My Foray into the Life of a Market Woman

My training (which is nearly complete) involves ‘qualifying projects’ which are basically hands on learning activities. Throughout pre-service training, we have been operating a ‘Village Savings and Loans Organization’. It is a micro-credit tool where a group of individuals who trust each other can save money and give out loans. To save money, they buy shares in the association. When the loans are repaid with interest, the earned money is divided among the group based upon how many shares they have purchased. It is a great way for women especially to have access to credit. Anyway, we have been saving money in this way and this week we took out loans to start an income-generating project. The goal was to introduce a new product or service into the local market and hopefully turn a profit. My group settled on jam making. Food security is a huge problem in Guinea. There is a long hunger season and as much as 1/3 of the population does not have enough food in quantity or quality at some point in the year. On the flip-side, during mango season, tons of mangoes are spoiled because they just cannot be consumed fast enough. On a side note, I am really, really excited for mango season. Jam is therefore a great project because it can be made during the mango season and saved for the hunger season. We slaved over a hot stove all day and ended up making Orange, Papaya, and Mango confiture (jam in French). We made about 120 little baggies of it and the next day set out bright and early with bowls of jelly on our heads and hit the market. It was a big hit. Guineans love sweet foods and literally were just squeezing the jelly into their mouths instead of waiting to put it on bread. We sold out of our product in one morning. Despite this, we only made 27,000 GF or $4. The market women here slave away for a tiny profit margin. WE had the benefit of having a good, unique product and being Fote so I can only imagine how much harder it is for Guinean women who have to do it everyday on top of keeping house and feeding a bajillion kids. To get off my soapbox,  One man did not trust me that the jelly would taste good. I convinced him to buy it using our prime marketing technique- me talking in Susu. I asked him to taste it before I left. He squeeze some into his mouth. Instantly a smile spread across his face and he put his fist out for a fist bump. Definitely the first time I have received a fist bump in exchange for preserved fruits, but will it be the last time? Probably not. A few women were really interested in learning how to make it so that they could sell it on the market. I was very excited. It was exactly what my group hoped would happen. I set up a lesson for last Sunday morning. All week, I stopped by the market stalls of the women who wanted to come to the class and reminded them of the time and to bring a glass jar. They were all eager to make their own confiture. I got a friend to who has more jam making experience to help me (I had a private and somewhat rational fear that I was going to teach it wrong and be responsible for giving an entire village botchelism). We arrived at the appointed time. We waited an hour. Nobody came. We waited another hour. Nobody came. We ended up just making some papaya jelly for ourselves. It was a disappointing afternoon, but we both knew it was a possibility. People here tell you they are so excited to come to this or that and about 75% of the time do not come. It could be because they forgot, they don’t have a watch so have no concept of time, they don’t have a calendar and so have no concept of date, or something else came up. So it was not quite the learning experience that I was hoping for, but I definitely learned some new things. Life can’t be so bad when your downside is getting to eat a peanut butter and papaya jelly sandwich for lunch.

The Fruits and Vegetable Capital of Guinea!

 Mr. Sylla and Mohmed

My hut

So as my dad pointed out, I have been absent from the internet this blog for a little while. It is because this past week was a part of training know as Counter Part Workshop and Site Visit. For the workshop we went up in the mountains to learn about our organizations with our work partners. It was so chilly in the mornings that I wore my sweatshirt. It was wonderful . After that, the moment we all were waiting for; Site visits when we got to see the place that we are going to live for the next two years. I am in Kindia or Xindiya, depending if you are in the mood for French or Susu, in the neighborhood of Canenday. If is about a 35 minute walk from city proper so I get the benefits of both having a city and small town feel. Electricity has not yet come to my quartier, but a transformer is sitting next to my house waiting for the government to come install it. I should have asked how long it has been sitting there… I will be living in a hut. I felt weird calling it a hut until I heard my host dad call it a hut. I do have a tin roof and cement walls though (see picture)!  I live with a man, his wife, and their 8 month old baby, Mohmed. He is an absolute muhz. There are also another little girl and boy who live with us who I think are somehow related. I told my host dad that I love fruits and vegetables so every day he showed up at my door with oranges, grapefruits, bananas, pineapples, and cucumbers. I will probably overload on vitamin c before getting out of here, but worse things have happened. I was there for 4 days so I only really scratched the surface of living in Kindia but some highlights:

Joining a women’s group of fabric dyers- thay sang and hugged me and welcomed me as a sister

Waiting 3 hours to get a taxi out of the city

Going through my first military checkpoint and witnessing my first bribe

Cold refrigerated water!

Being given Susu lessons by the 15 kids who showed up every night after dinner for the Fote show

Right now I am in Conakry enjoying AC and showers and tomorrow I will go back to Dubreka for 3 more weeks of training  and then finally I will be sworn in as a volunteer and move out to my site for good!

