Settling In, Sort Of: Mice, Chickens, and a Marriage Proposal I Definitely Declined

April 11, 2004

Thought I’d take this opportunity of being online to do another update, even though my last one was only a short time ago. I’m actually still in Conakry. Everyone else left and I’m sure they’re all busy setting up their homes. Me, I still don’t have a home. I thought I was getting Kevin’s house but when I talked to PSI last Monday, they were still exploring other options as that house still had a lot of work to be done on it.

Seeing as I didn’t have a place in Kamsar to stay, and also seeing as PSI’s headquarters are in Conakry and I hadn’t met anyone from there yet, it was decided that I’d stay in town and work with them for the week. They were writing their marketing plan for the treated mosquito nets and therefore I pitched in and helped out where I could. Seeing as I knew next to nothing about their organization or the program, it was touch and go for the first day but then it all came together. Budgets and decisions about promotional materials, etc. are the same the world over when you come right down to it.

The interesting part of that first day was that I was immediately asked to join in on the marketing meeting, which lasted 4 hours, and was almost entirely in French. Thankfully I was able to follow enough of it to actually give my own input and suggestions. The director is American so I knew that if I was totally lost I could at least ask and receive an answer in English.

Been kinda bored the last few days as I’ve come down with a nasty flu-like something-or-other. I didn’t go to work on Friday and have basically been lying like a lump in bed ever since. I broke out my coveted stash of Nyquil the other night so I know I’m on the road to recovery ;o)

Supposed to head out to Kamsar tomorrow along with the PSI vehicle (with all my stuff) and 2 other staff members. We’ll go around looking at suitable places for me to live. I have all the basics I think I’ll need for my house except for buckets and cleaning supplies. I can pick those up in Kamsar or Boke though. Not going overboard with the stuff this time around - only bought 2 plates, 2 bowls and 2 glasses. If I have more than one guest at a time, oh well, they’ll have to bring their own or share.

One of the volunteers who lives in Boke (45 mins. From Kamsar) was at the house here in Conakry on Friday. She had been with the other new volunteers a few days prior as they toured around Kamsar. She told me that I had a lot of mail waiting for me in the box in Kamsar - yea! If you wrote to me using that address in PA and haven’t heard from me yet, it’s because it goes to a PO box in Kamsar and I haven’t been there since mid-February to retrieve anything. I’ll enjoy reading my mail soon - hopefully in my own house - tomorrow.

No rest for the weary, I’ll have to work 5 days a week, 8 hours a day at least for the next few months to get this mosquito net project up and running. Once I’m in Kamsar, I’m the one in charge of it. Yikes. Guess as a third year volunteer I’m expected to get up and running right away. I knew that but didn’t realize I’d be pulling a desk job with regular hours so soon. I’m jealous of my fellow new volunteers who have been mandated to only observe in their community for the first 3 months.

After the launch of the project, June 5, I’m hoping it will settle down a bit and I can carve out some free time for secondary projects. I really want to do solar cooking as no one here does it or has even heard of it. I solar boiled eggs for my host family and they looked at me as if I’d just performed magic. It is pretty impressive, especially seeing as you don’t even use any water. Anyway, I’m going to be hurting if the only time I can explore this and other interests is during the weekends. When am I going to have time to read and enjoy Guinea - oh yeah, and sleep?

Well, thought I had some good stories to tell but I can’t remember any of them at the moment. They’ll just have to wait. No hang on, I remember one. Are you sitting down mom? I was proposed to a few weeks ago. Yes, a man I’d never seen before that had apparently seen me in my homestay village, approached me and gave me a letter expressing his devotion and intention to marry me. He was 38, a gynecologist (yikes), never married, and very persistent. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. When I would say I wasn’t interested all he could say was, 'But I am. I like you.’ That’s the way it is here. It doesn’t have to be mutual and often never is. If the man wants to marry you and your parents want the match, then it happens.

The scary part is he knew where my site was going to be. I got the Peace Corps staff involved and they talked to my host father who then talked to this guy. They all told him that it may be the way things are done in Guinea, but I’m American and if he comes near me, he’ll be in trouble. Get this, he was even going to name his clinic after me - missed opportunity??? Yeah, right.

Ok, on that note, think I’ll go back to the house and lie down so I can be as healthy as possible tomorrow for the drive up to Kamsar. Hope everyone had a nice Easter and/or Passover.

May 8, 2004

Well, here I am, one month later and still not installed at my site or in my house. I've been living at the regional PC house in Boke (rhymes with okay) since the 15th of April. It's about an hour taxi ride from Boke to Kamsar. I've only gone to Kamsar a few times in the past weeks to check on the progress of my house. Work is definitely being done, just very slowly. I am going to live in the house that was meant for Kevin, who got medically separated from PC in March.

I had tried to find another place that was ready for me to move into but everything else in Kamsar was a dump and uninhabitable. I'm hoping to move in on the 5th. So, Kevin's house it is. It's got 4 bedrooms, although I converted one to a kitchen. 3 toilets but it's still a mystery if I will have running water or not. Won't know until I move in I guess. I'd much prefer a pit latrine. Never thought I'd utter those words, but there it is. A flush toilet is a curse if you can't ever flush it. Think about it.

I don't have any furniture to put in the house except a bed and table with 4 chairs. That is what's required of the organization to whom you're assigned to furnish for you. I was going to be getting a couch, desk and kitchen table from another volunteer who is leaving at the end of May, but she just found out she's being replaced so is leaving most of her stuff, save for the kitchen table, to her incoming volunteer. I'm so short on money here it's not funny. No option of tapping into my U.S. account either as there are no ATMs in the country (there is one at the main bank in Conakry but I'm not planning on going there anytime soon).

