All you want to know about great eats in Guinea

Now that I have been in Guinea a year, I think that I have tried most of their eats. The most important meal of the day, is of course dinner. If a family has the means, they will eat some baguette bread dipped in local brewed tea for breakfast. I rarely see my family cook lunch or eat a proper lunch. Instead they will just boil some sweet potatos when they get back from working in the field at about 2pm.

Breakfast

Every village has about 2 or 3 bakery. The bakery is a large version of brick oven that we see in some pizza restaurant close to the size of minivan. Don't get too excited, the only bread they bake is baguette, anything more fancy than that is probably too cost prohibitive and villagers can't afford to buy it. Guinean like to eat bread dipped in tea, or if they can afford it, they like to spread mayonnaise or butter over it (but that's rare for an average family to buy a bottle of mayonnaise to eat at home themselves). I know what you are thinking, eeww, mayonnaise, so unhealthy. I thought of that, too, but after checking the label and seeing the proteins listed, and considering how protein deprived they are and how little fat they get in their diet, and how much physical labor they put out daily, mayonnaise is probably good for them instead of for us Americans who sit on our ass all day, have four wheels for our legs and have all the option of food at our fingertips.

Another breakfast item that I have grown to love is guinean porridge. Guinean women make tiny flour ball size of lentil, cook them in water with sugar and lemon juice for a long time, so it becomes creamy like the consistency of runny hot cereal. It is sweet with a hint of sourness. I love to buy some fresh fried flour dough (golf ball size), break them into small pieces and put in the porridge to eat together. The taste reminds me of chinese fried bread stick in hot soybean milk that I grew up eating. Most of time the porridge is made with cassava (yuca in spanish, manioc in french) flour, sometimes rice flour or corn flour. A new varity that has hit our market is rice porridge mixed with peanuts. My new favorite.

So, that's the two types of local breakfast you would find people in the village eat, there is a third type of breakfast with all local ingredients, but you will only find it at the white person's house (yes, that's me, all non-blacks are consider white to guineans), that's baguette with fresh grinded organic non-sugar added local peanut butter and local made honey, simply divine. But, I can't seem to get the local to agree with me on the taste, all us volunteers love it. It is probably too much of a luxury to eat peanut butter this way for guineans.

When you are in a big town, then you can find omelet sandwich also for breakfast which is scrambled eggs with onions and tomatos sandwiched in a baguette.

Lunch & Dinner
There are three main "dishes": Rice w/ sauce, Toa, and Fonio that you will find being prepared in guinean daily life.

Rice w/ sauce: one stable in guineans diet and can be found at home or in restaurant. There are peanut sauce, leaf sauce, eggplant sauce, okra sauce, bean sauce, and soup sauce. The sauce are poured over a bowl of rice and depend on the portion of rice, it can be served to 1 or 10 person. Almost all the sauce has the common ingredient of dried fish, maggie cube (the equivalent of a mixture of chicken bouillion and seasoning of instant noodle), onions and tomatos.

Peanut sauce of course, is based on locally made peanut butter, if one doesn't skimp on the peanut butter, it is very delicious.

Leaf sauce are typically made with cassava leaf, according to "Where There is No Doctors"(a book us volunteer take to our village for self diagnose, a very handy book at times, othertimes, it just make me think I have all kinds of diseases), is a great source of protein. I find the texture of cassava leaf grainy and dry, not a personal favorite. Then there is sweet potato leaf sauce, added with a little bit of okra to make the texture a bit slimmy and smooth, which is much easier to swallow. I take sweet potato leaf sauce over cassava leaf sauce anyday. The last is boroboro (let's just call it guinean wild spinach) leaf sauce. It is a barely edible grass that pop out everywhere. My host mom only cook it when she doesn't have 5 cents to buy other leaves, and of course when you can't afford the better leaves, you are usaully low on dried fish and seasoning, so needless to say, I've never had a good boroboro leaf sauce. Although I like cooking it with tomatos and eggs the few times I had instant noodles.

The leaves are chopped to really tiny fine piece and boiled for a long time with other ingredients before it is ready. Guinean kitchen knives are so dull, like our butter knife, so it is no danger to guinean when they hold a bundle of leaves in the hand and chopping it in their palm. Guineans don't use chopping board. Their palm is their chopping board.

