aggienaut | Entries tagged with guinea

May 19th, day 15 - "yellow fever vaccination certificate please." -- the first words to greet me on arrival in Ghana. The words I'd been dreading for two weeks since realizing i didn't have it with me. I felt I weight in the pit of my stomach and my blood ran cold. But first let's cliffhanger that and start at the beginning.

It was a change of pace from my usual frantic dash to the airport. Though I'd been trying unsuccessfully since yesterday to get ahold of someone who could tell me what time the driver would pick me up to take me to the airport. Finally received a call that the hotel would arrange it, departing at noon. So got ready in plenty of time, no rush, though as mentioned having a flight to catch always makes me stressed. And i still don't have a yellow fever vaccination certificate if Ghana wants to see it (other than picture on my phone). During the long drive through the soggy city (raining) it occurred to me i didn't know if i was expected to pay the driver, and not having much local cash on me anymore, and not sharing a language with the driver, that was something to feel stressed about.

Fortunately i didn't have to! Not counting dealing with the airline agent to check my bag and got my ticket, i had to show ID and talk at least briefly with at least seven different security checkpoints between entering the terminal and waiting at the gate where i am now. Last year at least three of these, two within meters of eachother, asked me for a bribe. This year not a single one did, nor did they seem as surly. Some were downright cheerful. What a difference a year makes.

And that catches us up to now, 13:33, waiting at the gate for 15:10 flight. Reading O'Hanlon Borneo book (actually ended up not having much time to read it these past two weeks)

..

Flight to Guinea Bissau to drop off and pick up passengers like a bus and then on to Ivory Coast. Seat backs wouldn't recline at all which made for a very uncomfortable flight. They served the food above and i still don't even know what category of thing it was even after eating it. ANY IDEAS??

Ivory Coast (Abidjan) airport does not seem to have the capacity to intake as many people through security as they have coming through the airport. That was a crazy traffic jam that took like an hour and i think i recall it being like that last year.

Had the two seats on my side of the row on the small plane to Ghana to myself so that was much more comfortable.

Which brings us to arrival in Ghana. Before even getting to passport control there was a checkpoint where they just asked expressly for the yellow fever certificates. The dread i felt! The eventually i had been anxious about for two weeks was at hand!
Approaching the kiosk, when asked for the certificate i plonked my phone on the desk, open to the image of the certificate, and stated assertively "here it is on my phone." The young man seemed started by this unusual occurrence, looked up at me like he was about to object, then seemingly decided it was too much trouble and waved me on. WHEW!

I thought my troubles were over and my luck seemed to hold for another few minutes, my bag was literally fifth out of the carousel, passport control and customs were breezy. But then i got outside the terminal and looked for the hotel driver, fending off would-be taxi drivers descending on me like pigeons. He was not to be found. Last year he'd come through after i hadn't even reminded the hotel for two weeks since mentioning my return to the hotel receptionist, so I'd been optimistic they'd be similarly on it.

You're always in a tight spot on arrival, not yet having a sim card or local money. I couldn't call the hotel. I tried to go back into the terminal to use the wifi in there to call, but a staffmember stopped me from re-entering. He did however let me use his phone to call the hotel. From my brief call with the hotel it was unclear to me if they'd been aware of me or that was the first they were hearing about it, but they assured me the driver would arrive in 20 minutes. It was then 22:27. Then the guy asked for a tip ("small small"), which I'd expected and seemed fair but i never know what would be an appropriate amount, neither insultingly small or too much. And under normal circumstances i wouldn't have any local currency, though as luck would have it i do have cedis from last year. So i fished out 10 cedis ($1=10.5 cedis) and he seemed to be happy with that.

Long story short it was 23:20 by the time the driver arrived. It sounded from his explanation like he'd been dropping off some other guests somewhere far away or something.

Only took 8 minutes to finally get to the hotel from the airport. I could have taken a taxi if I'd known it was going to take an hour but obviously i hadn't known that!

Arriving, it became apparent the hotel had no knowledge of my booking. I'd booked on booking.com and had put my request for pick up and flight information in as special request, and had gotten a confirmation email specifically stating my special request would be granted. But apparently none of that got from booking.com to the actual hotel staff.

No matter, they had a room for me and all. Still though this hour delay changed what would have been a joyous return to Ghana and a familiar hotel to an ordeal.

Then i wrote most of this entry, but when i clicked away from the browser to respond to an email (on my phone) and came back, livejournal had reset the submission page and lost everything I'd written since the Guinea airport! In great frustration i went to bed.

May 16th, Day 13 - where i left off last entry, recall, i was just about to have a croissant and mango and omelet, for breakfast at this hotel. I recalled this hotel having good food last year and was looking forward to it.

Well they apparently have a new cook, or rather no one now with even rudimentary cooking skills on duty in the morning. The "croissant" was dense and flavorless and essentially inedible. The "omelet" was a fried egg, which just by itself and thoroughly fried (if it was still a bit runny maybe i could have dipped the "croissant" in it), i didn't find it at all satisfying either. _I_ could have made a better breakfast which is saying A LOT. Seriously how can you be unable to make an omelet or serve an egg in a remotely appetizing manner??

Anyway as i ate my mango i idly asked Bara if he had learned English in university. He said no. Bara, born in Timbuktu, always admiring trees and herbs and commenting on their medicinal values, has another layer i hadn't expected. He loved classic rock and roll (well it was contemporary at the time). His eyes lit up as he told me how he loved the Who, the BeeGees, the Beatles, and would hunt for the more expensive (Billboard?) albums that came with printed lyrics so he could learn them, and that's how he got started in English.

This morning it took awhile to get started as we had to collect people from here and there, some of whom were operating on Africa Time. Then we drove half an hour or so out of town (this was all on paved roads so we covered 20km), to the location where we had field training last year.

Sometimes i feel like I'm the last to know some seemingly important things about our planned program. Until we started driving that way i had assumed we'd be doing the training in the building in town here where we did it last year, but no we'd go straight to the field site. Would we just be doing field work? Who knows!

We met up at a cleared patch of gravel by the side of the road. I'd noticed a few of these throughout the country. A cleared place beside the road, of nice even gravel. Bounded by a stone curb. Usually shaded, with trees coming up in the middle of it, they almost reminded me of sacred groves.

So i asked, through Bara, about these things. I was told they're called garu, they're like meeting spots beside the road, where people commonly might be waiting. Kind of like bus stops even without busses i guess, but much more pleasant. The guy explaining mentioned that often a plastic kettle of water is left there for anyone who happens along.

There was a small group gathered there in addition to the few people we brought with us. Maybe a dozen people total. As mentioned the other day I'm not much for padding out what I'm saying with fluff, and on this occasion i began by saying to Bara "tell them I'm glad to be here etcetera etcetera, what obstacles are they encountering in implementing last year's recommendations?" And like a champion he spun that out into an appropriately lengthed greeting.

They brought an empty beehive over and i was alarmed to find it had completely incorrect topbars on it. Had last year's training had no effect at all??

Anyway we occupied a few hours in a kind of unstructured discussion of various points. Bara has by now taken on board a great deal of the training and could explain things well himself sometimes with minimal intervention from me. And was innovative in explaining things such as drawing the bee space dimensions right onto one of the two-large topbars.

I missed my PowerPoint visual aids a bit but it was very pleasant sitting in a circle under the trees with a nice breeze and an actual hive for a visual aid, plus the original drawings I'd made for some of the slides.

Eventually, after three we went to look at where the hives are. But not to open them yet because we anticipate having a harvest but didn't have the buckets to collect in today.

Walking out there we passed a newly built little shelter. I asked what that was and it was explained they're building some "tourism infrastructure"
"Tourism for what?"
After some lengthy back and forth with Bara: "there is a place by the water a bit of a distance from there where there's a memorial to one of their ancestors, but it's a bit far." This soundsss to me like exactly the kind of walk in the forest I've been wanting to do, but there's not time 😭😭😭😭😭

At the area of the hives i was gratified to find some changes at least. Last year they had something like 110 beehives practically on top of eachother but they've followed my recommendation to spread them out.

Then we returned to Dalaba. At this point it was after 5 and i hadn't eaten all day (i had barely made any progress on that breakfast) but fortunately i have a stash of clif bars for just this kind of occasion.

Then Bara Bailo and i sat in the hotel's lovely front open air dining area, Bara and i working on our laptops, Bailo seemingly continuously making tea (it can be a long process here of pouring it from container to container).

Some girls came by selling "bitter kola" nuts, which are apparently a thing.

And we went and saw the sunset from the old colonial hotel with the view.

And had dinner with at the house of the president of the women's federation we're working with here. The end.

Tomorrow we plan to mainly be doing beekeeping.

May 15th, Day 12 - checked out of the hotel in Labe, it was once again an hour drive from there out into the countryside to the village of Timbi-Touni for training. This time didn't have quite as many beekeeping federation staff, just Khalidou the head trainer and two youngish women who are apparently interns.

The immediate surrounds of Timbi-Touni seem weirdly like Europe or Australia, because there's tall treelines of eucalyptus trees between the fields and lining the road, and then a pine plantation just across from the main part of the little town. I'm wondering if maybe it wag an early center of some colonial activity.

Training focused on reviewing the process of splitting one hive to make two, which we'd had an opportunity to do in the field the day before. And then go over what one is inspecting hives for at different times of the year. Most of the people at this training are experienced or have even been in my training before but these were things i hadn't yet integrated into my program when i was last in this area (Doumba in 2015).

