The road into Siguiri with the 'Welcome to London' sign.
First Letter Home
Oct. 15, 2000
Dear Mami and Daddy,
You probably think I'm being your typical daughter since I haven't written in a while. It's not entirely my fault since there were no opportunities to send mail while I was in Conakry and I've spent the last week settling in. I'm not really sure how well the mail works from Siguiri. I've head that mail sent from Conakry usually reaches its destination, however that entails me giving my mail to someone who is going to Conakry. Seeing as I live so far out, that doesn't happen all too often, so I hope you will get this letter. Equally, I only get my mail when someone visits me, so once a month or so.
I'm enjoying a nice, grey, rainy day here in Siguiri. In fact, I've actually put on pants. It's strange, our first week here, it was hot (very hot) and sunny, but these last few days have made it clear that the rainy season is not yet over. Siguiri is quite a nice town - rather large with a big market and lots of red, dusty streets. The area is hilly so that one gets some beautiful views. This is actually going to be a daily occurence for me since our lycee is on the top of a hill, 2.5 km from our house. So I get nice exercise every morning. I hope to go on some nice long bike rides into the savannah in the near future. Our market has a decent selection of food. We can get eggplant (every possible kind one can imagine and more), tomatoes, onions, garlic, pumpkin, cabbage, salad, okra, ginger, potatoes, yams, manioc, oranges, lemons, bananas, and guavas. And of course, rice. I've been cooking quite a bit - we have 3 gas burners. So If you can send me recipes inovlving the above ingredients, I'd be rather happy. I know the Indian cookbooks had recipes for okra and eggplant curries, and anything involveing all manner of beans, because we have a lot of those. Food preparation is interesting here. We have to pick the stones out of rice, test eggs for freshness, and sift the bugs out of our flour. Kristin and I have been following a rather vegetarian diet since buying bug-covered meat does not seem very appealing. The next time we're in Kankan, we'll probably buy some can of tuna. Canned food is not available here.
Our house is really big - I doubt I'll ever live in such a big house again. We have 4 bedrooms, 3 with double beds (straw mattresses), a huge living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a bathroom, which has the running water (shower and sink). There's a latrine outside, which is uncovered so on can star gaze at night. We have electricity 2 days of of 3 from 7-12 although effectively, it has been 1.5 days since frequently, the power goes out. Our whole house is painted green. The courtyard is rather ugly since it has been covered in cement, although we do have a mango tree. Kristin and I hope to make it look nicer. We'd like to pull up some of the cement and plant my seeds. I planted the spices in pots, hopefully those will grow. We get free bread every morning from the local baker which is really good. It's baked in a wood-burning sotve. Sometimes we buy beans from the bean lady down the street.
We're about 200m away from the airstrip. Planes (Russian) fly Wednesday and Saturdays to Conakry. We're encouraged to fly because the main paved roads are not very safe here, because people drive like maniacs. However, up here, nothing is paved, which means it takes a long time to get anywhere. Conakry to Kanakan is about 12.5 hours on a paved road. Kankan to Siugiri is 5.5 hourse on a dirt road. We had to cross rivers twice. At one crossing, the ferry wasn't working, so they put the car on a boat and paddled it across. When we finally arrived in Siguiri, we and all of our belonging were covered in red dust. Now I understand we everyone wears bandanas over their hair and ugly clothing when they travel. You should see how they fill up the cars: 3 up front, 4 in the back, all the baggage on the roof, the apprentices on top of the baggage - it's crazy.
Our lycee (Roi Hassan II) seems to be nice. I start teaching tomorrow. I teach 12 hourse a week, 11, 12, and Terminale, the Social Science track. Peace Corps didn't have enough textbooks to give to everyone, so I don't have all the books I need. My biggest problem is Terminale, because although I have the books for the other 2 tracks, the syllabus is different and vague enough that I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to be teaching. There are 738 pupils enrolled, average class size is ~70, there are not enough teachers, and they haven't been paid. Nice, isn't it? The school is brand new though and beautiful. Our principal is a woman, which is unusual (she has political connections). Otherwise, Kristin and I are the only female teachers. On top of that, they told me I am Siguiri's first ever female math teacher. Last year, no girls passed the Bac 2 and only 1 passed the Bac1, which is rather depressing. I have a great schedule: Monday 10-12, Tues 8-10, Thurs and Friday 8-12. We had a staff meeting yesterday which was very African - started 45 min. late, lots of meaningless talk. The administration apologised for providing us with only 4 notebooks. They're supposed to give us notebooks and pens but there weren't enough this year. Then they talked at large about how horrible the 11th grade is supposed to be. And how late one can come to class if hypothetically, one's moped breaks down. Kristin and I ride our bikes, which is interesting because they are men's bikes and we wear skirts. And thanks to the long uphill ride, we arrive nice and sweaty. Oh, by the way, I never got the tank tops. Supposedly, our mail will be forwarded. I hope so. So school will be interesting, especially seeing as they started 2 weeks late due to a large increase in gas prices and the fact that the exam results only came out last week. Guinea has far to go.
