So I've promised pictures for a long time

And today I finally have united: a laptop, my camera, an internet connection, and electricity.  And it's working!  Let's see how many photos I can get posted before something goes wrong :)

This is the terrace of Mariama's house, where I live: I spend a lot of afternoons hanging out with her here.  She sells bags of peanuts, fried doughballs, lollipops, and oranges, and her location is great: we're at the crossroads of the paved road and the gravel road that leads down to the towns of Redufellow, Telire, and Afia Madina. 

And this is me and my counterpart, Diouma Fleur, at the waterfalls of Kambadaga.  Yes, part of my job is go hiking to beautiful places and take pictures.  How did I get this lucky? 

And this is the view from my terrace.  Amazing, eh?  This is looking north across the valley; Afia Madina is on the valley floor; Mitty is higher up, in the distance. 

Here's my house: I have two rooms on the right hand side of the house; the left hand side is for Mariama's husband when he visits Sebhory. 

Here is Hassanatou, my constant companion (or at least, that's what she wishes... she's even asked if she can sleep at my house.  But my bed is small!)  She is six years old-- she'll be starting first grade next year. 

And here is Diouma again, holding up a honeybee comb while Brittany, another Agroforestry volunteer, looks on.  Admire the appropriate technology of the Kenyan-style beehive!
OK, that's enough photos for one day-- I don't want to push my luck. 

Ponco-pancannagol

This Pular verb means: to play in the mud.  It's the perfect verb for what I've been up to this morning:

This is a foyer ameliore, also known as a mud cookstove.  It's pretty basic: you start with the traditional 3 rocks that are used to hold up the cooking pot, but add a hefty ring of mud that encases the rocks and forms a wall that goes right up to the "ears" (handles) of the cooking pot (visible just behind the stove-- I did get just a bit of mud on the cooking pot during the construction).  You leave an entry for firewood to go in, and leave a finger's width of space between the mud wall and the sides of the cooking pot, for heat and smoke to escape, and voila, a way to cook that uses less firewood, and (I think this is the biggest selling point) is a lot less dangerous for little kids: it's all too easy for a toddler to trip and fall into an open fire, or upset a pot balanced on three rocks; the mud cookstove keeps the fire out of reach of kids, and is a more stable base for a cooking pot. 

The local Eaux et Forets agent for Sebhory, Mr. Sacko, is interested in trying these stoves out in Sebhory, so we've started with this one, at Ayende's house.  She's one of the few women in the tree nursery group that Sacko organized, so he volunteered her as the mud stove guinea pig: once this one dries, she's going to try cooking on it and let us know how it works.  Since it's just mud, we can make a lot of changes in the next generation if this one doesn't work well: we can add smoke holes, make the space for the fire in the middle bigger or smaller, adjust the opening for firewood or add a second firewood opening if she likes, or have the pot sit higher or lower (too low and there's not enough space for a fire; too high leaves too much space for heat to disperse). 

So, wish us luck with the stove design-- I'm hoping I have lots more mud in my future. 

It’s nearly Christmas…

And I’m back in Conakry, with coconut palms, ocean beaches, and the promise of eggnog and Christmas cookies this evening.  I would like to formally acknowledge that my life is wonderful, in a way that is completely out of proportion to the amount of planning and effort I’ve put into it.  I keep finding myself in wonderful situations like this. 

For the last two weeks I've been in Dubreka, helping out with training for the latest group of Peace Corps trainees.  Since my training on arrival in Guinea was fairly bare-bones, it's been fun to sit in on some of the cultural and language sessions.  And it's fun to be in a completely different climate: Dubreka is on a salt-water inlet, so there's crabs in the market, fish in every dish, coconuts, warm humid nights, and neon-green rice fields. 

Still, I miss the cool, crisp nights in the Fouta, the flowering vines that spill from the trees over every footpath and road, the hazy views across valleys to distant hills and mesas.... and I miss Mariama and her kids; slow mornings washing my laundry under the orange trees; hanging out in the coffee shops on main street... soon I'll be back. 