It always makes me feel a bit anxious when the participants have some experience like how will i fill the time without boring them but they seemed to thoroughly appreciate what we covered and the time was perfectly filled.

"Tomorrow" (today as I'm writing this actually, in the morning) i begin two days at Dalaba town, with i think the same people as last year so I'm similarly anxious how we'll occupy ourselves but it always seems to work out.

Then training finished around 14:00, the usual frenzy of photo taking, and, after waiting a bit for a guide headed off south to a waterfall! This took more than an hour (to cover 24km),headed once again out on 4×4 quality roads through grasslands and patches of thick low forest, isolated villages and a little town or two. Then down down down into a rugged gorge with thick vegetation, until we reached the end of the road. And there three bearded Spaniards were sitting by their expedition truck having tea. They were very friendly. A month and a half out from Spain, bound for Cape Town, time-frame: "years maybe!" I admire their spirit.

This location was just by the riverbed, which was mostly exposed smooth stone here, the river clearly being very low at present moment. There was a trail headed downriver we took, eventually leading to a very very rickety cobbled-together ladder leading up to one of the most dodgy bridges I've ever seen!

I was super excited! Crossing a river over a waterfall via super dodgy bridge is definitely on my to-do list!! And I've always liked climbing things.

Unfortunately while i paused to take pictures from the base others began climbing the thing, then balking at even attempting to cross the dodgy bridge, creating a traffic jam. With two people trying to back up in front of me and three very very slowly attempting to begin to cross, i let myself be led away by the guide saying we didn't actually need to cross it -- vowing to myself to come back when the way had cleared.

While the river was wide under the bridge, it fortunately was mostly dry just above the falls and one could walk across the top of the falls on dry rock, crossing the water itself in a safe place where it could be hopped over. While we looked over the side slowly slowly behind us three of our group crossed the bridge:

It's funny i realized, I'll enthusiastically cross a dodgy bridge, just like I'll similarly climb right swinging around 54 meters above the roiling sea, where I'm just standing on one rope and holding another ... but i will not go within basically tripping-range of a cliff. I'll admit i think i was more wary of the cliff edge that my friends pictured above!

(Just received this minute from Khalidou)

Then those who had crossed the bridge joined us (well actually they'd already joined by the above picture but hey). And then by and by it was time to head back.

"I'm going to cross the bridge!" I announced, but others tried to lead me away, and Bara told me flat out not to. I can understand and appreciate his feeling that it is/was not at all safe and i should be prevented from doing so. Nevertheless rebelliously i turned my back on everyone else and struck off for the far side of the bridge. I didn't look back lest i be motioned too emphatically to stop, and no one followed.

The ladder on this side was even more dodgy, missing several rungs, and those that were there were a bit slippery and rotten. But i carefully climbed up and began to cross!

I didn't find it too bad. I'm accustomed to balancing on a rope, i had a hand hold on either side, and anyway worst case scenario was it wasn't that far down to the water below and no danger of being swept all the way to the falls.

This area was particularly dodgy, but again for me no worse than going out on the topsail yard footrope at sea. And definitely easier than the time i went out on the gaff halyard (a horizontal line (rope) not meant to be clinched, near the top of the masts, with just one rope above it to hold on to).

Fun stuff. Crossing this bridge was absolutely a highlight!

From thence we headed back. When we reached the Spaniards i said
"Wow how 'bout that bridge hey??" and the one of them responded with
"Can you believe, we saw people cross it yesterday??"
"Maniacs!" I responded.

Headed back from there to Timbi-Touni we got lost a bit on the meandering tracks, but after asking a villager we passed we got back on track. Returned to Timbi-Touni, one of the FAPI women left us there, and then onward to the main road which was maybe another hour. There bid adieu to Khalidou and the remaining FAPI woman.

It being by now 18:42, we commenced our journey and it soon became dark. It also began to rain so heavily visibility was only maybe ten meters and nearly nonexistent when staring into oncoming headlights. But we made it without incident.

Though one macabre marker we passed which i vaguely recall from before -- a monument to two peace corps volunteers on the site where they died in a car crash years ago.

And finally sometime after 20:00 we arrived at the hotel in Dalaba, same one as last year.

The end. And now I'll eat the croissant and mango in front of me.

Sunday, May 14th, my 41st birthday - Bailo the driver went to get the beekeeping federation (FAPI) staff while Bara and i had breakfast. I asked for coffee w milk and got literally handed a cup of hot milk and a packet of nescafe.

Bailo returned with what looked like a packed car: four women and two men from FAPI. Yet somehow we also fit Bara and i in as well. Most (all?) The FAPI people I've met before but i was particularly excited to see again Khalidou, their main trainer and he was with me on most of my previous Guinea projects.

Then we drove an hour (?) to this village of Timbi-Touni out away from the main road way out in the countryside. There, including the FAPI staff we had about 7 women and 10 men, which is an unusually good proportion. Presented about proper topbar hive construction and common problems with them until 2. At which point everyone we broke for lunch. And because my parents woke up and messaged me at that time i video called them and introduced them to a few of the people around me.

Then everyone did their prayers. Then we headed out to the bees!

We proceeded just a short distance out of the village to where there were a lot of beehives. Got all suited up. Most of the hives were vacant but we found a few occupied ones and harvested some honey. And one of them was strong enough to split which is always a good lesson, especially when increasing the number of hives is a priority interest. And we don't always have a strong enough hive to demonstrate with, but here we were! So we did! Bees were pretty nice, was able to work without gloves.

Then we headed overland to the village of Doumba where i was in 2015. By overland i mean taking basically 4×4 tracks through scattered farms and open grasslands. Generally being a little lost but it was never long until we'd encounter someone else and ask for directions. By and by we came to Doumba.

The village of Sanpiring has a special place in my heart because it was the first village i was based in, but i think i might have to admit with their picturesque beautiful giant huts Doumba village might be prettier. Revisiting it now for the first time since i was there 8 years ago I'm struck by how lucky i was to have been able to spend two weeks in such a beautiful place.

Many of the local men were there to welcome me back. Including the local mayor, who as it happens had been my host when i was there.

Then we all sat down and there was a bit of speech making. They thanked me extensively for my training and as well for coming back to see them. When it came time for me to speak, I'm not much for speechifying at length so i was just conveyed in a few quick sentences how much i enjoyed my time there, and appreciate their hospitality, and their welcome back. Which felt awkwardly short after they'd just talked for many minutes. But then as my translator Bara began translation what I'd said, bless him, he appeared to be conveying some analogy about a plant growing fruits or something, entirely of his own invention ahahaha.

Then we were fed some fonio (a Guinean grain kind of vaguely like a cross between couscous and rice. And some delicious mangoes. Then many pictures were taken, and then we had to go so we wouldn't be driving too much in the dark.

Hour drive back. Dark by the time we got back. Oh I should note that despite the packed car and long hours of driving over bumpy terrain today, everyone was in stitches laughing the whole time. Unfortunately it was all in local language so i didn't have any idea what it was about but they seemed to be having a hilarious time.

Got back to the hotel. Bara and i went in, while Bailo drove the others home.

"Let's just go in the restaurant real quick" Bara suggested, and i like to be obliging so sure. I was slightly surprised when Bara didn't order anything, i was expecting maybe he was after a coffee or something. But i honestly didn't suspect anything, I'm perfectly happy to sit in the restaurant if that's what he wants to do (i was catching up on things on my phone).

Then i looked up and the FAPI staff were coming in again. This was at least half an hour after i thought they left.
"Oh they're back?" I said, still not suspecting a thing, until they gathered around me and placed a big box on the table, which opened to reveal a birthday cake, and began singing "happy birthday."

I'm pretty sure I've never had a birthday surprise before. And compared to my last birthday, my 40th, to celebrate which i ate pancakes alone in my house, this was a great improvement. Just to be here in Africa would have made it better than last year, but after being welcomed like a returning hero to a beautiful village, and then to have these people surprise me with cake.. pretty sure it qualifies as the best birthday ever (:

Tuesday, May 9th, day 5 - First part of the day the usual usual. Though now there was a Belgian team working on a women's reproductive health project staying in the main part of our hotel, whom we saw at breakfast (two Belgians, four locals). Arrived at ENATEF there were two white land cruisers with the GIZ logo on them there. That's the German development bureau that's funding my Ghana project, don't know what they're currently doing at ENATEF.

Fast forward to after the days lecturing, everyone got suited up, we got the smoker lit, all this took like twenty minutes which is usual. Then we didn't go anywhere, so i asked Bara what the hold up was.

"There aren't any more occupied hives it seems, just that one"

So we ended up going and looking at the hives, kind of miming going through them and discussing them with everyone around, since we weren't limited by number of suits. We did a similar thing one time in Ghana last year and it also went well. And it's very ironic that the photographer had really wanted to do exactly that and we hadn't been able to get that to happen yesterday.

Then we drove about 30km, which took about an hour, to go see a nearby Peace Corps volunteer. And i wanted to give her a copy of a good beekeeping-in-Africa book I've brought several copies of.

She is based at another agricultural college, this out in a more rural area. The road to get there had numerous very big holes full of water. It seemed like a serene bucolic place. She's only been there a few weeks, only having arrived in Guinea in February and then there's ten weeks of language training in the capital. She was from Massachusetts. Seemed nice.

Hour back once again on the bumpy road for a bit.

