1. How is your house?
2. What's Sebhory like?
My house is fabulous! I need to go back and check this, but one frustrated afternoon in Niger, I remember writing down what my ideal rural house would look like: A big yard, fenced by a mudbrick wall (coated in cement so it didn't melt in rainy season), so that wandering goats and chickens couldn't get in and destroy all the things I would plant: banana trees, mangoes, citrus, avocado trees, potatoes, sweet potatoes, veggies, beans, squash..... I'd also want a well inside my yard, so I'd have easy access to water for my house and for the garden in the dry season. I'd want a house that was big enough to have a bedroom separate from the main room/cooking area, with a metal roof, so I wouldn't have to re-do the thatch every couple years, and a nice big front porch, shaded from the sun, where I could sit and admire the vegetables. I'd want neighbors nearby, so I'd have friends to eat dinner with, and kids and babies to play with, and it sure would be nice if there were a paved road running right to my front door so I could easily get my produce to market, or flag down a bush taxi to go into a big town, or hop on my bike and go visit the next village down the road.
Now, in Niger, all these things seemed conceivable, but not achievable. Here in Guinea... this is exactly what I was offered by the kind people of Sebhory, before they'd even met me or asked me what kind of house would match my dreams.
My neighbor, Mariama, is the wife of the guy who built all of this: he has a job with the the government in a town about an hour away, so I get to live in his house and enjoy the fruits of all his years of labor. My house is at the back of the concession, away from the noise of the paved road, surrounded by a sea of cassava plants and vegetable beds, and perhaps 40 feet away from the well (don't worry; the latrine is on the other side of my yard from the well, and quite a ways back). My veranda is shaded by a giant mango tree, two ornamental evergreens, and an orange tree. At the front of the concession is Mariama's house-- you have to pass through her breezeway to get into the yard, which I rather enjoy-- it means anyone who goes in to use the well is personally vetted by her eagle eye-- and next to her house is a tailor's shop. Her house is at the crossroads of a gravel road and the main paved road, so in the evenings, after dinner, I sit on the veranda with the family: Mariama and her youngest two kids, Mamadou (18) and Hassanatou (6). They help me learn Pulaar words, and there's always a few people passing by on the road with whom I can try out newly acquired greetings and questions.
Most mornings, I say hi to Mariama and company, then head down the main road: I greet the guys having their morning coffee or tea at the "Cafe Noir", the coffee shop on the corner. Usually I see the baker chatting with the guys; he looks tired and often has streaks of dough dried on his clothes, but he's still talking a mile a minute, laughing and joking with the guys. Up and down the street, at each coffee shop or corner store, I can see a big tub full of fresh bread loaves, still warm and fresh and soft. I say hi to the ladies who sell bananas, peanuts, and candies next to the "Cafe Noir" -- usually 2-year-old Rugiatou is playing near them or in the cafe, offering people plastic bags of rocks that she's tried to tie into the same shape as the bags of roasted peanuts. Further down the road, the carpenters are just starting their day: if it's a cold morning, they'll be warming their hands over a little fire made from the scrap wood and shavings of yesterday's work. Further down the road, Mariama (a different one... I know at least 5 women named Mariama now) is bending over her charcoal brazier, lifting the pot of beans and carrying it into the "Restaurant Sebhory". I stop and chat with her, using my very basic Pulaar to order a bean sandwich, my favorite breakfast. From here, I continue past the tiny marketplace and turn right into a side street, skipping the rest of the main drag, including the mosque and the spot where the taxi drivers park their cars at night, and beyond them, outside of town, the health center and primary school. Instead, I head through winding alleyways, between fenced yards overflowing with banana trees, sweet potato tendrils, and okra plants reaching far above my head. Two right turns takes me to the yard of my counterpart, Dioumma Fleur: I say hi to everyone and settle in to watch the morning show. The schoolkids scramble into uniforms and head off to school; the older girls herd the cows out of their pen and down the alleyways out to graze behind the town; the littlest kids chase chickens, roll bicycle tires around the yard, and peek shyly at me before hiding behind the avocado trees or disappearing into the taro patch. It's the beginning of another gorgeous Sebhory day.