Eggplant and Okra sauce are done in a similar way like leave sauce where vegetables are chopped to very small pieces and cooked for a long time until it is mushy. It is also a more expensive sauce to make, probably why I never find them in "restaurants". Toward the summer, I've started to make these two types of sauce once a week for my family. Yep, you guess it, they are my favorite sauce for my rice.

Toa: before I can explain to you what a toa is, I should explain to you what cassava is. Cassava is a woody shrub with starchy tuberous root. Very important carbohydrate staple to Guineans, especailly with the ever increasing prices for rice. The leaves like I've said before can make leaf sauce. The root has a brown tree bark like skin, and the inside is kind like sugar cane. The guineans eat it raw, or after it has been cooked in water. They also dry a lot of them, so later on they can grind them to flour to eat it throughout the year. Flour are milled by pounding a baseball bat sized pestle into a waist high wooden mortar.

I tried many times to do it at my village, they always laugh and think it is the funniest thing that a white person is doing hard manual labor. The pestle is not light. It weighs somewhere between 10 to 15 lbs. Try to lift that up and down for an hour many days a week. No wonder everyone here is very muscular. They never let me do it for too long because to them I can never do it perfectly and they don't want me to roughen my hands. Okay, back to Toa, Guineans cook cassava flour with water to a thick liquid rice pudding like consistency and eat it with peanut butter based watery sauce. The whole thing is sandy color. I never seem to get enough sauce to wash down toa, not a easy thing to swallow. It taste as bad as it sounds, except when the sauce is made with a lot of peanut butter which is rare. I am eating toa at least 3 times a day now, as rice is getting harder and harder for my family to afford. Toa also is not found in "restaurants", my guess is they are too cheap to be sold.

Fonio: I like this even less than toa. It is usually dry and kind of sandy. Fonio is a really small millet that is first painstakingly removed from the plant by stumping on it, then the husk is seperated by pounding the grain in the mortar. Since the the grain of fonio isn't much larger than that of sand, it is really hard to get all the husks out.

Another meal that is usually reserved for special guests, but can be highly lethal to those who have not developed a strong stomach to all the unknown foreign bacterias, is the locally produced cottage cheese over corn meal or rice with a pinch of salt or sugar (in my case when I visited my students in far away villages).

Snacks: besides cheaped candies and gums from china and stale cookies from really I never cared to find out where, I prefer the local snacks like fried flour dough of ping-pong ball size, roasted peanut, broiled peanut, fried sweet potato, fried plantain, homemade caramel candy, and roasted corn.

Beverage: Bissup rocks! made from hibiscus flower, mostly sweet with a hint of sourness. It comes in a plastic bag half size of a sandwich bag, cinched with knot on top. Sink your teeth to a corner of the bag and suck, and when you are done, you will say, "ah, got to get another one!" There is also drinkable yogurt in a bag. It is not as sweet as yogurt in America and taste much more original. There is also ginger juice drink in a plastic bag. It is basically just ginger boiled in water added with sugar.

Fruits:
I am in the middle of orange season. My host sister picked about 50 oranges to for me to bring to Conakry. I guess that's what they do when they go to the city. Well, for a good reason, here 5 oranges can cost 2 000 FG (guinea franc), and they aren't even all that sweet, where at my village, 5 nicely riped orange cost only 500 FG. Voici, la difference! Another very important point to make is, here, we drink our orange not eat them. The green or yellow hard skin of an orange is peeled off like you would to an apple,leaving the white interior softer skin, then you would slice off a small piece on top, exposing the "meaty" part of orange, then you just suck on it, siphoning all the juice out of it,
the cows and goats love the what's left of the orange after you've drank all the juice out, they tend to stand near you and "stare" you while you are drinking an orange. Voila, how we get fresh squeezed orange juice at our side of the world. 100% natural, fresh squeeze (by you) and absolutely no sugar added! (not to mention sugar is expensive here).

Mango season rolls in around June. There are so many mangos then, like the oranges in the orange season, many suffer the feat of falling off their trees and rot on the road.

some random photos

My kids preparing afternoon tea.

A corner of the room I use to do revision with my students.

Handmade and handcrafted stool from my village.

Local artists performing at an opening ceremony.

A cute lizard.

