Ed. Note: PC Guinea's Deputy Director, El Hadj Tafsir Thiam, retired at the end of last year after 17 years of service to Peace Corps. No one who passed though Peace Corps Guinea during those years can forget his tireless devotion and loving protection of his volunteers. My own memories include the day all the volunteers in town for IST were supposed to attend a reception given by the Interior Minister at the Palais du Peuple. Thiam, as usual, went on ahead to make sure everything was ready. It happened to be the day the military mutiny of February 1995 broke out. Thiam radioed back to the office for us to stay where we were, and the sound of automatic weapons was clearly audible in the background. Typically, his first
thought had been for the volunteers and he only moved to a safer location after he was sure that we were safe.

Thiam’s retirement party took place in January in
Conakry. He will be leaving soon to start a new life in the United States. February’s Peace Corps Guinea Newsletter included the following message of farewell from El Hadj Thiam to his colleagues. Ça Va? is grateful to Country Director Lisa Ellis and PC Guinea Liaison Nancy Fleisher for making their newsletter available to us.

What you heard about me leaving Peace Corps Guinea is true, though I do not believe it myself. I feel already very lonely. I started working permanently for this wonderful Institution in December 1986 as the APCD/Admin. Mr. Jerry Pasela was the Country Representative; Mr. Sâa Millimono, the clerk and Mr.Naby Soumah, the driver.

I said “permanently” above because, while studying in the United States in the early 60’s, I was employed as PC/Trainer every summer from 1964 to 1968. In those days, the Volunteers were trained in the States (State
Side Training). These summer jobs took me to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire; to Sainte Anne de la Pocatière, Quebec, Canada; to Baker, Louisiana; to Hilton Head, South Carolina; to Saint Croix, the Virgin Island; to Miami, Florida to name a few places.

But soon into my permanent position, Mr. Millimono left Peace Corps/Guinea. That year we had a total of five (5) Volunteers posted in the Fouta (Dalaba, Pita, Labé area). The Ministries with which Peace Corps was
supposed to work with did not seem to know much about the institution known as the “toughest job you’ll ever love”.

In the summer of 1987, we received the first “large” group of Volunteers. They were ten (10) TEFL teachers sent in response to a request for four hundred (400) volunteers submitted by the Ministry of Education…

Today, among the staff we have almost half a dozen of Americans and more than thirty (30) local hires. We currently have 118 volunteers (76 PCVs and 42 Trainees). Peace Corps is my family; if somebody does not believe it, I will feel very bad. The family I will miss, the family I will never forget.

Peace Corps/Guinea management and Ambassador Barrie Walkley recommended me and my family to get the GREEN CARD. My wife and I received the Entry Visa in the States and then we will receive the Card upon our
arrival.

I would like to take this opportunity to very
respectfully express my profound gratitude to
Ambassador Walkley for his unconditional support.

I owe a lot to our Country Director, Ms. Lisa Ellis, who did and is doing everything possible to help me with deep respect and consideration. I am very deeply touched and remain very thankful. I would also like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. George Greer who initiated and wrote a wonderful recommendation to help
me receive the Green Card.

If I start listing the names of the great people with
whom I worked during these seventeen years in
PC/Guinea and at HQ, whom I will never forget, I will need a book. Nevertheless, I know that I must express my gratitude to Mr. Jerry Pasela for the reception he granted me when I started working in 1986; to Mr. John Reddy; to Mr. Jeff Page and to Ms. Kathy Tilford for their cooperation. Thank you also the present and past CDUs at the HQ in DC. I love working with Volunteers and their counterparts; I will miss traveling up-country, especially nowadays when most of the roads are paved and most of the ferries are replaced by modern bridges.

If it pleases God I will be flying to Washington DC on 22 February 2004. Please keep in touch. (signed) Elhadj

Cindy Diouf, RPCV Kankalabe ‘96-‘98
ciadiouf(at)msn(dot)com

For one day every year, I get to relive what it was
like to live in Guinea for 2 years. This one day usually takes place in early March for Peace Corps Day. It is an absolute thrill to find a captive audience willing to listen to my stories about Guinea, willing to try on my leppi complets and most of all, willing to open their minds and hearts to learning about Africa. Since I am currently teaching in a high school in eastern Iowa, I am in contact with students everyday. However, Peace Corps Day is the one day out of the year where I can truly captivate the imaginations of all students. From the photos and slides that I show to the stories of eating around the bowl, the students are transported to an exotic land of endless beauty.