What’s in a Name…

So apparently Meghan McCormick is a pretty difficult name for Guinean’s to pronounce. For my first name I get Maggot or Meg-Hat. Both are entertaining, but not quite there. McCormick, on the other hand, sounds like someone put a skipping CD and a 1980’s style boom box and threw it off a building. The noise it would make when it hits the pavement- That’s McCormick. As soon as I arrived at site, my host father decided that it was absolutely crucial for me to get a new name tout de suite. For my last name, he chose ‘Sylla’ which is his last name and for my first name he gave me three choices. I chose ‘Salimatou’ because it was the easiest to say. He read my new name out loud and proclaimed me baptized as Salimatou Sylla (pronounced Sally-mah-two C-la). When I showed up at AGUIDEP (my partner organization in case you have not memorized all previous posts) the next day, I introduced myself by my new name. There were two problems with it. One my director thought that it was his job to name me and had already organized a baptism for later in the week with our organization and two, 90% of the people I work with are Camara’s. Why is that a problem? In Guinea, Sylla’s and Camara’s are like Montague’s & Capulet’s or Hatfield’s & McCoys minus the violence and plus a good bit of joking. Whenever I introduce myself to a Camara they start with – ohh that’s a terrible name why would you pick such a name. Or if they see you eating they will come by and say, “Ich, are you eating cat?” or just simply tell you that you and all members of your family are crooks. This, like all other Guinean jokes, seems to never get old for them. The only good news is that I can dish it right back and they love it when the Fote can play their games. We still had my ‘baptism’ with my director giving a speech about how he did not pick my name, but we had to deal with it and I am unfortunately going to be a Sylla while and Guinea and then re-baptised me as Salimatou Sylla. So I got through my first culture clash with only a tinge of resentment and a lot of laughs and now am able to refuse food from most of my colleagues by telling them simply that I do not eat dogs.

I never thought I would say this…

…but I miss the Speed Queen. The Speed Queen is the washer/dryer that was installed at 3405 Prospect street circa 1960 and has remained there to this day. I had the fine privilege of using it for my senior year. Laundry day with the SQ was a process. About 2 weeks out, you would have to start hoarding quarters. When you finally foraged the requisite two-dozen you could start doing your wash in small loads; one wash cycle and two dry cycles for every bunch. In the end your laundry would kind of be clean. Letters and phone calls of protestation had no effect on our landlord. The Speed Queen was there to stay, I would kill for a Speed Queen in Africa. Laundry day in Guinea is also a process. It starts by walking to the market and buying little sachets of soap. Then you collect buckets and basins from around the house. You head with you buckets, soap, wash board and laundry to the well. You have to pull up 5 to 6 buckets just to get started. Then you begin abusing each piece of clothing on the board until you deem it clean. You wring it out, dip it in a bucket of clean water, wring it out and go hang it on the line. If you are having trouble picturing this, I do wash the same way that the mom in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory does it or like any 1800’s pioneer woman. Unfortunately, laundry day is also a prime time Fote show. It’s not the Superbowl (that’s Fotes dancing and playing drums) but it is Eagles v. Giant. All the neighbors come to watch me and wonder out loud why I do not know how to do laundry. They each take a turn to grab clothes out of my hand and show me how to do it properly. I then mimic them exactly and they say its no good. My brother shouts mauvais! (bad) with each stroke of the clothes against the washboard. I’ll say, “I’m doing it exactly the same, what is different?” Their response, “C’est pas bon”. What nuance I am missing is beyond me. After a few hours of embarrassing labor, my clothes are somewhat clean, my hands are red, and my wrists are bruised. At least the neighbors are having a good time. Another fun note about laundry is that you have to bring it inside before the sun goes down. If you leave it out after dark, Tuba flies will come lay eggs in the seams of your clothes. Then when you wear your clothes, the larvae burrow into your skin. They leech your blood until they are grown into maggots and then and only then can you squeeze them out of your body being careful to keep the worm intact while you do it.

Technology here is a funny thing. Washing machines are a long way off here. There is no running water anywhere and electricity comes and goes. They do have cell phones and MP3 players, but stereo systems look like they came from 1980 and are only played on full volume. I showed my brother my Kindle today and he could not fathom that it contained 1,000 books. He has never seen 100 books in a library so to hold 1,000 in my hand was beyond his comprehension. The good news is that I have plenty of time here to get good at doing my laundry, the bad news is that I am apparently so bad at it that my brother thinks it will take my 10 years to master. In the mean time, I can try to help educate people on the technology that they have access to and hope that by the end of my service things like the internet and microwaves will be more ubiquitous and who knows- the town may even get a Laundromat.