Growing Pains

You probably don’t follow Guinean politics. I consider myself to be generally informed, but before receiving my invitation to Guinea, I could not locate it on a map. Some people are following Guinean politics, namely the large donors to direct aid projects, the European Union and USAID.

In 1958, Guinea became the first African colony to gain independence, which it did through a national referendum. It was not an amicable parting. When leaving, the French destroyed many plantations and factories. The vote broke down along ethnic lines, fanning the flames of ethnic tension that still rage today. (The three large ethnic groups in Guinea are Sousou, Peuhl, and Malinke. The tension is strongest between the Peuhls who hold the economic power and the Malinke’s who hold the political power. A favorite Malinke joke goes, “A Peuhl, a Chinese person, an American, and a Malinke are on a boat that is sinking because it is too heavy. The Chinese man starts throwing cell phones out of the boat. ‘What are you doing! Those are valuable’ shouts the Malinke. The Chinese man responds that they have too many cell phones in China so it’s no big deal. The American catches on and starts throwing dollars off the boat. ‘We have too many of these in the US” he says. The Malinke man looks around and throws the Peuhl off the boat.” Funny, right?) Decades of socialism, military junta, poverty, violence, military coup and a failed state followed until 2010, when Guinea had it’s first free democratic election, choosing “Le Professeur Alpha Conde” as president. As a volunteer, I can’t discuss politics. I am neither endorsing, nor blaming the presidency of Alpha Conde for anything going on in Guinea today. The fact is that the last step in this transition to Democracy has not happened. While legislative elections were supposed to happen within six months of electing a president, they have yet to happen. And that is why the EU and US have their eyes on Guinea. If they do not happen freely, fairly and soon, donor dollars will start fleeing the country.

That brings me to the point of today’s post. We have been having protests every month or two since I arrived in Guinea. Either the opposition parties don’t like the date of the elections, or the company running the elections, or I don’t know what. Protests take two forms, marches and “ville mort”. Marches are mainly contained to Conakry, where occasionally youth and police clash and there is violence and destruction. Ville Mort means “dead town”. All businesses are supposed to close. The thing about ville mort, is that with many people living day to day, they cannot afford to close their business down for a day so you get this half-baked protest that never amounts to anything. The one business that always shuts down it the large generator that powers my NGO, so for us “Ville Mort” means working as hard and fast as we can while watching our laptop batteries dwindle and it means no income for my counterpart who runs a computer training center. We’ve been having Ville Mort in Kindia for almost a week, but have been able to avoid the more chaotic clashes happening in other big cities. Hopefully, one of these protests will cause change, the elections will occur without problems and we all can do the work we want to do. These manifestations make it hard for me to work, they make it hard for Guineans to live, they destroy lives and property, but they are also to be expected in a country learning how to be a democracy. It is interesting to be living through it. 

In other news, I am helping my host sister with her homework every night and realizing that she cannot read. In class she memorizes phrases and repeats them back to me as if she was reading regardless of what the page says. Her books are in French, but she only knows Sousou and my Sousou is minimal. So, does anyone have tips for how to teach reading to someone who doesn’t speak the language they are trying to read and you have no language in common.