The 10am morning prayer at the mosquee to close a month long lent of Ramadan at my village.

My mosquee going get-up. A picture with one of my student after the prayer.

Our school bell, an used car rim hung off a tree that we hit with a metal bar. Can be quite loud.

Flag raising every morning. Students typically sing national anthem while flag is raised.
My morning hot porridge ladies. I used to go to the lady on the very left. But the second one on the left started to make this rice porridge mixed with peanut, delicious, so I am now her loyal customer.

Sunday morning at the center of our village. My village is a sous-prefecture, equivalent of our county I guess. Some people are waiting to have their luggages packed up and leave to go to Conakry, some people came to send packages like sac of tomatoes, sac of peanuts, goats, chickens, etc. and letters with the drivers, so their relatives in Conakry can receive them. Their version of FedEx.

Here are some photos to explain the progress on the library

Exterieur view of the portion of the building that we'll install the library. The rest of the building to the left is the office of the sous-prefet. The sous-prefet is like a county commissioner.

The entrance to the room that we'll install the library.

Interieur view of the room that we'll install the library. This room was the former conference room for the Association of Rural Community Developpment.

Interieur view of the room after some parts of the wall have been patched, the metal bars that have been installed in the rear window to prevent break-in, the first set of furniture that we ordered to have made.

Christmas day at a tropical paradise

So, you thought that I am torturing myself here in Guinea? Think again. Just an hour boar ride away from Conakry, I leave the run down capital of a west african country, and stepped into a tropical paradise, an island called Roum. I was glad that I just decided that I will forget work for a day, and hang out on a island beach with 17 other volunteers. The island is just an hour away by a large woonden canoe like boat equipped with a motor, and far enough to transport you to a beautiful and relaxing spot. The sand was so fine. I had hard time wash them off when I got back. There is a hotel with a nice outdoor restaurant, but actually thank to that Guinea isn't that popular to tourists, the beach was crowded at all. There were few other expats and rich guineans enjoying a day at the beach.

and here is a baby chimpanze that someone brought with them to the beach.
and here is a guy who is drumming at the beach.

Season Greetings!

Oh! My watch just announced (well, beeped) that it is midnight, so Christmas day has started for me. I got in Conakry about 5 hours ago, about 7pm. The earliest that I have made in here. We left about 9:30 this morning from my village. I found a house full of volunteers much to my dismay, with every single bed taken, but it is expected. I will just have to be content with sleeping on the couch for a couple of days, until people start clearing out of here. Conakry is just like what I remembered, hot and humid, and I am loving being in the air-conditioned house.

I grabbed a quick hot shower, to wash off a layer of red dust that accumulated on me from my trip. Then head out with a few other volunteers to a Christmas party at an embassy worker's house. As it turned out, the wife is the assistant ambassdor and her husband is the country director for USAID in Guinea. We were the last group that showed up at their house, avoided awkward gathering with other embassy workers and expats (a relief to me). The last time I went to a gathering hosted by embassy people, we the PCVs felt like the poor distant relatives to the rich expats. I only decided to go this time for the free food. There were lots of delicious finger foods and I got to eat a good amount of meat (hmm, yum.) I hope they didn't mind us mostly just went there to eat.

The week between Christmas to the 2nd of January is a break for school in Guinea. To be honest, I really didn't want to leave my site. There is a village that is about an hour bike ride away where some of my 8th graders come from. I have been there a couple of times last year, but would really like to go back to see more students' families again this year. There are quite a few smart and hardworking 8th graders from there. Running around for the library project has given me little time this year to just go to a student's house and hang out. This week off could've been a perfect time for me to do some visits to my students near and far. The fete of Tabaski also falls on the 31st of December, also known as the fete of Mouton, the biggest fete for the muslims. I am missing that as well at my site. Granted it is nothing nearly exciting like our Christmas, and we eat nothing nearly sumputous like Thankgiving dinner, but I enjoy saluating families and seeing many happy faces around. Thirdly is that the Germans are coming to stay for three weeks, and I am missing the first two weeks of their stay. So, you might ask what I am doing in Conakry then. Because I thought I probably should do some traveling instead of staying at my site all the time. I guess it is a good thing that I wish I could be at my site right now, and I wish I could celebrate with my friends and families at site for Tabaski. Anyway, I am going with a few PCVs to Freetown from the 28th of Dec. to the 2nd of Jan. then I will be back in Conakry to finish off my application for teaching english in France program. I also have a long shopping list and todo list for Conakry. The carpenters have a deadline of Jan. 7th to finish off the last set of furnitures and hopefully, we can open the library in mid-Jan. Inch Allah!

