Guinea Took Me Away or Checkpoints and Bumps On the Head

Let me first say that I wish I hadn’t bothered to lug that ridiculous SLR to Guinea. I used to love taking photographs with my old Nikon but on this trip I found it to be limited and cumbersome. It is sad to admit I guess but the convenience of digital is hard to give up. I constantly wanted to change the ASA because my 200 speed seemed too slow, I was over-burdened with the camera body and lenses and filters, and I felt like I had to contemplate ad nauseum every shot because of the limited amount of film I had and the cost of developing.

Luckily for me, some of my friends took their digital cameras. All these photos are by Alex, Ted, and Tara.

Travel in West Africa is a trip in so many different ways. My friends and I met in Kombo, crossed the River Barra on the Kanalai ferry, and traveled to Basse Santa Su which is the biggest town up-country.

There is a car-park there where one can get a car to Guinea. Getting a car is not easy. In West Africa the most commonly used mode of long-distance travel is the Peugeot 504, a station-wagon with three rows of seats designed to carry seven passengers uncomfortably. The eight of us sat in the hot and dusty car-park for hours waiting for a car to arrive. We were told that one was at the mechanic and would be finished soon but when I went to check on it the engine was hanging from a tree and there was a pool of oil collecting beneath. The day drifted as we lay across our baggage.

Car-parks are wonderfully strange places: Colorful centers of trade, street-vendors with bean sandwiches and charcoal-roasted meat, and hundreds of travelers trying to go someplace. Gaudily painted bush taxis spew exhaust waiting to fill-up with passengers while young girls peddle bananas and baggies of frozen baobab juice from plates carried on their heads. There are no time-tables in these limbic places; vehicles don’t go until every seat is sold.

The sun went down on our first day of travel and no cars came to take us. We wandered the dirt roads of Basse and found a little Nigerian-owned bar called The Lord Is King where we sipped warm JulBrew and made plans for tomorrow. Peace Corps operates a small transit house on the outskirts so we trudged out of town to crash for the night. The next morning we were up before the sun and we found a man sleeping in a 504 with Guinea license plates.

We waited around for what seemed like too long and then haggled over the price for another hour. We had to convert our Gambian dalasis into Senegalese francs and so we found black-market traders with huge calculators who give slightly better rates than banks. Finally we struck a deal with the driver but in Guinea those same 504s carry nine passengers so we were forced to pool our money and buy the last seat so that we could get going. Our driver’s name was Abdul and he had just made the 26 hour trek the night before but said he wasn’t sleepy. It’s not that he is crazy; he is just living a crazy life driving a crazy car on a crazy road. We were packed into that car like sardines and our luggage was tied to the roof with the plastic jerry cans of gasoline. Three in the way back, four in the middle, and one lucky person riding shotgun.

The road is not much of a road at all. A dirt two-track scratched into rice fields much more accommodating to donkey-carts than motor vehicles. Abdul knew every pothole and pitfall there was and drove at top speed. He was forced to swerve randomly and forcefully and we were bouncing our heads off the ceiling with every lurch and thrust of the car. We passed through countless immigration checkpoints where our passports were scrutinized and bribes were paid.

After three hours we arrived in Velingara, Senegal and Abdul turned off the engine with a shudder. We were parked at a small petrol station where car parts and Coke bottles filled with black engine oil were littered across the ground. Abdul said we needed a little work and pretty soon three men were dismantling the master cylinder. We wandered around the market and bought fried dough. Two hours passed and then we were back on the so-called road.

Eventually it became apparent that those mechanics hadn’t actually fixed the problem. We had no brakes. We raced along through the dirt with other Peugeots like we were in some weird off-road rally. They passed us, we passed them. More immigration checkpoints, more bumps on the head. Senegal seemed to fly by and soon we were entering Guinea where men tried to trick us about the exchange rate from Senegalese money into Guinean. More immigration checkpoints. Every time we got to one we had to coast in and then Abdul would turn off the engine to come to a stop. This sort of driving increased the required bribe. It’s not that it’s unsafe, it just costs a little more. Eventually we made it to the town of Kundara where our master cylinder was again dismantled. Natasha and Alex and I wandered the streets trying to find a plate of rice while Ted and Tyler bought bread with mayonnaise and Tara and Cassandra and Mai nibbled on sardines at the car. There were five men working in the dusky dust trying to get our brakes fixed and as night fell so did the rain. It poured as we huddled beneath someone’s front porch and the hours passed. Finally we were going again. There is a small ferryboat somewhere between Kundara and Labe’ that Abdul was trying to make before it closed for the night. But one of the deep ruts in the road knocked something out of whack in what was left of the car’s suspension system. By three in the morning we were parked alongside the road and Abdul was under the car banging on something with a length of pipe. An hour later he was replacing the rear axle while we took turns holding the flashlight. The brakes also had ceased to function again.