We get the equivalent of $100 each month but are paid in 3-month intervals. PC made a mistake with my group and paid us up-front for 4 months. What this means is that I have cash lying about that is screaming to be spent. If I do, recklessly on sodas or too much pasta, then I won't have any money for food for the rest of the quarter. We were given money to buy essential stuff for our houses but it in no way pays for everything you need right up front. Furniture for instance. Not sure when I'll have enough saved up for a couch. The tough thing for me is that I'm an urban volunteer, living in an area with a lot of ex-patriates (foreigners living in Guinea).

Food is more expensive in my area than in rural villages. Plus, everyone assumes I'm a rich ex-pat and therefore tries to charge me 5 times the fair price for everything. I can only try and learn the local language as best I can to prove to them that I'm not some rich American or European trying to bargain for a good price; I'm a volunteer struggling to make ends meet just like the locals are. That's such a foreign concept to most people and therefore a hard sell. No one in the town is very familiar with Peace Corps as I'm the first one in the Kamsar area. Besides, what American would come to Guinea and work for no salary...you must be joking or lying.

Okay, are you ready for more animal stories? Can you tell that's what really captures my interest here? So, I'm at the PC house in Boke and there is a fridge here and stove/oven. In other words, there's always food around. Mice too. I stupidly leave out my uncooked pasta one night and in the morning find it torn into in many places and noodles strewn all about the room. Must have been hungry mice. So, I take out my nifty American bought mouse trap and set it up around 7:30 one night. At 7:32 I hear it snap shut and then the all too familiar shuffling of the suffocating mouse. This guy must really have been hungry. Not as hungry as the next victim the next night. Right after I emptied the trap I set it again as the peanut butter was still intact on the trigger. Come morning I find the peanut butter gone but the trap un-sprung. I just leave it as I don't fancy trapping my finger while putting more peanut butter on the trigger. Well, that night we come home to find the trap sprung and a dead mouse trapped. Yet, there was no food on the trigger. Poor bugger. He died for nothing or else it was a rodent suicide.

I was really afraid the trap would be tripped by either the resident frog or lizard. They both hang about the house in their favorite spots. By day who knows where they go, but at night and in the early morning you can find the frog immersed in the overflow cup that sits underneath the water filter's spigot. At least he keeps himself clean. If you want to talk about unclean animals, let's talk chickens. There are resident chickens at the house and one very loud rooster. They always try and sneak into the house when you leave one of the screen doors open. They poop anywhere and everywhere.

Today I saw a horrible sight. Chicken diarrhea. Diarrhea is always a horrible sight, but who knew chickens ate that much to produce such a horrible splatter? I have befriended one of the chickens though. It helps me to clean. There are ants that plague the kitchen. They usually hang out near the door, the one closest to the back screen door. If I leave the screen door open for any length of time my buddy will wander in and start cleaning up the ant infestation. At first I shooed it out, appalled it would be in the house. The next time I saw what it was doing and smiled. Now I encourage it to enter for a free snack of ants and fallen crumbs I'd rather not sweep up. It knows its place. Once the food is gone, it knows to wander back out the door with a minimum of squawking and hassle. I think I'll name it Hoover.

It's not just me staying here. There is permanent volunteer "leader" who lives here year-round and keeps up the house while doing secondary projects in the community. This past weekend we also had a birthday party for a female volunteer that lives in the village halfway between Kamsar and Boke. There aren't many of us in this region but a handful of us were on hand to celebrate.

One of the best things about Peace Corps service is getting to know the other volunteers. Their backgrounds and motivations for doing Peace Corps are surprisingly varied. There is no "stereotypical" PCV. It's also fun to see how people change while serving their 2 years. Get this, one gal from my training group recently told me, 'Robin, you're the most mellow person I've ever met in my life.' Those that know me well can appreciate the irony of this statement. But, it's true these days. Peace Corps has certainly instilled in me a sense of patience beyond any I thought possible. I also don't let things bother me much these days. When you see the abject poverty and misery of daily life in Africa, it's hard to feel good whining about your house with 3 toilets not being ready yet. Things have a way of working themselves out, or, not. Either way, life goes on.

Okay, I typed out this update on the 3rd and it's now the 8th. I did move into my house, as planned, on the 5th. All went well but I have no running water inside the house and the electricity wasn't working my first night. No big deal on either count. There is a spigot with running water just in front of my porch so I fill buckets to use in the kitchen and bathrooms. I shower (bucket bathe) in the bathroom in my room but use the toilet in another room as it's just more pleasant smelling in my room that way.

In Nunguni, Kenya I had no running water and thus would use a 2-bucket system for my sink. One bucket was filled with clean washing water and the other was the sink where I'd wash my dishes above it and let the water collect there before dumping it several days later. Here at least I do have an actual sink so I only use the one bucket for clean washing water. I forgot this at first and lapsed into habit as I set up 2 buckets under the sink and actually started washing the dishes and dumping the dirty water in the second bucket before realizing that I had an actual draining sink just above the bucket. Old habits die hard.

I'm told 2 days out of every week I won't have electricity at all and I'm guessing those days are Tuesday and Wednesday. I didn't have power Wednesday, my first night, but since then it's come on at 7:15pm and stayed on 'til around 7:00am. I got a nice surprise yesterday afternoon as I lay on my bed to take my daily nap. I was trying not to move else I sweat too much and risk drowning in my sleep in a puddle of my own sweat when, surprise, my fan turned on and lasted throughout my 3-hour power nap. Now that's Karma.

Got a shock last night though as I was dancing my happy dance that the power came on. My running water outside stopped running. I'm hoping it's only a temporary thing. I might have to go dig myself a latrine hole outside.

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there and especially to mine!