14 June 1995

It's been a while since I've written so I guess it's time for an update. The last week of May I took a trip to Kankan in the eastern part of the country. A gruelling 36-hour voyage by "bush taxi" (a Peugeot station wagon with eleven passengers) which I don't think I will repeat. Kankan is the second-biggest city in Guinea. While I was there I saw lot of other volunteers, most of whom had gathered like myself for a going-away party for Mara, the volunteer with the record for the longest stay in Guinea -- almost four years. (The standard stint is two years.) We all had a great time.

Haute Guinee (Upper Guinea), as the area around Kankan is called, impressed me mostly as flat and monotonous. I was glad to have seen it primarily because it made me appreciate my own region of Guinea, the Fouta Djallon highlands, that much more.

 When I got back to Maci, I got a kitten. His name is Colorado. My health center colleague Cece Gbilimou cannot understand why I would do such a bizarre thing as keep a cat around the house. Cece is from the forest region, where a house cat would likely be eaten for dinner. Oh well. Halimatou from the sewing group in Kambaco understands me. Every time she comes over she asks for him, and he usually ends up falling asleep in her lap. He is really cute, with big eyes just like those dimestore pictures of kittens. I feed him canned sardines, which are a little expensive. As he gets older I will wean him onto rice and sauce.

Speaking of Colorado, the district of Kambaco has asked me if they could rename a village after my home town. I suggested Colorado (rather than Brooklyn) and they said they would get together to decide what village would receive the honor and then let me know. Then they'll give me a piece of paper when it is all official. I don't quite know what to think about it, but I guess it must be quite a compliment or maybe they are trying to butter me up for something.

Since then I have been mostly hanging around the sewing group. It is going really well so far (knock on wood). We have sold a few boubous, the proceeds of which have gone into the group's kitty. (A "boubou" is a traditional formal outfit of flowing robes with lots of embroidery. Sort of the West African version of a business suit.) Saikou is building up a stock of ready-to-wear clothes. When we have enough, Halimatou will take them to Conakry and sell them wholesale. Saikou figures that just selling boubous wholesale, we can make about a 45% profit over materials. I'm psyched. Saikou's got a couple of guys from town helping him in the studio and they are turning out stuff like nobody's business. I warned Saikou we can't pay these guys. It is ruled out in the funding application and anyway I don't want the co-op to become just an employment opportunity for professional tailors. (It is supposed to provide job training for local women and girls.) Saikou is vague about the terms under which they are working there. Perhaps he figures he can pay them under the table and keep it off the books. Who knows what murky understanding he has with them. I don't mind. I am trying to keep hands off as much as possible. As long as the co-op makes money and spends it for the good of the group, I'm satisfied. As for Saikou, there is nothing he hasn't done for the project.

Although the studio hasn't been formally inaugurated, I have made a point of dragging people out to Kambaco to see it. My friend Aboubacar, who was a tailor in Liberia for years, was very impressed. He says it is better than any tailoring studio in Pita. He is talking it up all over Pita for us. Maria, my APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director -- my boss in Conakry) came out to see it and bought a boubou. Some missionary friends from Pita did the same. Then I got a letter from another missionary, Jill, who runs a clothing store in Labe. She saw the outfit the Pita missionary bought, and liked the embroidery so much she wants to order ten embroidered shirts for a trip to the States in July. If they go over, who knows -- we might be in the export market! Saikou and I are going up to see her about it tomorrow.

I've ordered a few things from the studio myself, including a couple of pairs of pleated trousers. I like the trousers so much I think I might try Saikou on a three-piece suit. The trousers were six dollars. The suit might run me thirty or forty dollars at the outside. He says it would be no problem. I'm still trying to get my nerve up. I'll tell you one thing: organizing a sewing cooperative sure solves the problem of finding a tailor. Every volunteer should do it.

