The Latest from BBC: "Guinea Troops Cause Airport Chaos"

We got back to KanKan last night after a ton of horribly sad goodbyes to most of our friends and family in Kerouane. We were able to postpone two of what we expect to be the hardest as Na and Max came with us to spend our last few days in Guinea with us, sign Max and Yi up at the private school (Yes! The parents agreed!! More on that in a future post) and to see us off at the taxi park. We're frantically trying to run around town to get everything done, say goodbye to everyone here while at the same time hosting a six year old and his mom, both of whom wish to spend every second of our remaining time here with us. We're touched and happy and super stressed. But all the packing and last minute business and goodbyes seem like child's play compared to our worries about the situation in Guinea right now. In Kerouane we started to hear of some stirrings in Conakry. Men gathered around radios at cafe's around town every afternoon and evening. Each day there was something new- another minister sacked, a new protest in the military camp, etc. The local warden from the U.S embassy called and told us to start thinking about changing our flight in order to fly out of Bamako, Mali instead of Conakry. We're going to call Royal Air Maroc (Morocco in English) right now. We'll keep you updated. In the meantime enjoy the following article from BBC Africa entitled "Guinea Troops cause Airport Chaos." Lovely. We thought we were getting out of here just in time. Not so. Hard to get too worked up though when you're hanging out with a six year old who has left his village for the first time. He's looking at everything with such awe. I've never seen such wide eyes. We took him to his future school today and I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head. A whole world outside of Kerouane awaits him. I think he's ready.

Wish us luck as we try to leave Guinea. We're all hoping for the best for not only our departure but also for Guinea. People here want change. We just hope the price isn't too high.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7425219.stm
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On a Time Diet

We're now back in KanKan after an exhausting voyage from Labe. With the price of fuel rising there's not much traffic between Labe and Kankan. We waited at the taxi park from 8am to 7:30p.m. for the car to fill up. Once 9 people have bought tickets (the cars here fit 7 comfortably), the baggage is attached to the top of the car, the driver gets gas and then the trip begins. You can imagine the frustration of not knowing exactly when you'll be leaving. We got used to it when we were here before and we've grown accostomed to it again. I've had some long waits in the past but I don't think I've ever eaten breakfast, lunch, AND dinner at the taxi park. This would be the equivalent of eating three meals at the Greyhound station. Not advisable. So I began the 12 hour ride with a stomach ache. The part that bothers me the most about such a long wait is that it usually means you have to travel through the night. This makes me nervous to say the least. Our driver seemed tired and rushed. There are a lot of potholes and torn up asphalt on the highway here and while most drivers navigate these roadblocks carefully, this guy went full speed ahead. He stopped in a town an hour from Kankan to sleep for an hour and we arrived in Kankan at 7 in the morning. I almost kissed the ground when we got out. This is the type of travel experience that one might chalk up to bad luck (though with a happy ending). It's seeming more and more, though, like the norm. Our trip from Conakry to Labe took 24 hours. We spent eight of those hours on the side of the road waiting for the driver to find a new car for us. And then there's the gas fumes. Charlie can tell you all about that. We've packed so much travel into these last 7 months that I think we've gotten a pretty accurate picture of the current state of travel here. It's not looking good.


We're now in our last three weeks in Guinea. In that time we've got three taxi trips left. Kankan to Kerouane, Kerouane to Kankan, and Kankan to Conakry. Exhausting but doable. The goodbyes sound a lot worse. Tomorrow we're off to Kerouane for our two-week goodbye there. Saying goodbye to children is never easy. I can't imagine what they must think- here are these two crazy foreigners who show up one day out of thin air. And then they leave. I wish I could make them understand how much they'll be missed.


All of a sudden it feels like there's so much to do in such a small amount of time. For the first time here we've got lists. Lots of them. There are things to take care of in Kankan, Kerouane, and Conakry. And we're now on a strict schedule. We tend to be quite liberal with our time. A two-week trip to Kerouane can easily morph into three weeks. It just takes little Max looking up at me and asking me to stay. He's got our number for sure. But now we're on a time diet. It feels painful already. We've got so much to do here in Kankan and yet we know we've got to get in a taxi tomorrow if we want to spend two weeks with the family.