Today’s generation of students is only vaguely
familiar with President John F. Kennedy and has little
understanding his call to, “Ask not what your country
can do for you but what you can do for your country”. I recently met a fascinating older couple that had served as volunteers in Peru in the early sixties. In fact, they were members of the second group of volunteers that had ever signed up! They commented that they were indeed inspired by President Kennedy’s call for service and that effectively that is why they choose to serve. When I asked them what they were doing for Peace Corps Day they mentioned that they didn’t have plans. What a waste, I thought. After all, I was engrossed in their stories of Peace Corps training. Their preparations included hanging off cliffs and climbing ropes of all things! Can you imagine how excited students would be to hear their stories of service and view their 40-year-old slides of Peru?

We should all feel inspired to share our stories. Our
lesson plans bring the content knowledge and curriculum to life. Students are tired of reading textbooks and memorizing facts and statistics. They have studied maps of Africa but few know anything about Guinea. Few can imagine eating dried cassava paste patties with dried okra sauce in a communal bowl on the floor. We no longer have John F. Kennedy t inspire the youth. That must become our mission as former Peace Corp Volunteers. We must share what we have seen and experienced.

It seems to me that more and more, we as a nation have become consumed by self-interest. We owe it to the kids of today to show that is not what this country is about. We must promote global understanding at the grass-roots level and inspire the next generation of volunteers to value the experience of helping others. There is nothing like the generosity and beauty of the Guinean people. Let’s let the world know.

We can all agree that nothing compares to “the toughest job you’ll ever love”. Now is the time to put that belief into action by sharing our stories with the youth of our communities.

PROMOTE WORLD PEACE AND FRIENDSHIP DURING PEACE CORPS
WEEK: MARCH 1-7, 2004

To commemorate the 43rd anniversary of the founding of the Peace Corps, RPCVs will celebrate Peace Corps Week on March 1 through March 7, 2004.

RPCVs will be visiting classrooms, community
organizations, and workplaces throughout the United
States to share the knowledge and insights gained from their overseas experiences. As every RPCV knows, part of the Peace Corps’ mission is to educate Americans back home about the people with whom they lived and worked. When RPCVs speak about their Peace Corps experiences, they enrich the lives of students, neighbors, and colleagues. RPCVs also raise awareness of the Volunteers’ ongoing global contributions and plant the seeds of community service.

Peace Corps Week is your opportunity to promote a
better understanding of the people of your host country among the people of your current community. You can participate in a variety of ways: Perhaps you have photographs, artifacts, music, or folktales that you could share with students or other groups. Consider asking another RPCV to make the presentation with you. Two or more viewpoints will give your audience a broader perspective of the work of Peace Corps Volunteers and might make the experience more enjoyable for you. You might encourage your local newspaper to run a story about your experiences in the Peace Corps or to publish a letter to the editor about Peace Corps service. You might also want to participate in one of the events being organized by the Peace Corps recruiting offices.

Last year, more than 7,000 RPCVs visited elementary schools, secondary schools, and colleges and universities throughout the United States. More than half a million students welcomed RPCVs into their classrooms nationwide. RPCVs also gave presentations to community groups, at their workplace, and in places of worship. Through the sharing of their overseas experiences, RPCVs continue to build bridges across cultures—bridges to friendship, cross-cultural understanding, tolerance, and, ultimately, peace.

Whether you choose to bring your Peace Corps
experience to a local school or take part in one of the activities mentioned above, participation is key in helping Peace Corps achieve its third goal. Sign up to participate today! Online registration is available on the Peace Corps Week website (www.peacecorps.gov/rpcv/peacecorpsday). All respondents will receive a free presentation kit. The presentation kit includes souvenirs for your audience and materials to help you prepare for and promote the week.

Visit the Peace Corps website for more information. If you have any questions, contact the Peace Corps Week Coordinator at [email protected] or call 800.424.8580 (press 2, then ext. 1961).

Ed. Note: Guinea RPCVs who knew Justin Bhansali and Jesse Thyne, or who heard of their untimely deaths in
a road accident in Guinea in 2000, may be interested
to know that a project is underway to create a
permanent memorial to them and other fallen PCVs.
Although still in its earliest stages, we hope that
this initiative will meet with success in all of its
objectives. More information is available on the Web,
as you will see below.

On May 12, 1997, Chelsea Mack’s brother Jeremiah died
in a car accident on a dusty road in Niger very far
away from home. He was a Peace Corps volunteer doing
masonry work, driving to a job site in a friend's
village.

