A recent BBC article about Guinea

Fury at Guinea 'burn thief' idea

A senior member of Guinea's military government has been criticised after he called for robbers to be burnt alive.
Human rights groups said the idea by Capt Moussa Tiegoro Camara, in charge of fighting crime and drug trafficking, was "unacceptable" and "intolerable".
Capt Camara had said the country's prisons were full already and it was better to kill those who killed others.
But the Guinean Organisation of Human Rights said the laws of the country should not be by-passed.
"I am asking you to burn alive armed bandits who are caught red-handed," Capt Camara said at a meeting discussing security measures in the capital, Conakry, on Tuesday, reported Reuters news agency.
"Our jails and our correctional centres can no longer take in people and the situation cannot carry on like this."
Correspondents say lawlessness in the capital, Conakry, has risen in recent months.
Since seizing power after the death of Guinea's long-serving leader Lansana Conte at the end of December, the military has made fighting the drug trade and corruption a priority.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8082532.stm
Published: 2009/06/04 08:06:00 GMT

The AIDS Film Shoot

February 2009

I had a long month of shooting a documentary on AIDS Associations in Guinea. The theme was "overcoming stigmatisation and discrimination." We traveled throughout Guinea starting in Conakry. I must say that making a film in Guinea was ten times more difficult than making a film back in the States. Here, you have to deal with bribes, protocol, political issues, approvals from way too many people, etc. You have all of that in the States, but to a lesser degree. Anyways, here are a few photos from the trip.

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Here is the film crew in Gueckedou where we found one of the most organized associations in Guinea. The sound guy Billy had a crush on Jacqui, another volunteer helping with the film and she said she would go on a date with him if he was able to solve my rubic's cube--he still hasn't been on a date with her.

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(Conakry) Here is a photo from Nostalgie radio station where we had to pay a bribe because they said they were "taking a risk" by letting us film a controversial story that they were airing on the radio.

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(Conakry) Here is Kim and Jacqui, the production managers on the film shoot standing in front of one of the only tanks in Guinea. We had to be kind of sly since taking pictures of military stuff is "interdit."

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Here is another picture of us doing a "group interview" in Gueckedou.

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(Gueckedou) I like this shot because it looks like some sort of CD cover shot with our posse behind us. The lady between Jacqui and I is the director--Mariama Camara.

Solar power

April 25, 2009

We haven't given any updates recently about our electricity situation, but it's not good. Remember when we were so excited to get electricity at our house? Well, that really didn't last long. We went from having it most nights of the week, to a few nights a week, to one night a week, and now one night every other week. Not so good. Still, we can't complain since it's something, which most volunteers can't say. What really gets to me though is that they still charge us the same rate. (about $8) That's a lot here, especially when you get nothing in return.

Before we had electricity, we would take our cell phones and other electronics to the DPS (health department) to charge them since they have a solar panal. Now the solar panal isn't working though so we no longer have that option. Since we're in a big town, we do at least have the option of dropping off our cell phones to be charged at a 'tele-center' where you can pay to have it charged off a generator for 30 cents or so. When we don't want to do that though, this is our other option:

The fan looking thing is called a solio. It's a small solar panal that can charge our cell phones. The only problem is that we don't have a direct adapter for it, so this is the complicated contraption we had to come up with to actually use it. And in the process we're probably only getting a small percentage of the energy we should. But again, its better than nothing!

Leaving it out in the sun allllll day gives it about 1/2 a charge which will power my cell phone for about an hour or 2.

This picture also shows off our awesome new fence! We'll have to get some better pictures of it, but we are pretty excited about having a little bit of privacy now. Living in a public government compound was not easy...

You can also see our wonderful solar dryer. We've been drying mangoes like crazy! It's been hard not to eat them all imediately because they're so delicious, but we've managed to save quite a bit. We've also experimented by drying coconut, papaya, carrots, and bananas.