I always fool myself into thinking that the last few days or weeks somewhere will be normal. It never is. The idea of leaving a place seems to hang in the air, changing the smallest of interactions. Matt and I are now talking about our time here in ways we haven't before. We're already looking back at what we've learned, what we'd do differently and what we're proud of. It's an odd thing. I'm trying to prepare myself for this phenomenon in Kerouane.

We said goodbye to Matt's host mom Nene Delanda in Lelouma and it went well. Nene is an amazing woman. She has six adult children and they're all living outside of Guinea. She's familiar with goodbyes and handles them quite well. We've been fortunate to spend so much time with her. Matt and I feel satisfied with our visit. It seems Nene feels the same. This made for a pretty upbeat goodbye. We both know that we'll do our best to come back to see her.

Matt's host brother, Nene's son who lives in Senegal, surprised us with a visit while we were in Lelouma. We've been trying to coordinate seeing him since we got to west Africa. He works a lot, though, and wasn't sure he'd be able to get the time off. We had started to resign ourselves to the fact that we wouldn't get to see him. So it was quite a surprise when he showed up at Nene's gate one evening, straight out of a bush taxi. We were all overjoyed. Nene cried. She hadn't seen her son in over 6 years. The reunion turned out to be an odd one for us. We're still trying to process it. We had looked so forward to seeing this person again and when we did it was clear that things had changed between us. Things aren't easy for young men here. Unemployment is very high and the cost of living is rising everyday. It's easy to take advantage of employees, people who *do* have jobs and want to cling to them. All this to say, Matt's brother is working hard and feeling frustrated. We've seen all kinds of responses to the situation here. His was extreme. He is angry. It seems logical that it would be easy to direct his anger at us, two people who are able to do things that he feels he can't (travel abroad, get a college education, help Nene out with money). None of this seems fair to him. And it's not. There's so much that's not fair. I'll leave it at that. You can imagine the rest. It was an uncomfortable week with him. Luckily, we had a lot of time with Nene and our friends in Lelouma. And of course, we got to hike.

Here are some photos of our time in Lelouma.

Matt and his host brother at Nene's house

One of our favorite places to hike in Lelouma. This is a giant waterfall. We saw a ton of wild monkeys playing in the tress and crossing the top of the waterfall. We went crazy taking photos of them. I'll try to post those photos when we get back from Kerouane.

Matt and me playing backgammon across from the waterfall

Matt and his host brother planting corn in Nene's garden. We were in Lelouma for the first big rain of the season. The day after, everyone in town plants corn. Everyone just knows. The market was virtually closed that day. Everyone was at home in the garden.

Matt and his host brother

Nene planting corn

For now, we're off to pack for our trip tomorrow. We're excited to give the family the giant backgammon board that Matt had made by a carpenter here. It's so big it can't be packed. We'll have to sit with it on our laps in the taxi.

We hope you're all well. Despite being focused on all these goodbyes, we're counting down the days until we reunite with all of you.

Our Plans: Decisions, Tickets, and Goodbyes

I'm sorry to have left people hanging after such a dramatic last post. Things here change so quickly and without constant access to the internet it's difficult to get the latest news up before it's old news. My apologies. Thank you all for your well wishes and worry. Matt and I are fine and so is Guinea and all of our friends and family here.

