No Camera Please

I think it’s time to admit that I’m not going to be posting photos on a regular basis.  I just don’t love cameras.  But there are plenty of images I want to hold onto: instead of promising pictures that will never appear, I think I’ll try just describing some of them to you instead.  For example, last week, Tibou and I were gathering plastic bags for the tree nursery.  You can buy 1/3 of a liter of clean drinking water for 500 francs here—that’s about 7 cents—neatly packaged in a plastic sachet.  Since a lot of people distrust the safety of the water from the public taps, the town is littered with empty water bags.  However, these sturdy bags are just the right size for planting trees, so we pick them up, cut off one end, poke drainage holes in them, and fill them with a mix of soil, sand, and cow manure, then plant trees.  This lunar month is Ramadan, the month when Muslims fast from sunup to sundown, so everyone is moving a little more slowly, conserving their energy and hydration.  It’s a time when you don’t usually start new projects, plan big meetings, or expect a lot of enthusiasm—everyone’s a little quiet, a little contemplative.  Everyone but Tibou.  He’s the de facto manager for Hotel Sib, the fanciest hotel in town, and so while he’s always an active member of ALDET, our tourism group, he’s usually constantly distracted by his continuously ringing phone.  This morning, though, last week, as we walked to the stadium to search for water bags, carrying big empty rice sacks, he said to me, “I think since it’s Ramadan… we can get a lot done this month.”  He’s right: his phone only rings maybe once an hour; the hotel is hosting no conferences, no tour groups, and no weddings.  He still has a few guests passing through, but for weeks now, we’ve been passing our own quiet, contemplative mornings working in the tree nursery.  The stadium is the best place to look for water bags: whenever Dalaba has a soccer tournament, the grounds are packed with thirsty crowds, and so water vendors do a brisk business.  There’s no trash cans, though, so the weeds and grass slowly swallow the constant deposition of empty plastic bags.  The empty stadium is immense.  At the center is a full-size soccer court and nets—no grass, mind you, but it’s flat, no rocks, and only a few patches of really slippery clay.  There’s a tiny shaded grandstand, and a block of six toilets, and the rest is huge empty space.  When we came in, the sky was overcast and grey, a cold wind blowing, scattering the plastic bags into the deeper weeds at the edge of the stadium.  The concrete walls reach above my head—perhaps ten feet?—and there’s only two gates into this oddly quiet zone.  At the middle there’s often a few kids practicing goal shots, and on this day there was a young woman learning to ride a motorcycle as well.  Tibou and I got to work, gathering up empty water bags and stuffing them into our rice sacks, keeping an eye on the clouds to see if they would turn to rain.  The young woman rode from one side of the soccer field to the other, then back, occasionally stalling, occasionally practicing a turn.  The kids kicked goals and watched the motorcycle enviously.  And all of us, under the grey skies, closed in by the towering walls, barely made a dent in the emptiness.  I waved to the girl on the bike.  The kids waved at Tibou and I.  None of the background noise of the city filtered in.  After half an hour or so, we made our way to the grandstand, where the bag-picking was even easier.  Another group of little boys was using the concrete floor to try out their homemade skateboard— but since the board to kid ratio was about 1:8, the littlest ones figured out that they were never going to get a turn and came over to see what we were up to.  After about twenty rounds of “On jaraama” and “Bonjour,” they joined in.  No questions, no “why are you picking up trash?”  Just five tiny kids scouting around in the weeds with us, bringing handfuls of water bags to stuff into our sacks.  Ten minutes later, their older siblings decided to head home, so we had another twenty rounds of “O’o” and “Bon journee,” and then they were gone.  And this is why I love Guinea:  I love cloudy grey days.  I love Tibou’s earnest enthusiasm.  I love kids who just want to do what the adults are doing.  I love quiet moments in a quiet month, and I love returning to our tree nursery, and adding one more line of planted water bags.  And one more line.  And one more line. 

New House, New Work

I’m officially moved into my new digs in Dalaba—it’s a beautiful house, round like the traditional village houses, but quite a bit bigger : this one has a central round living room, surrounded by three curved bedrooms, a kitchen, and a little porch.  Much bigger than I need, so my belongings and I are a bit adrift in it, but I’m not complaining: it’s beautiful. 