Merry Chirstmas, Happy New Year, Joyeux Noel, Bonne Annee, Bonne Fete, etc. etc. etc.!!!

motivation to do more

Hi Everyone,

Good Saturday morning!

I am heading back to my site for a week, then I will head down to Conakry to go to Freetown for a few days, Inch' Allah. Still no definite word on whether there is a strike or when, how should I plan according, but no frustrations or problems of mine compare to that of my guinean friend. An intelligent young woman who has a lot of potentials that I met last year. I haven’t had many interactions with her, but I felt certain connection with her with the few talks that I had with her. I am glad she trusted me enough to tell me that she has known that she is HIV positive for a few years. I would not have suspected at all, given how positive she is, how hopeful she is about the whole thing, and how she always carried on so optimistically. It really hits me hard to learn about it. I know it’s not the end of the world for her, but we know there is a certain time limit. She is really good about taking her medicine on time and taking care of her health is her number one priority. I am just simply amazed by her positive attitude giving how HIV/AIDS is viewed here, how limited information people have on it, how basic the health care system, how difficult life already is, how expensive to eat well in order to stay healthy. It is so much harder for a person who is HIV positive living in the third world country than in the U.S. The difficulties of staying physically healthy and psychologically healthy so they won’t die eventually from diseases like malaria, tuberculosis because their immune system is slowly destroyed by HIV. She is also formed an NGO with other guineans who are HIV positive, to do sensiblisation on HIV/AIDS, willing to put themselves out there to tell people that HIV/AIDS exist, how to prevent from being infected, people who are infected can still live a long life if they take care of themselves, etc. Lots of courage, vraiment! So, I am going to continue to give her emotional support, but not pity, and will look for ways to collaborate with her and her NGO, to help get the message across. I feel guilty for not doing enough during the past year on talking to people about HIV/AIDS, partially due to lack of time, but hoping to work on that as well in the last 6 months that’s left for me (6 months, if I can’t do a third year in my village).

Well, until next time, folks.

Bonnie

update in Dec.

I am back to Labe for a few days get some money and communicate with other PCVs about holidays plans. I am torn between going to Freetown (Sierra Leon ) for a few days with other PCVs and stay at my site since the Germans are coming the same time our trip is planned. Hopefully they will still be at my village when I get back after the New Year’s. I also have to go town to Conakry to get my application for Teaching English in France Program squared away. So, I will be down in Conakry around Christmas till end of the first week of January. Just found out that one girl in our group just got engaged to a Guinean that she has been dating, and the wedding is the first weekend of January in Mamou. Lightening speed. Wow! As for me, I get plenty of marriage proposals so I can take them to the States, but nothing serious. Sorry, no juicy stuff from me.

Okay, so the Teaching English in France program is a back up if my wish to do a third year cannot realize due to whatever reason, especially if something goes down in Guinea . The unions are talking with the government again about a possible strike which might potentially affect our vacation plans. So, we’ll see.

Here are some stuff I wrote since I got to Labe . Lots of random thoughts.

Happy holidays everyone! Sorry that I am lazy about getting greeting card out to you, but I miss you all and wishing you a joyous time with your loved ones!

It is so nice to sit on a double bed in a simple and clean hotel room, typing this on a laptop.
Saving it on a flash memory, so tomorrow I can upload it at the internet cafe, not have to pay the time to type it up there, also with a cell phone next to me, life is good. Thank goodness for technology.

There is winter in Africa ...
Is winter coming to you in full force? It sure is here in the fouta region of Guinea . The last week of Nov. and first week of Dec., the nights and mornings have been so COLD for sleeping in an uninsulated house or hut with a thin wool blanket or lack there of. Most of people in my village live in a brick house with metal tin roof. The roof is pitched up in the middle forming a triangle to allow rainwater to drain off. Where the tin roof come down and meets the wall, often times there are many gaps between the sheet metal and top of the wall. The windows and doors are mostly wooden that have warped over times and the frames are often not well done, so again there are gaps in the windows and doors. I also doubt many family have thick blanket to fend off the cold that “attack” us during December and January. I don’t know if this year is colder than last year, or I am just getting more use to the heat and not so much the cold. Probably the later. I tell my colleague that I am going to die when I go back to northeastern U.S. , can’t take the cold no more.