As predicted by many, the strike didn't happen when it was scheduled. After having postponed our plans for several weeks we decided to just go ahead with our plans to go to Conakry, a place we were avoiding as it would be the epicenter of any chaos if any stikes or demonstrations were to take place. We made it to Conakry safely and were able to get all of our business done in four business days (a record I think!). We tried our best to get in an out as soon as possible. While Conakry has pizza and ice cream, it also has traffic jams, noise, scams and general craziness. Plus, we were paying each night to stay at a hotel. Aside from the money, we were a bit antsy to get out of the hotel as it was right next door to a night club that, from what we could tell, is rock'en until around 4am. It was also a little disconcerting to find out that our hotel has rooms that are available by the hour. But techno versions of "I wanna be your hero" and creaking beds in the rooms next to ours at all hours of the night were much preferred to any political strife or violence. We're relieved to have found Conakry in one piece throughout our visit. I got the feeling, though, that things could change any time now. The global food and fuel crisis is really coming down hard on Guinea. We had several conversations (or actually, we listened to several monologues masquerading as conversations) with young Guineans (mostly university students) who talked about the dire need for political change in their country. They are angry and frustrated with the lack of accountabilty and leadership as the national highway deteriorates along with the school system and health services. And then there's the price of rice....It goes on and on. I got the feeling that people are reaching some sort of tipping point. (As a side note on the rising rice prices, there's an article on BBC Africa right now about a new trend in Liberia. Liberians are starting to eat pasta because they can't afford rice. With pasta comes the need for forks and the steep learning curve involved in that whole fork twirl technique. It's a lighter take on what is a serious and sad global reality right now ).

For awhile now Matt and I have been talking a lot about our plans for the rest of our time in Guinea and for our eventual return home. While in Conakry we made a pretty big decision (relatively speaking, of course). We're coming home. This decision was at once easy and painstakingly difficult. Aside from the obvious heartbreak involved in leaving our loved ones here, deciding to come home this summer means that we will not be able to host a dear friend of ours from Missoula who was planning to visit us in June and July. We have thought long and hard about letting so many people down and ending what has been a joyous, and important journey for us. This trip, though, is coming to its natural end. Just as it was obvious to us that we needed to come here, it's now clear that it's time to leave. It's also clear that we'll be back (Back to Guinea II?). So much has gone into this decision- the political situation here, our relationships with our Guinean families, our lack of jobs, our desire to see all of you in the U.S....We came here to be with our families and yet we're finding that we can't be with everyone at once. We're traversing the country over and over again to be with people, and all the while we're not actually finding our own place in this community (impossible when you're spending so much time in bush taxis and your brain cells are drowning in gas fumes...). Our families here are confused about our job status and hurt that we're not staying with them throughout our time here. And then there's my host dad who has been trying to figure out when to plan our going away party since we arrived. His enthusiasm for an all-out festival in honor of us is slowly dying out. But there's more, so much more. We also came here to find some clarity and direction in our own lives. This time here has been such a gift. We're anxious to get back and start the next chapter of our lives. Our goal is to come back to Guinea in a few years with a clue about our own lives.

But before our next reunion, there's the inevitable, and now, fast-approaching goodbyes. And because we've had no idea when we were going to leave, these goodbyes are going to come as a surprise to many here.

So when are we coming home? When I told my family in California that we were coming home in June I expected a yelp of happiness and excitement. Don't get me wrong, they're relieved and overjoyed (as are we, we miss all of you a ton). But as my brother put it, "can't you get a flight out of there before June?!!!" It's a good question. There are indeed flights, and it's tempting to jump on one today now that the decision has been made. But we've got business to take care of here. Goodbyes can't be rushed. And travel to the places where our loved ones here live will take up a good deal of time. We've also got a proposal for the family in Kerouane that, if accepted, will take some time to arrange. We'd like to send Max and Yi to a private school in KanKan. This idea is worthy of a post of its own (which I promise to write in the next few weeks).

The details: We found cheap tickets out of Conakry for June 4th. The reason the tickets are cheap is probably because the flight leaves at 3am and involves a 13 hour layover in Morocco where we're not allowed out of the airport. (How many games of backgammon and cribbage is that?). The perk, though, is that we have a three day layover in Portugal where we can leave the airport. We'll be back in the U.S. by June 8th if all goes well.

