Reforestation Round 1

My village held it's first round of the reforestation project us AGFO volunteers are in charge of. Seeing that the rainy season is just starting, the ground is prime creating a perfect environment for my well nurtured babies I planted back in March. Le groupement des eleves, approximately 20 garcons helped plant over 600 trees in less than 4 hours. We went along the Niger, starting at a grove of trees that the Guinea-Mali NGO planted bout 20 years ago (good omen-inshallah!) and ended just past l'ecole primaire. Seeing the positive, well-informed, high spirited youth, the wise president of the district, my homologue the village griot, and a few other prominent village elders unite in their efforts calmed all my fears. People are aware of the importance of reforestation and will step up to make their community better. It excites me knowing that we addressed an area that needs it, which is basically my backyard. Now I can keep a close watch on which goat I'll be eating for dinner given that it touches one satiable leaf on my precious, fire-resistant Gmelina.

PERPECTIVES

"It's the closest place you can get to heaven-minus the trash."
- my little sister, Cerisa, after spending a week at my site.

I'm in Conakry right now, recovering. Recovering from what you may ask? Stress and the usual case of Giardia, Schisto, or Salmonella. I'll find out exactly what from the PCMO tomorrow when my results get in. But since I, like so many other volunteers live with the runs or live running from them (pardon if you just ate dinner), the last 3 cases are not out of the norm. For me, it was the stress that brought me to this wonderful refuge called Conakry.

It was here that I was reminded about the kind of person I am. I am a perfectionist. And being that type of person in a country like Guinea, where the protectors of law are the ones breaking them, things don't quite...well how do I say it? Ca marche pas! I've been so happy and healthy with my situation here because I love my site. It is here that I've been able to find my niche by forming strong relationships, feeling a sense of belonging within my community which leads into finally making a strange place into a home. I always believed that you can't be homesick when you're at home. It's when you leave home that you get sick and vomit everything you put into your body for 6 days straight!

I am so tired and I shouldn't be surprised considering that I sleep only 2 hours a night when in my home that I speak so highly of. It's so funny because I've been so at ease at my site that it becomes easy to forget that being an insomniac is unhealthy. If I were in the states getting that little rest I would be livid and I would have immediately done something about it. But no...something about Guinea makes you forget to take care of yourself. Maybe it's because there are so many other things to take care of that seems of greater priority.

Whether you're a fellow G15er or a certain best friend working in a big cooperate office please take this to heart. Remember yourself. It's not being selfish. It's being smart. Take care of yourself first.

Fish Fete

Here are a few pictures of this holiday of fishing. I can say that this easily makes it up there with my top most amazing festivals I've participated in. It succeeds "Running with the Bulls" because I couldn't actually participate in "running" due to the state I was in from the night before. And because there were absolutely no tourists/foreigners except a handful of us PCVs.

I'm a little blogged out so I will brief what a "Fish fete" entails: a fair like atmosphere with really greasy food and hiked up prices on random items, lots of entertainment with carnival looking costumes and props, dancing under the stars while inhaling red earth and loving every sweaty minute of it, singing "Down by the Bay" for half an hour with fellow PCVs in hopes of amusing the hundreds of children fascinated by the tubabus (white people), racing into knee deep muddy water at the sound of a shot gun and using very archaic fishing devices from wooden cages to mesh tank tops.

C'est la vie

Yesterday started off well. After my run I decided to choose the best Moringa from my tree nursery and plant them in the school garden along with some sisal. The day was beautiful until I heard a woman start wailing as I was taking my bucket bath. Automatically knowing there was another death my heart sank, as it always does when one finds out bad news. N fa Mou calls for me and I tell him I’m bathing. He remains at the door for a second and yells that a baby has died and I need to come and sit outside to pay my respects.
As I walk up to the house I see two groups of men and women and I place my chair among the women facing the men. Somewhere in the midst of benedictions, mothers’ wails, and bouts of silence I start to hear my own heavy breathing followed by sniffling. I started balling over a death that I don’t even feel like I should have been so worked up over. I didn’t even know them!
I’ve cried a lot in my life but I’ve never had to hold back the fury that I held back within me yesterday. Not like that, because I have never felt so many shameful things at once. I was not only disrespecting the will of Allah by being a woman shedding a tear but I never felt so scared with the unfamiliar. I felt anger too like where the hell am I…God doesn’t want babies to die. I felt embarrassed with N fa Mou sitting among the men trying to get me to stop sulking, while speaking in Malinke. I felt confused and sure of what I was being told because language is universal in times of desperation. I felt detached from my body while watching N fa Mou carry the tiny body in goat skin away to the river. I felt relief that I won’t be blind because washing my tears with water was the advice given by the woman sitting closest to me and no matter how silly you know the superstition to be you follow it because it’s motherly.

Save the Arts!

