Blogs from Labé, Guinea, Africa

I was scrambling up the side of a Guinean mountain when…when I realized the faint game-like trail I was following had disappeared under a small avalanche of rocks. Looking back out across the valley I had just traversed, the few tiny huts and peanut fields of the last village before the mountain were barely visible amongst the vast green forest below. After unsuccessfully searching the area for the continuation of the trail, it seemed the options were either to return down the steep slope, defeated, back to the last village, or try to push forward and get a vantage point from the mountain’s top, which it seemed couldn’t be far off. I had hiked over 30 km that day and the only people I had encountered were in the villages, so the thought of two ... read more

The rainy season is finally here! There's no more school, so all the college and high school students come back to the village for the vacation. No more ridiculously hot weather. And my favorite, no more relying on a well 15 minutes away for all my water. Now it's delivered to me, straight off my roof. :) Far from being a vacation time, everyone is working more than usual. Practically everyone is in the fields most if not all of the day planting corn, rice, peanuts, cassava, sweet potatoes, and okra. All of this is done by hand, the only assistance being that of a hoe. Even I'm working more than usual. Because everyone's out of school, when they're not planting they want to learn English. So I've been having about three private lessons a day ... read more

I’m going to try to be as respectful as possible while writing this; however I’m sure that at some point I’ll fail. For this I apologize to whomever I offend. A year and half ago, if you asked me, I would have told you that hardline feminists annoy the hell out of me. They still do, most anyway. (That is to say women who said the only reason they wanted Clinton for president was because she had a vagina; women who only apply their “principles” to white upper or middle class women therefore excluding the majority of their supposed constituency.) However, much to my ire, I know find myself constantly talking, thinking, writing, crying, and screaming about gender. (Sorry college friends, there is no difference between “sex” and “gender” here.) It’s with me when I go ... read more

24 March 2008 I’ve been having some bad days and getting dis-spirited. I often feel like my French is getting worse and that I’m not learning any Pular. I always feel like I’m not doing enough and often that I’m doing nothing at all. I was horrified when I realized in one week I’d finished reading 3 books (compared to the 5 I read in the first two months.) But then there are little signs of success here and there. My elderly neighbor, Nenne Kanne, who only speaks Pular (to others, but mostly to herself) has started using some French with me including “merci” and “c’est bon.” This may seem insignificant, but if you knew this woman ... The little girl who lives with Nenne Kanne, also named Oumou (that’s my name here) use to run ... read more

11 February 2008 Yesterday for dinner we went to a restaurant and ordered hamburgers. We got hard boiled eggs covered with a thin layer of ground beef swimming in a pool of oil and cold french fries. We opted to make our own dinner tonight and made pancakes with chocolate sauce, mexican eggs, salsa, guacamole, and garlic bread. A little random but amazing. 12 February 2008 Yesterday we went shopping. Kim and I got lost a couple times in the market and got about 20 marriage proposals. It's a time intensive process, so even though we were out all day we only bought about 10 items, all really random: tye-dye sheets, a foot brush, flip flops, a radio, a bucketm ketchup, a thermus, cups, and 3 meters of fabric which I'm using for a tablecloth and ... read more