Things Fall Apart

It's been 3 months that I haven't written, not because I didn't want to bike out over 50 km to an internet connection, or that my life has finally fall into a routine therefore not much new is happening to you, but just the opposite, I had internet connection 24/7, now I have my own office and own computer w/ internet, lots have happened - Things Fell Apart.

Part I: 2 1/2 weeks of strike / standfast at site / Pre-"Evacuation"

01/06 PCV Arabella's wedding to Hassan in Mamou.

Bella with 10 of us in her group.
Hassan walking in the crowd to join Bella.
Bella being given to the groom's family by her "mother" side.



Bella and Hassan.

01/08 Returned to my village after the holidays. The German doctors team are back again to work at the hospital they built. I spent the last 3 days of their stay in the hospital to learn about the health problems of my villagers.

Going to pester kids in my family to always wash their hands before eating. Too many kids have parasites due to dirty hands. They come to get some medicine when the white doctors come, so they are well for a few weeks, but the rest of year they don't take preventive measures and are always sick.

01/09 Didn't know at the time, but it was the last day I taught. Will I ever get to step in these classrooms and teach again?

01/10 National strike starts. It is the third national strike in less than a year. Each previous strike was suspended when the government made false promises. Continuing rising price of a 50 kg bag of rice (24 000 GF in 2004 to now 125 000 GF), an increase of 52% in gas price, and in December 2006 president Conté personally released his close associates Mamadou Sylla and Fodé Soumah who were put in prison for embezzling $22 millions from Guinea's Central Bank, have finally pushed Guinean people over the edge.

01/12 Started afternoon English class at my home.
Had some kids pestering me about English lessons for almost a year, but always got out of it. Why? Had plenty of other things to do, doubted that kids really are serious about it. Probably due to no school resulted from the strike, kids have a lot time on their hands. They actually kept coming once we started, every other day, average about 15 kids of all different grades. Got to know some girl students through this. One came to ask me if there is medicine to take to restore virginity, and what are some signs for AIDS. You better believe that I profited this opportunity to talk to her and her friends about reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. Yes, I regret not starting English class earlier. I could've reached a whole new group of kids especially girls by doing that. Lesson learned.

01/10-01/23 During the 2.5 weeks that I spent at my village while the strike went on, I religiously tuned to la Radio Française Internationale (RFI) on my shortwave radio to their african news update 3 times a day.

Once in many years in Guinea history, they are making headlines on RFI. They are many days, where the announcer will say, "It is 8h00 at Paris and 7h00 at Conakry." No more "at Dakar" or "at Bamako", but even "at Labé" (my regional capital) or "at Kankan" (regional capital highland region)

Everyday, morning, I got together with people (all men, very women can understand news in french or care to) in the center of the village listen to the recap of yesterday development of the strike, then, sit around at some shops and chat with shop keepers for a couple of hours, next, tutor Saïdou and Sadou (twin brother in 2rd grade), their sister Houssai( in 4th grade) of my family on basic math and french, then they play Legos, I listen to radio again at noon for news updates on demonstrations and resulted violence in major cities from the morning, nap a little, visit students/students visit me/give English lessons in the afternoon, get together with people (all men) at a cafe to listen to evening news updates and summary of events for the day in Guinea and discuss what we heard.

Guineans are really taking their anger and discontent to the streets this time. Current president Conté has been in power since 23 years ago, and has changed the constitution a few years ago so his term is unlimited. Everyday, there are demonstrations against the current regime that plunder the country that is so rich in natural resource, deeper and deeper into extreme poverty. Demonstrators destroyed many government buildings but also looted many storage buildings that belong to the NGOs that are here to help. One popular demand of the protesters is, "un changement radical" (a radical change meaning they want Conté to step down). Everyday there are clashes between demonstrators and police/army, led to death toll of an average of 5-10 persons per day, in many major cities in Guinea.

Every other day, I go to the house of the community worker to get the key to the office where the high frequency radio is kept (We use radio here to communicate out), and try to find out if Peace Corps is planning on evacuating us since situation is deteriorating day after day. It is very frustrating because I cannot call to Peace Corps Conakry on the radio at my village to find out where they stand, but only get to hear bits and pieces of other volunteers' conversations with Conakry through the frequency.

01/19 Cafe talk on HIV/AIDS with "high school dropout" at my village.

I suggested to an university student who gets along quite well with many young men in my village here on break that we just get together to have an informal talk on HIV/AIDS among friends.