At first light we were sitting at the ferry crossing with other road-worn travelers. This was our first look at Guinea in the daylight and we were awestruck. We were standing in a small Fula village enshrouded in fog with a wide river running through it. Grass houses and the crowing of roosters and banana trees growing everywhere. The ferry was little more than a skid large enough for three vehicles. We were tethered to a cable disappearing into the mist and the muscular ferry driver pulled us across as if he’d done it his entire life. Soon we were back in the car racing along yet another stretch of corduroy and pock-marked road.

The Fouta Djalon plateau is a rolling assemblage of peaks and valleys, of stands of pine and papaya, of pastoral villages and ranging sheep. It reminded me so much of New Mexico that I felt a little homesick. We each of us was in our own sleep-deprived dream world watching the scenery present itself. Our bodies were cramped and stinky and our eyes glassy as the sun burned through the fog. Finally we reached the large town of Labe’ where we would leave Abdul’s car for another 504 that would deliver us to the smaller town of Pita. There we found small holes in the wall where rice and sauce was served with café’ touba (spiced coffee) and huge loaves of French bread. We found a market where we bought bananas and sacks of peanut butter to take with us to Hassan Bah’s village two hours into the hills.

Another Peugeot and another bumpy road took us to Douki, the small Fula village high in the heart of the wilderness. Hassan Bah’s roots are there but he grew up in Sierra Leone. Today he and his family operate a small guesthouse and he leads hiking excursions into the canyon country. Accommodations are basic: Bucket baths, pit latrines, and a thatch-roof hut for sleeping in are basically the same as back home. Hassan’s wife prepares typical West African dishes such as domoda, benachin, and findi while their children climb trees to bring oranges and mangoes.
We stayed for five nights and we hiked every day.

Some are walks into slot canyons where you can swing from vines and climb the walls, others are rim walks offering expansive views of weird rock formations and idyllic villages in the valleys below. Every hike has at least one swimming hole or waterfall and several have high cliffs from which one can dive into the racing river below. Hassan is a fun-loving man who convinces you to hang your head upside-down from a pinnacle rock to see his world from different perspectives. He has named many of the formations and so he was constantly pointing out things like Hyena’s Rock, Vulture’s Roost, and a stone spire with the profile of Elvis Presley. He sings as he hikes and extends his arms out like he is flying as we follow along behind him giggling and flapping our own wings.

In one water hole on the second day I stood beneath a waterfall and then got sucked into a fast-running whirlpool that whipped me downstream with a gulp. I must have drank a little of the river when it swallowed me because a few hours later I began to feel the telltale rumble deep in my gut. By the time we got back to Douki I was doubled over and running for the latrine. In and out I went with a dizzy head and weakening body. I was nauseous and sweating in spite of the cool night and at four in the morning I took my first dose of Ciprofloxacin, the West African traveler’s best friend. That stuff is a miracle drug and by two in the afternoon the next day I was back on the trail.

The final day we walked for almost thirty kilometers on a hike that Hassan calls Chutes and Ladders (How does he know about that game?). We descended quickly into a wide canyon following a waterfall almost the whole way down. Once in the valley, we hiked through fields of rice, sorghum, and sesame. It felt like the land of the lost, somehow even more disconnected from the world than all those other villages hiding in the hills. A woman gave us some groundnuts that she had just harvested and we nibbled on them as we rested next to the river. The ascent was exciting as we climbed up ancient sticks lashed together with vines and roots as water fell all around us. This trail is used by these bottom-dwellers as they take their crops up to deliver to market. We followed an old man and three women, each with rice and groundnuts tied in bundles balanced upon their heads. There were nine of these “ladders” and Hassan’s brother guided us where to place our hands and feet. The going seemed treacherous at times- footing was unsure because everything was slick with moss and rainwater. Sometimes it feels like you are going throuh a tiny hole into the sky. It took about three hours to climb out of there and by the time we made it back to Douki, we were all exhausted.