But first, the tough part. For the moment we're in Labe at a cybercafe, our backpacks at our sides, waiting to get into a taxi headed for Lelouma where we'll spend a week saying goodbye to Nene Delanda. And then KanKan and then Kerouane...

We're on our way.

Still in KanKan

*Scroll down for photos at the end of this post*

We're still here in KanKan. It feels like we've been here a very long time. We rented a house here with the intention of making it a passage house. Hotels here are expensive and the idea of having a place of our own when we need privacy and independence sounded good (and it is!). I didn't imagine, though, that this particular stay would last so long. We've been here for a month. At several points we've made plans to go to Kerouane to see the family or to Conakry to get some business done. The possibility of a national strike has changed our plans each time. Raising global food and gas prices are hitting Guinea hard. People who were struggling before are now simply not able to feed their families. Gas prices have increased by 30%. This is restricting the normal movement of goods which in term means less business for merchants and therefore less money and goods for everyone else. Everyday prices are going up. People are getting angry.


This sounds to me like a receipe for short-term disaster and possible long-term positive change. However, the national strikes that shut the country down last year and led to violence in all the major cities (including this one) really affected the general population. Based on conversations we're having with folks here it seems some people don't think the strikes were worth it and therefore would not support another one. Meanwhile the national trade unions keep making deadlines for the government,threatening another national srike if their demands aren't met.
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The first deadline was March 31st. We postponed travel in order to be in this city in case we needed help from foreign NGOs. Then the strikes got pushed back to April 8th. Again, we changed our plans. Yesterday we decided that we'd go to Conakry on the 10th (tomorrow). When we got to town, though, everyone was abuzz with news of a strike for (you guessed it) April 10th (tomorrow). This time it seems sure. It was announced as a peaceful protest and a two day national strike. While we hope that's the case we can't shake our memories of reports of the peaceful protests of last year that were met with violence from the government, looting from sectors of the population and the burning of governement builidings in this city and others.

When we voice our concerns to people here they laugh at us. That's right. They laugh in our faces. "Of course it will be peaceful" they say. "Nothing to worry about" they chuckle as if we're children afraid of monsters in the closet. Hopefully they're right and we'll laugh at ourselves in a few days. Remember that time when we thought Guinea was going to shut down and explode and then we were wrong? Ha,Ha, we'll laugh as we sip drinks on the island off the coast of Conakry.

For now, though, we have no choice but to take it seriously. We have no kitchen set up in our house since it was supposed to be a passage house. So we'll buy some canned food today just in case. We've contacted Peace Corps volunteers in this city as well as missionaires to find out what their plans are and if we can count on their help if push comes to shove. While they've been nice, they smile at us as if we're a bit paranoid. I sigh and think "It must be nice to have a big 'ol organization looking after your well-being. They'll do all the worrying and saving and evacuating for you." Oh, well.

More than likely we *are* being paranoid, but the stakes are too high NOT take this seriously. And to rub salt in our worried little wounds, the water didn't come today. We were hoping to stock up in case the water supply is shut off during a strike. Of course wells and pumps wouldn't shut down, but we have none near our house. We'll just have ration what we have until things blow over and we either get more or are on our way out of this town.

Here's hoping that my next post is one big laugh about what fools we were to take threats of a strike seriously.

In the meantime, here are photos of our time in KanKan. When we're not in our mosquito net you might find us:


eating beans and bread for breakfast on our mat. We've eaten this for breakfast everyday for a month and, despite the look on Matt's face, it hasn't gotten old. We buy the beans from a bean seller down the street. She's very friendly and her beans are delicious.


doing projects in our home. Matt had a HUGE backgammon set made by the local carpenter to give to the family in Kerouane as a gift (assuming we get back to Kerouane). Matt did all the painting.






visiting with my host brother Amadou who now lives in KanKan. He visits every few days and it is always wonderful to see him. Here Matt is showing him the little XO computer that Charlie gave us. This is one of Amadou's first experiences with computers (we took him to the cyber cafe a few weeks ago). It's very exciting to see the look of awe as someone sees a computer for the first time. We bought him a month of computer lessons at the cyber cafe. As soon as we get to our bank in Conakry we'll pay the owner of the cyber and he can start the classes. He's thrilled.


