Kindia! A trip to Guinea's interior...

On Friday, June 12, we left Conakry to explore the interior of Guinea. We had intended to leave around 9 am, and head to Kindia, a city about 150 km from the capital. Time is very flexible in Guinea, however, so it was around 11:30 when we finally began loading the mini-bus we had rented for this adventure. We put our luggage and a few djembes on the floor and in other nooks and crannies, and then loaded 20 people into the bus, pretty much filling it up. We started east through Conakry’s suburbs, along a road lined with businesses on both sides. We began climbing and got nice views of the Conakry peninsula and the city. Eventually the houses thinned out and we turned onto the highway to Kindia.

The drive was beautiful and fascinating. We drove through green valleys filled with palms, and alongside large mesa-like mountains with steep sides. We climbed up through forest-lined hillsides and drove through many villages, which got progressively more traditional the farther we got from Conakry. All of the villages had some European-style rebar and concrete houses with tin or tile roofs, but they also had traditional African huts, most of which are round with mud walls, one door and a tall, pointed thatched roof. Many of the towns had beautiful mosques, and as it was Friday in a couple of the towns we saw they people coming out of the mosque dressed in their finest religious gowns. A beautiful sight.

We made a few stops for supplies, the first in a market town not too far from Conakry, crowded with women carrying all kinds of foods on their heads, from loaves of bread to cookies to cans of sardines. They crowded around the van and offered us their goods, while a few members of our group went out and bought our food for the trip. Later, further inland, we stopped in a town with many fruit stands lining the road. The fruit was colorful and beautiful, mangoes, papayas, soursops, avocados, peppers, tomatoes, pineapples, yuca and a few other delights. All were very ripe and we bought a few baskets and filled them with fruit for the weekend.

The road is two-lane the whole way, with large potholes, railroad crossings and police checkpoints, where soldiers sit alongside the road and raise and lower a rope to let traffic through. All of these made the traveling rather slow. Add to that the many vehicles, from large semi-trucks carrying gasoline and other supplies, to motorcycles and bicycles, all traveling at different speeds, and this slows things down even more. A third barrier is the cars and trucks that are stopped on the road, either broken down or unloading people. At one point we came upon a car that was stopped on the road, and our driver had to brake suddenly, stopping just before we hit the car’s bumper. A second later we heard a large crash to the rear; the car behind us hadn’t been able to stop and crashed into us. It jolted us a little, but our bus was a lot bigger than the car and the crash wasn’t too bad. The car in front of us, the culprit for the accident, pulled away, and our driver and the driver of the car behind us got out and discussed things for a few minutes, and we went on our way. There didn’t seem to be too much damage to either vehicle. At another point we came upon a large semi-truck stopped on a bridge, and we had to creep around it, with barely enough room to get by.

After several hours, we finally made it to Kindia, a fairly good sized city, in which most of the streets are lined with market stalls. We snaked through the city center, and stopped for awhile, then loaded up again and drove out of town a ways, into a beautiful valley, and then after about 20 minutes turned off the highway and onto a dirt road. We drove through a traditional African village and along the road aways until we reached a hotel. We entered the gate and drove up to the main building along a dirt road lined with tall trees with huge leaves – I believe they were gmelinas (a very fast growing and widely planted tropical species). All of the buildings were round with tin roofs, built to mimic the traditional African huts. We unloaded our things and while they were processing us the group walked up a trail, also lined with gmelinas, and into a forested area alongside a tall cliff. The top of the cliff formed an overhang, and waterfalls dropped down into pools at the bottom. There were stairs and walkways along the bottom of the cliff, and you could walk up under the overhand and view the falls from underneath. It was really a beautiful spot.

As we lingered around the falls, a wood carver brought out some of his work and put it alongside the trail. He had a workshop, in the same round African style, up a small hill near the falls. We walked back and looked at his wares, which were absolutely beautiful. He had cleverly put several along the trail, but also put a few on the steps leading up to his shop, including a giraffe that was over 6 feet tall carved from a beautiful reddish wood that he said was the cola tree. We walked up the steps and looked in his shop, which consisted of three rooms, two of which were full of many carvings of various sizes. The third room contained his workbench and a couple of items he was working on.

