YOUR QUESTIONS

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Some answers to your questions. Let me know if there's anything you'd like to hear!


Describe Kat’s house and her village.

Kat is my closest PC neighbor. She lives in the village of Gongoret, 12 km from me. The village is sligtly larger than mine and has the luxury of daily taxis that go to Mamou. Everytime I travel, I am obligated to bike to Gongoret to get a taxi, for cars just don’t go all the way to my village. The cars leave Gongoret first thing in the morning, so I bike to Kat’s house the evening before and stay the night.
Kat lives in a mud hut with a thatched roof. It’s composed of two walls that are concentric circles, forming an “inner circle” and an “outer circle” of the hut. The inner circle is her living area - bed, bookshelves, a table with a camp stove that serves as her kitchen area. The floor is dirt but covered with a sheet of checkered plastic that is easy to clean and looks like tiles. The outer circle is where she keeps her water filter, bike, and other hardware stuff. Inside the hut is very comfortable, the only real inconvenience is the lack of windows - you need to light candles even during the day. That and now and then pieces of thatch fall down from the roof.
Outside she has a kind of gazebo, like a hut with no walls. It has the same thatched roof for shade, but without walls there is plenty of light and a nice breeze. In this “disco hut” as she calls it, she has two hammocks, a couch, and a small table. It’s a really comfortable place to relax.
Behind the house is a pit latrine and a shower area, a room with a cement floor and no roof where you go to take a bucket bath. She can get well water in her concession, and pump water farther away. She also has a garden that did very well this rainy season. She gave me some great basil. The rest of her yard area is kind of a gravel clearing. It is in a concession with three other huts and two houses where the family lives. They’re always very nice to me when I come to stay.


Have there been other PCV’s in your town before?

Yes. There was one volunteer before me, Henry. He was a math teacher as well and just left in June. From what I’ve heard he was kind of a super-volunteer who did all kinds of successful projects, including starting a library. I’ve inherited this project now, and I need to figure out a good way to insure that books that are borrowed get returned. The local rich guy also purchased three computers for the library, however there is no electricity to power them. I’ve inherited the responsibility of solving this problem.

Do you have any privacy whatsoever?

Having my own house is nice, and the kids have pretty much stopped hanging out in my windows; they must have gotten bored with watching the white woman. I do have lots of visitors, some are pleasant company and some seem to come over just to sit on a couch for a while. Nonetheless, when I need to get work done I feel I have a right to ask people to leave. Once it gets dark I close my doors and windows to keep the mosquitoes out, and then no one bothers me.
People here generally keep their doors open during the day and accept visitors anytime. If you keep your doors and windows closed, people think you’re mean or antisocial. So I keep mine open but if people hang out too long I try to think of an excuse to get them to leave. A good one is to go get a bucket of water from the well - it doesn’t take long but I need to lock my door when I’m away, so people have to get out.
Oh yeah, there are locks on the doors and large metal shutters for the windows that lock (no glass in the windows, just burglar bars).

What time does your day start?

It’s sad, but I really wake up every day by 6:30 when the sun comes up. Once it gets dark in the evening I want to go to sleep. I’m usually in bed by 10:30. Even when I stay at Kat’s hut with no windows, somehow you know its sunrise and wake up. I think it’s because at night you hear insects chirping outside and when the sun comes up you hear birds.


What do you do for fun?

In the village there’s not much - most evenings are spent reading by candlelight or listening to my shortwave radio. There was a rich guy in town last week who invited me over to watch a movie (he has a generator and a DVD player), so that was a treat. He even had Coke from the city.
I’ve been going into town every two weeks or so, and I see other volunteers there. On weekends there are a few bars you can go to, and we are usually some of the only patrons. The drinks available include Skol (“International Beer”), Guiluxe (Guinean beer), Club 7 Whiskey Spirit (that’s whiskey-flavored spirit, not real whiskey), Gin Captains (not bad with orange fanta), and boxed red wine. In some places you can find imported name-brand liquors, but we can’t afford them. If you order a Fanta and gin at a bar, the bartender gives you the glass Fanta bottle and you drink some and give it back so he can put a shot in. Muslims are not supposed to drink, especially not women, so if we do want to drink it’s better to hang out in the PC house and not offend anyone.
There are also lots of dance clubs that are very popular with locals. You hear a mix of Guinean music and the crappiest of European or American music. Yet Guineans love dancing to it and can be entertained at a club until hours after I’m bored.
On holidays we get together in regional capitals. Today we’re preparing a turkey and a million other things. Regional capitals also have TV’s and lots of movies that can keep us entertained for days.


Requests for a care package?


Thanks for thinking of me! MP3 CDs are great - I'd love some new music. Also pictures from back home of friends, fun times, etc. Otherwise anything you send will be useful and exciting. Candy from America, snack foods of any kind, magazines, crossword puzzles/Sodoku, AA or AAA batteries, Ziploc bags...anything. If you just have some small stuff, save yourself the postage and send it to my mom, as I mentioned in the other post.

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Comments

[Eric]

care package
I gave Mom a bunch of MP3 cd's and a bunch of pictures taken this past summer (before and after you left). She mailed them sometime before Thanksgiving, so hopefully you will get them soon. Apparently she has to disguise everything she sends you to increase the chances of you recieving them. Mom could send you her 1985 cell phone if that would help you. She is still amazed that speed dial allows you to save entire numbers to a single button. I think I am number 4.