playing games, reading, writing, listening to BBC, and talking on our plastic mat in our home (during non-mosquito hours of course). The wall that the mat's long side touches is super hot. That side of the house is in direct sun-light during the day. By the evening the wall is literally hot to the touch. The door in the background leads to our little enclosed outside area. That's where we've been sleeping at night because of the heat.

at the cyber cafe. Matt took this photo of me in the corner when I wasn't looking. That's where I'm posting this from right now.

We'll keep you posted on the latest as soon as we know anything.

A Few More Photos

I thought I'd post a few more photos while I have access to the internet. The national strike was postponed until April 8th and even that's not for sure. We decided to stop waiting and just go to Kerouane to visit the family. We'll leave here on Friday and will only stay there a few days. After our short visit we'll have to head to Conakry to extend our visas and get more malaria prophylaxis. We'll also be finalizing our schedule for the summer and our eventual return home. As soon as things are figured out I'll post all the details.

The diamond digging crew near Kerouane.

I think the woman in the background is the woman Charlie referred to in his comment from the last post. While we were there she was cracking jokes and laughing with her co-workers. As we were leaving I wished her well and said I hoped she found a diamond. She went crazy clapping and dancing.

Charlie and Matt drinking tea and hot milk at Nene's house in Lelouma

Matt, me and Charlie in front of the family's house in Kerouane.

My friend Mr.Bah and his wife Aminata just had a new baby. Matt, Charlie and I were lucky enough to see her right after she was born. Her name is Mymoona Bah. Here's a photo of the family: Mr.Bah, Aminata with Mymoona, Tierno (Max's best friend) and Mariam.

Photos From Charlie's Visit

It was such a treat to have Charlie here. We took him to Lelouma first to spend time with Matt's host mom, Nene Delanda and do some hiking and then headed to Kerouane to introduce him to the Kaba family. Charlie endured some of the worst travel experiences I have ever had in Guinea. There's a gas shortage (and now a water shortage) so people are hoarding gas, selling gas, trying to buy gas, etc. As a result almost every bush taxi we took had big jugs of gasoline *IN* the car. The fumes were atrocious and we were all sick by the time the car got where it was going- usually at night. Charlie is such a good sport. He took all the craziness (good and bad) in stride, learned greetings and phrases in French, Mandingo, and Pular and ate whatever was put in front of him. The kids loved him and we, of course, loved getting to share Guinea with him. So here are some photos from his trip.

Lelouma:

Matt and Charlie playing chess in Nene's courtyard

Nene's backyard. Inside the couryard walls are cassava plants and Papaya trees (out of view). Beyond the red door are some amazing hiking trails- mountains, waterfalls, creeks....

Charlie climbing down a canyon on a natural ladder made out of vines and bamboo twisted together. People in the area use these ladders to travel between villages with goods.



Matt, Charlie, Mamadou and two local kids at the top of the canyon after having gone down and up the natural ladders.

Me and Charlie hiking

Charlie, Matt's host mom Nene Delanda, and Matt. Like Kerouane, Lelouma got phone service a few weeks before we arrived. In this photo Nene is wearing her new cell phone around her neck.

Left to right: Nene Delanda, her best friend Nene Salimatou, Salimatou's daughter Oumou, her other daughter Hadja Kadiatou, Matt, me, a neighbor with child.

Charlie making bread on Nene's porch. Matt is sitting on the jugs used to store water here.

Kerouane:

Me, Matt, and Charlie with the Kaba family. From left to right: Papice, Na (Domanine Kaba), me, Matt, a neighbor who we all tired to convince not to be in the photo- he was causing problems with one of the family's friends and therefore no one was happy to have him around at the time, Bijou, bottom row: Max, Yi Assiatou, Sidiki and Charlie

At the nearby diamond mines.