I love Peace Corps. Honestly, the opportunity to do what we do is a once in a lifetime chance. I am so lucky to know what its like to love your job. It doesn’t feel like work because it’s so fun. I found my niche working with l’ecole primaire. The students don’t speak French well but I found that with a little initiative and a ton of patience it’s possible to get the wheels turning in their heads. You see Guineans were taught to write beautifully but slowly, to memorize but not comprehend, to follow good examples but not foster an imagination.
It wasn’t until I came here that I realized the importance of the arts. I remember always hearing about art programs being the first to be cut in the states and me not giving a care in the world because it didn’t affect my science classes. I like the sciences because there was always a concrete explanation, an answer, a means to an end. But I took for granted that my other half of the brain was free. An individual has all the power to create that means to an end by drawing a picture, dancing, or even writing a blog entry.
Upon starting environmental clubs at the school I decided to get them excited by giving them a chance to beautify their school by painting a mural regarding environmental awareness. I sketched 3 examples to give them the idea that a mural’s most important attribute is the message. I returned the following day only to see that every single blank piece of paper had the same theme I portrayed in one of my examples minus a message. The one exception in the class of 50+ sixth graders was Namoury, the star student. His drawing was beautiful portraying a farmer carrying a basket full of fodder but my hopes diminished once I realized he had traced the picture.
My hope continued to diminish when I made up a reforestation game using a piece of cardboard depicting their village and 30 toothpicks each representing a tree. I asked questions before I had them cut down wood to help them see the importance of trees. I asked what types of trees were in the village. The first student says “le mangue.” Ok, we’re on a good start even though the better answer would’ve been “le mangier.” So I continue to ask and everyone repeats the same answer-MANGO. Yes, trees provide fruit to eat but what else are they used for? Blank stares. How does your mom cook mango sadi? Blank stares. What do the goats, cows, and donkeys eat? Blank stares. Where do all the boys sit while preparing the tea or all the girls sit while braiding hair? Blank stares.
After 20 minutes of probing I was able to show most of them the importance of trees. Once I could see their eyes fill with understanding I stated that I was hungry and there was a soiree in the village so we needed wood to cook with. I sent them out to chop wood (aka pull out a toothpick). Once every toothpick was gone the children saw the difficulties of deforestation and its impacts on the future of their village. I have hope that somehow that piece of cardboard reflected the mothers of the village and their long treks in search of wood. My saving grace was when one student yelled out, “ that’s why we have to reforest!”

Can I do it?

Written during Monsieur Diallo’s class at l’ecole primaire, 20 avril 2008

After working in a school like Legacy Private Academy where there are high learning standards to fit the WASC accreditation and wonderful support from the parents and community and coming to a school like this: 60+ kids in one class, a horrible female to male ratio, and no apparent curriculum one thing comes to mind. Life is so unfair.
It’s almost perfect to start out at a school like Legacy because it truly is the opposite end of the spectrum. I’ll be pushed, tested, and challenged to form something that seems impossible. To raise awareness in a community that has been trying to jump over the foundation. Jumping to cell phones and satellites where there aren’t land lines or running water.
I want to yell and cry out about how unfair life is as I look at the crumbling, poor excuse of this institution of education. I remember walking through the warm halls of Legacy and looking up at the crystal chandeliers and I wake up to this. A place that the teachers don’t even show up on time or at all.
Can I do it? I doubt myself and feel overwhelmed. But then I find a little courage to look out into a sea of dark faces and as my eyes meet theirs I see light. That light is all I need.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us. It is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear our presence automatically liberates others.” -Nelson Mandela

Five a Day

I have to face the fact that this place is not America but I can’t help but coin certain activities and places comparing them to the “land of opportunity.” My days are really simple and I laugh a lot but this American labeling to African daily life has put a real appreciation to the things I took for granted.

Everyone is extremely friendly always greeting “I ni sooma” which means “good morning” and “tana ma si?” which means “did you sleep without evil?” My favorite is when someone says your last name and you’re supposed to answer back in affirmation. I always get “Kouyate” and I respond “nse” because I’m female which means “I am able.” It’s like if someone yelled “Ignacio” and I said “Yeah, you know it!” Since the majority of my village is Keita I have a high chance of this working. Villagers love it when I say, “ Keita yay sondedi” which means “Keitas are thieves!”

There is this one rice bar that serves the best rice and sauce en ville. Katalina, my closest PCV friend, and I decided it was deserving of the label “sushi.” After we get sushi I like to get “Starbucks” which is the frozen tamarind drink that is served in a plastic bag. The seeds inside my tall sweetened “Starbucks” remind me of espresso beans. I often sip, or rather I often suck on my “Starbucks” while strolling through the market aka “the mall.”

But sometimes there is no need to go to the mall because the vendors selling anything from pocket mirrors to red palm oil will pass right by your hut. I like to think of this as “Ebay” because of the price wars that take place. My bargaining skills have been sharpened since I’ve been here, with my routine starting out with me asking for the Guinean price and ending with the vendor laughing after I sing the one song I know in Malinke.

I see my concession of huts as this really upscale apartment complex that would overlook some beautiful landscape like Central Park. The location is priceless being one of the closest to the Niger River. Also my hut has two doors which are key during the dry season and it has its own latrine pit.

Rain here is like going to watch a show at the Pantages Theatre. The thunder cracks throughout the entire sky and rolls as if there were stone walls for them to bounce off of and stadium seating for all to experience. However, I think this is better than the theatre because I don’t have to dress up and the price of all of messini would never add up to the value of this spectacle.

This act of relabeling is my way of coping with missing my life in the states. Hanging out with my girls has been replaced with sitting among Muslim men. Playing with my nephews has been substituted with spinning dirty faced little boys by their arms. Going to the gym can be satisfied by my hour long run that ends with a cool down along the Niger river. Watching American Idol with my mom can be the same as watching the village mask dances with N fa Mou. My love for driving has been replaced by riding my bike, and trying to eat at least 5 fruits and vegetables a day has been replaced by eating 5 mangoes a day.