Guinea is absolutely gorgeous. Driving from Conakry to Kankan was spectacular. The coast looks like a tropical island, the Fouta is full of mountain pastures, and then the savannah is green and has wide open skies. We can see thunderstorms from far away and have beautiful sunsets. The advantage of Haute Guinee, as well, is that it is dryer, so the heat is bearable and we don't have to worry about mold growing on everything. The Malinke are also nicer people. Very open, friendly, funny. They like to joke a lot and are more accepting. The Malinke up here is a bit different from what I learned - closer to what they speak in Mali. It's proving to be difficult to learn: the rules seem to change all the time. But I'll try. My name is now Aminata Magassouba. The Magassouba are the founding tribe of Siguiri. I've heard it means 'Maga the sourcerer'.
Our house is really secure so you don't have to worry about thieves. Aside from metal doors and shutters, we have a high, glass-covered wall and most of all, Cass, the ferocious dog. He's such a crazy dog, he always wants to play. But he scares the Guineans, they're terrified.
At the moment, Siguiri is a nice mess because they are paving the main road. Getting into town now means climbing over large mounds of dirt every 100m or else following the deviation signs. I tried the latter once and got hopelessly lost, since it wasn't very well marked. However, I'm glad they are paving because that reduces the dust. I can't imagine why they decided to give our house white tile floors in such a dusty place. We sweep all the time but it never stays clean. Everything ends up coated in red dust. I hope they will finish paving soon.
My sister's impressions after her visit
Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2001 16:31:22 -0500
we arrived back from africa yesterday morning and i'm still absolutely exhausted. it was quite a tiring trip. we flew into bamako, mali since it's closer to siguiri, urska's town. but although it's only about 150 miles away it still took about 6 hours to get there. we took a bush taxi there (the only way to travel), which is basically a car in such horrible condition it probably wouldn't be legal to drive it in the western world! so besides being somewhat uncomfortable (especially on the unpaved roads...and all the roads were unpaved and extremely bumpy) there was of course also no AC so we had the windows rolled down the whole time and by the end were covered in red dust!! fortunately the drivers are pretty good (besides the fact that the car broke down 6 times!) so i guess we were in safe hands!
We stayed with urska for a week (we decided not to travel around since it's tiring and also we could probably only stay in the savannah region since the rest of the country isn't that safe at the moment.) so it was really nice seeing her again. she has a lovely little house and a really nice housemate, kristin, and the cutest dog! we walked around town a lot which was interesting (i think our visit was quite an event since no one ever visits the town and we doubled the population of whites while we were there. so we did stand out quite a bit).
we also had tons of visitors. the guineans like to visit non-stop. they're quite funny people. they seem to laugh at everything. and they also go on and on with greetings. "ca v a?" (how's it going?), "ca va la ba?" (how's it going over there? which is a total guinean thing, because you'd never say something like that in france). "et la famille?" (and your family?), "et la sante?" (and your health?) etc. on and on. and then 10 minutes later after you've been having a normal conversation and there's a silence and no one has anything to say they'll start with the "ca va's" again!! it's pretty funny! (i had a hard time not laughing after a while because their conversations amused me so much!) i also got a bunch of marriage proposals! all urska's students wanted to marry me. haha! pretty funny! urska and kristin have already gotten tons.
urska was soooo excited about your package! everything in it was absolutely perfect for her! :) but i'm sure she'll tell you that herself. i sent two letters that she wrote for you today in the mail, so you should be getting them soon.
And more email from me:
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 12:37:37 -0500
I finally have email access again thanks to the friendly goldminers up the road from us. Even better, in a week, I will be in Conakry, so I can check email yet again! How I enjoy the luxuries of the modern world. I had my first hot shower in six months today. Yes, even in Africa, hot showers are nice.
Things have been going pretty well in Guinea, politics aside. I'm nicely settled in my house, somewhat in control of my classes, and generally, starting to enjoy living here, most of the time. We just finished our first semester at school, so I have some 230 exams to grade, tremendous fun. As a result, I have also spent the last week proctoring exams at school. The Direction demonstrated their usual lack of organisiation by starting an hour and 45 minutes late on Monday, but we've worked it down to half an hour now.