This cafe of african village style is just a few step away from my home. Another elementary school teacher and the university student ended up moderate the dialogue, and they were quite knowledgeable,

which is great because they can continue talking to people about HIV/AIDS prevention after we are no longer there.
One thing to point out though, many people have heard about HIV/AIDS and can recite different modes of transmission and different methods of prevention, but whether many of them have changed their behavior to rigorously practice safe sex? I think the number is still very small. Behavior change takes years, in the U.S. as well. They are still people in the U.S. who doesn't believe that AIDS exists and think they are invincible.

01/22 Bloody Monday. This day was particularly bad. I think over 20 people died from various demonstrations. I have a bad feeling that Peace Corps is not going to let us stay at our site much longer.

01/23 After such a bad day yesterday, I decided to bike to Kankalabe where Toni - my nearest PCV neighbor lives. We called out on the high frequency radio there and learned that it's very likely that we both will be picked up the NEXT DAY to go to Bamako, Mali for a few weeks. They told us, just pack enough things for a couple of weeks, get ready to leave. We both were like, geeze, are we coming back? What do we tell our village? Do we say our goodbyes? What should we bring? What do we do with 90% of our stuff that we are leaving behind? Give it away or lock it up? So, I quickly bid goodbye to Toni (both hoping that we won't see each other so soon), jumped on my bike and rushed back to Bodié - my village.

Afternoon - There was a baptism of the 3rd baby of one of my 9th grade girl student. Her husband is the director of one of the elementary school in Bodié. There were many teachers there for the ceremony, so I got to say my half-assd goodbye. I basically told them that looking at the continuing deteriorating situation in Guinea, concerned about that volunteers running out money/food/medicine (especially, weekly malaria med), concerned about volunteer safety for those who are in a bigger town, concerned about gasoline reserve running low in the Conakry office and not able to get to us (no gas stations are open), as a precautionary measure, Peace Corps would like to consolidate us and take us to Bamako, Mali for some training for a few weeks while waiting for the situation return to normal working condition. Yes, none of us have worked for 2 weeks, but I was able to do more outreach type of work that I often didn't have enough time to do with my busy teaching schedule.

Informed my family.

Continued onto inform the sous-préfet (the village level government official), other important figures in the village, some other teachers, some of my students, and the university student who organised HIV/AIDS talk whose mother is on the library committee, hoping that he can help to facilitate the project during my absence.

Tried to listen to the HF radio at my site for the confirmation of evacuation to Mali, but there were a lot of statics and I couldn't hear much, but something inside of me told me that we've got to go.

Informed the member of library committee for an emergency meeting next day morning.

Evening - Finalized the organization of library books in a way that others can understand what we have done, with the rest of materials needed to finish the library renovation. For the good students from each grade and students I know well of (over 20 of them), according to their likes/dislikes and needs, I left each student a bag of stuff filled with books, school supplies that I didn't get to use, fabrics that I didn't get to make into dresses for some of my best girls students. I labeled who each bag goes to and gave a list of names to my family, and asked them to hold off on distributing them until the end of February. If I am not back by the end of February, I won't back for a long while or ever at all. I want at least the good students to own some of the books/dictionaries that we got, in case other books eventually disappear into the community. Explained to the university students how we classified the books, how to labeled books and what are the different types of books and journals we have.

Midnight and after - Back to my hut to sorted out the stuff that I will bring with me, stuff to give to my family right away, anything else I can give to my students, etc. Wrote notes to students that I didn't get to say good-bye.

Napped for a couple of hours at 4am.

01/24 - Emergency meeting with the library committee members to recap what we have done, what's left to do, what they can do while I am gone, and left with my host dad a good amount of money so they can finish the rest of repair for library room. My host dad is the president of PTA of the collège.

My really good students from 10th grade came to say goodbye. It was hard, I didn't want to spend a lot of time to say things to them as if this is the last time I will see them, afraid that will really make it final, afraid that will jinks our chance of coming back to our villages quickly. Aissata, Souadou and Kadiata (3 girls from 8th grade) just sat with me outside my hut while I waited for the PC car to come. I had no idea when it was coming, and as each hour pass I begin to wonder if I didn't hear it right, or my 6th sense is off, that they are coming today or not at all. My host mom and her children are suppose to go the garden to work, but not knowing when I will leave, they stayed back also to wait around with me. My host sister just had a baby today (I am still confused whether they were naming her after my mom or me). I didn't get to see them because they live 15 min. bike ride away. I didn't want the PC car comes and not finding me there. They could show up at any minute. And when they come, I know it will be a 2 min. throw your stuff in the car, jump in and go situation.