I was so excited to find these carrots in our local market one day. You can occasionally find carrots brought into our market from the capital, but those are expensive. These were local carrots, which meant they were smaller, but much less expensive. I bought 60. Yes, 60. We made half into soup for lunch and dinner and dried the other half. It was quite a bit of work, but it turned out great.

This is what we had by the end of the day. It's always slightly depressing when you put so much work into something just to see it shrivel up to practically nothing, but it was worth it. I know it'll be wonderful to have some carrots in the middle of the rainy season when the markets are looking a little bare.

Trip to the Island

April 9, 2009


We finally visited one of the islands off the coast of Conakry. It was a pretty amazing day. It was literally stepping out of Guinea for a little bit into an island paradise. Dan had the chance to visit once before without me, so this was quite a treat for me. We had wanted to go there over Christmas - spend the night there in a bungalow on the beach - but then the whole coup thing kind of messed up all our plans. We are definitely planning on going back.

This was in the pirogue (canoe) on our way back to the mainland at the end of a long day.

It was pretty picturesque... We were the only people on the entire beach for a while.

This is the group of volunteers we spent the day with. This restaurant had a the best Obama painting we've seen so far and everyone wanted their picture taken in front of it.

Dan playing frisbee on the beach.

Fish festival video clips

Here are a couple video clips from the festival in Baro. Dan took a bunch of videos on his camera, but you'll have to wait to see those.

Walking through a typical 'neighborhood' in the village of Baro.

Some of the performers at the celebration.

Fish Festival Pictures

May 11-17, 2009

Upper Guinea is known for its fish festivals. Throughout the month of May, each village has a festival and celebration which officially opens the fishing season in their village marsh. It's a celebration of drumming and dancing with masks and magicians and partying. And then they fish. The villagers all line up along the edges of the marsh and wait for the signal. At that point, they all rush in with their nets, pitchforks, and traps to catch anything that they can. It's quite an intense event! We went with a few other volunteers to the biggest festival in the region: Baro. We were not disappointed. Here are some pictures to chronicle the trip.

We were able to fly most of the way out to Kankan by catching a World Food Programme flight which took us as far as Kissidougou. (This hour flight cut about 10 hours off of a taxi ride, so it was pretty nice... and free!) On the way back to Conakry, the flight went straight from Kankan. We were pretty lucky.

Before the flight, we asked other volunteers what the airport was like. Response: "It's like those movies where the plane lands in the middle of nowhere to do sketchy drug deals..." Dirt runway and all. You really feel like you're in the bush of Africa.

The evening we first arrived there was quite a spectacular. These were some of the dancers. There were many different groups of dancers, drummers, singers, sorcerers, 'comedians' etc. They all paraded in front of the authorities and around the village soccer field. If you can see in the background, there were thousands of people lining the soccer field watching.

These were some of the 'griots' (traditional story tellers/singers)

Dan trying a kola nut. It's not good. In his words "it tastes like I'm eating radishes mixed with dirt." Yum. It's super caffeinated and the Guineans - especially the old men and women - chew 'em like candy.

This guy had so much energy!

We had front row seats. We were right by the CNDD (the group that's holding power right now in Guinea) delegation who came in from Conakry. I'm a bit sad I didn't get any pictures with them. They were pretty nice and really seemed to support the idea of Peace Corps.

Taking a breather. I never saw this guy stop smiling.

One of the old griots.

More griots.

This is the Sous-Prefet (town leader). We actually stayed at his house. Since we didn't know anyone in the town, we just showed up on his porch and they offered us two of their rooms to stay in. (There's no such thing as hotels in small villages...) His family was so nice to us and fed us amazingly at every meal. This is the kind of generosity you will find in Guinea.

A dancer who liked to do some fun acrobatics.

This is one of the masks with his tamers/guards. Some of the Guineans had real fear of him. There were also sorcerers with him. One of them astounded the crowd by turning a bottle of water red by dropping two tablets in it and shaking it up. He got a lot of money thrown at him for that.

