Rooting for the Underdog

In the Guardian’s article, “Guinea’s Anti-Corruption Activists Raise Doubt Over Mining Crackdown”, they write:

There is a saying in Guinea that is popular among those who work in development: "Everything is a priority". It is a wry observation that, in a country in which almost nothing works, it is difficult to work out what to tackle first. The facts are stark. A recent survey showed that 62% of Guineans have no access to running water, 62% have no access to electricity, 65% say they have inadequate access to roads, and 72% think the

justice system is broken. The country's human development indicators are well below those of other sub-Saharan African countries – the UN ranks the country's development 178th of 185 in the world.

Wow. This is the country that I have called home for nearly two years. I know the lack of water and that our electricity is so scare that you do not call periods without electricity blackouts, rather you call the hours with electricity a grand surprise. While the roads in my region are not bad by Guinean standards, not even the national highway is completely paved and it is only the national highway, one road snaking around the country to hit the major cities, which is paved. My problem with the justice system, starts with the fact that something so lacking in transparency cannot really be called a system. And justice… A recent survey found that 98% of businesses in Guinea, and 93% of citizens, have experienced corruption.

Lack of electricity means lack of food conservation. This is a workshop on how to preserve our abundant mangos through jamming!

And so this is the country that I have come to love and am here to help develop and it can be a daunting task. I’m in my fourth quarter, the clock is running out, and we are down so many points. What’s a girl to do? For me, the answer is social entrepreneurship. If you don’t know which problem to tackle first, go for the base. Start with the youth. They have time and the passion to make real change.  Teach people to see a lack of development as an opportunity. Give them the skills they need to create innovative projects and manage them for success. Teach them the benefits of networking so that they can have access to the resources that are present in the region. Give them mentors who know how to operate in the context to serve as their guides. Find positive deviants and give them the confidence to be visionaries. And that is the Dare to Innovate project. It has grown immensely over the past year and starts officially with a weeklong conference August 11^th. It will launch the social enterprise sector in Guinea and already is attracting trainees from other West African countries. I’m excited and proud of my partners and have seen enough sports movies to know even if there are mere minutes on the clock and you are down, the underdog, full of passion and grit can win. And Guinea, is nothing, if not the underdog.

It's that time of the year...again

The month of Ramadan has arrived. Last year, I was a bit cranky during this period of the year. When I was fasting, people would tell me I could not fast until I converted to Islam and if I wasn’t fasting they told me that I must. Finding a bowl of rice while the sun was out was a challenge. People move slower, work less, and lose their tempers more.

As Ramadan approached this year, I tried to get in my zen place. Within a day, I was already getting frustrated. I cannot count how many times I had the conversation, “Are you fasting?”, “No, I’m a Christian”. It was driving me crazy, but why? I have the conversation “Are you married?” almost as much and it does not drive me nearly as crazy.

Peace Corps is all about integration. The biggest compliment you can give another volunteer is that they are bien integré. You spend your life here proving that you are the same as the people you live and work with. Wontanara, we are together. I’m no different from you, see us both waiting in line at the pump? I go exclusively by my Guinean name and I speak local language as much as possible. My French has completely lost the formality of my high school textbooks and contains the whole rainbow of Guinean sound effects. And this is why having to declare my Christianity on a bi-minutely basis is so frustrating. After spending months upon months trying to show the similarities between all of us, I am forced to constantly point out a major cultural difference or else go without water in the hot sun.

I’m not sure what that means for this month. I am not sure if it will make me fast more or less, but it is nice to be able to name the place that the frustration is coming from and try to move past it and spend this month learning about a key aspect of Guinean culture.

Happy Independence Day

America was once a colony. This is a phrase I repeat often to my friends and colleagues in Guinea when they seem to have given up hope that the transition to democracy will continue or they are frustrated at the lack of social development. We almost went bankrupt. Shortly after Independence, we fought a war against the British. They burned down the White House. We had a civil war. We had a great depression. Democracy is not easy. It takes a long time to get right. But it is worth it. 

Once a year, we get to celebrate the fact that we gained our independence, set up a functioning government and have run it continuously for the last 237 without a coup d’état, military take-over, or other disastrous interruption. This is something I have always taken for granted. Of course they set up a system of checks and balances and of course George Washington, the visionary leader that he was, refused to stay in office indefinitely and stepped down when his term was over. But, living in Guinea, I realized that these are not “of courses” but “Thank Gods”. This continent is scarred by democratically presidents refusing to step down, devolving into tyrants as fatigue and paranoia set it. Guinea, itself, has very few checks and balances considering the fact that it still does not have a legislature and anyone can be bought off.

America is not perfect, but it has kept me safe and healthy, protected my freedoms, provided me with basic services, and sent me half way around the world to promote peace, technical understanding and cultural exchange. I am always proud to be an American, but the 4^th is the occasion to celebrate it. This year I dressed in red, white, and blue head-to-toe, drank a “cold” beer with some other volunteers, sang the national anthem and danced the night away, because there is nothing like living in Guinea to make you appreciate the fact that you are an American.

