Why I Don't Want Any Christmas Gifts This Year
Supporting Guinean Girls
Friends of Guinea Elections
Farewell George Greer
A Letter from the New Director
Le Griot Nous Dit

A Return Trip to Guinea
On Being A Lazy Childless Freak

By Shad Engkilterra, RPCV Banko 1998-2000

My first year in Guinea, I did not take part in the Girl’s Conference. I did not plan or participate in any sessions–I didn’t even go to where they were being held. The only things I did were to make sure that I could send two girls from my town and then I sent them. When they got back, they gave their report to the health center staff and said they were going to hold an educational discussion with their peers. Without any further prompting from me or anyone else, they set a date, asked me to attend and held the discussion. By itself, this was remarkable. These two girls, one of whom was shy, talked with the other girls in their school about sex, contraception and abstinence, and skin products while I, a man, was in the room. Their information was correct with two minor exceptions, and their peers asked them tough questions, which they answered with honesty. When they didn’t know the answer, they said so. It was clear that they had learned, and retained, much of the information given to them at the Conference. <

But what made it even more remarkable was the fact that they held this discussion for four hours during the weekly market day. These girls could have spent their time earning money at the market. Instead, they chose to organize this discussion about the issues that affected them as Guinean women.

I only remember two gifts I got last year for Christmas. The first gift was a trip home to see my family. Not only was this a sizable gift in terms of an airplane ticket, room and board, it was also significant in terms of time I was able to spend with friends and family–most notably, my grandfather, who passed away in February of this year. The second gift was a couple of Ziploc containers, red with sparkles. I remember them because I use them everyday. They are the only plastic, microwave-safe container I own, and I’m not afraid to lose them. They were also given to me by someone who is very special–someone who changed my life and made me a better person.

These are the only two gifts I remember with clarity. Did I get my Charlie Brown CD this year or last? Did I get a chocolate Santa or candy cane? My mom probably got me a Christmas coloring book and crayons like she has done every year for the last twenty years, but I don’t remember. The things these girls learn at the conferences are things they will remember. The girls may not listen to some well-off foreigner telling them about health and how life can be, as is the case in many development programs, but at the Conferences the girls hear successful Guineans and other people to whom they can relate. The girls get skills and information that they can then use in their villages and pass on to their friends and family. The Girls’ Conferences are something that will lead to a better quality of life for them and their families, and you can make this improvement possible through your donation. So before you go out and get me–or someone you love–that gift that they will probably forget, think about it. You could take the money that you would have spent and donate it to an event that will be remembered.

Farewell George Greer

In June, 2002, George Greer stepped down as Country Director. His replacement is Lisa Ellis. He writes:

"Well the time has really run out on this Guinea traveling circus and I'm taking down the tents and heading out. Yep, that fateful day has finally arrived and I'm on my way. We are leaving on July 2 and finish up in Washington with PC close out on July 11 and 12. I would like to say what a great pleasure is has been to work with so many great Volunteers over the past five years in Guinea. It has been a little over the edge much of the time but on balance is has been a wonderful and rewarding experience and I really think we have had an impact. Of course none of this would have been possible for me, either as an APCD or CD, without the excellent staff of PC Guinea. We are headed to the DC area where I'm hoping one of the numerous Guinea RPCVs there can offer me a high paying, low demand job!! Best wishes to all of you. Du courage and stay in touch, (please email [email protected] for George's address)

George Greer

by Anne Redmond, Conference Coordinator

Please support a young woman's participation in the 2003 Regional Girls' Conferences. Many volunteers, including Shad Engilterra (see accompanying article) have spoken of the Conferences as the most worthwhile part of their Peace Corps experience. It would be a shame if they couldn't continue! As of October 31, 2000, $560.00 has been raised–we have a long way to go to meet our goal of $8,000 by February 2003! You can help support the Girls' Conferences by:

•making a check or credit card donation

•buying Peace Corps Calendars for $10

•participating in the Guinea Cloth Auction (coming soon!)

•taking up a donation with your office/church/other organization

•telling RPCVs, friends, and family about the conferences!

Visit us at http://www.friendsofguinea.org/conference2003.shtml or contact [email protected] for more information. We need your help!