This Wednesday, I leave to Kankan (where I will finally get my mail, it's been 1.5 months now) and then to Conakry for in-service training. That's assuming that we will be allowed to go to Conakry. Somewhat of a big assumption at the moment. The Liberians just withdrew their ambassador and the Guineans claim they caught a rebel spy doing reconnaissance work for the planned attack on Conakry. Of course, it is a big question whether the rebels will ever make it to Conakry. They like to keep us in suspense.
So yes, politics have been a great concern in Guinea. There were several attacks on the border at the beginning of December and several towns in the south have been completely destroyed. We speculated for a while that we were on the verge of evacuation, but everything calmed down. However, just this week, Gueckedou was attacked again, so who knows. Oh, the attackers are Guinean dissidents, Liberians, RUF (Sierra Leonians), Burkinabe, mercenaries, etc., depending on who you believe. But general belief is that the country is on the brink of a rebellion, it is only a question of when. Hopefully after I'm gone.
School, aside from the total lack of organisation, has been all right. My classes seem to keep on growing and growing (I have 92 in my largest one now) and consequently, it is hard to keep the noise level down. Classroom control has been a bit of a problem, a large part of it because I am young and a woman. I don't enjoy the remarks about my capabilities and my marital status or the marriage proposals, but there is not much I can do about that.
Women have a long way to go before they reach any sort of equality in Guinea. My housemate, Kristin, and I hope to start a girl's club at school soon to try and ameliorate the situation. Otherwise, there has been a certain amount of frustration involved in trying to get my students to think independently and get them to the level they're supposed to be at, but it is getting better. And at least I've intimidated them enough now that there is much less cheating on tests (at least, no one is talking or swallowing pieces of paper anymore-my first test was utter chaos).
So that is pretty much my life (I think, I suddenly can no longer remember everything I wanted to write, being here at the mine is like being in the twilight zone-they have AC, glass windows, sprinklers, green lawns, computers, white picket fences...). In a month the hot season will start, as opposed to the current cold season-it's only 32 C during the day, but it does get down to 18C at night. Our lovely mango tree now has ripe fruit, much to my delight. And the dust is just as plentiful as ever, as is the rice and sauce. Hope all is well with you and that you had a lovely holiday.
With my warm and dusty greetings,
Urska
ps. It looks like I will be probably coming to the US in September, which
I
am very excited about. I'm not really sure how I'm going to cope though :
>)!
Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 15:21:03 -0500
I realise this must be rather shocking-two emails in a week. I think I'm going to have email withdrawal when I go back to site. I am currently in Conakry, about to start in-service training on Tuesday. Since Conakry is rather far away, we came down early to shop at the supermarket, email, and eat lots of icecream. For the record, I had yoghurt, caramel, coconut, and pistachio. Yes, I know that's a strange combination but I was overwhelmed by choices. Conakry reminds me of New York in the summer, well, if I almost completely close my eyes. It's very hot and humid, quite a change from Siguiri where everything is dry. Let me tell you about my trip down here: West African travel. Since Siguiri is far away, we travelled in two stages: Siguiri to Kankan and Kankan to Conakry. Siguiri to Kankan was a run of the mill, dusty trip. 11 of us squashed into a station wagon, pot-holed dirt roads-we almost drove into the bush, the road was so bad, and roaming livestock-nearly hit a cow. We got to watch the car be paddled across the Niger again-it's starting to lose its novelty. But that was only 5 hours total. The next morning, we left to Conakry, which is a 12 hour trip. We bought out of the fourth seat to the middle section of the station wagon (there were three of us), so we rode in luxury. There were 4 people (including the driver) sitting up front. This caused us a few problems at the roadblocks-19 total. Of course, we got to listen to lots of Guinean music on the way. Fortunately, our driver was fairly reliable (only three nerve-wrecking incidents of failed attempts to overtake) so we made it in one piece and not to late. How I love the thought of having to do this all in reverse.
Not too much has changed in Guinea since my last email. More
fighting in the South but that is hardly news. We tested our evacuation
plan last week. I believe we failed the test-it took five days for the note
to reach us in Siguiri. Oops. That's why there is a test, right? In the
event of a real emergency, they'll use the radio (BBC). anyway, everyone is
anxiously awaiting to use this computer, which I have been hogging, so I
feel rather guilty.
Hope all is well.
Urska
Pictures from the drive down to IST.