It is noon and PC car is still not here. They do have at least 5 people to pick up before me, but the longer I wait the more doubt that I have. I start to joke with my students and family, maybe they are not coming today, maybe they are reconsidering "pulling out", maybe I heard wrong, maybe I get to stay. I sent my students away knowing that they need to go back home to work, jokingly saying that they probably aren't coming for me today. I am hungry, so I walked out to the main street where I can get some rice and sauce and still can monitor the "traffic" coming through my village. And let me tell you, the only traffic lately has only been people on bikes, seldomly somebody goes by on a moto and even I started to look up to see who is "wasting gas" when no gas station is open. People sitting on the side of streets always look up whenever a motorized vehicle pass by. Village gasoline vendors buy gas at gas stations in the cities and put them in wine bottles to sell back in villages. Gas price has gone up quite a bit since strike started, and a lot of vendors aren't even willing to sell even someone is willing to pay the high price. It seems like this strike will not end any time soon. My host mom wanted to make me some lunch but I told her not to, didn't want her to go through so much trouble to just make me something. They can't afford to eat rice and sauce for lunch, usually just boil up some sweet potatoes or whatever else starchy tuber food that is in season.

So after I finished eating, I spent sometime chatting with the people selling on the side of streets, like it is just another day, cos 1pm passed and there is no sign of PC car. 2pm came and passed, still I am hanging around wondering if these just all has been a "boo, we got you." From noon news update, today has been rather a calm day in term of protests around country. So, I am back in my compound joking with another teacher who came to talk to my host dad, next thing you know I hear a car come by, our regional driver came in with my other PCV friends. I am like, hey I thought you guys were never going to come, and was in a state of mind since that I went through all these packing, arrangement for the library while I am gone temporarily, said half assed goodbyes, I might as well just leave for a couple of weeks and I am sure that I will come just right back. Then, one of the PCV told me that no PC country has "evacuated" (PC is still not calling it evacuation at the moment) has ever gone back. Madagascar is the only one that suspended their program for 3 months, and reopened. Chad is still closed after their evacuation last year. I broke down and started bawling in front of everyone. There were other people who came into the compound seeing the PC car drove up to my house. We quickly put my backpack in the car and locked up my hut. I reminded my family again if I don't come back in a few months, make sure they distribute the books I left to my students and make use of what I left behind. Of course I gave them all my food right away. I hope they figured out how to cook oatmeal.

I gave my host mom a huge hug while sobbing badly. She was very calm today and comforted me, saying that she knows that I will be back soon. I didn't know what to believe anymore.

We only just began to loose control of what will happen to us and getting on a month-long ride of emotional roller coaster. (to be continued...)

Part II: Strike continues / "Evacuation"

01/24 Overnight at Mamou.

01/25 Mamou - Kankan. Overnight at Kankan with 50+ PCVs at the PC regional house that normally sleeps 20.

01/26 Some of us stayed in Kankan for a day while others left for Bamako in the first group of vehicles. Kankan was calm that day and we were able to go to the market to get some food.

01/27 Kankan - Bamako. Arrived at the PC Mali training center at the outskirt of Bamako. Sharing "evacuation experience" with one and another. Some volunteers had to spend the last 2 weeks at someone else's site, therefore couldn't go back to their site to get stuff before coming to Mali; some didn't know until they saw PC car drove up. I actually had more time to arrange things.

01/29 PCVs from Conakry arrived by plane. Many of them just came back from vacationing in the U.S. when the strike started, so they all got stuck in th PC compound and was on "house arrest" for over 2 weeks. How terrible. I would go crazy. Of course none of them got to get back to their village/their house before "evacuation".
Everyone is at different places with this whole "evacuation thing". Some are rather excited about this free trip to Bamako; a rare few couldn't careless if we don't go back to Guinea; some are skeptical that we can just chill here a bit then will head back to Guinea; some are very hopeful; some are heartbroken because they had to leave their guinean boy/girl friend behind. PC Guinea was only able to bring out Guineans that are married to PCVs. Everyday, I walk around with a radio still following my routine of checking news morning, noon and evening, plus now we have internet, I check news online whenever I can. There are total of 5 computers for over 100 of us. I am on a emotional roller coaster everyday, desperately trying to find a sliver of hope from news that's getting worse and worse. I want badly to go back and can't help to hope, but somehow I knew I was being unrealistic.

01/31 Our country director Steve came to Bamako meet all 105 of us. This is the only time where all of the volunteers in Guinea are under one roof. He is still being very hopeful and gave us a pep talk. He almost got teary eyed when he hear that many of us can't wait to go back.