 I've been feeling rather poorly the last few days. I am reasonable certain I have a slight case of malaria. I made the blood sample slides like I was supposed to and took the prescribed medicine; now I am waiting to start feeling better. Later when I can have someone look at the slide, we'll find out if was really malaria or not. It is an irritating illness. I don't have enough energy to do much of anything, but it is hard to sleep. So I am sitting around being apathetic. Plus I seem to have picked up some amoebas in Kankan and at the same time they found that I also tested positive for "intestinal flukes" -- whatever they are. I would probably rather not know. So now I am sitting around and taking all this medicine, the main side effect of which is that it makes everything I eat taste like metal. Yuck. The thing is, this only happens when I leave the Fouta to go to Kankan or Conakry. When I stay home I stay healthy.

The big overarching news from Guinea is the national legislative elections, the oft-promised follow-up to the presidential elections eighteen months ago. They passed off without mishap last Sunday. there have been some reports of irregularities, but nothing more than can be put down to incompetent officials and overzealous supporters. 137 opposition supporters were arrested in Kankan, but they all snuck out of prison one morning while the soldiers were at roll call. They were later full of praise for the commander of the garrison who let it be known that their arrest was not his idea, and bought them all cigarettes besides. The general unspoken assumption is that their "escape" was just his way of letting them go.

 I went down to the primary school on Sunday to watch the vote for a while before going back home to bed. It was interesting: each voter had to cast two ballots: one for a candidate and one for a list of parties. Like some European voting systems, I think. So there were two sets of ballots, two voting booths, two ballot boxes, etc. They actually got the voters to line up in two lines, one of men and one of women. Then they let them through one at a time. It actually seemed pretty organized, although they were working hard to keep things on track. It seemed like someone was perpetually trying to put the right ballot in the wrong ballot box, or to stuff through the little slot in the top of the box a wadded-up ballot envelope that could not possibly fit. Or dropping their ballots and having to scrabble through the discarded ballots ankle-deep on the floor to find the right one. Or wandering out the door with their ballot paper in their hand, not knowing what they were supposed to do with it. You could see that they have not had many elections here.

Mr. Dioulde, the sub-prefectural education director (in charge of the local teachers) and Madame Fatou, in charge of the health center, were in charge of the voting station. They had five or six people distributing ballots to the voters, making sure they ended up in the right box, and all that. They had representatives of the two locally dominant parties watching to make sure it was all on the up-and-up. (There are 46 parties in all.) After I left, I heard that some Europeans, representatives of some watchdog commission or other, had dropped by and peeked in on things. It all went very smoothly.

One sour note to the elections, though. The community secretary, who knows I have been talking to the people in Donghol about a school (I have also discussed it with the president of the local Rural Development Committee), came up to me today and told me I shouldn't undertake any projects to help people who "are not with the government;" that is to say, who did not vote for the ruling party. Some nerve. I guess Donghol must be some kind of opposition stronghold, which probably explains why they don't have a school already. Unfortunately, African democracy often owes more to Richard Daley than to Thomas Jefferson. But to think he wants to sign me up to his plan to punish Donghol and other sectors that did not vote for the P.U.P. by withholding development assistance -- I could hardly believe my ears. It is probably just as well I have malaria, or I might have had the energy to say something unfortunate. In the event I decided to wait and discuss it with the RDC president, who will hopefully understand how inappropriate that suggestion was.

My goodness, I'm mad again just thinking about it. Well, it'll probably blow over -- these things generally do. It's just one more thing I have to be careful about now. Not letting myself be manipulated into only working in districts that support the government party. I asked the RDC president for the election results. He said I could get them from the sub-prefect when he got back from Pita. I'm going to write them down, district by district, so I'll know. Well that's all for now. Sorry if this letter seems a little spacey. Put it down to the fever. I'm also sorry for the funky paper, but I am out of my fancy grid paper and I haven't been able to get to Labe to get more. This is all I can get in Maci. Happy July 4 and everything.