Arriving home to the hotel i intended to work on the slide show I'll use tomorrow. Specifically, to make a slide I've been procrastination making for a year now, and now that i need it tomorrow it's time to finally do it. So i get out my computer and ...

... well it turns out i left my charging cable at the training center. No worries i just have to be quick about it to get it all done on the battery and then I'll be reunited with the cable tomorrow. So i go to turn the computer on and...

Well see last post. Didn't panic tooo much because this is exactly what happened last year and was an easy fix in the end (loose connection to hard drive). But needed a screwdriver to open it up. The translator and driver fortunately both readily agreed to go into town to look for the screwdriver for me. Even though it was after 7 (or 8 even?). While they were out i drew up the diagram for the slide. I have no skills at drawing on the computer so i often end up hand drawing diagrams and then photographing them.

Guys came back w the screwdriver, which they'd managed to borrow from someone. Did the brain surgery on the computer. At first it wouldn't start at all and i was very panicked but finally it worked. Then it was being VERY slow. Like super tediously. And i thought it might have been related to the repair I'd just done but then i realized it was just the internet. But as i had photographed the diagram with my phone and needed to re download it from Google photos to use, this was a problem. As in it was taking over ten minutes just to load a page and recall without the charging cable i had a finite amount of battery time.

I was a bit exasperated with the amount of technical hurdles to what should have been a simple undertaking. That's what i get for procrastinating i guess. Finally i got it done though.

The end.

I'm actually rather proud of it

Monday, May 8th, Day 4 - breakfast at the hotel at 8:30 - long French bread baguettes are delicious. Nescafe less so. And omelets are dependable throughout the world, though they could use some cheese here.

Then we went to the regional governor (prefect)'s office to greet him. This three story building had a nice sort of creative architecture in the arrangement of the central stairs. The prefect wasn't in. Someone mentioned he's a soldier, and well of course he is. We greeted the regional education ministers instead.

Then we went on to the ENATEF Forestry school where the training will take place. Somehow despite being just out of town you feel like you're deep in the forest when on the ENATEF grounds. The buildings are surrounded by big trees and the grounds have a serene air about them. Fitting for a forestry school i suppose.

Looking out at the ENATEF main square, 2014

ENATEF 2014, I forget if these people were eating here or if it's a class

As usual we spent an hour or more with introductory speeches and stuff, broke for lunch, then maybe another hour going around having the students tell what experience, if any, they have, and any questions or expectations they want met at this training. Only one had previous beekeeping experience, this youngish fellow in the back who looked to be in his mid twenties said he'd been a beekeeper for 13 years.

And then finally i began my lectures. My very first slide is one that has pictures of the three castes of bee (queen, worker, drone), and also happens to have on it the bee pest the Small Hive Beetle (SHB). Then the one guy who'd said he'd been a beekeeper for 13 years raised his hand and said (through translator) the SHBs help the bees make honey.

I really have to flat out contradict someone who has just said they have experience at a thing and make them lose face but.. well this is awkward because um, no? Not at all? So i did my best to politely but firmly say they don't help.

He seemed to take that well enough and training proceeded well. They seem a good group. Attentive and interested. Then around 2 we finished so we could do some practical beekeeping.

The evolution of this plan was a bit funny, because initially it had been suggested to me that we only were going to look at hives, though i always want to actually open them up. And the photographer (the man from Alaska, recall) specifically wanted us to just play act around a vacant hive as that would be easier for him to get pictures, he said. It was apparent to me that he was a bit apprehensive about being around a live hive. So i encouraged everyone to get suited up and light the smoker, but/and also kept saying we should find a vacant hive, but this latter part seemed to get lost so we ended up getting all suited up and being led to an occupied hive just a short distance from the main buildings. The photographer didn't even want to suit up, being as he didn't intend to be near an occupied hive, but got talked into it.

Bailo suits up the photog

So finally we were standing next to the occupied hive and i tried one more time to ask if there was an unoccupied one but no one translated what i was saying. So i apologized to George (the photog) and said okay i guess this is what we're doing.

And then. More or less as soon as i touched the hive it crashed down from the evidently extremely precarious stand it had been on. Our many unsuited spectators ran shrieking away, as did at least half our people in suits (and the photog). There remained myself, two women, and a guy i think might have been an instructor at the school. While everyone else panicked these three kept calm and composed, which i was impressed and pleased with. Not only are stirred up bees psychologically disturbing but i know panic itself is contagious and it takes some mental fortitude to stand fast when everyone else is shrieking and running.

There was a fair bit of honey in the hive, which we harvested into a large bucket, and then we put it back on its stand as securely as we could.

Then we made our way back to the central square of the campus. Of course bees followed us, causing everyone up there to run when we arrived. Though in keeping with my principals of not bringing bees to a place where there's unprotected people while I'm suited up, i removed my suit before entering the square, and actually never got stung, despite that there were still bees about. The photog and some others were bailed up in the cars, and he had actually gotten four stings (in his hands, which had been exposed i guess, though I'd offered him my gloves). I was a bit worried this whole thing would be regarded as a fiasco but everyone i talked to seemed very pleased with the day. It helps maybe that we were able to harvest a significant amount of honey from that hive.

(The three troopers who stuck through it and the honey, unfortunately lots of bees in it because it was all a mess after the hive fell down)

Tomorrow I'll propose to maybe not open hives until the hour before sunset, a solution i commonly use so that stirred up bees aren't chasing people all day.

The photog and Ibro departed for another town to look at a different project there. I really thought they were gonna be here two days. Good thing we did some beekeeping to get the pictures today .. or maybe that's why they left ;-)

I was interviewed the other day for Ben's Bees. He had interviewed me once before for his podcast a few months ago, but this time we did it "via zoom" (actually some other program) broadcast live onto the youtube!

After it was finished I began to worry that people would accuse me of "cultural appropriation," and wished I had emphasized that everything I'm wearing was given to me as a gift by the local people. But already there's two comments from people by whose names appear to be Ghanaian, appreciating what I'm wearing, so that's a relief.

Current Music: Buga - Kizz Daniel (Lo lo lo!)

August 8th, Day 39 - nothing much to report today. Woke up in the luxurious hotel in Conakry. Around 13:30 Bailo came and drove us to the office, which was just maybe a kilometer away but we got stuck in bad traffic before turning down side streets. We were there for a few hours and i found I'd allowed myself to be in a situation where i had nothing to do and was without my reading books. I had my phone but unlike many other people i don't find continuous hours of entertainment on my phone, though i did my best on this occasion.

Then we walked back to our hotel. As we were walking two pick up trucks full of gendarmes in black riot gear, and i was reminded of the warnings I've been getting from the security consultants about the possibility of civil unrest any day now.

Also i passed a healthy and clean looking white horse tethered to a light pole among all the mud and filth and splattering motor vehicles here, it seemed very out of place and i really don't know why it was here.

Nothing else really noteworthy to report today. Looks like my computer won't be repaired here. Tomorrow we are supposed to meet with USAID. Dr Bob was notified his flight for tomorrow night has been delayed for four hours -- I've been apprehensive that any one of my several connections might be delayed and cause me a cascade of missed flights so this development didn't make me am less apprehensive.

Solution to keep flies out of my drink.

Oh and i missed my high school 21 year reunion the other day (couldn't have it last year due to covid). So that was a thing that happened.

August 8th, Day 38 in Africa (16th in Guinea) - 8:45 Bailo, Ousman, Dr Bob and i departed the hotel in Kindia town. Ibro would be remaining in Kindia for more meetings. But first "I hope you don't mind, we want to buy some pineapples here?" Ousman asked us. No problem. And we were off!

Once again several hours driving on the highway winding down a valley towards the coast. This section of the highway had been recently fixed up and was pretty good. At one point there was a fair bit of a traffic jam because a fuel truck was jackknifed across half the road.

Then we passed through a village where the fellas had to stop to buy bananas for their families. You might be noticing a trend here, stop in the places that specialize in the different things to buy the local specialty!

At 10:30 we arrived at Bailo's house on the edge of the city, where we unloaded his fruit loot and luggage before proceeding.

Once again it was a long slow slow through the fetid city. We sat in heavy traffic for a bit before Bailo declared he had a Plan B and we went rumbling through bone shaking side roads again.

Finally at just around noon we were back at the hotel! Ousman left me his laptop so i could write me reports (since mine is still a glorified paving slab) and then the lads were off. Bob and i then veritably looked at eachother and said "LET'S GET SOME FOOD"

I must confess for my part I've seen more than enough rice dishes this past 38 days in Africa so i was eager for this pizza. So eager i didn't even pick off the mushrooms! And yes that's a fly on my glass of fresh fruit juice.😒

And then i wrote my reports! I still have two whole days to "write my reports," and then i fly off on Wednesday (to arrive in Australia on Saturday after touching down in like half of West Africa on the way). Meeting with USAID on Tuesday which seems like it might actually happen for once. Other than that i want, as always, to try to visit the Islands of Los ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%8Eles_de_Los ), but I've so far never been able to finagle it. I asked someone at the hotel who said he'd ask someone he thinks knows. But also The Organization might have their IT guy look at my laptop so i might have to hang around for that.

Oh and i ate a quarter of a kola nut, which is why I'm still up at 1:25am. 🙈

August 6th, day 15 - started the day at a leisurely pace in Mamou town. For once didn't have to visit anyone's relatives but we (only Bialo, Ibro and i now) did stop to buy something in the town market. I asked what, since the purchase was happening behind the car and having not gotten out i couldn't see. "Eggplants" i was told. "I thought we already bought eggplants??" I inquired incredulously but didn't get a response. So I don't know if my question was misunderstood or if after already getting a bag of eggplants in Faranah we were now getting yet more eggplants. Naturally I'll assume the latter as it's funnier.