02/02 - 02/05 Bamako - Ségou - Bamako. Music Festival at Ségou by the Niger River. This is an annual event in its 3rd year. For us PCVs coming from Guinea, we are so impressed with the organization and quality of the festival. During the day, there are performance of local folk music and dance group, puppet shows, art galleries to go to, souvenirs shops to browse till you drop, canoe races, and at night, big shot perform on a stage set up on the water with audience dancing the night away. I really enjoyed lot of music I heard here. All malien music except one group is Tuareg whose music has some influence from Algeria. Can't imagine Guinea get so organized to do something like this. The festival is intended to bring more tourism to this part of Mali, and there were a good mix of tourists and expats that came to the festival. One word on vendors hassling you to buy things, extremely annoying. So these 3 days at the festival was kind of intended to get us forget the sad situation that brought us here. I was numb for about 3 days, then back to reality again in Bamako.

Conté agreed to name a premier minister who is allowed to form his own government and has real power. The union leader suspended the strike while waiting for the nomination. We are guessing strike suspension is to allow some food and gas shipped upcountry, so people can replenish their reserve and continue the strike if they need to. We are all very skeptical Conté will name a PM that people will accept so easily. What I don't understand is why they didn't give Conté a deadline to name the premier minister.
Why I care if there is a deadline for it, we can't sit around forever. We need things to change more quickly, so PC can decide one way or other. Some of us was ready to wait in Bamako for as long as we need so we can go back to Guinea. We even asked if we can do that even others can't wait very long. No. PC Washington can't keep over 100 volunteers in a confined compound for days on end not being productive, and they had to pay to feed and house us. We were very well fed with 3 meals a day, snacks in between, stipend of $14 per day (I was getting $3 a day in Guinea), shuttles that took us into downtown Bamako morning till late night, so we can shop/eat at nice restaurants/drink the night away. I spent most of my money on souvenirs. It was tough to be around so many PCVs in a confined area, it's like forced socialization. Of course there are some PCVs I am good friends with, but some others I found hard to relate with since they are just out of college. There also seem to be some interesting differences between PCVs teachers and PCVs working in business/health/agroforestry (we call them extensionist). The teacher PCVs tend to be more serious, spend more time at their sites, and party less.
So, this no deadline on naming a PM is worrying me. Our time is running out. We've been in Mali for 2 weeks. We can only stay here for a maximum of 1 months without working.

02/10 Not a surprise to many people that Conté nominated a close ally to be the PM. Guinean felt they just got a slap on the face. It is a Friday, and after the 2pm prayer, people took out to the streets without the union leaders giving order to resume the strike. My heart sank. There is no light at the end of the tunnel.

02/11 More demonstrations and more escalating violence. I am so pissed and I cried whenever I hear the news update.

02/12 l'Etat de Siège. Conté declared marshall law. People are banned from leaving their home between 6pm till noon the next day, everyday. Army has the power to shoot anyone who breaks this law. U.S. Embassy in Guinea ordered their non-essential personnel to leave. PC Washington took the signal to suspend our program, and that's for a minimum of 3 months.

02/16 We plunged full force into figuring out what to do with everyone. At first they only offered close of service to the group (G9) that was at the end of their service and the rest of us interrupted service. Then, PC got really considerate and we speculate that our country director rallied for us, that we have the option of transfer to Mali for 3-month temporary assignment, or transfer to other african PC country for 1-2 year assignment, or close of service and get re-instated to Guinea if the program resume in 6 months. Everyone was swarming around trying to figure out what they want to do. The transfer options were coming from other country directors and those of us who want to transfer had about 24 hours to decide. So, again, we weren't given much time. Once PC Washington decide we aren't going back to Guinea, they really wanted to get us out of sitting around and not have anything to do situation QUICK, and not have to keep paying for it. We wanted to be out of each other's hair anyway. People who were thinking of transferring to another country had a much harder time deciding. They got to think if they are willing to recommitting to different program and readjusting to a different culture, after just settled into one. They say early termination rate for this kind of transfer is 50%.

We had most of our Guinean staffs here with us through the transition period. It is so hard to watch them trying to process us out while being so consumed by the worsening situation in Guinea, worried about their family, their country, and going back to Guinea without a single volunteer. What they worked so hard on isn't there to wait for them when they go back. I wonder if they feel alone, while we can go on to do many other things, they only can go back to country that is falling apart.

02/18-02/24 PCVs swarming around doing paperwork and medical examination to get processed out. People start to leave. While we really start to get to each other, it is still hard to seeing your friends go off to all different directions, especially for those of us staying in Mali, feeling very much abandoned. I wonder if my village feel that way about me, if our guinean staffs feel that way about us. It is hard enough to be taken away from our home so abruptly, then we had to watch our family of PCVs falls apart.

02/25-03/08 Apparently it is not so easy for find some temporary lodging for us staying in Bamako to work for 3 months. Many landlords don't find such a short lease. I have to confess that I am surprise to hear there are lease here and real-estate agent, after living in a remote african village where things are structured like I am used to.

03/09 Tosi and I finally moved into our apartment.