Love, Woody

23 January 1996

Dear Mom & Dad;

        Greetings from Maci. Today is the first day of Ramadan, the
holy month of fasting and atonement for all muslims. For the faithful who
keep the fast, including everyone in Maci except small children and me, no
food or drink is to be taken between sunrise and sunset. People here have a
special wrinkle they throw in: they refrain as well from swallowing
their spit. All day long people are spitting out long streams of saliva
everywhere.

        Besides small children, the Koran specifically excuses sick
people from fasting, as well as pregnant women and nursing mothers. In
principle, in fact, anyone who doesn't feel up to it is excused. But here in the
Fouta, everybody fasts, period. Needless to say, it is not the
healthiest thing for a woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy. I have been trying
to introduce the idea that pregnant women shoul not fast, but no luck so
far.We will start seeing the first miscarriages and premature births
here at the health center in a few days.

        Such frustrations aside, things in Maci might just possibly be
looking up. We have a new sub-prefect, who seems to be a very dynamic
and ambitious guy, in contrast to the last one, who was a complete cipher.
He makes a big point about wanting all the officials and functionaries in
the sub-prefecture (among whom he counts me) to work together in a
transparent and open manner. It's a little hard to believe; a little too good to be
true. Yet when I went up to his office yesterday to show him a couple
of school projects I had started working on; he jumped right on them. I
have to admit I was a little taken aback; I'm not used to working with
Guinean authorities who actually give a damn about anything. I'm reserving
judgement until I see how he actually follows through on things, but so
far I am encouraged.

        The co-op in Kambaco is still coming along, although not to the
extent I had hoped. Sales are slow, even on the wholesale market;
motivation of the members is flagging, and their training is
progressing slowly. However, soon we hope to make our first series of purchases
with the proceeds from the atelier; and as the members see, by and by, that
they are benefitting materially from the work they are doing, I hope to see
their motivation improve.

        I am also working on an interesting projected with Dr. Maladho
Bah of the prefectural health administration. We are designing a week-long
seminar on AIDS for the health center staffs of the twelve
sub-prefectures and other representatives of the communities. Peace Corps Guinea is in
general trying to get less involved in building things and more
involved in teaching and training, and we hope that this could be a pilot project.
I already have had a very positive response from Conakry, and as soon as
we have a firm budget established, I'll try to find some money to fund it.
(The main expenses are in the form of transportation for the 40
participants, who have to travel in from the sub-prefectures; a per
diem of $5/day since here in Guinea nobody will attend a seminar unless you pay
them to do so; and the most expensive item-food and drink for the daily
lunch break.)

        That's about all that's new for the moment. As usual I have a
million and one little things going on, but maybe I'll save them for my
next letter. I hope you are all well, in good health, etc. Write soon  and
tell me what is new with you.

        Love,

Woody

5 May 1996

Dear Mom & Dad;

        Greetings from Guinea, the pearl of West Africa. Pardon me for
using the blue pen as I know black is easier to read on this grid
paper, but it is the only one I have with me and I want to get this letter off
with someone who is leaving for Conakry today. In fact if I have to
break off abruptly, it is because they have come for my letter.  Last week was the Feast of Tabaski, and a great number of  people who claim Maci as their ancestral home but who live elsewhere came back
to visit their families and pass the holiday together. This to be followed  by
a big meeting on Friday to discuss the development priorities of the sub-prefecture and try to make some positive decisions. In order that Allah should smile upon the development of Maci,
they spent the entire day and night leading up to the meeting in holding  special prayers and ceremonies in all the major mosques and, notably, in  performing several large sacrificial feasts for which countless goats, sheep and  cows were slaughtered. The platters of food prepared numbered in the
hundreds, maybe the thousands. It all culminated in a night spent reading the
entire Koran out loud in the main mosque in Maci. It was attended by hundreds
of people. In all, it was a very impressive example of public
mobilization.

        I was invited to participate in the big meeting the next day,
but Iknew it would be held entirely in Pulaar (no matter what they might
tell me in advance) and I wouldn't be able to follow except in the most general
way.

        Well -- my friends are here and they are in a hurry. I'll try
to write another letter tomorrow and finish the story. Know anyway that I
am well, things are going well, and if I am writing less often lately it
is because I am more busy than ever. So long; I'll write again right away.

