a lot of high quality honey and even training people outside their organization -- often I feel like I'm not actually making an impact and this whole thing is just a puppet show to bilk USAID out of development grant money, but it's nice to hear and see actual solid results; (3) and on a much smaller note, I knew the receptionist, Ms Adama, whom I had been friends with, had ceased working for Winrock and I kind of feared maybe she was fired for some reason, but Ousmane brought her up saying she is doing great, works for the foreign ministry now, and he called her up and handed me the phone and she was keen to meet up some time -- so it's nice to hear both that she's doing great, that she's clearly on good terms with the remaining Winrock staff, and it would be fun to catch up with yet another person. I also had emailed the former assistant director of the organization here and he's also keen to meet up, so I've got lots of old friends to catch up with both here in Conakry and I'm sure when I go back up country as well.