This was the next morning before it was time to fish. One of the specialties of this village is that, before fishing, people go to the sacred forest to make sacrifices and ask for special favors. (When I say sacrifice, it does not necessarily mean killing something. In this sense it means giving up something like money.) Then you get a cool leaf hat like Dan is wearing.

After that, there was another event in the main public area with more drumming and dancing.

Part of the crowd of onlookers in their leaf hats.

I wish I could post a bigger picture of this one so that you could see the sheer number of people gathered around the marsh on either side waiting. This is just a small portion too... It's a huge marsh!

Here we are after fishing. We actually didn't do any fishing ourselves since we didn't have any nets, but we ran in anyway to get muddy and complete the experience.

These are the volunteers we were with.

After the festival in Baro, we spent a few days at Ciara's site. She has a great village and she and her family treated us so well. While we were there, she took us on an adventure to walk across the Niger River to visit another village. Since it's the end of the dry season, the water level is so low, you can walk across without any problem.

We went back to swim and cool off again at the end of the day.

One of Ciara's host brothers plays the xylophone and is teaching her how to play as well. It was great! Now I want to learn.

After we left Ciara's site, we tried to make it to another fish festival being held at another volunteer's site. We got there too late, but we did get the chance to spend a couple hours under a lean-to in the middle of nowhere. (Djelibakoro)

We made it to the other festival just in time to see the end of the fishing. After fishing, they went down into the Niger to bathe and wash their nets. We just went to cool off. It gets ridiculously hot in upper Guinea.

traveling

It's been a while since we've posted anything, so just wanted to let you all know we are alive and well. We're currently traveling around 'Haute Guinea,' the upper part of Guinea. It's my first time visiting this part of the country. We went to a fish festival in a village called Baro on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was a pretty fun experience. Today we're going to another volunteer's site who is on the Niger River and we'll be heading to another fish festival Sunday and Monday. I have already taken a ton of pictures and videos this week. I'll sort through them and share once we get back to Conakry. Keep an eye out for new postings!

Love and miss you all!

The Dentist

Mary's had her fair share of dental work since we've come to Africa and others have told me horror stories, but I finally had my first experience which actually wasn't that bad. After looking in my mouth with a mirror for 30 seconds he declared that I didn't have any cavities. Then he proceeded to clean the plaque from my gumline with a high-pressure water pick which wasn't very pleasant on the nerves.

The whole process took under ten-minutes and when he was done he just got up and started browsing the internet. I just sat there not realizing it was over until he said "It is finished. You can go." in his strong accent. So, that was considered a dental cleaning and cost 150,000 GNF ($31). If I'm lucky I'll get another "cleaning" before I head back to the States.

Yard Work

During the rainy season the Guineans are really particular about pulling up all of the grass that grows around the house since it attracts snakes and mosquitos. So, they tend to "mow the lawn" a few times a month, which consists of using a hoe to loosen the dirt and picking it up with their hands. I personally like the grass, since it looks nice and the yard doesn't get as muddy. Some people actually import small red stones to lay down as a ground cover. I think the small red stones help keep grass and weeds to a minimum. The clay ground has moss growing on it instead of grass.

At the beginning of the dry season, people go crazy and burn everything. They burn all large fields of grass--I guess they figure that it's better to purposefully burn a field than to accidentally burn it and cause a wildfire. I think it's also good for the ground--maybe. But they tend to accidentally burn trees and bushes too.

Taking care of your yard during the dry season is actually pretty easy because the yard is just reddish-brown dirt that is swept with a grass broom everyday (or once a month in our case). They sweep leaves and trash into small piles to burn and the smoke fills the house on windy days.

We tried to have a flower box on the porch but the little kids tore it up and during the dry season it's too hard to keep watered. Overall, it's a lot easier to take care of the yard in Africa--there's not as much pressure to do nice landscaping and all of that stuff.