I’m living in the family compound of Colonel Hamzata, retired: it’s a huge compound.  At the western end is his big house, then his brother’s, and a two-story house for visiting family members.  Then my house, which actually looks quite modest in comparison, and across the way, three smaller houses that are rented out.  East of me are four more houses and one more under construction.  There’s a great gaggle of kids that runs to and fro from house to house—the usual bobo crew of preschool aged kids, plus schoolkids on vacation, plus visitors—right now, four of the Colonel’s grandkids are visiting from the US.  When the kids are out and about in town, though, it’s pretty quiet here.  I’d worried that I’d have trouble adjusting to city life: constant noise, a much higher density of people.  But it turns out that even in the thick of one of the older neighborhoods of the city, life is pretty quiet.  I can hear cars on the paved road, roosters crowing, the neighbor’s cow mooing, some construction work down the street, my neighbor sweeping her yard, and the kids calling to each other, but it’s not any busier than life in Sebhory. 

I miss my Sebhory family, though, and I miss my Sebhory neighbors.  I miss Mariama coming to say good morning every day.  I miss pulling water from the well for Fatimata Binta, who’s 8 months pregnant now.  I miss walking down to the other Mariama’s café for a midmorning meal of beans, mayonnaise, and bread.  Did I mention that it’s Ramadan right now?  I’m also missing lunch. 

I miss stepping out of my family’s gate in Sebhory and having so many good walking choices in front of me: east to the pine forest, south to Mount Sebhory, west to the fonio fields, north to the waterfall.  I’m still learning the roads and alleys of Dalaba, but there is a gorgeous section of pine forest west of me: it’s all timber plantations put in by the French in colonial times, and now the city of Dalaba is trying to preserve the plantations to protect Dalaba’s unique microclimate: flat-out cold in the dry season, misty and chilly in the rainy season mornings.  The pines continue down some very steep slopes into the ravines that carry rainwater out of the city: the soil here is clayey and slick even when it’s only slightly damp, which, in this season, is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  So as I was carefully picking my way down a slippery path, I was surprised to see, on the other side of the ravine, a kid going whizzing straight down the hillside.  I heard laughter and realized it was no accident: a group of kids had met up to go sledding.  They hauled broken plastic water cans to the top of the hill, sat inside and held on tight to the edges, and pushed themselves down a relatively straight and clear, and frighteningly steep path, screaming madly.  After the inevitable crash at the bottom, they’d pick themselves up and head back up the hill.  If anyone has been to Slide Hill Park in Davis, it’s the same idea, just about five times longer. 

On Thursday I went to visit Mr. Diallo in Dounkimanya, which is between Dalaba and Sebhory, down in the valley.  During dry season, the fields of Dounkimanya are irrigated from a huge dam build by FAO back in the 80s—it’s amazing how many veggies the farmers in the valley produce.  Huge quantities go to Conakry, Senegal, Sierra Leone—and a fair number stay right here, too, and end up in people’s cooking pots.  So different from my life in Hollaballe, Niger.  Mr. Diallo and I planted potatoes and talked—he used to run a vegetable delivery service to the homes of a lot of foreigners working in Conakry, but during the most recent political trouble in 2009, he lost contact with a lot of his customers, and since turnover is pretty rapid (most people are here on 1-2 year assignments), he’s out of touch now with the foreign community in Conakry.  During the cold season, he grows broccoli, fennel, kohlrabi, and other odd veggies that Americans and Europeans crave.  I’m hoping I can help him get a client list going again, and I’m also hoping he can expand his delivery season from just cold season to year-round.  I think he’ll have a better chance of keeping a stable group of clients if he’s in touch with people year-round: if you’re a foreigner finishing up your contract, it’s easier to remember to put your replacement in touch with Mr. Diallo the Veggie Man if you’ve just seen him last week, rather than not since last March.  I’ve also suggested that Mr. Diallo expand his product list to include other Fouta specialties: honey and green coffee beans, which are available year round, and bush fruits, which each have pretty short seasons, but are often difficult to find in Conakry.  

I'm hoping that here in Dalaba, with semi-regular access to electricity, I'll be able to update this blog more often.  Maybe even with more pictures?