        So -- it is two days later and I will try to finish the story.
They wanted me to go to this big meeting, and I didn't really want to. I had
something I wanted to do in Pita on Friday. They asked me at least to
address the meeting before I left for Pita. So I told them, if I were
to address the meeting it would be to ask the following question:  Why had
all these thousands of dollars (millions  of francs -- I heard estimates
from two to ten million) been spent of sacrifices and ceremonies to seek
God's benediction for the development of Maci, when they could have actually
been used to do something for Maci such as digging wells, building a school,
or even installing a solar electric system in the health center? They
agreed I should go to Pita instead.

        It seems people can always be counted on to mobilize and
contribute their resources for a religious purpose (or a social one), but when it
comes to investing in the future of their community it is a different
story. If Guinea is any example, the only difference between rich and
poor countries is in the management of their resources.

        As I write, the dry season has not broken yet, and I am
beginning to hear people remark upon it. It rained a couple of times in April,
but since then, nothing. The wind continues to blow hot and dry out of the
northeast, and in the afternoon the sun gets uncomfortably hot. I feel
dehydrated all the time. Plus I feel dirty. The dust gets into
everything. When I wash my hair, the water that rinses out of it is brown. Even so,
the land is remarkably green. Right now is the peak of the mango and papaya
season, and the trees are laden with fruit in a voluptuous display of
abundance.
       
        My friend Alpha Mabiri's grandfather passed away last week. He
was a highly respected old man, with a reputation for wisdom and learning.
I made one of my rare visits to the mosque for the funeral. However I
failed to anticipate how crowded it would be and had to pray on the gravel
outside with the other latecomers. The funeral was at 2:00 in the afternoon,
and the gravel had had ample opportunity to bake in the sun all day. And of
course Moslem prayers are always recited barefoot. So there was nothing
for it; I had to stand on the burning hot gravel until the prayers were
over. Any other alternative would have caused great embarrassment at a very
solemn occasion. There were plenty of other people in the same
situation, but it didn't bother the villagers at all. Their feet are hard as
nails. As for me, I think I've had enough of the mosque for awhile. A week later,
my feet are still sore. Alpha Mabiri is getting married tomorrow, to a
second wife. He didn't really want to; he has been happily married to
Habibatou for 18 years and had no intention of taking a second wife; but he is in
a difficult situation. Since his father died a few months ago (he's also
lost his uncle and a younger sister in the last few months -- it's been a
rough season), he has become responsible as eldest son for his father's three
widows and the rest of the family down in his natal village of Mabiri.
However his wife and children need to stay at his compound in Maci
Centre so the kids can attend school (Mabiri is too far). Poor Alpha spends
all of his time running back and forth. It is about an hour each way by foot.
What he really needs is a second wife down there in Mabiri who can keep an
eye on things for him. His family was leaning on him to marry again, and
recently Habibatou weighed in on their side. When he consented, she
even helped to make the arrangements, approaching the family on Alpha's
behalf to obtain their consent (what would traditionally be his father's
role). Everyone thinks it was quite a gesture on Habi's part. Jealousy usually
goes hand in hand with polygamy, but she able to quite rise above it.

        At least the girl (she is sixteen) Alpha is marrying is happy
with the situation. In fact it was she who proposed to him. This is not as
uncommon as one might think here in the Fouta. Sometimes a marriage is
arranged by the parents of the two families, but it is often initiated
by the couple themselves, and it is not considered untoward for the woman
to approach the man first. What does seem strange, however, is that it is
considered immoral for two people to marry if they are already friends,
and even more immoral if they have dated. If you are engaged to someone,
you are not supposed to socialize with them. My friend D.T.O., an executive
with an international N.G.O., told me his first engagement was broken
off when the girl's father happened to see a picture of the two of them
together at the beach. Once it was established that they already knew
each other, marriage was out of the question.