Since then, she and her mother Donna have struggled to
make sense of his death, struggled to move forward.
They established a scholarship in his name at his high
school, but still they wanted to do something more.

Later, they learned how many other volunteers have
died during their time in the Peace Corps and how many
families there are like them. At the time, fallen
volunteers were collectively honored by only a simple
plaque hanging on a wall in the D.C. office of the
Peace Corps. It was their belief that these special,
unique and very giving individuals deserved to be
remembered in a way befitting their contributions to
their families, friends, and to the strangers they
reached out to in so many far corners of the world.

Last spring they began work on a project. Their
mission is to:

• Celebrate the lives and service of fallen Peace
Corps volunteers through the creation of an Internet
Memorial. They hope to eventually include stories and
pictures of every volunteer whose family members or
friends would like to share them.

• Create a network of support for the families and
friends of fallen PCVs. They would like to aid willing
families in connecting with each other.

• Ultimately raise funds to establish a permanent,
physical memorial honoring each Peace Corps volunteer
who has died while in service.

Chelsea and Donna Mack invite you to visit their site,
http://www.fpcv.org, and share it with others. They
welcome your help in building the site, contacting
families of volunteers you may have known, and any
general comments or advice you may have.

Chelsea says, “We are beginning a journey, just as
they did. We hope you will join us.”

Laura Rowley is an associate at Foley Hoag LLP, a
large Boston law firm. For the most part, she works on
cases for large corporate clients, but her firm is
committed to public service and encourages its members
to take “pro bono” work, representing needy clients
free of charge. In August 2003, she took on a new
client: a woman from Guinea seeking political asylum
in the United States based upon an abusive, forced
marriage, and fear that she could not protect her baby
daughter from female genital mutilation in Guinea. Her
client’s native language was Fulani, though she also
spoke Wolof and French. After a few sessions with her
client in French, it became apparent that she would
feel more comfortable and be better able to express
herself if she could use her native language, Fulani.
Thus, she began a long search for a Fulani translator.
After meeting several dead ends, she came across the
website for Friends of Guinea.

“I sent an email to some contacts listed on the
website, and right away received some responses,” said
Rowley.” In particular, Stephanie Chasteen and Jody
Sites were very responsive, kind and helpful. They
showed me the online FOG Registry
(http://friendsofguinea.org/registry.shtml), which is
searchable by city. I found those in the Boston area
and emailed everyone on that list. Again, several
people responded and Nancy Devine provided the key
referral! She put me in touch with a friend of hers
who, as it turns out, works just a few blocks from my
office.” The friend’s husband was fluent in Fulani and
he agreed to help. “He was a wonderful translator and
our client has now had her asylum interview. We have
to wait several months before learning whether she
will win asylum, but I know that her chances are
improved because she was able to use her native
language when telling her story in the interview. I’m
extremely grateful to everyone at Friends of Guinea
who responded to my request for assistance in finding
a translator.”

If anyone reading this speaks Fulani or any other
language, and would be interested in serving as a
translator in another asylum case, Rowley assures us
there is a great need. “The time commitment is not
significant, and you would be doing a tremendous
service to someone in need.” Interested persons in the
Boston area may contact the Political Asylum/
Immigration Representation Project (“PAIR Project”) at
[email protected] or (617) 742-9296. The PAIR
Project keeps a list of potential translators and will
contact potential translators when a need arises.
Finally, if anyone is interested in learning more
about asylum cases in general, and more specifically
claims based upon gender-based human rights abuses
such as forced marriage and female genital mutilation,
Rowley highly recommends the book “Do They Hear You
When You Cry” by Fauziya Kassindja and Layli Miller
Bashir. Kassindja is the first woman to be granted
asylum in the United States based upon her fear of and
opposition to female genital mutilation, and the book
is an account of this experience.

Brian Farenell, RPCV Beindou ‘95-‘97
communications(at)friendsofguinea(dot)org

I'm Brian Farenell, the new communications director. I
was advocacy director from FOG's launch until the end
of 2003. But I wanted a new challenge and to give
someone with fresh ideas to get a crack at doing
different things with advocacy. I've been involved
with FOG since the very early day. To see it grow from
little more than a seed in the head of a few
idealistic people like Stephanie and Woody into a
dynamic group sponsoring conferences, sending out
newsletters and generally being a venue for people
interested in the Peace Corps and Guinea to share
ideas, information and news.

