Evac-Consoli-Vaca-IST-ation in Mali

Is it an evacuation? A consolidation? A vacation? In Service Training? The world will never know, and Peace Corps volunteers and staff will call it all of the above. The point is, the situation got to a bad enough point that staff decided it would be better to take us out of Guinea while the situation cooled down (and hopefully not permanently).

So currently, all of us are in Mali, enjoying what has so far turned out to be a nice vacation, with the Peace Corps taking ridiculously good care of us, providing food, shuttle trips to Bamako, pay increases, and even sessions on how to raise chickens (you can be sure that I attended this one).

Currently, I refuse to believe that we won’t go back to Guinea, so I’m looking at this as a vacation. Hopefully, my hopes won’t be proven otherwise. But as a vacation, it’s a great time so far. Bamako, is ridiculously nice, at least by the standards that living in Guinea for 7 months will leave you with. Paved roads, new buildings, working stop lights, electricity all the time, and even a Tex-Mex Restaurant with ridiculously strong margaritas. Oh, God, I even had a chocolate milkshake. Even better, on Friday, we’ll even be taking off for a music festival lasting three days on the Niger River. I’ll let you all know how that goes.

As far as Guinea, the situation seems to have calmed down quite a bit there, with the strikes being called off after an agreement was reached between union leaders, religious leaders, and the government. The President has agreed to allow for a Prime Minister, who will take over most of his duties until new elections are held. It’s really just a matter of seeing who he nominates, and just how independent the new prime minister can actually be. Regardless, it is an exciting time for Guinea and Guineans, despite the fact that I continuously worry that my service might end at any time.

As far as us staying in Guinea, either nobody really knows everything, or everybody is being incredibly tight lipped. I think its just that nobody really knows what will happen in Guinea. While on paper there is an agreement, we have yet to see how the country reacts to the naming of the prime minister and what he is able to accomplish.

I’m really hopeful that we’ll be able to return to Guinea, and am praying that we do not get evacuated again, if only for the fact that the 3 day overland evacuation from Boke to Bamako was the most painful car ride of my life. It was waking up at 4 in the morning and driving through rocky paths or dirt roads (and the occasional paved road, albeit it in ridiculously bad condition) most of the way, over the course of three days for a total of 31 hours on the road. (Those of us coming from Boke had about the longest, and certainly most uncomfortable evacuation of all the volunteers). Riding sideways in the back of a Land Cruiser packed in with 8 other volunteers didn’t do too much for comfort either. But at least we’re now in Bamako, things seem to be looking up in Guinea, and I’m getting paid 140 dollars every eleven days instead 80 dollars every month. Now, cross your fingers and hope that I return to Guinea soon!

Oo’o.

How To Kill A Rooster

The most exciting part of standfast was without a doubt my first killing of a rooster. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m pretty much a vegetarian (not by choice) in Guinea. Beef is too scary or expensive to eat, and chicken is even more expensive. Nonetheless, we decided it was time to eat some chicken. Thus, Jan, Greg, and I hiked down to the market to pick out a rooster. The second I asked about roosters, Susu women began shoving roosters in my face and in my hands, making me compare their weight, and refusing to take them back until I paid for them. I wasn’t until I pointed out to them that I had to have at least one free hand to pay them that they finally took the roosters back.

Killing the roosters was quite an experience. Catching them before hand was probably the most difficult part of all, as Sam, Ben, Ian, Hajib, and I all raced after the two roosters throughout the compound, unable to catch even the one rooster who had its legs tied together. When they were finally hanging upside down in my hands we got the proper tools to kill them: a small knife and a huge machete. See, we wanted to slit one’s throat (the common method of killing chickens in Guinea) and chop the other’s head off (to see if chickens really do run around with their heads cut off.

So, here are the steps to killing a chicken via the slit throat method:

1. Hold the chicken down by its head, and pluck some of the feathers from its neck.
2. Step on its wings, which should be extended one on top of the other, and hold down its feet, to minimize movement by the agonizing chicken.
3. Say a little Koranic prayer, or have a petit (small African child) say one for you.
4. Pull the knife across the neck, making sure to press firmly so as to avoid multiple passes with the knife, as I had to do due to my unfirm pressure the first time.
5. Whimper like a little girl at the sight of the dying chicken.