        Okay, that's all for now. I am at the DPS for a planning
meeting as I write this, and everyone has finally arrived. I'll break this letter
off and take it back up again later.

---

        It is now the next day. The meeting I was having with the DPS
(Directeur Prefectoral de la Sante, or Prefectoral Health Director, in
charge of all the doctors in the prefecture) was about the planning for
our AIDS seminar. In fact it has turned into more than a seminar: a
multi-faceted project of which the seminar is only one part. Before the
end of May, STD-AIDS committees will be set up in each of the eleven
subprefecture in Pita. Then in July we will hold a five day seminar for
them, which will end with each committee establishing a three-month
action plan which, upon approval, will receive funding for logistical support.
At the end of these three months will be an overall evaluation followed by
new 3-month action plans. I will be gone by then, but the ball will be
rolling.

        We have had a stroke of luck in getting this project funded.
What happened was that our seminar proposal found its way to an NGO called
Population Services International (PSI) at just the moment they were
looking for a new way to promote AIDS publicity and education. In past
years they have tried to do this by funding the National AIDS Comittee,
a creature of the Health Ministry that manages, like any other Guinean
government department, to swallow up its entire budget in overhead
expenses without actually doing anything. PSI, itself funded by USAID and
dominant in Guinea in AIDS education and family planning, was looking for a way
to fund activities on the regional or local level when they received the
proposal I helped the Pita AIDS Committee to draw up. They pounced on
it like a tiger, and have already decided to use it as a national model,
starting with a pilot test in Pita. The Pita Committee, the DPS and I
are all very excited. The National Committee is in a big snit that their
money tap is to be turned off. They are trying in Conakry to prevent the
project from getting off the ground. However PSI has enough clout and
credibility, plus a great track record, to be able to deal with the National
Committee. Anyway, the Committee still has a budget from the World Health
Organization
for its directors to steal from.

        I hope I don't sound too cynical, but it is a universally
recognized fact of life in Guinea that the government exists solely to
provide a system by which the elite can embezzle money. It is the type
of government that has led to the invention of the word, "kleptocracy." On
the other hand I must say that my DPS and his team are really exemplary;
they are committed, hardworking and sincere. I have been working with them
more and more lately, and it is a real pleasure because we all have the same
goals.

        Enough about that. Today was Alpha Mabiri's wedding, and I went
down to Mabiri to attend. A wedding in the village is an all-day
affair, and like everything else it revolves around the preparation and
consumption of food. The cooking began early in the morning, and as the guests
began to arrive, prodigious amounts of rice and sauce began to appear. They
disappeared soon enough.

        Last night I noticed that the wind direction had changed from
the northeast to the southwest, the direction from which moist ocean air
flows inland during the rainy season. Sure enough, it was lightly overcast
this morning and as the day wore on, thunderheads could be seen building to
the north and south. We had a couple of sprinkles in the early afternoon,
and as the climax of the wedding approached, a real storm cut loose,
driving everyone onto porches and inside houses. This was considered all around
as a tremendous blessing upon the marriage, especially since the rains
have been so late in coming.

        At the climax of the wedding, the bride is "kidnapped" from her
village and carried off to her new home. (This ritual seems common to
many cultures; I have read of it being observed even in China.) She is
completely veiled and pretends to cry. In reality, sometimes she really
is crying, because she may not have had any say in the marriage and may
not desire it at all. Happily of course, that was not the case today. The
groom, by tradition, hides himself at the moment of the bride's
arrival. No one seemed able to explain to me the reason for this part of the
custom.

        Anyway in the middle of the downpour, an advance party from
Oumayatou's village arrived to warn of her arrival. They were all
soaked to the bone. Alpha ran around to the side of the house and locked himself
in a storeroom. Minutes later the rest of the party arrived, with one of the
men carrying the ostensible kidnap victim on his back, as customary.
Everyone dashing through the rain and thunder, as wet as if they had been
swimming with their clothes on. A couple of men brought out antique shotguns and
fired them into the air in celebration. This too is traditional. All
the hullabaloo, the gunshots, the thunder and the noise of the rain on the
metal roof combined to to make it quite a moment. Then the bride was brought inside and cloistered away, Alpha came out of his hiding place,
and we all ate more rice, rather as though we were drinking a toast.