Kerouane and surrounding areas are a major source of Guinean diamonds. A lot of people from Kerouane go the mines hoping to strike it big. Some people work for land owners and diamond dealers but a lot work for themselves. They perform backbreaking work everyday for the chance of finding and selling a diamond. This is an aspect of Kerouane that I've never really learned too much about. I see people go off to the mines and hear stories of people finding big rocks. It's certainly part of the culture of the town and area, but I've never been too curious about it. The great thing about having a visitor is that it gives you a chance to experience things you never would have on your own. This is a perfect example. Charlie was very interested in seeing the mines and so we enlisted the help of our friend Sekou and set out on the 4 mile walk to the mining site. It turned out to be a facinating time. We met miners who showed us the process of digging, panning, an inspecting the pebbles. We got to hear their stories, hopes, and experiences. It was a highlight of our time in Kerouane with Charlie.

Ansoumane panning for diamonds. After digging away at the earth (as in the first photo), miners take the piles of rocks to the river and wash and sift them.

Matt near the river, right next to a pile of the rocks waiting to be washed and sifted.

Charlie inspecting the washed and sifted rocks. Mr. Camera, a miner there that day showed us how to inspect the rocks on a clean, dry surface of earth using a small stick. It's amazing how intricate the process is.

One last thing about Mr. Camara and our experience at the mines. The first day we went was a Friday. Friday is the holy day here and therefore people are not supposed to work at the mines on Fridays. As we suspected the site was deserted. All of a sudden we heard a small noise. We approached and found Mr. Camara. He looked scared at first and explained that he didn't mean to be working but had forgotten something from the day before and came to pick it up. Once there he decided to work a little. He was a wonderful tour guide and took us through the entire mining process. He later told us that when he saw Matt he immediately thought he was the devil, coming to punish him for working on a Friday.
(We went back a few days later and got to see and meet all of the people who weren't there on Friday. We won't let Matt forget, though, that out of the three of us *HE* was singled out as the devil).


I can't resist posting this photo of Max and Tierno. Max lost his first tooth while I was there (right after Charlie left). Tierno had lost his first tooth a month before. I wanted to take a photo of their toothless smiles but they got shy on me.
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For now, Matt and I are still in Kankan. We're waiting until the end of March to head back to Kerouane to visit the family. For months now the population has been planning a national strike for the end of March. We've decided to wait it out here in the city just in case we need to leave the area. We'd like to be in a place where there are more resources and support in terms of transportation, foreign NGOs, reps from the embassy, etc. More than likely nothing will happen, but just in case, we'll be here through the end of March.

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And the dust? Well, the other night it rained and we got...mud! So now I have a new appreciation of the dust. And the water crisis? Well, it now comes around 2am every two days. We look back fondly at those glorious days when the water came at 6:00am . But at least it's coming regularly. One morning a week or so ago it simply didn't come. Matt looked at me and said, "darn, we had such big plans for today!" "Really? Like what?" I answered. In all seriousness he said, "We were going to do laundry and flush the toilet." I couldn't argue with him.

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That's all for now. We're thinking of all of you.

From the Net

Here’s a photo of Matt and me inside our mosquito net, a place in which we’ve been spending a lot of time lately. The mosquito situation here in Kan Kan is the worst it’s ever been and we’ve taken to retiring into our trusty net around 8:00pm to read, write, listen to BBC, play backgammon, and, eventually, fall asleep. If you’re wondering what we’re up to you can picture us in our net (if it’s evening here) or sitting at a cyber café waiting for the internet to start working (if it’s daytime). That’s pretty much the routine for now. Of course we eat and clean too. The cleaning thing is actually pretty intense since this city is unpaved and full of red dust. The dust is everywhere- on our clothes, in our home, in our lungs…it never ends.