Then around 10 we were off.

At one point the road split, with a barricade across one side, but we honked our horn at it and the people manning it lowered the rope across it so we could cross. The road beyond was in good condition and there was little traffic but the occasional other car. After a few kilometers we passed through another barricade and rejoined the other road.
"Why were there just barricades that we were able to cross through?" I asked Ibro.
"Oh that road is perfectly fine but they want to redirect people through the town the other road goes through so they'll buy stuff. But if you know about it you just honk and go through"

We stopped at one village's roadside market booths to buy some limes. And in another village where they have kapok trees, that makes a fluffy fiber used for stuffing pillows and things, we bought some pillows.

Personally I'd have chosen the blue ones but he chose the gray ones.

Arrived at Kindia town around 12:30. Proceeded immediately to the building where the other volunteer was just concluding his drip irrigation project. He was in a conference room of some agriculture extension society or group, with about 20-25 participants. He was your typical professorial volunteer. Tall and lanky, white haired with a Midwestern accent. Possibly the first American I've encountered in three years.

There were conclusionary speeches, then the presenting of certificates and taking of lots of photos. I thought it wag funny that a lot of participants wanted pictures with me and I'd had nothing to do with the training. Then lunch was served -- rice with sauce and chicken. Every angle i tried to bite at my lump of chicken seemed to hit bone though. And i got a small cup of some strong homemade ginger drink which was delicious and I longed for more but no luck.

Then we proceeded to the hotel, which seems very nice. The rooms are a bunch of nice looking detached cottages in a compound with a nice atmosphere. Room looks nice and the bathroom is friggen huge.

But i have to bend over to half my height to see myself in that mirror

Once settled, and it still very early in the day (14:20), i settled on a couch by the front office with my books. Most of the Winrock team also ended up hanging out there for awhile.

It sounds like the potential beekeeping project with Faranah University is definitely a go but can only be done in November (well, has to be done before next March but November is the least bad time for me in that time). November is still busy for me and i hadn't planned on a hole in my income there, but i think training the university staff to get their beekeeping program up and running would be a cool project.

Then later i went with Ousman down to the hotel restaurant where he was gonna work on his laptop. He's a swell fellow, i wish he'd stayed my translator.
Later the other volunteer came and joined us and i finally got to talk to him a bit. He works for Texas A&M university. This is his first time in Guinea but he's done a lot of projects in other places in the world. I was unsuccessful at gleaning any juicy bits of the gnostic secrets of drip irrigation wisdom. He seemed like a nice and likable fella.

And thus ends one of the more uneventful days.

August 2nd, Day 11 - last day of the training. We began with finishing the processing of honey, then reviewed things and wrapped up. The prefect came again, this time in green fatigues and a green beret. I'm so bad at recognizing people i didn't realize it was the same prefect that was at Ibro's yesterday (nor at that time that it was the same prefect I'd met in Dabala already) until i asked Damba what area the other prefect had been prefect of and he pointed out it was the same prefect that i realized. Also I'd mistakenly equated the position with mayor but the mayor is someone else, who also came to our closing ceremonies. The prefect is more like a regional governor i guess.

After that we drove up north headed to the village of Sanpiring where my first project eight years ago had been.

We passed a car upside down just off the road on a slope with what looked like a dozen people gathered around it. From the number of people gathered, I'm picturing it having been one of those local long distance taxis that somehow cram a dozen people in/on a sedan car, including three or four on the roof. I'd always thought about how unsafe it would be for those riders in even a minor crash. But from the demeanor of the people gathered around the car it didn't seem like anyone had been seriously injured or killed.

We bought an orange tree sapling in a town we passed through and stopped at Ibro's house where i planted it.

Then we continued on up to Sanpiring. It had been six years since i last visited and eight since I'd had my project here.

As we approached i worried a bit that my arrival might just be a burden to them. When we finally arrived i was overjoyed to see many smiling familiar faces and everyone rushed to shake my hand, including a lot of children who no doubt weren't yet born when i first arrived. Of particular note was a certain 14 year old boy, Mamadou de Boba, who had kind of adopted me when i was originally there when he was six. Back then he used to climb all over me and never tire of trying to talk to me in the local language even though i couldn't understand. Now he's a bit of a shy teenager. At least at first but after awhile he got more comfortable hanging around. I'm really happy to see him, though now not being able to communicate at all is a bit awkward. I showed him the album of my photos from that first project on Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/commissariat/albums/72157645348773676/page1) and he got a real kick out of it, showing others pictures of them.

Everyone expressed how happy they were to see me enough that i didn't feel like a burden any more.
"Many people have come here before, but only you have returned" they said more than once.

Before my first project they produced 1-2 tons of honey per year, now they produce 7-10 tons /year from 400 hives, they have ample demand for even more honey, and several people in the village work full time as beekeepers. Sometimes i feel like these projects only pretend to have an effect but don't really, and then i see results like this and it's amazing.

They pointed out a new well in the village and some more buildings, but the biggest difference i found is that eight years ago we didn't have electricity, we sat outside with the light of stove fires as the stars came out. This evening we sat inside under the electric lights and watched the news on a quality flat-screen with perfect reception. Someone still made tea over a little stove of coals, but they did it in the hall in the house.

I actually kind of miss the stars and lack of electricity but i guess I'll just have to go camping for that.

Saturday, July 30th - Just after i hit post on the previous post our driver emerged out of the surrounding fog, and simultaneously, the restaurant guy emerged with the carafe of hot water and a tea bag and presumably the invention to take our breakfast order. I burst out laughing because now we had to go. But Damba assured me we had time to wait for them to quickly make something, and it was decided they'd make sandwiches and we could eat them in the car since we had a bit of a long drive to beehives 20km away.
And with Damba's multi lingual abilities the restaurant guy was immediately sent back for nescafe, which I sipped until only a few minutes later our sandwiches arrived. We proceeded to drive slowly through the thick fog, navigating around the placid yellow cows chewing their cud in the middle of the road. I felt i could roll down the window and touch them as we went past, but as they still had their horns i figured i might get gored.

When i was fifteen or sixteen in Sweden, i for some reason thought it would be a lark to record like literally everything that happened for i think it was three days. I wrote several pages each day in a spiral notepad. I think it might still be at my parents house. It would be interesting to read that now. Anyway, i bring it up because the level of detail I'm finding myself including here is kind of reminding me of that.
And this sudden diversion to 25 years ago reminds me of the disconcerting similar tangents in Graham Greene's Journey Without Maps that I'm presently reading. Funny how the style of what one is reading creeps into what one is writing.

Anyway so we filled our vehicle with trainees. Fortunately i had the front seat, four squeezed into the back seat, and then seats folded down in the back back to accommodate four more. A second car accompanied us with more and apparently some of the trainees were from our destination and would be waiting for us there. The drive of 20km took maybe 45 minutes to an hour, through villages and vacant land. Growing up in California where the only vacant land is uninhabitable desert or protected state or national parks, i assumed all the rest of the world had also already "filled up," so it's still a pleasant surprise to me to see here in Guinea that there's just wild forest between villages.

Anyway met up with those trainees who were waiting us. Eight people put on the available suits and we went walking a few hundred meters to the hives, which turned out to be entirely under two trees. 37 under one and 58 under another. All packed in side by side. I recommended spreading them out, though they said they're less likely to get stolen this way. But of these 95 gives only about four or five were occupied.

When we opened the hives i was alarmed to find the topbars were made very badly -- twice as wide as should be and with no guide whatsoever on the underside, so needless to say the comb in all the hives completed disregarded the topbars. On the plus side all the hives that were occupied were full of honey ready to harvest. It was rather a mess without them coming cleanly one per topbar but everyone was very gratified to be harvesting. After i did the first few combs i let others have a go at it and stepped back to be more of a photographer. My DSLR battery being dead this was on my phone, which requires having a glove off since it doesn't recognize being touched with a gloved hand. Fortunately the bees were pretty nice. Bees here definitely nicer than Ghana.

Damba irked me a bit by sometimes commanding me to "come over here" for example when i wasn't done supervising and or photographing the participants doing something, and he wants me to look at something else, but i think sometimes he misunderstands who is leading this training.

Then we returned to the central location where the trainees were gathered, two full buckets of honey harvested. Traded out who was in suits, walked in the other direction to where there were several dozen more hives but only two were occupied.

Returned again two the central location, and the women began ladling out rice with a cassava sauce into the big communal bowls and a separate individual bowl for me. As I'm eating Danba comes up and says "Kris help me to take off this bee veil. He had similarly had me help him put it on, and I'm happy to be friendly and helpful but i was beginning to feel like his squire or something. Fortunately someone else helped him so i didn't have to interrupt my eating with it.

Then we drove back to town. On arrival i went walking around town by myself for a bit exploring. On top of a hill on the edge of town i found the ruins of a colonial era house which was kind of cool.

I spent the later afternoon sitting at my usual spot at the hotel reading. Because they literally never wipe down the tables my "usual spot is becoming a bit greasy from spilled food and nescafe. I may have to move to a new usual spot... or maybe just suggest they actually try wiping the table.
There appeared to be once again a wedding taking place next door though this one didn't go as late into the evening as the others had.

