Goodbye to Guinea

I know there’s a lot more to say about Guinea than I have in me right now.  As I may have intimated before, some of this is for reasons of privacy; my employer has been central to most of the drama that’s happened to me over the last few months.  Which makes sense, since most of my time has been taken up by work, and my home and social life have revolved around my colleagues out of necessity.  This blog is one of the first things that comes up when my name is googled, and I know it’d be bad form to air any grievances about my employer, which means that most of what I’ve spent the last six months talking about (to my friends, to Jenn, to myself) is out of bounds.  (Incidentally, expect another, less complainy post not long after this one, to push this down from the top of the page.)

But enough of what I’m not going to talk about.  How was Guinea?

...Wet!

As far as I can tell, nobody comes to Guinea on purpose.  That makes sense on its face: between the malaria, the political instability, the lack of access to stable power or internet, and the cratered, sunken roads that are always choked with traffic, this isn’t anyone’s first choice.  The diplomatic corps staff members were all assigned here because of their lack of seniority or unpopularity in the department—this is a necessary evil for most of them, a first step before they can be assigned to literally anywhere else.  As you might imagine, this leads to some pretty frikkin’ gross ‘tudes, gross enough that I wrote and deleted a long post shining a spotlight on the racist nonsense that comes out of their mouths sometimes.  Most of the expats here spend their time complaining about it—a common enough thing in cushier destinations like Japan, too, though here that note of bitterness is even more common.

As for me?  Despite all the corruption, the difficulty in recreating a middle-class American lifestyle here, the daily inconveniences?  I like it here!

I’m walking a fine line on this one, I know.  Media is awash in depictions of Africa as a place of unrelenting tragedy, and I don’t want to make this yet another bout of indulging in “Heal the World”-type pathos.  On the other hand, emphasizing what a lovely time I had would seem to be just wallowing in my own privilege, especially when, yes, Guinea suffers from terrible unemployment, corruption, medical crises, failing infrastructure, and more of the hallmarks of perennially exploited countries [/handwringing].

I would come back here, though.  I would live in Guinea again, even in Conakry.  I don’t know if Guinea and Guineans are all that distinct compared to other West African nations, if living in Senegal or Cote d’Ivoire or Ghana would have all the positive points of living here with fewer negatives.  From my own experiences, though, I know that much like people, places are absolutely formed by their history.  The scars of occupation in Seoul or Berlin, for example, are clearly critically important parts of those cities’ identities…and if that’s a self-built identity, one designed for tourists, that doesn’t make it any less important or authentic.

For the armchairiest of historical speculation: Guinea was the first West African nation to gain independence from France.  It did so nonviolently, but aggressively, definitively, casting out French influence to forge its own future, and has served as an example of African independence for decades since.  It’s also gotten extremely thoroughly screwed over by France, more so than many other former colonies, and according to the popular sentiment here, the fact that the French took everything with them when they left has been largely responsible for Guinea having such a rough go of it.

So basically, after being devastated and having generations of its people kidnapped and murdered, Guinea has still gotten the short end of the stick (less foreign investment, more neocolonial pillagers at the door).  It’s just that now, this time, that raw deal has been the unfortunate result of decisions that Guinea made for itself.  I know that can’t be any consolation to the families with no potable water and no mosquito nets, but from a cold, heartlessly romantic perspective, I think Guinea has something to be proud of.

This is why I teach kindergarten, right here.

To take it back to the personal: the people I’ve met here have been welcoming, friendly, and warm.  Some of the encounters I’ve had have been among the most beautiful moments of my life.  Jamming with friends—my ukulele, their traditional Kissian polyphonic singing.  Watching the sun set over the giant, unfinished stadium while bats flit overhead and the call to prayer suffuses the air in plaintive, cracking voices.  Hearing my students grow to express themselves more every day (one of my students, searching for a word to use when discussing the behavior of mosquitoes, hit on “heart water”).

One of the hardest things about living abroad is the realization that you’ve never “done” anywhere.  As long as I’ve spent anywhere I’ve lived or visited, there’s never been a moment where I thought, “I never need to come back to this place” (except maybe Sagada).  Even if Guinea wasn’t on my list of places to visit before, it’s definitely on my list of places to revisit now.

-->

Guess I had more in me than I’d thought.  Tune in next time for more photos of adorable children!

Well Come

As I stumbled, blinking, into the Senegalese night from the cool of the airport, I saw masses of people behind metal fences.  Some waved around signs, none of which had my name on it.  I'd never met the people whom my colleague told me I'd be staying with, but I was told the person who would be picking me up had a picture of me and would be carrying a sign.  I hadn't found a SIM card for my phone, either, so I was flying blind, with only a name and a useless phone number.  I passed through one checkpoint, then another, then another, until a tall man in white called to me from behind a barrier.