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But I’m getting ahead of myself. First a summary of the world news (I guess I’ve had a bit too much of BBC news bulletins lately- every 30 min.! By News Hour at 8:00pm- in the net- we’ve basically got the news stories, and sound bites memorized and of course, the theme music is permanently imprinted in our brains by now). So, a week ago I left the family in Kerouane and met Matt in Kan Kan. He had gone to Conakry to see Charlie off. When Charlie left it felt like we moved into the next phase of this whole experience. Since we got to Guinea at the end of November, we had been travelling around, visiting our friends and families, and then enjoying our time with Charlie, introducing him to our families here, etc. Once he was gone we had some decisions to make. We couldn’t stay long-term in the village for a number of reasons. Being in the village with the family is an amazing experience. It’s also overwhelming. We were also getting to be quite a drain on their resources (though they would never tell us this). When I told the family that we wanted to rent a house in the village for our subsequent visits in order to not take up room in their house or in their neighbor’s hut, their reaction sort of summed up the spirit of overwhelming hospitality. The house I found was a five minute walk from the family’s house (five minutes!). The rent was $5 a month. My host mom said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. When you wake up in the morning I want to be able to find out if you slept well right away.” To be fair, the house did need some repairs. In any case, the family talked a neighbour into letting us rent one of his huts which is a few feet from the family’s house (where we stayed with Charlie during his visit). In so many ways being in the middle of everything in Kerouane is the best place to be. But not forever. After awhile it's necessary to have some breathing room.

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So we decided to come here to KanKan and find a place to rent. We decided on KanKan because it’s close enough to the family (a 6 hour bush taxi ride away) and it’s a city with some of the big city perks like electricity for charging our computer, and the internet. Unfortunately the internet hasn’t been working too much lately. I’m writing this post as a word document in the hopes that sometime soon the internet will be working and I can post this.

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So for $40 a month we’ve got a nice place to stay for awhile. KanKan is not a very comfortable city to live in right now though. There’s a water crisis which means that water is available every other day for a few hours. We don’t live near a pump or a well so we’re dependent on this schedule. We wake up early every other day (water is only available from around 4am to 7:00am) and fill jugs and buckets and bottles as best we can. This is also a hot place to live. We buy beans every morning for breakfast and the five minute walk at 8am usually leaves me dripping with sweat. And then there’s the dust. Oh the red, red, red dust. It’s a part of me now. It’s possible that the color of my feet will never be the same.

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We’re adjusting to life here but we’re not sure how long we’ll actually be here. It was important to rent the house because to get to the capital or to Kerouane one must spend the night in Kan Kan. Three nights in a hotel costs the same as rent for our house for a month. So renting is a good move financially. But will we stay here in KanKan or will we use the house more as a passage house? Things still feel really up in the air. I applied for another job (this time in Conakry) and am waiting to hear back. But I’m not sure I really want it. Whether I get it or not I’m going to have to decide what the heck I’m doing here. While in the village my objective is very clear- I’m there to be with my Guinean family. This is fun and easy to do. And I love learning and speaking Malinke. It seems everyday that I’m there I learn a ton. But away from the village I’m not sure what my purpose is. Why am I here? Matt is working hard on a writing project and so KanKan seems as good a place as any to do it (he says as he coughs up red dust…).

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I’m not so sure. I’m mulling over all kinds of possibilities right now. Most roads seem to be leading to home. It’s too early to say what that means but just know that it’s on my mind. A plan of some sort will have to come soon. In the meantime I’m waiting to hear on the job and am trying to clear my mind and listen to my heart.

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Our place here in Kankan is quiet and so while I miss the warmth and laughter or the family’s home in Kerouane, I’m enjoying the silence (other than BBC music, or course) not to mention the independence. Today I washed my clothes and no one tried to take over for me or make me feel bad for not washing Matt’s underwear. It doesn’t sound like much but in the midst of all this dust it felt like a breath of fresh air.

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In theory I’ll be able to post more often now that we’re in the city. I’m at the mercy of the stability of the internet connection though. I’m also hoping to check email more often, so please write and let me know how you’re doing. We miss all of you a ton. Oh, and I have photos from Charlie’s visit. I’ll get them up as soon as I can.