While i was sitting at the hotel reading, Ibro the country director came by. We were joined by Damba and they chatted for awhile. The hotel owner himself also happened by. He it turns out often travels to the states and had been there just recently. It sounded like his first business was importing clothes from the US to Guinea, and then he opened a boutique in Conakry and a restaurant there, followed by this hotel here. Turns out additionally that he's from Ibro's home village, so i think they must have known eachother all their lives. Then they organization's driver Biallo arrived, he'd been away for a few days attending to the newly arrived volunteers (there's now two more in country), and it turns out he's from the same village too.

We're going there tomorrow.

I asked the owner why no one is ever eating at the restaurant and he said "the problem is no one has money," which is of course just another way of looking at what the suspected problem is, that it's too expensive for locals.

Anyway now it's 21:30, i just finished my dinner. At the hotel restaurant. Ordered "steak" which seemed bold but I've had good luck with the sauces here before, and when it came it didn't disappoint. The sauce was genuinely delicious, a creamy sauce i think involving onions and peppercorns. Sometimes here in Africa when i say a meal was "really good" I honestly mean compared to my expectations and on a grand scheme of things it was merely palatable, but this sauce was genuinely delicious. The meat wasn't bad but it was a bit chewy, far too chewy for the butter knife they provided me with, with which i could have maybe beaten it to death. And they others having departed to get cheaper food themselves, i was confident I'd have no luck communicating the need for a sharper knife to the staff. So i darted to my room and got my hive tool, which was adequately sharp enough to cut the meat well. Meat expert my friend Billie surmises the meat is tough because they only eat their oldest cattle, which sounds plausible.
And the fries were good too, though this time the salad, which consists of warm lettuce with a creamy sauce, I've found unpalatable and could barely make headway on. And the salad covered half the plate so I'm still hungry but c'est la vie.

Dinner came out to 60,000 francs, or $6.92. And now I'm going to bed, goodnight!

So I woke up this morning bright and early planning to make an update about yesterday (nothing dramatic happened yesterday, just the usual observations), sat down at my usual place at the tables in front of the hotel, opened my laptop and...

"NO BOOTABLE DEVICE"

😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

I employed all my technical know-how, which consisted of turning it off and on again, and when that didn't work doing it again but leaving it off longer, but still no boots, not even a sock.

This is the second time I've had a laptop fail in mid assignment. I don't think it actually experienced rougher handling than it should be capable of taking (just a lot of being carted around in my backpack) -- i think the real reason for the high electronics failure rate while on assignments is just Murphys Law.

My immediate concern over a computer crash is loss of critical documents and irreplaceable pictures -- fortunately after my phone was stolen love Nairobi in 2015 I set automatic backup to Google photos up (AFTER losing 40 days of irreplaceable photos from East Africa), and after my computer went through a period in 2020 as an amnesiac with no memory i got in the habit of writing all my documents directly at Google docs. Other than those two categories most important things probably came from an email and can be found there again.

BUT I never got in the habit of making PowerPoints on Google docs even though i suppose one can. I've spent many hours over the past month making new presentations and refining old ones, and most of that work is probably a complete loss. Though i think i had sent two PowerPoints (of about five I've been using) to the host organization of this project to translate into French, and that was pretty much at the end of the Ghana project so they're more or less complete ... though now they only exist in French. Jk I'm sure i can get the original back from them.

The substantially revised Guinea presentations and had hastily put together of course would be a loss as well.

And of course there's the sheer inconvenience of losing my laptop an hour before i was going to be once again presenting for hours.

As it happens, Ousman had already departed to assist another volunteer, which was unfortunate because he had the translated presentations on his computer. Ibro was still here so we were able, after unsuccessfully spending half an hour trying to transfer it to another laptop so he could still do work he needed to do, to use the presentations on his laptop.

We'll only have "practicals" at the beehives this afternoon and Saturday. Off Sunday, and Monday I'll do my honey harvesting and processing lecture without any visuals because that's one of the complete loss presentations.

I find this all rather frustrating. My computer savvy friends say the memory might still be recoverable though if hooked up to another device.

In other news, so this morning just after i discovered my computer had crashed, the hotel restaurant guy came by, and asks "cafe?"
But see, I said that to him yesterday and he brought me gosh darn tea.
When my translator came a bit later i grumbled about it to him and he rattled off something to the guy and he promptly came with nescafe.
i complained about it to my translator, saying "how does 'cafe' sound at all like "tea??" Like, maybe my pronunciation is bad but surely he could put it together, how unrecognizable can my pronunciation of cafe be (the word in French is definitely 'café')" and my translator said "oh maybe you should have said nescafe."
So today after he says "cafe" i say "nescafe," and he says "cafe?" and i say "_nescafe_" and then he nods and says "okay" and BRINGS ME FUCKING TEA. (for the record nescafe is a terrible substitute for real coffee)

Needless to say from here on out any updates i post will be from my phone, which I find much more tedious to write things on than my computer.

Wednesday, July 27th, Day 5, Today - Just after nine we began our first day of training here. Normally I'm accompanied by one "program assistant," but because I'm the first since covid I'm accompanied by the entire staff right now -- two program assistants, two drivers (the Organization's drivers themselves aren't "just drivers" but are long term employees who are very involved and sometimes fill in as program assistants), and the country director himself.

   I have about 25 trainees this time, bout half of what each of the trainings in Ghana was. I look forward to being able to have more of a back and forth, with the larger groups its hard to leave it open for questions for too long before you start getting questions on tangents and lots of chatter amongst themselves.
   I always begin by having all the participants introduce themselves and usually say how many hives they have. On this occasion everyone was very vague about this, despite my interjecting several times to ask them to please tell me how many hives they have or what their experience or involvement is. They'd say which organization they belonged to and sometimes mention how many hives the organization itself had.
   Now I've taught beekeeping three times before in Guinea, but most recently was six years ago. I began my first of the three projects in Ghana using my old Guinea presentation, but as it begins with very basic bee biology, I got the feeling some of the more experienced people in the audience were getting very restless with it. So I adapted and by the end had an entirely new totally reformatted presentation which actually began with common problems found with topbar hives, and the essential bee biology stuff is tucked away with some more advanced things. I was actually really proud of this presentation, it came together very nicely.
   Anyway so I started to give the presentation I'd perfected in Ghana here and... even the initial overview slides were too much for them -- a passing reference to both "uncapped honey" and "brood" both required thorough explanations. I quickly realized I needed to start not with "common problems with topbar hives" but "so there's three castes of honeybee."

   But worst of all, just about the time I realized I needed to retreat back to my original old presentation, and was trying to surrepticiously make the transition without it being obvious, is when the USAID people showed up. USAID funds most of these projects. Visiting with USAID at the US Embassy is often on the agenda but has only happened once, every other time it's cancelled at the last minute as they're busy. So them actually showing up at a training project is a Has Never Happened Before event for me. Again, probably because its the first post-covid project.
   The two women from USAID were wearing local clothing, and didn't look ethnically out of place, and weren't immediately introduced to me, so I didn't even know they were there. And in actual fact it was one of them who asked "what is brood" (in a perfectly American accent, but that's not totally unheard of as a lot of people seem to travel back and forth) so they might have inadvertently contributed to my feeling the people needed the basics, though I think they really did. But anyway so here I was trying to present a presentation that was over my audiences head and then trying to mid presentation switch presentations whilst the whole Organization's staff AND two USAID observers were watching me ::facepalm::.
   All that being said, I don't think anyone really noticed. Other than Ousman asking "wait did I translate that slide" ("no I just made it"). Oh also he had translated my presentation into French but the translated version was only on his laptop and I had pushed for hooking my own laptop up so I could access all my numerous materials on my laptop, which turned out to be a really good decision considering.
   Presently the local prefect (mayor) arrived, in a blue military style uniform with "gendarme" emblazoned on it. He was introduced as colonel something-or-other. He read a short speech handed to him by an aid, then the USAID woman made a speech (in English), and Ibro our country director might have made a speech too, I already forget, and then we were done with opening ceremonies. We went outside to take a few pictures together (the leaders). The USAID woman had seemed a bit dour but she explained apologetically she had a bad headache and actually seemed nice. She said we should definitely come by the USAID office in Conakry when we're done.

   Then we got back to the training and the rest went very well. We talked about the very basics of "there's three castes of bee" and the jobs bees do in the hive and all that, following basically my old Guinea presentation but I inserted a lot of new slides completely on the fly. Finished training around 13:30. Lunch rice with a sauce with fish in it.

   I spent most of the afternoon working on my computer at what is already my usual spot here at the hotel restaurant. In the later afternoon I went on a walkabout around town with Ousman and (Kamera?) the driver. Just outside our hotel there is questionmark a wedding? or something? going on, hordes of predominantly teenagers have been showing up there and there's loud (but not bad, traditional sounding) music. We walked up through the university. It's a vet-med university and had a nice statue of a fish and of some horses and outside the horticulture building a statue of a fruit salad. Its at the top of a hill and the clouds/mist were moving in to town so it looked quite nice around. A bunch of students were playing soccer just behind the back gate of the university where we exited. Walking around town we shortly passed some men playing a version of that game where you toss balls trying to get close to existing balls. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves in this town. Walked through a large park full of grand old trees, the mist moving amongst them. Then crossing the street, passing between some market stalls, we found ourselves in what appeared to be like a pine forest, of once again lofty trees with the canopy high above and in the open space among the trunks... young people playing soccer.