Bring on the Mangoes

Mango season hasn't officially begun, but there are a few early ones ripening on the trees and a few expensive ones for sale in the market which bring us a glimmer of hope and much anticipation.

Dan and I had a solar dryer made last month in preparation for this. (basically just a big, very low-tech food dehydrator.) We wanted to do this last year for mango season, but never got on the ball quick enough and before we knew it, the season was over. We were determined not to miss out this year.

While the Guineans continue to remind us that it's still too early for mangoes and that we're crazy to want to spend a whole 15 cents on one mango (in a few weeks you'll be able to buy a whole giant bowl full for that much...), we've gone ahead and splurged on some in order to try the dryer out. Here's some pictures of our first attempt:

This is what the solar drier looks like. We had a carpenter make it for us. The white thing on top is a digital inside/outside thermometer. (Yes, we know we're geeks) We had it inside to know how hot it got throughout the day. Highest on that day I think was about 120*F. This was our first peek inside at the end of a long, hot day. We put it out around 9am and brought it back in around 6pm. We tied it shut all day so that curious kids (or curious adults for that matter) wouldn't mess with it or open it up and let out all the heat. Basically all it is is a wooden frame with a black plastic roof, holes in the side for air flow and ventilation, and removable trays made of plastic screening to put the food on.

Look at all those yummy mangoes. This was about 5 1/2 mangoes if I remember correctly. We soaked them in sugar water with a little lemon over night (Since we used somewhat under ripe mangoes so they'd be more firm, they're not as sweet. The lemon is so they don't turn black on us.) They were delicious. We've tried a couple other treatments since this first batch too: honey water, honey lemon water, lemon water. All pretty dang good.

We've also tried drying bananas which were great. I'm just not as motivated to dry those though since they're in season all year round. We want to try drying other things just to see how they go. Tomato season is just slackening off, so we missed the curve on that one. We're planning on buying some carrots and green peppers while we're here in Conakry to dry when we get home for ourselves, since we can't find those in our town.

We put the dried mangoes in old mayo jars to save. These were gone though by the next day... but at least by then we had a new fresh batch! We have been trying to save a few in plastic bags from each batch, which we keep in another jar to see how they save over time. That is really our main purpose. They should be able to keep for 6 months or more if they're kept right. It's just so hard: when you have a yummy new treat, we just want to eat them all right then :)

Soooo, why are we doing this (besides having a yummy new treat) ? The mango season comes on quickly and ends before you realize it. In that short time, there are far too many mangoes for everyone to consume. We're trying to encourage people to dry some for storage so that they can enjoy them (and their nutrients!) throughout the year rather than for only 2 or 3 months. It is so easy to do too. Sitting out in the middle of our yard, the strange new thing has attracted plenty of attention and given us many opportunities to explain what we're doing and why. We've let all our friends and neighbors try what we've dried so far. Everyone loves it and says they want to try it themselves. This is what we were going for, but we'll see if we can actually get them to do what they say... That was one reason we wanted to start now - even though it is still officially pre-season - to sell the idea while we can.

One problem is that food storage is a foreign concept in this culture. They're used to going to the market and buying what they need for the day. If its not there, too bad. They use whatever is in season. You want an avacado? Sorry pal, you gotta wait for the avacado season. In a few months will come the 'hungry season' while they're waiting for the new crops to come in. They have no pantries, no canned goods, no fridges, etc. They eat what they can get now and finish it while they can. They do dry things like grains and tubers, but they do that by just leaving it out on the side of the road or on a mat in their yard, getting dirty, pecked at by chickens, and walked on by goats and children. This is a much more sanitary method as well as quicker and more efficient than just laying something in the sun. Plus, vitimin A, one of the main vitimins in mangoes, is destroyed by direct sunlight. These are some crazy new concepts for the community here, but that's one reason we're here, right? Promote new ideas and encourage smart and healthy changes. We'll let you know how this one goes.