Friends of Guinea Holds Its First Elections

by Brian Farenell, Interim Elections Officer

The first-ever elections for the Friends of Guinea board of directors were held this fall. The process seemed to go fairly smoothly. A notice of the officer positions and our particular needs was sent out both to the FOG listserv and to the membership; although many people are both members of FOG and belong to the listserv, others belong to only one. Anyone was free to nominate anyone else for an office, but only FOG members could vote and only FOG members could serve as officers. Ballots were emailed out to members in early October and a little over 20 people voted for seven different positions. The candidates chosen for office were:

Financial Officer: Jody Sites

Membership Director: Megan Wilson

Listserv Administrator: Marilyn Pearson

Projects director: Cherif Diallo

Secretary: Stephanie Chasteen

Web Administrator: Stephanie Chasteen

Advocacy Director: Brian Farenell

A transition process is in place right now and should be fully completed some time in November. Thanks to all who volunteered to be nominated and to those who voted. A special thanks to our departing officers: Rebecca Konrad, Dede Dunevant, John Dowaschinski and Stephanie Mullen. Their contributions were invaluable to helping get FOG off the ground.

A Letter From the New Director

Following are excerpts from the letter that went out to volunteers from new Country Director Lisa Ellis soon after her arrival to take over the reins from George Greer. We thank the Peace Corps Guinea Newsletter for their generous courtesy in making it available to us:

Greetings from Conakry. I have been in Guinea for 4 weeks now, and I love it! I have had the opportunity to meet with some of you either in Conakry, Dubreka, or during my trip to Labe. Thank you for the warm reception and for your thoughtful comments and questions about PC/Guinea. I thought I might take this opportunity to tell all of you about my background and experience as well as share some thoughts and expectations for the PC/Guinea program. I’m a Southern California native; I grew up in Pasadena, CA. I went to UCLA where I received a BA in Economics. After graduation, I became a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia. From 1987 to 1989, I served as a math teacher in a very large village about an hour away from the capital city. I worked on numerous secondary projects, and to this day, feel that being a PCV was one of the most challenging jobs I’ve had. When I returned to the U.S., I went to Georgetown Law School in Washington, DC. I practiced law for a year in DC focusing on International Trade Litigation. I then moved back to California and practiced civil litigation for a year and a half. I transitioned out of law and into the business world where I spent 7 years in management at a number of companies in the technology industry. For the past 5 years, I’ve served (as a volunteer) on the board of the West Los Angeles YMCA and was Chairman of the Y’s Community Operations and Programs. I am very happy now to be serving with all of you here in Guinea. I have very traditional views about Peace Corps service. I believe that it is important for Volunteers to have meaningful work and to be actively engaged in capacity building. To have “meaningful work” a need must be identified by the community, and Volunteers should receive adequate support in their work to meet the community’s need. Peace Corps’ focus on “capacity building” means that Volunteers are educators, that Volunteers participate in projects that can and will be sustained by Guineans, or that Volunteers transfer skills to Guineans. To carry out these challenging goals, programming and site development are crucial. Through the end of the year, I will be asking Staff and Volunteers how we can strengthen our programs and sites so that every Volunteer in Guinea feels they have challenging work and that he or she has an opportunity to make a difference, no matter how small.

As we move towards more meaningful work for all Volunteers, it is imperative that we all think of ourselves as professional development workers. My expectation is that Staff and Volunteers will handle their jobs in a professional manner, treating each other with respect and courtesy. Furthermore, I believe in an open flow of communication between Staff and Volunteers. My door is open to Staff and Volunteers. Please take advantage of this opportunity so that we can make PC/Guinea the best program in the Africa region. I look forward to meeting with each one of you in the very near future, if I haven’t done so already.