        After a while the rain started to clear, and as it was getting
on toward dusk I left with some others to go back to Maci Centre. However
it looked like like a party was laid on for the evening. Other guests were
continuing to arrive, and Alpha had even brought down the old
electrical generator he has and strung up light bulbs. They are probably dancing
down there tonight in that little village as I write this.

        I can't help remarking again what a positive omen the rain
seemed for the marriage. We are all hoping it was not an isolated phenomenon,
but indicates the beginning of the rainy season.

Love,

Woody

29 June 1996

        Greetings from the Fouta. Rainy season is moving into full
swing and everybody is out in the fields growing the rice and cassava they
will eat for the rest of the year. It really is beautiful this time of year.
I have always known that I would be leaving Guinea at the height of the
rainy season, and I am glad I will remember it this way.

        Rainy season is also malaria season and flu season of course.
The health center is very busy. I saw a little girl with whooping cough the
other day. Something you don't see often at home. Unfortunately all the
health centers are desperately low on medications. In a related
development the Guinean health minister has, after initial denials, admitted the
truth of a report on French radio that more than a million dollars in health
funds has disappeared without a trace. This scandal, though
unremarkable by itself in Guinean terms, comes on the heels of the announcement of a
government anti-corruption campaign. Apparently the military mutiny in
February convinced the president that public discontent was getting out
of hand and he was in danger of going the way of the presidents of
Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia (deposition in a military coup) unless he
cleaned things up. In April he made a remarkably honest television
speech, castigating the corruption of his own administration and promising to
put in place a special commission to investigate corruption in public
administration.

        The country was generally pretty skeptical, considering that
the president is considered the crookedest member of the whole crooked
bunch. Stories abound of secret midnight shipments of gold buillon to the
border of neighboring Guinea-Bissau. One time, they say, his own wife was
arrested by French police for trying to smuggle diamonds through the airport in
Paris. He was obliged to go there himself to get her released. When he
was accused of stealing government money to finance his re-election
campaign, he responded, "That's where I work. Where do you want me to get it?"

        So far the anti-corruption campaign has had two notable
results. The first is to bring down the roadblocks on the national roads. These
roadblocks are manned by the Gendarmerie, or national police,
ostensibly for the purpose of checking for proper documentation of vehicles and
travellers. In reality they function as freelance tollbooths as nobody,
papers or no papers, gets through without paying a bribe. (Except for
Western development workers like myself who are excused by tacit
understanding.) They can't actually arrest someone if they have the
right papers, but they can pull them over to check and simply not get around
to letting them go on their way. Anyone who doesn't pay the bribe is
liable to spend the night there. If they try to leave without permission, they
can and will be arrested, possibly beaten and thrown in jail.

        Anyway, a recent announcement on national radio said that these
roadblocks were to come down. Sure enough, when I went to the Thursday
market in Pita last week, there was no roadblock on either side of
town. Maybe the Gendarmerie are going to have to start living on their
salaries. It will certainly save drivers and travellers a lot of time and
trouble. Just between Pita and Conakry you can get stopped a half-dozen times,
and traffic backs up behind each roadblock as the drivers and gendarmes
negotiate the terms of each bribe.

        (A Cameroonian acquaintance told me of a recent trip he took to
Bamako, the capital of Mali, with a group of Guinean associates. While
driving around the city they were pulled over by police and the Malian
driver went back to confer with the policeman. When he returned, the
Guineans in the car asked him, "How much did you have to give him?" The
Malian driver informed them indignantly that he was not so foolish as
to offer money to a policeman. You get in a lot of trouble for that. The
Guineans looked at each other in surprise. In Guinea, you get in
trouble for not offering money.)