And while Christmas does make me terribly lonely for the people I love back home, I just have to say that I'm not missing winter in western Washington.  Most years I enjoy the long hibernation of rainy days, twilight afternoons, and lazy mornings in front of the fire waiting for the sun to rise.  But this year, the sun feels so good on my skin.  I may become addicted to the tropics. 

It's a beautiful morning in Conakry

I woke to the sound of ocean waves, and a dim, hazy morning light: morning in Conakry.  A cool breeze makes the thick humid air pleasant at this time of day: the air sort of sloshes around you like lukewarm water in a bathtub.  By midday, it feels more like a stewpot than a bathtub, but at 6:30 AM, with the sun rising through a cloud of city dust and smoke from burning fields on the mainland, with the sound of roosters muffled by the hum of traffic, everything feels soft and undefined.  Who knows what this day will bring?  Now, at 7, the pink light is gone, the lines of the coconut palms are sharp against the grey sky, and down on the beach, the sound of waves is defined by their actual lines, spilling over the soft sand and worn down rocks.  The traffic is louder, the roosters are joined by a chorus of voices: the kids are up; their mothers are calling out commands and instructions; school will start soon, you'll be late, and I'll be late, too: I need to catch a ride out to Dubreka with a Peace Corps car, leaving at 7:30.  En ontuma!  See you later!

internet..... so..... slow.......

Well, after 15 minutes, I've managed to load this page.  That leaves 5 more minutes to tell you guys everything that's happened in the past month, before I rush off to a meeting here in Dalaba to talk trash.  No, really, we are talking about recycling, municipal trash collection, public trashcans, composting of organic waste, and cleaning up trash in public areas.  It's really exciting.  There's a company, based in Senegal, that's started making buckets, washtubs, and washboards in Conakry out of the millions of used plastic bags floating around the streets and sidewalks of town.  They'll pay you 2,000 francs if you bring them a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of trash plastic-- sounds like big money, huh?  It's only about 30 cents-- but still, considering how much plastic trash we all produce, recycling can be big business. 
OK, quick highlights of the last month:
1. Makan gave me a ripe pineapple from his garden-- hurray!
2. I got the sixth graders to sing the alphabet song in English
3. I made a doll for Hassanatou out of scraps from the tailor's shop-- it survived 3 weeks before losing a limb!  (I sewed it back on-- she's fond of using her doll as a weapon)
4. Boubacar from Telire has taught me all the consonants in the Arabic alphabet-- now we're working on adding vowels
5. I grafted mandarin buds onto orange rootstock this morning
6. I'm headed to Dubreka for two weeks to help with training the new group of Peace Corps volunteers
7. While I'm there, hopefully I'll get my very own internet key to work, and then.... I'll update this blog again!

Frequently Asked Questions

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. 

First month at post, by the numbers

100: times I say "On jarama" (I greet you) on an average day as I stroll down the main road-- at least there are plenty of people who are willing to help me learn Pulaar!
12: marriage proposals I've received, immediately following "On jarama"
0: serious marriage proposals I've received (i.e., delivered through an intermediary, rather than casually tossed in with small talk)
7: monkeys I've spotted, raiding people's gardens or bouncing away through the meadows
4.5: snakes I've seen.  The 0.5 was a very flat stripe on the road that I think used to be a snake.  And don't worry, the other four were all quite far away and headed the opposite direction from me. 
2: weekends spent digging potatoes.  Yes, it's true, I traveled halfway around the planet to do the same things I do in America. 
1: morning spent harvesting fonio.  Now that's a little more exotic than potatoes!
2: houses in my concession (walled yard): mine, and Mariama's.  She makes an incredibly good sauce from peanut butter and sweet potato leaves!
5: chubby black goats that live in my concession
at least 12: fruit trees in my concession
200 (at least!): cassava plants surrounding my house.  Good to know we have a secure food source behind our concession walls, should a zombie horde attack Sebhory. 
1927: the post office box you should be sending letters to!  My full address is:

Anna Petersons, PCV
s/c Corps de la Paix
B.P. 1927
Conakry
Republique de Guinee