   While walking I asked Ousman how old he was. He said he's 32 but his official records all say he's 38. It was common to misreport children's ages here to the government for a long time for... reasons which aren't clear to me but somehow related to taxes and sometimes evading going to school as far as I can gather. I think in his case his parents wanted to get him a passport when he was younger than should have been eligible or something, but now he's stuck with that incorrect age for all official purposes.

   I think I neglected to mention about yesterday during the drive, it's ubiquitos to see red xs painted on the front walls of houses beside the road. I assumed these were walls that need to be knocked down for road expansion but on seeing some that didn't seem to be in the way of road expansion I asked Ousman, and he said yes they're walls that need to be knocked down. "These people, they should know they can't build their walls there, but these people are very wicked."

   On the subject of thigns I forgot to mention yesterday, there were baskets and baskets of tomatoes for sale in teh villages around this town. Ousman mentioned that they grow many tomatoes here but they have a major problem in that tomatoes are too fragile to ship on the bumpy roads here, and don't last long especially without generally available refrigeration, so a great deal of their tomato crop is lost to spoilage.

   And then we returned to the hotel, I'm back in my usual spot. It's 20:04 and I'm rather wondering when we'll have dinner, they definitely tend to eat late here.

   I plan to update this before bed, about dinner, so if this line is still here check back in a two or three hours. Just in case I have something exciting to say about dinner ;) or to answer the question of just how late will it come???

***EDIT TO ADD: so the driver finally came to fetch me for dinner at 20:30 at the host's house. Once again there was rice with cassava-leaf sauce, but also a salad with avocados, and some delicious onion fritters and chicken wings of which the meat was actually delicious and soft not the rubber chewiness I've come to expect in Africa. I'm in a state of amazement how they managed this. And those onion fritters, yum! Definitely some more cosmopolitan cuisine in their house. I had been asked if I wanted to continue to go to their place for dinner or just eat at some local restaurant and I had opted for the former because it seemed more social, and I'm glad I did! (regarding the salad, those who know me will know I loathe avocados but after already avoiding the fish earlier in the day and the tomatoes that were also in the salad I felt a bit like I'd look a bit too picky if I was seen to be clearly avoiding the avocados :X )

July 26th - Departed the hotel at 8am after being picked up by the organization's Program Assistant Ousman and driver (?) in their white landcruiser. It was raining, of course.
   Slogged through traffic for awhile amidst the usual flowing cascades of the capital's streets. For a significant portion we took a small sidestreet to bypass traffic on the main road but it was quite the bone rattler -- I don't know if you can speak of pot holes when the entire surface is covered with them. After only about an hour we were free from the city. In the past I've described it as takign several hours to get out of the city but that was when I was staying in a hotel near the end of the peninsula, whereas now they're using a hotel much closer to the mainland. Conakry is a very long skinny peninsula. I had forgotten that just as soon as we got to the mainland some mountainous hills rise suddenly out of the mist kind of picturesquely.
   The drive was mostly uneventful as we wound up into the interior through little villages of huts and towns with decaying old colonial buildings. The road was new and smooth in large segments and still under construction in others. At one point we passed a convoy of cars that appeared temporarily stopped on their way toward the coast full of Chinese occupants. I was told the government had made a deal with China to give them rights to extract gold if they built 1000 km of road, but that they had started to extract the gold first and so had been told to pack up and go home. Nevertheless construction appeared to be ongoing in places, where we passed teams of local laborers hacking away at the embankment with pickaxes while a chinese foreman looked on under an umbrella.

   Arrived at Dalaba around 1500. I've been through this town on my way elsewhere but never stopped here before. It looks at first glance like a small not-too-hectic town in an area of large hills (they call it the Switzerland of Guinea). It's chilly here, I've had to put on an undershirt to stay warm enough and wear a light jacket in the evenings. It seems to hold true to its early not-too-hectic impression, its easy to walk around and most people seem to get around by foot, with a few motorcycles.
   Arriving at the hotel we found four white landcruisers already parked out in front, with the logo of GIZ on the side -- GIZ, the German government development bureau, was the funding agency of the project in Ghana. So this boded well, the hotel apparently wins the NGO's Choice Awards.
   front and restaurant looked good ... room was kind of small and dingy, and most pertinently didn't have a mosquito net hanging over the bed (we checked other rooms, none did); also no seat on the toilet which I always find very tedious, and if you can afford a toilet surely you can afford a seat for it?? It just feels weird and wrong perching on the rim of the toilet itself to do one's business.
   Also, though the room has what would be a decent window, for some reason there's big signs entirely obstructing the view from the balcony that runs along the fronts of the rooms, and thereofre the passage of light is extremely impaired. One thing I hate is not being able to wake up to the light of day and as I found out the next morning indeed very little of it filtered into the room.
   But there was a back door made of glass that had a curtin over it, surely this leads outside right? Well, there's a balcony out there but... it leads to some weird interstitial space between this building and an add-on with a conference center. This balcony just puts you in a position to awkwardly peer into the conference center where presumably the GIZ people were then having a meeting. And what's worse, the bathroom window has the same view. Sooo not my favorite hotel but whatcha gonna do.

   Presently, while I was sitting at the rather nice front outdoor area of the restaurant, two guys from the host organization came by and took Ousman and I to the location where trainign would be taking place, a training center (sponsored by USAID?) in a residential district not far from the hotel.
   After that the driver took us to this other hotel Ousman (who is from this area, went to high school in this town) wanted to show me. This was only yesterday and I'm assuming the driver took us there, though I don't remember exactly, but don't remember walking. I recall the last 50 meters of the drive leading up to the hotel seemed formerly grand, flanked on either side by little columns with mostly broken lights on them. Hotel was long and low with vines growing up the walls. Up a stone staircase, past a deserted looking reception niche, and suddenly the inside was breathtakingly grande. Half the building a large open room, grand and high ceilinged. There was a piano in a corner, a bar in the center and ... no people, just one guy in his twenties who Ousman introduced to me as the owner. I shook his hand feeling vaguely confused.
   Then we stepped out the back door, from where a stairway led down to a pool with a stunning view of the valley below. Here there actually were some other people, mainly young and taking selfies, though a couple seemed to be practicing a dance routine. Ousman told me it is really happening here on the weekends. Ousman said the place had opened in 2017, which didn't seem to jibe at all with how old the place looked to me. Finally after awhile, as we were walking around the beautiful serene grounds, he said it was an old colonial hotel, for a long time the only hotel in the area, but had fallen into decay as the owner wasn't really keeping it up, and finally he died and his children inherited it and have rehabilitated it.
   But "there's lots of music and partying here on the weekends thats why we don't put volunteers here" he said. But looking around it on this Tuesday afternoon it was extremely serene, and fresh from being very unimpressed with my actual hotel, I had half a mind to ask if we could move to here -- but I decided to trust the judgement of GIZ. It looks like the new owners, being lads in their 20s, are concentrating on the party pad aspects and perhaps totally neglecting its qualities as an actual hotel. Which is a shame because its a grand old place. Walking back through the building to leave I was thinking it seemed like something from a Wes Anderson movie.

   We were able to walk back to our hotel from there, just a few hundred meters. We passed the old shell of another colonial building, possibly a church, walls exhibiting ambitious and interesting architecture now surrounding rooms full of lush shrubbery.

   For our next adventure, after I'd spent a bit more time sitting and reading in the restaurant, Ousman mentioned to me he was going to get a haircut and would I like to come along. By now it was twilight and clouds / fog were blowing through town. We walked around the corner from our hotel past the entrance to the local university, where some drunk young man was yelling or exhorting to a bunch of bemused people sitting by the entrance. The proprietor, a young man, had a bunch of young women seated in his shop but somehow Ousman persuaded him to give him a haircut immediately. His hair was already extremely short but he basically got his head shaved. One of the young women had a deformed/destroyed eye which I didn't like to look at. Haircut finished, the barber then commenced applying henna to one the young women's feet, who we were informed was about to get married. As we walked past the university entrance the drunk man was still there exhorting his fellows.

   I was starting to really wonder what time dinner was planned for (and also noting that no one seemed to eat at tthe hotel restaurant) when around 20:00 Ibro, the country director, showed up with the other program assistant and driver. He (Ibro) is always smiling and cheerful and its always a pleasure to see him. He informed me we were invited to the host's house for dinner so off we went. I noted with interest the host lives on Rue Rosa Parks. His house was as nicely appointed as any house in "the West" could be expected to be. We sat on couches and talked while dinner was prepared. I noted at one point there were six people poking away at their cell phones, two not. Also with the exception of one woman who was out in the living room with us working on her laptop, all the women in evidence were in the kitchen and were never introduced.
   For dinner (which finally was ready at 21:15) there was some rice with a spicy soup with meat in it to put on it, but I've seen so much of this exact dish over the last three weeks that I was really overjoyed when they also brought out a bowl of shell-shaped pasta in a cheesy sauce and had several helpings of that. Plus a salad.

   As we drove back to our hotel, at 21:45, I was able to look into the barbershop as we went by, the barber was still busy putting henna on the young woman's legs.

   Going to bed I felt annoyed that tehre was both a bright light in the corridor just outside my room as well as the light had been left on in the conference room and was clearly illuminating my room from the other side as well ... but then the power went out (apparently for the whole town) and remained out for the whole night. Which made for a nice silent night, though I was concerned over not being able to charge my phones.