        The other notable result of the anti-corruption campaign has
been the customs fire. Two days before an investigative commission was to
begin its inquiry into the customs office of the international port in
Conakry, possibly the most notorious bed of corruption and graft in the entire
country, the second story of the customs building was destroyed in a
fire of suspicious origin. The accounting department and all of its records
went up in smoke. Now the notorious Colonel Bangoura, the head of the
customs service, is going around belligerently challenging anyone who accuses
him of corruption to back up his claims with evidence. A pretty safe
challenge,now that the evidence has been burned.

        One minor incident has been the suspension of the prefect of
Beyla, who is apparently responsible for diverting $25,000 collected from the
population there for the government's biggest pet project, the
hydroelectric dam at Garafiri. This is really a positive sign as in the
past, cases such as this or the million dollars missing from the health
ministry budget would have just been quietly swept under the rug with a
few well-placed bribes or "gifts." Perhaps indeed the government is serious
about cleaning up the public administration, as unlikely as this would
seem in the West African context in general and the Guinean context in
particular. If they are, I certainly wish them luck. Guinea without
ubiquitous corruption would be something to see. I don't know if I
would recognize it.

        On the local level, nothing much is new. I'm spending one or
two days a week at the health center which as I said is busy. My erstwhile
collaborator Cece has become even more apathetic, if that were
possible, since was passed over for Chef de Centre de Sante back in January. I
have given up on trying to teach him the principle of putting the
vaccination files in order by date of birth. He'll never get it in a hundred years.
I just go through them first thing in the morning and put them back in
order before the patients start arriving. It's a pain, but it saves me
spending a half-hour looking for the file every time a mother shows up with a kid
to be vaccinated.
       
        On two recent inspection visits, Cece got yelled at for
re-using needles in vaccinations (Guinea is beginning to discover AIDS) and came
hair's breadth from having his government motorcycle taken away for his
stupendously chaotic management of the leprosy/tuberculosis program in
the health center. His bosses are finally figuring out how worthless he is.
Of course he'll never lose his job; functionaries are simply not fired in
Guinea. It goes without saying that he'll never change either. To think
they once considered making him Chef de Centre. That would have been
scary.

        On the other hand, I really enjoy working with the new Chef de
Centre, Dr. Bobo. He is an interesting guy, intelligent and well-read
(the only Guinean I ever met who could discuss Taoism), hard-working, proud
of
his competence, and polite. Meeting him in Guinea has been like coming
across an alien from outer space. He put in a well next to the health
center at his own out-of pocket expense; an improvement never even
contemplated by the local authorities. Now he wants to plant pine trees
around the building. We have spent many hours working together on my
project of an expanded six-tape version of the Pulaar public health
information cassette. Sort of an African version of a home medical
encyclopedia. He is as enthusiastic about it as I am, which never fails
to amaze me. It is certainly refreshing to work with somebody who has such
a positive attitude.  (Maybe he feels the same way.) I am only sorry that
he arrived here so late in my stay in Maci, and that I am so busy with
other projects that I can't really initiate anything very ambitious with him.

        Well that's about all for now. I hope this letter finds you
well and enjoying summer in Colorado. It is a little strange to think of it
being summer, as here in Guinea the season is cool and rainy and is in
fact referred to as "hivernage" (French for "winter"). But then that's only
the least of the dislocations of living here. I'm looking forward to
getting home in about three months, as much as I know I'm going to miss Guinea
and at least some Guineans. Still I have a lot to do before I leave and am
working hard on finishing it all up. Wish me luck. I'd better go.

30 June 1996

        Today was an unremarkable day. This morning at 8:00 a.m.
Mouctar showed up at my door. I was still getting dressed and he had already
hiked all the way from Kambaco. He's Saikou's star student and assistant in
the literacy group out there. He said Saikou was sick with a sore throat
and did I have any medicine?

        I gave him some cough drops I had and recommended tea with
lemon. I also recommended he gargle with salt water. I had to look up the French
word for "gargle" (se gargariser) and demonstrate for Mouctar what it
meant. He thought it was pretty hilarious. I told him Saikou probably
had the flu but if his sore throat lasted more than three days, he should
come in and get checked for strep.