"Mister!" he said.  "Mister!  What's your name?"

Unthinking, shifting my backpack, I replied, "Harry."

"Mister Harry, I was sent for you," he smiled.  He gestured for me to follow.  "Come on."

I came a little closer, hesitantly.  "Who sent you?" I asked.  "Amina sent you?"

"Yes, Madame Amina," he confirmed, still smiling.  "Come on, let's take a taxi."

I shuffled behind, hesitant, but somewhat encouraged by his confidence.  As a taxi ran in front of me, I heard "Psst!"  I saw the taxi slow and the driver wag his finger at me.  I glanced at my guide, who was talking to someone else at this point.  The taxi driver shot his eyes toward the man I was following and again wagged his finger.  My stomach started to prickle.  Finally, fucking finally, I chose between rudeness and safety.  I walked back the way I'd came, crossing the barriers into the walkway leaving the airport.

"Hey, Mister Harry!" the man called from behind me.  Without turning, I shouted back something about making a call and booked it back to the entrance to the airport.  All the way up to the rifle-carrying guards, anyway.

I stood there for a long second, not really processing what had just happened.  Unable to think of literally any other option, I tried walking again: past the taxi touts, ignoring anyone calling "Monsieur!" or "Hey, mister!" or "Mon ami!"  This was the Conakry airport in January all over again, with a dozen places labeled "Meeting Point," each presumably the last before dumping travelers onto the mean streets of the capital.  Except this time there seemed to be other risks than just being asked for money.

"Mister Harry!" a muscular young guy in a beard called to me.  I met his eyes, and he pointed to the end of the walkway.  Others called to me, but I walked towards where he'd pointed, though with every step I second-guessed myself: did this guy just hear me talking to the man in white?  Was he my ride, or was this just the start of an exceptionally well-executed con?

"Hi, Mister Harry, my name is Mohamed.  Welcome to Dakar," he said with a smile as he took my hand.  I shook it even more tepidly than usual.

"Did, ah...who sent you?" I asked without a great deal of resolve.

"Excuse me?" he said, blinking.  I repeated myself, using different words, and his eyes turned to comprehension.  "Amina, yes, Mrs. Amina."

I sighed in relief.  "I'm sorry, there was just a guy—"

"Come on, let's get a taxi," Mohamed said, turning.

I walked behind him into the surprisingly well-lit parking lot.  All of Dakar was surprisingly well-lit compared to Conakry, where indeed the students sit outside stadiums and airports to study after dark.  Casually, smoothly (yeah, right), I began to press Mohamed for details.

"So, I know Geneviève is coming on Wednesday," I said coolly, dropping the name of my colleague.

"Yes, yes," he said, seemingly without recognition.

I tried again: "And, uh...how is Mariam?" I asked.  From what I understood, Geneviève's little daughter was staying with Amina.

"Yes, ha ha," he said, still not meeting my eye.

Suddenly chilly, I stopped in my tracks.  As calmly as I could, I asked to see Amina's phone number so I could compare it with what I'd written down.

"Wait, wait," he said as he fiddled with his phone, no longer smiling.  Then he showed me a picture:

(That's me in the back.)

I don't think he bears me any ill will for regarding him with such suspicion—though I wouldn't blame him if he did.  Since that first meeting, though, I've struggled to fill the long, long taxi rides with conversation, and it's obvious that Mohamed has been trying, too.

"What kind of sports do you like?" he asks, or "What kind of car do you like?"  A noble effort, and probably smart questions for most other guys, but sure-fire conversation-enders with this particular knucklehead.  Even "Do you use social media?" is a pretty short talk, perhaps unsurprisingly.  We converse in English, since he said that's what he prefers to use with me, though sometimes it's clear French would be better (if more difficult for me).

On Tuesday he took me to a roadside tea cart, one of hundreds in downtown Dakar.  I bought us tiny plastic cups of very powerful, very minty, very sweet tea, and he introduced me to some of the regulars at this particular establishment (which was only just a couple of thermoses and a wooden bench on the sidewalk).  With one of them, a youngish Fulani man whose name I don't catch, I hit it off immediately: he and I discussed linguistics and geopolitics, mostly in French, while Mohamed sat next to me, smoking quietly.

Taking Jenn's advice, I've been trying to deal with the awkwardness by pretending that it doesn't exist, pretending that our long silences are companionable and mutually agreeable.  It works, some of the time at least.

I've realized over the last several days that I put a lot of pressure on myself to be charming and polite, meaning I haven't really liked myself very much here in Dakar; we don't really share enough interests or enough of a language for me to be very funny, and the pressure I put on myself to entertain makes for some severely unentertaining banter, plus the fact that I have no idea what's expected in this culture means I might be acting like a total jerk much of the time.