Of course my hut is worse than a tin-roofed brick house (at least I think) to fend off the chilly nights and mornings. I would wear 3-4 layers on top, 2 layers of pants and socks, double up my thin blanket with extra sheets that I have to sleep at night. It was hard to get up in the morning. When I go to my 8 o’clock class, I would slip a pair of pants under my skirt, wear my fleece over my top, white socks on two feet, slip on the flip-flops, and I feel like japanese woman (mostly due to white socks and flip-flops and force to trot small steps becase of long and restricting skirt). I probably should have a taken a picture of my funny outfit, to show you how unfashionable that Bonnie has became.

Well, it is definitely not as cold here as it is for you guys in the States, but people here don’t have the appropriate infrastructure or clothing for the cold weather. Because it is only cold at night and in the morning, and for a couple of months, people try to get by without buying warm clothing or blankets, simply can’t afford it. I ended up giving my family two pairs of socks that I hardly wear. I see so many kids riding bikes to school in the morning without gloves, hands getting so cold. Some kids ride almost an hour to school. Then there are elementary school boys whose uniform is short sleeve shirt and short. I wish I can give every kids fleece, pants, socks, gloves and hats. I got a cold ever since the last time I came to Labe for Thanksgiving dinner, and is finally getting over it now. Everyday I go into a classroom, the most prominent noise is kids coughing. I have to repeatedly tell them to cover their mouths when they cough, so we don’t all repeatedly fall sick. Sometimes I just feel like I should spend the money allocated for the library on buying warm clothing for the kids. (Sigh... am I doing the right thing with this library when there are so many other basic needs not satisfied in the community.)

Of course during the day between 10am and 5pm when sun is out, it gets warm or almost hot again, but it is chilly in my hut during the day, so I am not in my hut very much during the day this month. My lips also is chapped, and the lip balm that I brought with me finally found its use. Amazing what a year in Africa does to me.

“What, they are women???”
Peace Corps Washington sent two senior inspectors from the Inspector General office (an independent office to evaluate peace corps programs) to Guinea in the last couple of weeks. They randomly chose about 30-40 volunteers and I was on the list. So of course, I had to inform all the important people in the community about this visit. When I told my principal that there are two women coming, he said, “Ils sont les femmes?” (They are women?) I was as shocked by his question as he was shocked by two women inspectors. (Oh, geeze)

“Is that all the bricks that you will make?” said, the president of community rural developpment, who is also the history teacher at our college.

Reading between the lines, he really meant, “can’t you make more bricks for us or give us more free stuff?”. I must give you a little bit of the background on why I am picking on his statement. So, if you have read my previous posts, you might recall that there is a Guinean doctor who left our village to work in Germany for over 20 years. He came back with his family, and through help by his former german colleagues (also doctors), together they built an elementary school and a hospital in the village. The german come every year to see the kids that go to that school and treat patients, and I met them and talked to them quite a bit last year. They were concerned with overcrowdness of our college with an every increasing population of students, and they say it is because my 3 pages of observations and comments to them, that they decided to donate money to the college to add one classrooms, but as it turned out there are enough money for two classrooms. We are in the progress of building them. The germans are coming again toward the end of the year for two weeks to visit and see patients. I feel that here when some people receive too many generous supports, they begin to think that they are always entitled to free aid; that other “rich” people owe it to them. An attitude dangerous and hard to combate.

By Wednesday, I need a break, etc.
Teaching 7 classes, 18 hours a week is taking a toll on me. I teach Monday through Thursday, 4hours every morning, plus Saturday for 2 hours. By Wednesday, I wish I can take a break. I was really glad to get out of my site this time, largely due to that I am running low on cash, and for some reason I am craving for some comfort/luxury food, cold soda, carrots, just needed to treat myself a little. I’ve also started doing revision with my 10th graders on physics and math after school. I am also giving them a lot of math homeworks to prepare them for both math and physics.