   One way things have changed in the ten years now (!) that I've been doing this is when I first started I could only expect power when we had the generator running for the projector for the training, and internet access forget about it unless the hotel had wifi. Now I have the luxury of being annoyed when a power outage interrupts my electricity supply, and though this hotel doesn't have wifi, I have a local sim card with over a gig of data (once again piggybacking my main phone onto the other phone's wifi, though now I'm using bluetooth to tether them which I wildly assume might use less power than just having my phone operate was a wifi hotspot)

July 25th, today - Ibro the country director came with one of the drivers to pick me up today. Ibro himself has only just recently come back from his own vacation in which he traveled to Mecca to make the hajj, and now can append "al-hadji" to his name. I think it's kind of cool how unlike in Nigeria where you primary get to add "chief" or "prince" to your name based purely on bloodlines, the most respected honorific here is gained by actually doing something specific that requires committing to a fair bit of a journey.
   We drove first to the Organization's new office here in Conakry, which is a nice little building. One of the program assistant's read out to me the official introductory advice for Guinea, liberally interspersed with "I know you've been here many times before but I'm supposed to tell you these things" apologies, though I assured him that since I was the first volunteer in years we should just take it as a practice for the induction of upcomign volunteers (it sounds like in the next two weeks they'll have three more). And there were a few things that came up that we realized should have been told to the volunteer before they left home country ("you should bring a gift from your home region"!).
   They primarily speak French here in the capital, and some local languages out in the countryside. I've found my meagre French has actually degraded in the years since I was last year, particularly since Spanish has supplanted it in my head and while trying to think of French words I keep accidentally coming up with the Spanish equivalent. But I can often get the gist of what people are talking about.
   Went to a bank where I got some 1.5 million francs, so I don't feel penniless anymore (I've always found taking a bunch of USD cash to exchange is often unnecessary and necessitates tedious money changing chores when bank ATMs will dispense local currency to you at no worse an exchange rate than you could have gotten from a money exchanger, probably a better one in fact). Anyway the 1.5 million is $173.32 in USD (currently 8654.61 : 1).
   Then went on an extended quest to find a barber, which I thought would be quick and easy but the first two barbers were closed (in the second case, the barbers themselves, three young men who looked Lebanese, were idling about in the barber shop but declined to do any work when asked because they were closed. Seemed a bit odd to me that they'd even be there in that case but hey). Then we found ourselves near a supermarket so I asked Ibro if we could go in and see the honey and he agreed. It was the most weirdly empty and spacious supermarket I've been in. When I walked into a supermarket in Nigeria on my first ever project I felt like an idiot for having expected it to be different, it was very normal, how foolish of me to assume it might be otherwise. Well, this supermarket definitely felt weird. There was locally produced honey which was good to see, as well as honey from India and "Dubai" (pretty sure Dubai doesn't produce honey). I took a picture of the weirdly empty and spacious aisles but didnt' even notice the weirdest most dystopian thing until a bit later, but it fortunately is visible in the picture.

   As we waited in line (Ibro was going to buy something) I noticed that there was a second floor balcony that wrapped around the entire store and stationed about every three aisles there was a person in the store's red uniform, just standing there, watching. Being as there weren't more than a dozen customer in the store there were definitely more people watching that no one pocketed a snack surreptitiously than there were actual customers (but then again these people are probably paid daily less than the cost of a snack so...). Anyway silent watchers all up along the walls definitely feels creepy and dystopian.

   And then we finally found a barber who was open. The haircut cost $5.

   In all this driving about town I noted once again that the town is strewn with trash, running water flows down every road and pools in low places and the numerous enormous potholes, as well as cascades down embankments in places or flows like a stream down some roads. In short, and I'm sorry any Guineans who are reading this, I know one doesn't like to see words with such negative connotations used to describe one's principal city, but it's squalid. And I was thinking, it wouldn't be so bad if it was a dry squalid. But the fact that its always over 80f and everything everything is wet with dirty and sometimes stagnant water, I think it's the awareness of all the bacteria and parasites that are probably flourishing on every surface which makes it all really disturbingly squalid.

   Back at the hotel restaurant this evening I had filet de beouf, which, though maybe somewhere in Australia could have come up with a better cut of beef, at least it wasn't chewy like all meat I'd had in Ghana, and I think there was clear evidence that a skilled chef and done the best with what they had. There were pickled vegetables intermixed with the fries which I don't tihnk I've ever had before but it was a delicious combination. For over $20 (180,000 francs) it cost a fortune by African standards but I justify this to myself that I'm going up country tomorrow and this is probably my last taste of luxury for two weeks. The one waiter who speaks fluent English is a swell fellow named Bobo.

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.

   If I may interrupt the ongoing travelogue to fly wildly through time and space... there's this writing contest to win a trip to Argentina and travel writing mentoring, and the deadline ~~is in 12 hours~~ actually I just realized the autoloading count down on the webpage is counting down from Melbourne time but in the time zone of the deadline as far as I can tell it is 28 hours to go so I can wait till I get home this evening I belieeve, though time zone shenanigans are making me nervous.

   To apply, I must write a piece that limbos under the incredibly low limit of 2500 characters, on one of these topics:
"Making a Local Connection"
"The Last Thing I Expected"
"A Decision that Pushed Me to the Edge"

   Coming up with a story that is both poignant and under 2500 characters has been hard, but I finally settled on "making a local connection" and adapting the character study I did of my interpreter Baro in Guinea. Even that seemingly very short entry is 3600 characters though!!

   So anyway, here is what I have. Please any constructive criticism and advice is appreciated! Obviously I'm right up on the deadline so I'm gonna let it sit just for a few hours (currently on my lunch break at work, since I'm going out to dinner with my parents this evening (its their last day here!) I'll probably submit it at the very end of the workday so that this evening I'm not worrying about getting it in on time.

   So here it is, currently weighing in at 2,467 characters (so keep in mind I can basically add only one word right now without deleting an equal amount to make room)! --

   We’re sitting on the porch in the dark, just watching the rain and the constant lightning that flashes silently over the corrugated metal roofs of the other cottages in the village, when the long warbling call to prayer suddenly breaks out, from Baro’s phone.
   “Come, let’s break fast.” He says to me with a smile on his stolid face. Other people are already coming by, someone hands us umbrellas, and we step onto the volcanic gravel of the village paths, while the rain pours down around us in big fat cold drops. Baro hobbles along with a pronounced limp in his left leg, we make a little informal procession under the umbrellas, around some cottages, between tall stalks of corn, past some round thatched huts.

   Most days, if it wasn’t too wet, after th breaking of the fast Baro would tend his a teakettle over a little fire of coals, squatting just off the porch. He made it from loose leaf tea, repeatedly pouring it from the kettle into a tin cup and back into the kettle. He’d spend an hour or two at this, like a long slow ritual, as the moon slowly rose overhead. With no electricity, you become acutely aware of the phase of the moon, especially since Ramadan and fasting wouldn’t be over until the moon finished its cycle.
   With nothing but the light from the moon and the stars, and the orange glow of the coals under the kettle, I would think about how very much like his nomadic ancestors Baro looked at this moment.

   They say Guinea is the “watertank of Africa,” it is a beautiful lush green country in which two of Africa's great rivers, the Senegal and Niger, both originate. For two weeks I was based in this little village a long day's drive into the interior. During long evenings after work I'd sometimes walk along the surrounding forest paths, the gaggle of village children would all run around together, the adults would all collect on someone's veranda to chat on into the darkness. Baro, my interpreter, had a transistor radio which would give us reports of the outside world and burgeoning ebola epidemic all around us.
   Baro came from dry Mali to the east, but had come to Guinea to escape politcal instability. Ebola wasn't in this village but it was in Guinea's capital; if the capital were to become too dangerous Mali would have to be my own way out.

   Despite the turmoil of the outside world, here in the village the children played happily, the adults continued their daily routines. And Baro and I peacefully whiled away the hours.

   So in preparation to post my yearly year-in-review post (which, yes, should have been around New Years) I thought I'd make sure I had adequate pictures of the year's events... and realized I'd barely posted any pictures for the past year!!!

   So I've been working backwards posting the post-worthy pictures of the year, which you can see here though I've only worked back as far as July so I still have eight months to go through (don't worry it's only working out to two or three pictures most months).

   Among other things though, I had only posted all of about three pictures from my trip to Guinea in July!

   So of course I had to go through my Guinea pictures and post the pictures worth posting!! That worked out to about 31 pictures. Incidentally, I hate it when someone goes on vacation and then posts all 600 something photos they took. Ain't no one got time for that! A picture is worth a thousand words ... and no one wants to read your 600,000 word meganovel! But you should read my 31,000 word best seller ;)
   In related news, my grandfather refuses to look at more than 12 pictures from any of my trips, which is a bit irksome because if I want to show him pictures I have to sift out the best 12 and either send them to him directly or make a special album of them.

   The narrative of the 2016 project itself I pretty much steamrollered in in just three parts, the journey there, the project itself, and the journey back ... followed by a fourth entry on the SIX DAY journey from Guinea back home to Australia.

   So yeah, you can read about it at one of the above links, or all previous Guinea projects. And all 31 pictures from this most recent trip can be found here.

   And hooopefully I'll get the 2016 year in review post up before this year is half over!!

