Update on Our Status, June 18

We have two weeks left in Guinea, and we have settled into a routine. Many of us have now purchased our djembes, and we use them twice a day for drumming class. Olu spends the first half of the morning class working on our technique, and then Amara teaches us rhythms. In the afternoon either Amara or one of the other drummers reviews some of the rhythms with us. We also have dance class once a day three times a week.

The rest of the time is mostly down time. It is very hot in the middle of the afternoon and that saps our energy to do much. We also do not have transportation available and are limited to exploring the neighborhood around our house. We hold sociology classes two to three times a week for each of the two classes, discussing some of the readings and trying to relate them to the conditions we see in Guinea.

Although we have been here just over two weeks, our house is definitely starting to look very “lived in.” In the evenings many of us gather in the upstairs living room, where we have the internet connection, to work on our computers or read. Some people also like to sit on the roof in the evenings, where it is cool as a nice breeze generally can be felt there.

Some of us have also had African style clothing made. Today, our seamstress brought some things she made for three of us – shirts, pants, skirts, and headwraps. The clothing is very cool and comfortable, and the patterns are very interesting. We will have a final dundunba (drumming festival) before we leave, giving us the opportunity to wear our clothing while drumming and dancing.

We have found the city services to be very unreliable, which makes things interesting and at times, frustrating. The city electricity is turned off much more than it is turned on, and when it is on the quality of the electricity is not great. The lights are pretty dim, for example, and fade in and out occasionally. The electricity also goes out fairly regularly, and stays off for a few minutes or an hour before returning. We have a generator, but only run it in the evenings and occasionally briefly in the mornings, as the fuel to run it is expensive and not in our budget. Our two bathrooms have full facilities – flush toilet, shower and sink. The water to these hardly ever runs, however. There is a large trash can in each room, which is filled with water from a well in the yard, and we use that to bathe, wash our hands and faces, and flush the toilet. A few nights ago, however, suddenly the running water worked! This apparently was because there had been a big rainstorm, and apparently the reservoir or whatever supplies our water filled up briefly. In any case, we all took “real” showers while we could, and were happy to have water, although it only lasted for a short while. By the next morning, we were back to well water in the trash cans. Our drinking water is all from plastic bottles or small plastic bags. It is widely available in Conakry, sold in all stores and on the street. We keep it in our refrigerator, which keeps it cold as long as the electricity is on.

To keep things cool in the house, we leave the windows and doors open almost all the time. This, of course, lets lots of flies and mosquitoes in, which is something of a problem, but they seem to get in anyway and if the doors were closed and there was no breeze, the heat would be unbearable. The occasional rains we get, including a big storm this afternoon, do cool things down nicely and take some of the humidity out of the air, but it never lasts long.

These are our conditions now. Some are ready to go home now – they are having Big Mac attacks – while others are ready to move to Africa. All of us are learning a lot, though, even though we may not always realize it. I think our drumming has improved a lot, although it has happened slowly and is not necessarily obvious. The drummers we are working with are so talented, that it makes all of us look like amateurs in comparison – especially those like myself who are amateurs! It gives us all something to shoot for, however.