So we've been in New York City for about five weeks now. I had plans to write one, grand, final blog post. It was gonna be insightful. It was gonna be moving. It was gonna be awesome. I had so much to say. About the Peace Corps. About West Africa. About teaching science. But then I ran out of gas. On blogging. And this is about all I have left. This post that says nothing.

Except that my blog will sit here forever, as documentation of my experience, which is what I set out to do in the first place. Mission accomplished.

My new life may have killed my desire to blog about my two years in West Africa, but it didn't kill my desire to talk specifics about it to interested people. Always willing to chat about anything on this blog.

Peace and love,Phil Rodenboughprodenbough@gmail.com

In New YorkConcrete jungle where dreams are made of

There's nothing you can’t do

Down here in New York

These streets will make you feel brand new

The lights will inspire you,

Let's hear it for New York, New York, New York- Jay-Z & Alicia Keys

"... for the innumerable acts of kindness, of hospitality and of friendship I have received, I am profoundly grateful. What has always impressed me over the years is the resilience and humor with which ordinary African confronts their many adversities. This book is intended as testimony to their fortitude."

- The State of Africa, Martin Meredith

I am living in a city that less than 4 months ago was in a state of total war. Ivoirians almost never refer to the war or the battle or the fighting. Instead, they refer to it as la crise (the crisis).

Hearing people’s stories about la crise is absolutely amazing. People here in Abidjan have lived through things more horrible than most Americans my age can imagine.

I already wrote about la crise once, when my friend Vincent contacted me back in February or March (that story has a happy ending… I recently saw him again here in Abidjan, where he is doing well). But I feel like I should write more, now that so many people have shared additional insights with me.

Here are some of the stories that I have heard while talking with Ivoirians about la crise.

~~~

“Côte d’Ivoire has been in state of perpetual war for a very long time, but before all the fighting was in the North. La crise was the first time we saw anything here in Abidjan.”

“This used to be a beautiful park, but it was bombed during la crise, and now it is ruined.”

“I used to run a bar, but it was destroyed during la crise, so now I’m trying to save up enough money to open up another bar.”

“The fighting was less intense in my neighborhood, so I had about 8 or so friends staying with me from neighborhoods where the fighting was more intense.”

“The fighting was pretty bad in this neighborhood. People are still afraid to return. There are a lot of abandoned houses.”

“We fled to my family’s small village during la crise. It was much safer that way.”

~~~

“I just got back from visiting a friend in the hospital. He was seriously wounded during la crise. The doctors still aren’t sure if he’ll make it…” (The friend passed away later that week).

~~~

“I took up arms and fought during la crise. It was awful. I stopped as soon as I could. Shooting people and watching them die before your eyes… it’s unimaginably horrible.”

~~~

“During la crise, all the businesses ceased to function. All the banks closed. People couldn’t get money from their accounts. Western Union transfers to Côte d’Ivoire stopped working, so people couldn’t even get money sent to them from abroad. Whatever money you had on you, in your house or in your pocket, was the only money you had access to.”

“The streets were deserted. Markets were empty. People were afraid to leave their houses.”

“Food got incredibly scarce, and incredibly expensive. People went hungry.”

“The most terrifying part of la crise was when you could hear the planes dropping bombs… when you could hear the bombs exploding from your house…”

“The only reason anyone ever left their house was to go get food, and even that was incredibly dangerous. I had a friend who was shot dead in the street while he was going to buy food for his family.”

“There were dead bodies in the street, but everyone was afraid to gather them. The bodies stayed there for days. Dogs began to gnaw on them. The stench was awful.”

“Dead bodies accumulated in the streets…”

“It wasn’t until after Gbagbo was captured that all the dead bodies were finally gathered up, and burned, en masse.”

~~~

“There was a woman who was fleeing from a dangerous neighborhood to one that was supposedly safer. She had her two grown sons with her. While they were fleeing, the military stopped them. The military decided that the two sons had to be killed, because they were young men. If they were not already fighting for the other side, they might soon decide to do so.

The military ordered the two sons to lie on a pile of dead bodies, where they were to be shot. The mother screamed at the military: ‘You are going to kill my sons before my eyes? And leave me here? What is to become of me, then? To become an old crazy woman, haunted by the murder of her sons?’ The mother threw herself upon her sons, and cried that if the military wanted to kill her sons, they would have to kill her too. The military, not wanting to kill an old lady, let all three of them go. They are lucky to be alive today.”

~~~

“There was one young man who had to go look for food for his family. He was stopped by the Gbagbo military. He was accused of supporting the Ouattara military. They put him in a truck. Then, the Ouattara military arrived. Shots were fired between the opposing military groups. The young man escaped, but he had been shot. He was seriously wounded.

He spent the entire day calling friends and family, telling them that he had been shot, that he was bleeding to death, that he was going to die, that he needed a hospital. The hospitals, like all the other businesses, had stopped functioning during la crise. Nobody knew where he could go to be healed, to be helped. He could have been saved, if the hospitals were functioning. He had family in America; he had the money. But his money couldn’t save him. He was shot early in the morning. He died late in the evening, in the street.”

~~~

~~~

~~~

“During la crise, all the families in my neighborhood came together and shared everything. We had only each other. It was kind of unifying.”

“No no, here in Abidjan, we are lucky. Other countries have wars that last for years and years. La crise only lasted several weeks in Abidjan. It could have been much, much worse.”