We went back down to the trail and talked to him, somehow communicating in our limited French and his limited English. We negotiated a few purchases, although his starting prices were extremely reasonable. I was almost embarrassed to barter, but I did so nevertheless because it is such a social experience. We agreed upon a price for two items, and Wally who I was with bought three items. He then gave each of us small turtles as a gift. We chatted a little more and said goodbye. In response to a question I asked he said very few tourists come through this time of year, but in August through October many people come to this site.

We went back and moved into our huts. No electricity, but they did have running water. Each hut had three rooms and two bathrooms, and a common room in the center. We took the small stuffed chairs from the common room and put them in front of the hut, on the well-sweeped pathway (the owners kept the dirt areas around the lodge clean of all garbage and swept up all the leaves), and spent the evening chatting. We had a nice dinner that included delicious pineapple and mango, along with a fish stew that by now we are all very accustomed to. Some of our group included soldiers which have been hired to provide security for us, and on this trip there were a couple of extra soldiers along, which added to the trip as they were friendly and fun to talk to. One in particular always greeted us enthusiastically and came over to say hi. They wore camouflage military fatigues, red berets and carried semi-automatic rifles. Needless to say, we felt very safe in their presence.

The hotel gave us some candles and a small kerosene lantern, and when we blew them out to turn in we found the huts were very, very dark – pitch black. We awoke to rain, which got harder and harder, and cooled things down considerably. As the rain subsided we had a nice breakfast of tea or coffee and more fruit, plus a salad of eggs, tomatoes and cucumbers. We loaded the van and headed back into Kindia and walked around to do some shopping. Most of the streets were lined with stalls and vendors. We passed a school and the kids were all out front in their blue uniforms, and they swarmed over and gave us fist bumps, while calling “big ups.” When you give them your fist their faces light up in smiles. We found a market with fabrics and clothing and went in. Several people brought fabrics to be made into shirts and skirts. I also bought a Guinea soccer jersey and a wool cap.

We walked back to the bus, which was parked in front of a beautiful Muslim mosque. As we were waiting the call to prayer came and many men hurried into the mosque. A few kids had gathered around the bus and I got out some ball point pens and crayons I had brought and gave them to the kids, which brought another round of “big ups.” The people of Guinea are so warm and friendly, something they clearly learn as kids as the young people here are so friendly and have such great smiles.

The trip back to Conakry went without incident. We stopped at the fruit stands and stocked up, and also bought some charcoal along the way. We ran into some rain, but most of the way the weather was overcast and reasonably cool. On the trip out on Friday we didn’t see anyone working in the fields, no doubt because it was Friday, a Muslim holiday, but on the way back there were many people bent over working the field, all of them women! Apparently it is their job to tend to the gardens and crops.

We pulled into the house right around dusk and unloaded our gear. Our cooks took the various items we had brought back and fixed us a great dinner of noodles and beef, tomato and cucumber salad and several fruits.

This was quite an interesting excursion, very different than our trip to the islands the week before. Although we only barely scratched the surface of the interior of Guinea, which is a very large and diverse country, we got a small flavor of what life is like for rural people in West Africa. The influence of religion was obvious, and the reliance on agriculture was clear as well. The impact of French colonization and modernization were also apparent, as most villages and farms retained some of their traditional buildings, but also had more modern housing as well as businesses and even factories in some towns. We paralleled railroad tracks for much of the trip and saw one train as we approached Conakry on the return trip. The countryside is quite beautiful, very green, with lots of palm trees and small farms alongside the road. We saw some animals – mostly goats and cattle, with a few sheep. Lots of people all along the way, walking along the road or sitting in groups in front of their houses or in the small squares in their villages. Seeing white people pass by is a rarity, and many of them waved and smiled when they saw us. Although the distance was relatively short, the trip still took quite awhile due to the conditions on the road, so we all were pretty tired when we got home. Such is life in a developing country, many of the conveniences we take for granted in the States, such as our infrastructure of highways and easy transportation, are not available in a place like Guinea, so things take a lot longer and the pace of life is much slower. But the drive to and from Kindia was the most interesting part of the trip, in my opinion, and taking 5 hours to cover 100 miles did not seem like much of a burden.