Nothing Beyond Repair

Guinea is hard on material goods. My ipod’s screen is cracked, my laptop is dented, my water bottle gets moldy on a daily basis and my clothes that aren’t stretched out from the washboard have holes from mice taking their midnight snack. My watch has taken the most sever of beatings. I brought a “sports” watch with me that I thought was water resistant, but it became impaired after my first bucket bath and died completely when I work it swimming in a waterfall. My mom sent me a new Timex Ironman triathlon watch. This watch, I thought, will be able to take on Guinea. It is an ironman, after all. It did a pretty good job for about 9 months, but then the integrity of the plastic started breaking down. The first thing to go was that little ring to keep the tail of the band down. It just snapped off one day. I used a stray piece of string for a while, but eventually just cut the tail off. If there is nothing to hold down, then you don’t need that little ring thing. Next, the band ripped from on of the holes over to one side. I slapped on a little duct tape and continued on my life. Finally, the band just broke in half from a different part. No problem, I took it down to the men who repair furniture and they sewed the two bits back together, for free! That fix didn’t last very long. The plastic had become too brittle so it crumbled away by the sutures. The band was beyond repair.

Except, that nothing is beyond repair in Guinea. Cars that have no business being on the road move this country’s population and its economy. Young boys roam the street, ready and waiting for the inevitable moment when your cheap Chinese flip-flops break. They will have you back on your way in minutes. Roofs are patched until there is more patching than roof and potholes are filled with roadside gravel to prevent your car from scraping bottom. It really is incredible how with elbow grease and a strong will, people can fix anything here. So, I knew there must be a solution for my watch. I went to the area of the market where they make leather shoes. It also happens to be the part of the market where you buy blessed necklaces to keep babies free from infection while teething, snakeskins, cowrie shells, and baby alligator skulls for who knows what purpose. This old man, who could not even see enough to know which way my watch should face, fashioned me a new custom leather watchband in 30 minutes for the equivalent of $2. Literally, it started from a piece of animal skin and using tools that have been around since the iron age, made me a lovely watchband and even gave me a guaranty.

Imagine what Guinea could do if it had resources- financing, education, material imports, factories, roads, and governance- at its disposal. 

World Malaria Month

Every 30 seconds, an African child dies of malaria.

What do you think the number one killer in Africa is? Do you think it is AIDS? What about malnutrition? The answer is malaria. It kills over one million people a year, most of whom are children under the age of five. To put it another way, 7 jumbo jets full of children die every day because of malaria. The saddest thing about this is that malaria is both treatable and preventable. My brother recently visited me here, and upon returning home he exhibited signs of having malaria. It was not a big deal because he just went to the doctor and got tested. He just had the flu, but if it was malaria, he would have just taken the medication and within a few days been back to life as normal. Did you know we used to have malaria in American? We eradicated it. All over the developed world, malaria deaths became a thing of the past. We will eradicate it in Guinea and we will eradicate in Africa, but it is going to take a concerted effort. And seriously, who is not willing to make a concerted effort to save 7 planes worth a day of adorable children with their whole future ahead of them from a preventable disease. So, as a CED volunteer, what am I doing to prevent malaria? I am working with people to increase their economic security so that in the case of an illness they have the money to treat themselves or their family. Mosquitos take the malaria tainted blood out of one person and basically inject it in another. If you treat your malaria, you cannot spread it so treating early (and always) can slow the rate of malaria infections. According to the "Against Malaria Foundation", spending £1m increases the annual African GDP by £12. As a CED volunteer, this is a fight we need to get behind. How will you stomp out malaria in 2013?

For more information, check out stompoutmalaria.org or Stomp Out Malaria on facebook.

My bed for training in Dubreka. Note the insecticide treated mosquito net

My mind is in America today

I got an email this morning from a fellow volunteer about some work we were doing. She studied at Northeastern and at the end of the email she added, “…did you hear about Boston? Wow, unreal, need to know more.”  What about Boston? I ‘quickly’ googled Boston not knowing what other terms to include in the search. While I was waiting, my Facebook page had finally loaded and saw a status from a friend living in Boston telling everyone she was alright and thanking them for checking in. My panic started rising. I spent one of the best summers in my life as an intern in Boston, I plan to settle there after Peace Corps and most importantly some of the most important people in my life live there. And then my search results loaded and I had information, but it still did not make sense. Why would anyone target a marathon with international participants for an act of terrorism? The Boston Marathon is one of our country’s greatest events bringing skilled and amateur athletes alike from all over the globe to show the world that they have the discipline and the heart to perform an amazing feat of endurance. Why would anyone want to change the scene of triumph at the finish line to one of devastation?

I don’t know who committed this terrible act and I don’t know why, but I do know that now more than ever the Peace Corps has an important place in this world. When people think about the Peace Corps, they think about trees planted or wells dug. For me, I have been talking a lot about the opening of our e-library and the training of entrepreneurs. But more than technical exchange and development, the Peace Corps is an organization of global friendship. About six months ago there were anti-American demonstrations across the Muslim world. Some Guineans called for a demonstration in Conakry, but nobody came. Guineans love Americans and it is mostly because of the Fote who buys tomatoes from them every week in the market or the Porto who taught their children math or the Toubaboo who comes over on rainy nights to eat mangos on the porch and listen to the radio. There is a daily exchange, human to human, of warmth and friendship and caring that makes hatred for the idea of “the American” impossible.

Maybe it is a foreign government or an international terrorist organization, or an angry American who is responsible. And I know that not everyone can be reached. No Guinness World Record breaking largest global hug is going to solve anything, but maybe if the Peace Corps mission of cultural exchange, understanding, and simple friendship can be adopted by people in their daily lives events such as this one, or the Dark Night massacre, The Newton School Shooting, or deadly attacks on US embassies will not occur in the future. 

My thoughts and the prayers of many Guineans who I have talked to this morning are with everyone in Boston and everyone affected by this tragedy.