Seeda seeda - Petit a petit - little by little
(I wonder if the french really use the expression of “petit a petit”, meaning little by little)

Remember I said that I had a hard time connecting with my female students? I am glad to report that I have found a small group of girls among the 8th graders who are quite motivated, outgoing and like to hang out with me. We have been getting together to organize books for the library. We have made a master list of all the books we want to put in the library, about 500 of them. Then, we grouped all the information books by their subject matter according to the junior dewey system, which means, for exemple all the history and geography books are labled 900 and on the lable there is color code as well to make it easier for younger readers to identify books. We are now on labeling the fiction books, by indicating on the spine, letter “F” and the first letter of the author’s last name. Hopefully, by next week all the books will be labled. I should also hopefully go back with a brand new library stamp, so we can stamp every single book as well. Then we will make a shelf catelog. Also in the last month, we’ve installed the metal anti-theft bars for the windows, which resembles metal bars at a prison cell a bit, but it is a common practice to do here. We have repainted windows and doors. The carpenter has made two books shelfs, 2 tables and 2 benches. I had to stop asking him to make more furnitures because I had go to Labe to get money. So, we are moving along, albeit slowly.

Frustrations
Transportation and communication is such a bitch here. I will say it again, I will say it over and over. So hard to plan a trip down to Conakry , coordinate with others when nothing is for sure. That was my biggest complain to the inspector general. But, what can they do.

around Thanksgiving

Hi Guys,

How is shopping today? Got a lot good deals? and how was "Turkey" day? Bien mange??? (that's means did you eat well?)


I will be having our Thanksgiving dinner today in about 3 hours with other volunteers who came to Labe. Just rode in this morning around 11am. It is my 4th trip coming to Labe on a bike. It is never easy, but much less tiring and with very little after affect. Most of volunteers came in yesterday, so cooking was well underway when I got to the volunteer house. PC Washington send us a turkey, we bought some fish and chicken on our own, so I am sure it will be a good feast. I just hope it won't burn a hole in my pocket. To my dismay, the check for living allowance coming from PC Washington has not arrive to Conakry, so we haven't gotten paid for the next cycle. To be honest, I came to Labe more to take out all my money, so I can pay for the repair work for the room where we will install the library and the necessary furnitures. The repairs have started, and I like to get everything done in December. Feel a bit guilty, but I also want to pick up some "luxury" food item like cookies, cocao powder, oat meal, and also some more pretty fabric, but money isn't in the bank yet. Darn! I will have to come back to Labe with the mailrun truck in a week and half to get my money. That way, I ride in a PC vehicle to Labe, and just have to bike back to my site (which is an easier ride, :).


I just got an email from my country director that donation to my library project (for repairs and furniture) that we posted through Peace Corps Partnership has been fully funded. Wow! I haven't yet figured out who funded it, but thank you whoever you are. I really wasn't counting on that getting funded after I drained many pockets of yours (my good friends), just thought there might be some other good doers out there. I was just going to fund the repairs and furnitures out of my living and transportation allowance. Since I can't get much at my village and I bike as much as can to avoid taxis, I don't use as much of my allowance as other volunteers. Anyway, that just mean we can make the library even prettier, and we can buy more supplies for the activities that we can do at the library. Horray!


Teaching the second year might be easier, but I am finding being overwhelmed at times with keeping track the progress of all my 7 classes, and the progress of particular students, and displine problems. I am also drilling on my 10th graders on math exercises, to bring their ability level to the level required to study 10th grade physics. Afternoon are mostly spent on items on the todo list for the library. Another french teacher is very motivated to help me with the library, and he is taking care of the coordination of repairs and furniture making, while I shell out money. He has came up with many economic ideas, but I still have to wonder sometimes if he is pocketing a little bit of the money I am paying to the carpenter or the mason. But then I thought about it, he is doing a lot of legwork and talking for me, and why should he do it for free when he doesn't get paid enough for being a teacher, and life is so difficult for them.


I better get back to the house for our Thanksgiving feast, but not before I thank you all for keeping in touch, donating to my library project and keeping me in your thoughts.

I hope you are all having a great Thanksgiving weekend with your loved ones!


From another of your loved ones who could not make it to your table this time,

Bonnie