I didn't ask for a guide—though a day walking around town quickly shows me how much easier and safer things are with one—and I often get caught up in myself.  I'm frustrated that I'm not getting to vacation the way I'd imagined I would, frustrated that I'm not able to be pleasant and charming and funny, frustrated that I care, and frustrated that I don't care enough, as though Mohamed is unworthy of my trying to put forward my best self.

The food, meanwhile, is excellent, as is the weather and the freaky North Korean-built monuments (see above).

Right Location, Right Time

Tanti Amina and her four children live in Keur Massar, a community on the outskirts of Dakar.  To look at it, Keur Massar could be extraordinarily old, a ruin of some forgotten war, with crumbs of concrete being swallowed and regurgitated by slithering mounds of ochre sand.  On the contrary, Tanti Amina's neighborhood is very new, under development for only about three or four years.  In fact, Tanti Amina's house—sparkling-clean, ornamented with various succulents in pots of seashells behind the front gate—is under construction, too, with workmen piling concrete bricks on top of the roof and hammering at all hours.



She tells me one morning that she plans to turn the extension into a location, another apartment for vacationers to rent for a week at a time.  I tell her about AirBnB, and she seems interested.



Inside, meanwhile, it is cozy, tastefully decorated (not that I'd know, of course), with comfortable, new-looking couches—the kind without obvious butt grooves, that tend to have tablets left on them (best to check before you sit down).  As Mohamed, my self-professed guide (he pronounces it "gweed"), shows me in, Tanti Amina and her children greet me warmly, excusing their lack of English.  I thank them profusely, promising to try my best with French for the next week.  Considering the type of houseguest I am, it gets much easier once Tanti Amina reminds me of the phrase n'importe quoi, "it doesn't matter."



After a few fits and starts, mostly due to faux pas or fear of committing one on my part, we sit to eat dinner.  It's late, after 9:30, and I apologize for seemingly having kept the family waiting.  I assume my poor French is what causes their confused looks, though it becomes clear over the next few days that dinner in Senegal rarely happens before nine, nor lunch before two.  We eat our couscous and chicken in a rich red sauce from a common dish while sitting on the floor, and though Tanti Amina's questions lead me to believe this isn't an everyday affair, the family's evident comfort with eating in this style make me marvel at its authentic exoticism or exotic authenticity.

Before going to sleep, I fret for awhile about eating before the young woman who cooked our food ate her own dinner—am I profiting from some misogynistic tradition where the younger daughter eats after the rest of the family?  My mind is put at rest the next day when Mohamed tells me that that girl is the family's hired help (giving rise to anxiety about having committed another faux pas by being unable to tell apart family and employees).




It's a long, dusty walk to anything from Tanti Amina's house.  No taxis come anywhere closer than ten minutes away, to the Shell station near the highway.  As Mohamed walks me that way in the morning, I note several horses and donkeys lashed to strange two-wheeled carts, as well as dozens of big golden eagles wheeling over the unfinished, brightly-colored houses.  Later, in a crowded city bus painted brightly like the Jeepneys of Manila, we ride past bald vultures clashing on what looks like an abandoned playground.  It's relatively quiet between Mohamed and me on the bus, and before that on the walk, as well as on the taxi rides downtown, across town, and back home.

Mohamed and I hadn't gotten off on a very good foot, unfortunately.  But that's a story for another day.

Front Lines

Just a short update in case you haven't been following the news (or even if you have; Guinean news doesn't tend to dominate CNN even when we don't have a human kielbasa belch as president).  This is cobbled together from the scant English-language news I've found online, poor translations of the scant French news I've found online, rumors, hearsay, and my own limited impressions, so take with an entire shaker of salt.  Warning: this isn't a fun one, might want to skip ahead if you're looking for cute kid drawings and weird food stories.

Photo by Reuters (so don't worry, Mom)

For the last three weeks, local schools in Conakry have been closed.  Teachers and students have been striking in solidarity with junior teachers who have been laid off and in protest of low salaries.  On Monday, the demonstrations grew in scale and severity, with blockades being put across the roads (apparently by strikers) and violent clashes between security forces and protestors.  Numbers vary, but around six people were killed, some of them police, and at least thirty have been injured (likely many more).  The official government line is that these protests have been illegal, a scary assertion given past governments' actions against "illegal" demonstrations.  Though an agreement was reached on Monday between the government and representatives of the teachers' union, disruptions have continued to interrupt daily life.

For the last several weeks, I've been hearing stories of a different kind about life in Conakry.  A significant problem facing the city, among many others, is the high rate of unemployment among young men, who come to the capital from all over Guinea to find a job.  Finding none, these young men, many of them university-educated, soon find themselves with little money and a great deal of time.  Unemployment and poverty, combined with bad roads, a rapidly increasing population, and lack of access to reliable electricity and water, has led to high tensions that have only gotten hotter in recent years.  Police and the military have had little luck addressing these problems or quashing protest; government employees are paid badly enough that it's common for the police to put up "security checkpoints" of their own, where they shake down passing cars to supplement their incomes.