I served as a Peace Corps volunteer from 1995-97 in
Beindou Centre, a tiny village (and sous-prefecture)
less than 10 miles from Kissidougou. I had a great
experience there and I'm pleased to still be in
contact with my best friends from Beindou 6 1/2 years
later.

From the outset, I've strongly believed that, in
addition to the well-being of volunteers on the
ground, Guinea and Guineans should be an important
part of FOG's objectives. I didn't want us to merely
be a cheerleader for the institution of the Peace
Corps and leave it at that. I wanted FOG to be very
Guinea-specific, if you will. And it has become so.

Emily Byram, RPCV Kondianakoro, ‘98-‘00
advocacy(at)friendsofguinea(dot)org

My name is Emily Byram, and I am Friends of Guinea’
new Advocacy Director. I currently live in Washington,
DC, and lobby on environmental issues for the National
Audubon Society. I became involved with Audubon
specifically because of their population program,
which seeks to increase funding for international
family planning programs overseas, which includes
grants to groups that many of us may have worked with
on the ground in Guinea. As a Health and Community
Development Volunteer in Kondianakoro, Mandiana from
1998 to 2000, I became very aware of the need for such
programs, and came to DC to help influence Congress to
support them.

I joined Peace Corps as part of the Masters
Internationalist Program through Tulane University
School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and
upon completion of service I received my Masters
degree in International Health and Epidemiology. My
village was located just a few kilometers from the
Mali border, and I found it much easier to get to
Bamako than to Conakry, or even the regional capital
of Kankan. It was a trek to get to Kondianakoro, but
was well worth it. The people were so friendly, and
their isolation had well preserved the culture, with
drumming, dancing and masked devils a daily sight.

I am looking forward to working with FOG, because it
will give me an opportunity to help raise awareness
about issues affecting Guinea, volunteers there, and
Peace Corps in general. I intend to post a biweekly
advocacy bulletin, focusing on Peace Corps funding,
and other PC issues, as well as Africa-specific
development issues, using ADNA as my main source of
information. Their monthly meetings are held here in
DC, and I will try to participate in as many of these
meetings as possible. In addition, I'll send alerts if
urgent issues come up, with contact info for
legislators. I encourage anyone to bring issues of
interest to my attention, so that I can share them
with the group. I welcome any suggestions.

Stephanie Chasteen, RPCV Baguinet ‘97-‘99
membership(at)friendsofguinea(dot)org

I've stepped down after four years as Friends of
Guinea’s webmaster. Cherif Diallo, who did a super job
as our Projects Director last quarter, has rallied to
the task and will be handling the web stuff from now
on. Now I'm working as Membership Director, the
ultimate organizational task, which suits my fussy
personality quite well!

If you have any questions about your membership,
please drop me a line at
membership(at)friendsofguinea(dot)org

MIKE DICKERSON (RPCV 97-99) went up and joined the
Foreign Service. He's been in Tbilisi, Georgia, for
almost a year. He says things are going well at work
and he's having a good time, though he's been robbed
twice. He says: “I spent New Years with some friends,
and then we went bowling at the only bowling alley in
Tbilisi. It was interesting. I also spent a lot of
time at Supras. The Supra is a huge Georgian meal with
lots of toasting with wine. There is a very rigid
order to the toasts, and they are all in Georgian
which makes them pretty much incomprehensible to me.”

AIYAR RAVI KUMAR wrote us from India to locate the
address or email address of an old friend of his who
is from Conakry but has been living in Paris. His name
is BARRY BADEMBA and he used to work for Photo Couleur
Service on the Rue Vielle du Temple. Anyone who may be
able to help is requested to reply to
sudha_h(at)hotmail(dot)com.

EDWARD VAN LUINEN (RPCV Kissidougou, ’87-’89) asks
that anyone from 1986 or 1987 contact him at
guinearpcvs1987(at)yahoogroups(dot)com.

GEORGE GREER, former CD of Guinea, writes: “At this
moment I'm in Lagos, Nigeria, on an unusually long
6-week work trip to Senegal, Nigeria and DRC. I'm
working with an organization called BASICS (look it up
on the web for more information). It is a USAID child
survival project and I'm working on malaria. It's fun
but too much travel this year. I think I will manage
to get the travel under control when we move into a
new 5 year contract for the project (from BASICS II to
BASICS III). We live in Takoma Park, MD and love the
place, but all of us dearly miss Africa and if it
weren't time for the kids to be back in the US to
spend some formative years in school here, we would be
off to somewhere or another.”