Lisa Ellis

by Stephanie Mullen, RPCV Guinea ‘88-‘92

In June 2001, I went back to Guinea for the first time. Since then I’ve been back twice. Each visit reminded me of how much fun I had in Guinea, how tough it was to live there (I wonder now how I survived as long as I did) and gave me whole set of new and wonderful memories to sit back and enjoy. During these three return trips several things struck me. No matter what the circumstances, there are people who give 100% of their time and effort for work that they believe in (i.e. without being bribed). We make impressions on people that last a very long time. It is sweet to go back. During my last trip to Guinea, I spent 6 weeks working with Save the Children in Mandiana. Like many areas, Mandiana is located in a remote area of Upper Guinea and is often inaccessible during the rainy season. I was helping Save conduct a qualitative study on early postpartum care. Maternal mortality and morbidity is high in most areas of Guinea and those particularly isolated from emergency health care. Save works closely with traditional birth attendants to form links between women and the health care services. In Mandiana, the office is staffed by Guineans who are dedicated to their jobs and despite budget cuts, obstacles put up by the government, poor roads and lack of communication, continue to implement a high quality program. It was such a pleasant contrast to many (not all) of the functionnaires that I worked with as a volunteer. A friend working for International Rescue Committee (IRC) said the same of the Guinean IRC staff working to plan and build refugee camps. He called them “The Untouchables”. I wonder whether it is a difference in the work cultures between the public and private sectors or better yet a reflection of a younger generation of Guineans trying to improve the conditions in their country. In any case, it gave me hope that Guinea has a very bright future. On another trip back I ran into an old colleague from USAID, in Kankan. We both did a double take and quickly caught up on each other’s news from the last 7 years. At the end of our conversation he smiled and told me that he thinks of me everyday. When I had gone home to the states for my brother’s wedding I had brought back small gifts for everyone in our office. I had given him a coffee mug. Each morning he drinks his coffee out of this mug. In retrospect, I was a little anxious about going back to Guinea, all three times actually. I had felt the same thing when I went home to the states after 6 years in Guinea. Not quite reverse-reverse culture shock, but more a sense of time passing and people and places changing. Change does take place, good and bad, but there are so many things to hold on to, to remind us who we are and where we’ve been. It was sweet to go back.

Le Griot Nous Dit…

Eric Lenaeus ('97-'99) says: "I'm getting married." Eric and his bride-to-be, Laura Ader, will be married on Dec. 28 2002 in Atlanta. It's going to be a small wedding.