Thursday, July 30th,
Labe, 0700 - Ibro, Damba, Daniel, driver Mamadou and I got started bright and early on our trip back to the capitol, leaving the hotel promptly at 7. Monica had gone back to the village she's posted to the day before to pack for her upcoming trip to the Peace Corps training village near Conakry (to welcome a new group of volunteers), and had told me she'd be waiting by "the orange sign" by the road junction to Doumba -- which I knew well because last year's project had been in Doumba. She estimated it would take us about 45 minutes to get there. Also I only realized in the morning that while Monica and I had come up with this plan we hadn't really shared it with the others apparently, so it was news to Ibro we were giving Monica a ride.
   The morning was clear and quiet as we sped down the road past the lsat buildings of Labe, over a small river, past foliage and bush ... and twenty minutes later we were rocketing through the Doumba junction. "wait wait wait!" I exclaimed, "we're supposed to meet Monica here!" I made them turn around and go back but they were very doubtful she would be there, saying it was nowhere near Sintali, where she's posted, and after one return pass we were on our way, me wishing I had had Monica tell the plan to one of them so they'd have had a clearer understanding of it.
   Continuing to text with Monica via whatsapp we established she might actually have meant a different junction that also leads to Doumba and we got there closer to the predeicted 45 minute travel time. She wasn't there, and we were just about to go continue on to the nearby town of Pita for breakfast and then come back when I saw her coming up the side road in a taxi. So she joined us, and now with six people we were a spot crowded. But hey, I think we counted 13 (THIRTEEN) people in one of the local taxis (a regular sedan style car, with three people in the front, four in the backseat, two more behind the back seat, and four people actually riding on top). Apparently Conakry has no bus system, so to get from Labe to the capitol as a local your only option is to pile into one of these overcrowded taxis for the 350km trip, and breakdowns are the norm.
   Stopped in at a little shop for breakfast. We were after omelettes but the guy "didn't have eggs," which was kind of a mystery since there were literally people selling eggs all around us. We discussed the oddity of that people in Guinea will often decide they "don't do" some type of business, like buy or sell eggs, and no matter how much business sense it makes can't be budged. Or if you buy a coke or something and it comes in a glass bottle you can't leave the shop with it because they get cash back for the glass bottle -- which is good that they're all about recycling but annoying you have to finish your drink there. So you offer to pay them more so you can take away the glass bottle and sometimes they might go for it, but sometimes they might insist that no you simply cannot take the glass bottle away from their premises no matter how much you offer.

Mamou, 1400 - After several hours of winding through the green mountains of Guinea we came to the town of Mamou and dropped Damba off at his house, tucked into a backstreet of Mamou. A gaggle of little girls (nieces?) ran up to hug his leg as soon as they say him. From there we proceeded just to the edge of town to where the college of forestry is tucked away in a way that somehow makes it feel like you're not near a large town at all but just in a secluded grove. Here we found another landcruiser identical to ours, with the Organization's logo, waiting. We had met up with another project and Ibro would be hopping from us to them. The American volunteer in this case was an old professor with spectacles, working on some kind of occupational survey. After a short chat with them we were off! Now with only four in the car: Daniel, Monica, myself and the driver.

The ENATEF school of Forestry in 2014

Kindia, 1600 - On our way to Kindia we passed a police checkpoint where they made our driver show them all his papers and even unload all the luggage in the back so they could confirm there was a fire extinguisher there. Meanwhile their rigorous safety inspecting didn't seem to apply to the taxis puttering by with piles of people on the roof. The driver grumbled that really they knew NGOs like us are always in complaince but were hoping we'd bribe them to get out of the hassle.
   A few hours later (these times are very approximate) we came to the town of Kindia and stopped for lunch. Just past Kinda there was a waterfall called the Eaux de Khaleesi -- "the waters of Khaleesi." Another volunteer last year had reported it was awesome so I had insisted we plan on stopping there. Just prior to the waterfall we made a stop, the driver announced his wife had come up here for her sister's graduation and so we'd be picking her up to take her back to Conakry. So we stopped by some buildings by the side of the road and picked her up, and let me tell you, I think she was one of the most gorgeous women I'd seen in all of Guinea. And she didn't speak any English but she seemed sweet. She works as a nurse. Driver Mamadou has definitely done alright for himself!
   It was just a short drive off the main road. At the location itself a nice looking little hotel was under construction, a number of bungalows seemed complete. We paid an entry fee of about a dollar a person and a guide with a hard hat took us down the trail. Despite the development of the site the first area we were led to had an entirely broken bridge we had to cross very precariously walking on just two planks. There was a fair bit of water crashing over a short falls here but I was kind of thinking "this is NOT as cool as the other volunteer had made it sound like" and was pondering whether we had time for me to drag the group to the "Wedding Veil Falls" I had visited previously -- I was still in kind of host mode trying to show Daniel the best parts of Guinea, and Monica as well hadn't been to the waterfalls. But then the guide announced "and now for the main suite!" and led us across a meadow to a locked gate. Unlocking it, he led us down a series of steps curving down amongst big mossy trees. Mamadou (driver)'s wife continued along with us even though she was wearing high heels! At the bottom of the steps the trail continued meandering maybe 100 feet along the gnarled roots and frequent little streams of water and then reached a small waterfall comign from a cliff high above and slippery rocks. Continuing along the base of the cliff we approached a growing roar and finally came to a large pool where a truly huge waterfall was falling. There was a wooden boardwalk positioned opposite the waterfall but the water level was unusually high and we'd have to wade to get to it ... which Monica, the tour guide, and I did. Because the boardwalk was exposed to constant mist the steps leading up to it were green with algae and so slimy I could get literally not traction at all -- I had to maintain three solid points of contact and have my foot up against a crack or something, practically crawling up the boardwalk. Once in the middle there was a dry space and now directly across from the waterfall we could appreciate that this was indeed an epic waterfall.

Conakry, 1800 - on the edge of town we came by the driver's house and dropped off his wife, and his two young children came running out to give him a hug. Then we continued on slogging through rush hour traffic. Conakry is a long peninsula and our hotel was at the far end of it. We could have been home in maybe half an hour if there was no traffic but instead the hours stretched on one after the other. At one point we watched a pick up truck practically DISAPPEAR into a pothole, that was pretty alarming. That thing had to be three to four feet deep and the size of a car, the unsuspecting pickup go one wheel in and went over, half in the hole with the bottom of its chassis resting on the edge of the pothole and its wheels spinning in contact with nothing.

Conakry, 2100 - On a quiet street just blocks from our hotel we came across a barricade across half the street that said "HALT" on it. The driver stopped and looked around. There didn't seem to be anyone around, there were cars driving on the other side, and this was the way he wanted to go. So after a minute or two of thinking about it he proceeded past it. Immediately there was a whistle and he stopped as a soldier came to the window and started yelling at him. Then the soldier asked to see the car's paperwork, and inspect our luggage. The driver was visibly grumpy with all this, and things seemed to escalate between him and the soldiers. Daniel says he saw a soldier slap him, and the driver later reported he could smell alcohol on their breath ... which is really scandalous in a muslim country where no one EVER drinks.
   We were hoping it would blow over but they took him into custody, making him sit on the bench with them, and continued to argue with him. I distinctly heard the words "500,000," presumably they were trying to get a $50 bribe from him. One of the soldiers talked to me in a friendly manner trying to say in very broken English that there wouldn't have been a problem except that the driver is being so argumentative. I'm sure he was hoping that by playing the good cop in a sort of "good cop bad cop" routine maybe I'd offer to give him some money to make up for my driver's argumentativeness and it would all go away. Daniel and I were told we were free to go, and I kind of suspected if we left they might release Mamadou since their hopes of a bribe would be over, but I also couldn't just walk away and leave him there. I intentionally didn't let on to the guards that I could speak any French at all, because if they can't negotiate with you they can't ask for a bribe. My phone wasn't working, reception is terrible in Conakry, but Daniel called Ibro, who called up the pipeline to USAID, which called up the pipeline to the US Embassy, whom I talked to briefly, and then they called someone in the Guinean military who called the garrison commander who called the unit captain... after awhile a person with military bearing but looking like he had just been called out of bed emerged from the darkness and addressed the soldiers in a posture of parade rest with his hands behind his back. His tone was not angry or chastising, just kind of "these are announcements" and the soldiers listened attentively. They all saluted and the man disappeared into the darkness. Shortly later, Mamadou was released and we continued on our way.
   In related news, Daniel mentioned that when he first arrived Ibro had told him "there's a police station down the block this way ... avoid it if you want to avoid trouble."

   And just ten minutes later we were at our hotel finally!

   Up next, the epic 89 hour trip home, complete with cancelled flights, being stranded in strange new African cities, violent bouts of puking, and maybe even a little romance!

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The Agrinautica

Tales of a Beekeeper Errant

Entries tagged with guinea

In Which They Ask for my Yellow Fever Certificate

At the Garu

In Which A Bridge Is Crossed

41st Birthday

Day 5 - technical problems

Day 4 - Crash Course in Stirring Up Bees

On Youtube Again!

Slow Day in Conakry

Return to Conakry

Roadtrip Guinea 2022 Day 4

Sanpiring 8 years later

Guinea 2022 Day 8

Guinea 2022 Day 7 -- Sudden Computer Death Syndrome ☠️☠️☠️

Guinea 2022 Day 5 - First Day of Training

Guinea 2022 Day 4 - First Day In The Field

Guinea 2022 Day 3

Guinea Days 1 & 2

Urgent Request for Feedback!

Guinea 2016 Pictures!

Guinea 2016 Part 3 - Roadtrip Guinea!