On Monday night, one of my coworkers was picked up from the airport by a driver hired by our school.  The 10-km drive took them an hour and a half, as they were stopped at two dozen flaming barricades where they were confronted by young men demanding payment.  When they ran out of money, the driver surrendered his phone to buy them passage.  When that was gone, the men surrounded the car, pounding on the hood and the roof, trying to open the door, and trying to snap off the side-view mirrors.

My coworker did make it back safely, as did the driver, though they both still have a shaky smile and haunted expression much of the time.  They and several of our colleagues were stranded in various safe places throughout the city (mostly hotels and embassy housing), but they all made it home sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Photo by Getty Images

And me?  I didn't leave my house for two days while all this has been going on.  I feel a bit silly for drinking most of my emergency water already, but apart from a looming toilet paper crisis, I've stayed as safe as possible.  The teachers' housing is pretty distant from the worst of the unrest, and I've been looking at the guards, walls, and razor wire that I was complaining about a few weeks ago through different eyes.

For the moment, things have become quiet.  There are still reports of shots being fired, and outside the walls of the school, sometimes there is chanting that lacks the reassuring regular melody of the neighborhood mosque's call to prayer.  Allegedly the local schools reopened today as promised, but few students have returned to classes, and the streets are mostly empty (not that I've been venturing out to look).  One of my Guinean coworkers predicts that the rest of this week will be eerily quiet and periodically explosive, but by Monday things will be back to normal.  Such as it is.

Child's Play

Based on what I'd been told before arriving, I was expecting the most difficult things about working at this school would all be tied to life in a developing country: frequent power outages, periods with no running water, difficulty accessing the internet, safety, etc.  From my arrival in Conakry, however, I've been pleasantly surprised to find the people of Guinea friendly, the walk to school dusty but safe, and the housing comfortable if not exactly without excitement.  The teaching, on the other hand, was immediately way, way harder than I'd anticipated.  Working with my mentor teacher, I'm only teaching nine students (soon to be ten), and compared to the kindergarten classes I'd observed in Kansas and the kindergarten I'd taught at in Osaka, nine students sounded like...well, child's play, if that's not too clever.  I was a little anxious about starting to apply all the skills I'd been learning in my grad program related to differentiation, assessment, collaboration, etc., but classroom management would be no big deal, I figured.  Kindergarteners like me.  Kindergarteners are sweet.

That was the biggest surprise, one that had me in literal tears (the worst kind) after my first day teaching: even though there are only nine of them, classroom management was way, way harder than I'd anticipated.  During those first few days, six of the nine students would be crying, running away, or punching the other children at any given time.  I felt horrible at my job, especially with this apparent failure to keep control of the class in front of my mentor teacher.  I could come up with several reasons these students behaved the way they did, and I tried to let these ideas inform my response (not that it helped me feel much better): they came from vastly different cultures from my own, most of them have low levels of English, most are still unused to school, all of them were getting used to a new teacher and new routine halfway through the school year.

Along with my crisis of confidence, I began to have a real crisis of conscience: why was I so bothered that it was so chaotic in the classroom?  They weren't obeying me, but did I really want to be an authoritarian, a force for telling these students to sit down and shut up because I said so?  That's certainly not the teaching philosophy I'd studied for the last year and a half in my education program, and it's not what I had imagined I'd be doing as a kindergarten teacher.  And to put it bluntly, I didn't want to be the white guy yelling at a room of nine black people (children, but still people) to stop talking!

Perhaps most critically, I think I had been comparing these nine international students to Japanese kindergarteners who were in a culturally homogeneous, strictly regimented school environment.  These students are from Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire, or were international school brats.  What do I know about the school or home culture these kids come from?  What if...well, what if yelling is what these students know as a sign to be quiet?  What if my mild-mannered, touchy-feely, hippie-dippy persona doesn't register as an authority figure as them?  Or worse, as a teacher?

Well, last week, this particular crisis came to a head.  I decided I didn't want to be the yelling teacher, the overwhelmed, frazzled teacher.  I wanted to be the hippie uncle teacher, the one with the dopey ponytail and the ukulele and the dumb print shirts.

Easy fix: I brought my ukulele to school.

And how did it go?  Well, a bit anticlimactically.  My students enjoy the ukulele, and they enjoy singing, and while there's still a lot of punching etc., when I can get them on board with "Down By the Bay" or "The Green Grass Grows All Around," for a minute or two, I can stop shouting and get them to behave like adorable little children instead of complete maniacs.  For now, that's enough.