What Do I Want to Hear?

Other volunteers are probably sick of hearing about how much I love my site and my partner organization. People are motivated. They want better lives for themselves and for the people in their community. They embrace change. They follow through. Even in Kindia, though, you still run into some of the most frustrating aspects of Guinean culture. The number one frustrating cultural practice is telling people what you think they want to hear instead of the truth.

I am trying to start a savings and loans association in my neighborhood. About two months ago, we had an introductory meeting that was well and enthusiastically attended. I gave people a two week deadline to present their groups to me. Two weeks has come and gone at least 4 times. There is one group of young women who say they are prepared to start. The issue is my counterpart (the only French speaking member of the group) has been hard to pin down. Each Sunday that a meeting is scheduled, I go to find her and she is at a wedding, funeral, or baptism. Then she said we needed to wait for Ramadan to end to start up. So this week we had a meeting scheduled for 1pm. I had a good feeling about it. I went over to here house at 9:30 to remind her. I was told,  “Fatime? A bara siga walide, taqui, a fafe”. Fatime is in town working but she’s coming. I went to town to teach my entrepreneurship course and got back around 12. I was told the same thing. I asked her sister to send her to my house as soon as she got back. 1pm came and went at 2, I went back over. “Where is Fatime?”, I asked, “We had a meeting.” Fatime went to Conakry for a sacrifice. I asked when she left. “Horo” or yesterday. When was she coming back? “Tina”. Why did nobody tell me this originally? Instead of lying to me all day, I could have known the truth and not spent my afternoon waiting around for a meeting that was never going to happen. They knew I did not want to hear that she was out of town (again) so they did not tell me. I’m trying again for Wednesday, so keep your fingers crossed for me.

Even more frustrating is my neighbor who is a candidate for Mercy Ships. Mercy Ships is an ONG that gives free surgery on this converted cruise ship. They are in Guinea for 9 months and today was the day that everyone who wanted surgery needed to go to “Palais de Peuple”, a kind of Guinean conference center. My neighbor has a tumor on her face about the size of a football. The kind of tumor you would see on a primetime hospital drama and ask yourself, “How did they let it get this bad.” In Guinea, there is no choice but to let it grow (our hospital does not have electricity most of the time), unless and NGO comes in with their own hospital and offers to help you out for free. We have been talking about her going for four months. I talked to her in Susu, I talked to a family member in French, my host dad talked to everyone at their house multiple times. It was settled. Two days ago I stopped by to remind her the date was coming. She assured me that in two days she would be in Conakry. I went yesterday and said you need to leave today. “Ok”, she said. I went by this morning and she was there. I told her if she did not leave right now, she was going to miss her chance. Did she want to go? She said she was not ready yet. Four months and she was not ready yet. So many people want to help Guineans, but if they don’t want to help themselves it’s not going to work. On one hand, it frustrates the hell out of me, on the other hand, it reaffirms the grass roots development approach. Solutions need to come from the community and development workers need to seize presented opportunities instead of pushing their own agenda.