On Being a Lazy Childless Husbandless Freak

by Ann Ingraham

In my village, Kanfarande, women's roles are so confining, they make Victorian American society look liberated. Women work all day taking care of the children, preparing rice, and generally keeping the house or hut and family together (as often is the case all over the world, only in America there's microwaves and jobs outside the home). There's two midwives, the excisor, the blue gum tattooer, fish smokers, clay pot makers, traditional healers, lots of market ladies, but almost all women are first and foremost – childbearer and caretaker, food preparer, and wife. I happen to be the only white American within my sous-prefecture (besides the missionaries on a faraway island that I've never seen). So as much as I kiss babies and suffer the consequences of holding diaperless infants and gently stuff rice into their scantily toothed mouths and coo and scold toddlers and shuffle them out of my hut and keep babies from eating rocks and dirt and zip pants and button shirts and tickle, I'm not a mother, I'm not a wife, and let's face it – I'm a freak. And I can't really talk about it because my Soso is that of a rich child. I can buy everything at the market in Soso, but ask me to describe how I feel and I'm like my boyfriend when I ask him, "Tell me what you're feeling?" The blank look, the confusion are all there and I just put my head in my hands and cry invisible silent tears. I watch as my head explodes and then piece together the jagged, slippery, bony pieces. Sometimes I pretend to be a Guinean mother. I strap a baby to my back and swing my hips and pound rice (for a minute until my hands bleed) and furiously scrub my clothes on the washboard, but after a while I'm bored and it all seems silly and I have no husband to feed. So I sit and wonder what to do with myself – the lazy, childless, husbandless freak. I'll look around and see a big group of women in bright, flowing colorful clothes. They're always animated and adamant speaking in Soso. It's all so important and I understand as many words as a well trained dog, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, money, blah, blah, blah, Fatou, blah, blah, blah, that's not good, blah, blah, blah, black teeth, blah, blah, Mohammed Keita." It goes on and on. Or they'll be laughing and braiding each other's hair or pounding rice or preparing sauce. They are together happily working and my hair is too slippery to braid and I can't cook and my Soso is stilted and limited. So I sit and smile for awhile, maybe put some Maggi in the sauce or hold a baby. Sometimes I feel like an uninvited girl at a junior high slumber party that is tolerated because your mom said to be nice. Briefly she's a conversation piece. She's wearing some weird shoes or a brand from Kmart or something equally as appalling. But, eventually the group grows bored with the mockery and goes back to making prank calls. It would be easier to disregard my freaky status if I could delve into my work. Maybe shut myself in an office with a computer, but this sorta' goes against the Peace Corps idea. My job is a strange flowing thing that I'm to create and mold like clay provided by my village. But, sometimes they provide me no material and sometimes there's no material to provide and sometimes I don't want to buy the clay myself. So, I sit and wait for the next lump to be thrown my way for me to observe and help handle and shape and hope it won't explode in the kiln. So, sometimes I'm just "hanging out." You know, bonding with the villagers and I feel all the women looking at me queerly. Other times, I feel the epitome of '70s women's liberation, a single woman forging her way alone in a hostile universe, braless, my sandals flapping determinedly forward through the tall grass, my long natural hair flowing in the sea breeze. I stretch out my arms and my voice spills out more beautiful than Barbara Streisand's and I sing, "The Woman In The Moon." Then I realize that it's 1997, the end of the millennium, and I'm living in a village where female liberation means letting your wife choose what sauce she wants to prepare and I feel like a man if I wear pants and nobody's read a book by Gloria Steinem or any book for that matter, or even a street sign, let alone driven a car with the windows down and Courtney Love yelling, "I WANT TO BE THE GIRL WITH THE MOST CAKE!" from the CD player. These are definite dividing walls – with cracks. As happily independent and single I am, I can't help loving babies. Okay, puke. And I feel left out with all the women flaunting their lactating breasts. Mine don't do that! I think about having something feeding off my body to live. I like the idea of playing God. Creating. I mean, men say things to make you feel like food. "I love the way you taste." "I want to lick you and suck you." "You're yummy." I could go on, but I'll spare you. It is a powerful feeling. Like you are capable of satisfying them or putting them to bed without supper. But, it's all quite figurative. They'll live without you. If you give them the boot, they'll buy a pizza and a 6 pack of Bud, watch the Tyson match, and be fine tomorrow. But, when a baby is growing inside you, you can't give it the boot so easily. Inside you, it feeds off of everything you feel, do, and consume. When it's born, you create its food in your body and sustain it. This amazes me. And I wonder, if I never have a child can I ever be that close to playing God? Can I ever have that much power over another human being? And do I want to, really? As fun as it sounds in the short term. A child is for as long as you or it lives. That could be the rest of your life. Fuck! (or maybe not) Guinean little girls tie rocks to their backs to simulate babies or even more disturbingly, they strap their small school chalkboards to their backs. Chalkboards that they should be writing sums and words on, instead they tie them to their backs like a baby. That's the question, damn it! Do you have to sacrifice professional/artistic/personal achievement to have a child? Can you create as breathtakingly beautiful poetry on the chalkboard during the day if you have to strap it on your back at night? What's unfortunate is that when you want that child strapped to your back to become a chalkboard, it won't. It's a baby on your back forever until eventually you switch positions and your baby is carrying you. Too many girls give up their school chalkboards altogether to tie a real baby on their back. But, I digress–back to me–for the moment, I'm childless. But, I love babies with their rosebud mouths and beautiful tiny fingers and toes. I admire the women flaunting bellies like watermelons under their skirts. With them, I feel like a barren toad–like I should just shave my head, grab a black leather jacket, a motorcycle, a pack of chew, a switchblade, and join the Hell's Angels. Okay, so I just don't feel very womanly by Guinean standards sometimes. But, I continue to be approached by Guinean men. The underlying reasons could be scrutinized while drinking many bottles of Skol. I'll scratch the surface here. Maybe – could it be they want, a VISA, hot American sex, my huge Peace Corps salary? No, my mom always said, it's my charming personality? Anyway, I'm constantly bombarded with "fun" innuendoes from the leaders of the village. "I'll spend the night in your hut tonight. Prepare the bed." "Ooooh, look at those hips!" "Tell your boyfriend if he comes, I will beat him up." "You don't want me to come tonight? A man is a man." With my strangeness comes a lot of attention. I, that look the quintessential little wholesome Midwestern girl next door who likes poetry, a little like Molly McButter in a black turtleneck, am suddenly exotic. Something I've always wanted to be since being called cute from birth until the present. Suddenly, I'm exotic and the random love letters and pictures I've been sent and propositions and declarations of love and pleading men has just been flowing towards me nonstop. It's like I'm trapped in a shower stall with a video camera on me and someone else has control of the water. The water keeps flowing and flowing and sometimes it's freezing cold and sometimes it's boiling hot and sometimes it's warm and comforting, but through it all there's that strange connaissance that you are being watched naked and wincing or screaming or cooing with pleasure or cursing and grimacing and jerking awkwardly by a huge group of random people. Sometimes, I want to get out of the shower, put on my robe, and watch 90210 alone with a towel turban on my head and a cup of Bosco. My boyfriend has none of this. Women call him "Mista'" and maybe ask him for mayonnaise once in a while. It's not easy being a lazy, childless, husbandless, freak.