And here are the steps to killing a chicken via the head chopping method:

1. Find a large cutting object, such as a machete, and a large chopping block or log to lay the chicken down on.
2. Again, say a little Koranic prayer, or have a petit say one for you.
3. Have a another person hold down the head of the chicken, which should be extended as far as possible from the body.
4. Have some really good aim, so you don’t cut off the hand of the person holding the chicken head.
5. Strike down with the machete in one quick and very hard motion.
6. Strike down with the machete at least 10 more times because you didn’t think it would be so hard to cut a chickens head off.
7. Release the chicken, and watch it run around with its head cut off (yes, it really does this!!)

After killing the chickens, you pluck them by diping the dead chicken in boiling water and then removing all the feathers in a long, smelly, and tedious process. Then, cook and enjoy!

Following my first rooster sacrifice, I decided I want to raise chickens for food. It was much easier than I thought, and I only whimpered like a little girl a few times. We did however, decide that for a future project, we would like to try and build a chicken guillotine, as perhaps a cleaner, faster, and more humane method of killing chickens. Or it might just end up being a disaster. Oo’o.

The Syndicate Strikes Back

Ok – Now for my bigger updates, as promised, since I know I’ve been terrible about updating the last month. This will explain why.

After coming back to Guinea following the New Year, the first thing we found out upon walking into the volunteer house in Conakry was that nationwide strikes were planned for January 10^th. The possibility of these strikes was essentially a done deal ever since the last set of strikes had ended in June of last year. On the tenth, the strikes did indeed begin, though in Boke life went on as normal. The only difference that I could notice was the presence of four armed guards outside my compound, seeing as how I live in the prefet’s (cross between a mayor and governor) concession, which is a couple blocks long Little went on in Guinea the first few days of the strike really, until about day five of the strikes, when things started to kind of spin out of control. Peaceful protests eventually turned into violent demonstrations, especially in Conakry, Mamou, Kankan, and Labe, and by the end of the week more than 60 people had been killed.

In Boke however, where I was spending the strike along with 6 other volunteers, not much of anything happened. Some boutiques were close, but market ladies were out in full force, (some) taxis were still running, and the beer store was still functional. So the following were the most exciting events of the 15 day standfast:

• A drunk soldier shot his gun in the air around 2 a.m. I guess he was getting bored with the lack of any action in Boke.
• A rifle was cocked at us as we walked past the soldiers guarding my compound at 1 am on a return from the Tree Bar (so called because of the giant tree growing out the middle of it) a couple nights before evacuation. I won’t lie, the cocking of a gun in your direction sent a bit of a chill down my spine, but the second we heard it, we announced we were Peace Corps, and they simply greeted us. Any shooting and an exciting story was rather quickly avoided.

So this was essentially all the excitement relating to the strikes that we saw in Boke. Mainly, our days consisted of cooking, eating, going to the river, playing GameBoy, and listening to “My Humps”, “Shake That Ass for Me”, and “Smack That”. I guess sitting with six guys and one girl in a house for 15 days will do that to you.

Oo’o.

An unxpected Vacation in Mali

Hey all - sorry since a lack of updates since before christmas....things have been nothing short of hectic in my life and in Peace Corps Guinea the past month. The super quick update, with a promise to give a more in depth update tonight or tomorrow. I went to Sierra Leone for New years, only to come back and discover that the Guinean unions had planned a strike for January 10th. Thus, seven other PCVs and I headed to Boke to pass what we thought would be a quick seven days hanging out in the Boke house while the strikes ended. Well, the strikes did not end, and now i'm sitting outside of Bamako, Mali with 116 other volunteers after the most uncomfortable 960 kilometers of driving of my life, in order to consolidate us all outside of Guinea while the situation in Guinea stabilizes. So yeah, thats it in a nutshell - however, soon to come - my first killing of a rooster, the amazingness of Bamako, and other random stories of my life in Guinea (and Mali, now!). Oh yeah, tons of new pics posted though, you all should check em out!