        Mouctar brought a little notebook with him and asked me to set
up a sales register for the condoms I brought them last week. We had
discussed the group becoming a sales outlet for Prudence condoms as part of the
AIDS campaign, and Saikou had designated Mouctar and Ramatoulaye to be in
charge of the enterprise. Mouctar for the guys and Ramatou for the girls. Then
I brought back the carton of condoms from Labe and presented them with
it, along with a little demonstration using bananas to show how to put the
condom on correctly. I told them they would have to actively promote
the condoms and they couldn't do it if they were shy about talking about
sex. I made them repeat the demonstration for me and as an exercise had them
tell me all the dirty words they knew in Pulaar. They were pretty reticent.

        I asked Mouctar today as I was drawing up the sales register
(Saikou was supposed to do it, but I guess he didn't feel up to it) how
the promotion was going. He said they hadn't sold any yet, but he had
talked to about ten people about it. Unfortunately Ramatoulaye, who is younger
and much more shy, hadn't gotten up the courage yet. I hadn't really
thought that Ramatoulaye was such a great choice; she is too demeure. There is
another girl in the group, Oumou, who is away visiting her family in
Conakry but may be back in a few days. She is more outgoing and I have
used her and Mouctar together for health education in the schools. When she
gets back we will have her take over from Ramatoulaye.

        I finished the sales register and gave it back to Mouctar. The
idea is for it to be self-sustaining:  they will keep track of the number of
condoms sold ($.05 for a packet of two-subsidized by USAID) and the
money they make, and when most of the condoms are gone they will give me the
money for another carton and I will get it for them.

        When Mouctar left, I hiked out to N'Dantary (12
kilometers-about two hours) to visit with Amadou Sara, the local health worker in the
dispensary there. I brought him a carton of condoms too. (I have also placed a carton with Dr. Balde in the N'Dire dispensary, and one with Mamadou Alpha, one of the storekeepers in Maci Centre.) I am trying to  do at least something to make condoms available in the subprefecture
before I leave. They are of course essential, not only as a means of birth
control, but to fight the spread of AIDS.

        I also brought my little tape recorder with me out to
N'Dantary, so Amadou Sara and I could work on the Pulaar public-health cassette I'm
putting together. We managed to record all of the chapter on hygiene.
Eight chapters down, four to go. I might actually finish this before I leave.
When it is finished it will be six cassettes, with one chapter on each
side of each cassette. There will be a considerable amount of unused space
on the cassettes, but it will be simpler to use this way.

        (We are working from a UNICEF/WHO public health manual called
Facts for Life in English but better known in Guinea in the French version,
Savoir pour sauver. I managed through a Guinean acquaintance who works
at the National Literacy Service to get a pre-publication copy of the new
Pulaar translation, Aandugol fii Daandugol, and this is what we are
using to record the cassettes.)

        Amadou Sara showed me three of the fluorescent light bulbs of
our beloved solar-electric system that have burned out. We'll have to go to
the supplier in Labe to get them replaced. Now normally the Health Center
Management Committee would be responsible for this, but in Maci this
committee, as with many other things, basically exists in name only.
They were supposed to re-elect the committee six months ago, but the
authorities never seem to get around to it. So I'll go to my friend Sani, who is
from N'Dantary and managed the construction of the dispensary for me, and
ask him to take care of it. If he doesn't do anything I'll bitch and moan
to the Chef de Centre and try to get the district president to take care
of it. If still nothing happens, well, it's their damn clinic, not mine.
It they want it to fall apart, there's not much I can do to stop them.

        I hiked back from N'Dantary in the afternoon, getting lost
twice. Everything looks different because the fields have been burned and
turned over for planting. I thought I knew the way blindfolded but all the
landmarks have changed.

        Well, my bucket bath is hot now, so I'm going to go and wash.
Then I'll have my nightcap of vodka (cheap French stuff I get in Labe) and
go to bed. I'm thinking of you.