Hassan knows a driver who sometimes goes to Basse Santa Su and so he rode his motorcycle out the next morning to find him. He was in fact going there which saved us the headache of trying to find a driver to Pita and another to Labe and a third back to The Gambia. We had a two hour break in Pita which is a small market town with a lot of atmosphere. The French influence in West Africa is markedly different from the Gambia and it feels so different to be told “Bonjour” instead of “Toubob.” We found a small café where they sold soft serve ice cream and popcorn and we felt transported.

The drive back to The Gambia was fairly uneventful. Scenery passed by, things struck us pleasantly. We drove the hours away playing the alphabet game: Name your favorite food that you can’t get in West Africa. Checkpoints and bumps on the head. Finally we arrived in Basse where we slept the sleep of the weary traveler and then each of us departed the next morning for our next Gambian adventure.

Mine involved beekeeping trainings in a few locations further up-country from my own village. With a grant from the UK charity Feed the Minds, my friends at the National Beekeepers Association of The Gambia and some Peace Corps Volunteers are trying to teach rural farmers about beekeeping. The trek took me to three different villages where I encountered Wolofs, Fulas, and Mandinkas. Most of these people are traditionally traders, farmers, and herders. There were Peace Corps Volunteers in each of the communities which enabled us to communicate with the people. In addition, we traveled with two Gambian trainers who are experienced beekeepers and able to communicate well with the rural people.

We are focusing especially upon local solutions for beekeeping equipment and improving traditional methods by introducing modern management techniques. Most beekeeping in The Gambia has involved honey-hunting which is an unsustainable and un-rewarding endeavor whereby wild colonies are set afire in order to rob the honey. We are trying to teach people that creating a habitat for bee colonies is a better practice because they can have multiple harvests of high quality hive products such as honey and wax. We are also introducing concepts such as pollination and agroforestry. Many people were very interested in the techniques we showed them for weaving grass hives but one concern that they had was protection. How are they supposed to keep bees without the beesuits that we promote? The suits are full body uniforms made from locally-tailored cloth with wire screens for veils but they sell for about 600 dalasis ($26US) which is beyond the means for most subsistence farmers in The Gambia. I want to try to develop a suit that beekeepers can make for less than 100 dalasis out of used rice bags and grain-sifting screen. I also hope to build a Kenyan Top Bar Hive from bamboo which would significantly reduce the cost of that equipment as well. I want to develop these two things before the next visit to the villages which should be in about two months.

It is great to be able to travel around the country and get to meet people. Although I have not been spending as much time in my own village because of this, I still feel like I am being productive and having cultural experiences. The Peace Corps venture is full of diverse opportunities to experience different cultures and engage in interesting practices.
For example: Softball. Those of you who remember me probably know that I have dropped the ball more times than caught it. I don’t think I’ve swung a bat since I was asked to warm the bench permanently for the Jenera Giants Little League franchise way back in 1980. But Peace Corps The Gambia is forming a softball team for the West Africa Invitational Softball Tournament (WAIST) held every year in Dakar in February. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Some of my fellow Volunteers (who happen to be younger, more athletic, and experienced ball-players) are trying to teach me how to catch a ball, throw a ball, and hit a ball. And they are excellent, patient instructors. I made it to first base in our last scrimmage with a line drive or something.

And karyoke. There is this little bar in Senegambia called Churchills where Wednesday and Saturday are karyoke nights. The place is owned by an ex-pat British couple who are pretty good singers as well as bartenders. Hillary and Tony. Hillary is amazing;, she is this tiny elderly woman with a short haircut who knows all the words to all the songs. She can wander around the patio singing to customers with a warm voice anything from Tom Petty to Frank Sinatra. And the Gambian prostitutes send thrills down my spine. How do these women even know these songs? But they stand on stage staring into the audience crooning in their mini-skirts and spiked heels and weird wigs. Me? You should hear my Louis Armstrong.

Yep, Peace Corps. The toughest job you’ll ever love.