First Letter to Linda Becker's 1998-99 class at Mast Way School in Lee, New Hampshire
September 28, 1998
 

Hello to all! I'm a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea, West Africa, and I'll be writing to you this year. I hope to get a lot of letters from you, too, since life in the village gets pretty lonely.

I'm a Public Health/Community Development volunteers, which means I can take on a variety of roles. I give health talks in the Health Center on diarrhea, family planning, AIDS, etc., and train local people to do health education. According to the needs of the community, I can arrange midwife trainings, latrine building, school building, educational events, and other numerous possibilities.

Most of those possibilities never come to pass, however, since there is a lack of motivated people who want to begin projects with me. This is a problem all over Africa, but especially in Guinea. People here want all of the things we have in the U.S., but wait languidly for their government to do something rather than taking it in hand to do themselves.

But I really came into the Peace Corps to see what life was like, on the ground, in Africa. I also wanted to help people, but I set off more in the spirit of cultural exchange.

And what is life like here? Well, I live in a small village with no running water or electricity. The next big town, which is fairly developed, is 11 miles away but the road is so rocky it takes 1-1/4 hours to reach it by bush taxi. I'm lucky, because about 3-5 taxis come in and out of my village each day. The taxi leaves when enough passengers show up to fill it (4 in the backseat, 3 in the front). Many villages only have taxis once a week, on market day.

When I look out my door I see our dusty market with a few corrugated-iron roofed shacks selling bread and tomato paste, plus other essentials like pens and gum. Beyond it rise green and relatively unpopulated hills. The lowlands are dotted with palm trees.

I live in a corrugated-iron roofed concrete block house. I live in one of three adjoining 2-room apartments. Next door is a similar building. This is the "fonctionnaire" housing - for government officials. I'm a fairly important figure in the town. I can never forget the privilege of my background or the color of my skin here. There is a word for foreigner (or, more specifically, "white person") in each local language. I've managed to get most of the kids here to stop calling at me: "Porto! Porto!", and to call me by my village name - Aicha. But whenever I leave Wawaya, even grown men call after me, "Porto!". It is a source of deep irritation and hurt.

The official language here is French. There are several local languages, which people break into immediately when conversing among themselves. Only educated people speak French. I speak French, some Pulaar/Fulani, and a tiny bit of Susu. It has really helped me to get closer to people here, to speak a few words of their language.

Well, that's all for now. I'm too hot (it's about 95 degrees) to keep writing.
Take care!

Stephanie