~~~

“Norbert, before you leave for the US, you should give me contact information for your friends in Ouagadouogu. There are rumors of unrest, of a coming coup d’état here in Abidjan. They’re just rumors, but they’re still worrisome. During la crise, I stayed in Abidjan. But if trouble starts up again, I’m getting the hell out of here.”

You may be wondering... what exactly is Phil doing in Abidjan for 5 weeks? Spending time with Norbert and his friends and family, of course, but 5 weeks is a long time to simply hang out. So I decided to get a part time job.

I sell ice cream bars, and I frickin' love it.

I'm quite a spectacle. No one here has ever seen a white boy selling ice cream in Abidjan. I stroll around the streets of Abidjan, pushing my insulated cart. I toot my little horn, and people laugh and buy ice cream. If they want a photo with me, no problem, as long as they buy some ice cream first.

My clients love chatting with me. They can't believe that me, an American, is working a job usually reserved for local high school boys looking to make a little extra money. I calmly explain that I came to Africa to work as a high school teacher, but my work contract is finished, and I spent all my money on my plane ticket home. White people need money too... we're not made out of it (contrary to the belief of most Africans).

Some of my best clients are the women in the hair salons getting their hair did. Sex appeal (er, visa appeal, perhaps more accurately) has a lot to do with making sales. No, I don't have a wife! Yes, I'm young, white, American, and I work hard! What's that you say? You have a daughter in Paris!? Yes, I would love to marry her! Here's my email! Jackpot!

When I say spectacle, I really do mean spectacle. A journalist came and spoke with me, and the next day, my picture was on the front page of the newspaper here in Abidjan. My photo, right next to a photo of the president of Cote d'Ivoire and the prime minister of France.

This is creating more of a stir than anything I ever did as a Peace Corps volunteer.

There's definitely a sense in which this is in bad taste. I don't need to sell ice cream. Some people really do need the work. But I'm not taking work away from anyone... there's always plenty of carts available at the ice cream depot for whoever is willing to work.

But most people see it as a sign that lazy people should get up and work. And I think that's a good message.

My boss gives me 200 bars to sell, and I usually sell all of them, starting at 10am and ending around 4pm. I sell bars for 100 FCFA each, and I get to keep 20 FCFA per bar. That works out to 4,000 FCFA per day in my pocket (about 8 USD per day... not too terribly far from what I got paid per diem as a PCV in Burkina).

An honest day's work, for an honest day's pay. And there's no shame in that.

Today marks the official end of my Peace Corps service, but not quite the end of Peace Through Chemistry. I still have to make, after all, the journey home.

As I sit at the beach bar by the Peace Corps house in Conakry, sipping a Guiluxe beer, I can't help but think: damn, life in a small West African village is hard. Glad I did that, but also glad not to be doing it anymore.

There is a quote from Little Miss Sunshine, in which Steve Carell (Frank) expresses a lot of what I feel not just about leaving site here in Guinea, but also about my Peace Corps experience on the whole:

Frank: Do you know who Marcel Proust is?

Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.

Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads... Anyway, he, uh, he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing.

It feels good to rationalize hard times as character-building and learning experiences. But what did I actually learn? Don't ask me that yet. It may be a very long time before I am able to define and articulate exactly what non-tangibles I took away personally from my Peace Corps service.

I can't wait to get to Abidjan, where I plan on doing precisely nothing except whatever I want. It's gonna be fun. Ciao for now.

Stats from my service

24: number of months spent in the peace corps (july '09 - july '11)

--> 10: approximate number of those months spent either in training, on evacuation, on consolidation, on administrative leave, or on "interrupted service"

2: number of countries served

3: number of times installed at a site

2: number of academic school years that have gone by

2: number of semesters I have spent teaching

300: approximate number of west african students who might have learned some chemistry from me over the past two years... and who won't soon forget their crazy American teacher

8: number of west african countries visited (guinea, mali, burkina, senegal, togo, cote d'ivoire, ghana, and guinea-bissau... kind of)

--> 28: number of pages in my passport

--> 1: number of those pages that are blank, i.e. don't have some sort of entry/exit stamp or visa

0: number of serious illnesses contracted or injuries suffered

39: number of days until my plane lands in new york city

52: number of days before my phd/chemistry program starts at columbia

0: number of people with a peace corps experience like mine

0: number of regrets

The Dysfunction

Quotes on Guinea from African Friends

"When I first got here, I said, that is not a soccer field! That is a patch of rocky dirt! In Gambia, we would have something better for ourselves."

- A Gambian friend in Yembering

"The cell phone coverage here is terrible, and it's always malfunctioning. It's not normal. In Senegal, the cell phone coverage is much better."

- A Senegalese friend in Yembering

"I find myself saying quite often to my Guinean colleagues: In Burkina Faso, we do things differently, and it works a lot better."

- A Burkinabe friend of a friend who works for a development organization in Guinea

"What? You mean the vacation is over, but the teachers aren't back? So what, Philippe, you're the only one teaching today? That is not normal. You know, in Cote d'Ivoire, there is one teacher for history/geography, and one teacher for physics/chemistry, and they show up. Here in Guinea there is one teacher for history, one for geography, one for physics, and one for chemistry. I think I understand why. It's so that if the history teacher is gone, at least the kids might have a geography teacher. Or if the physics teacher is gone, at least the kids might have a chemistry class. Apparently that's an important consideration in Guinea."

- A certain Ivoirian friend

"The thing about Conakry is that no one pays their electricity bills, and so the electricity, it hardly ever works, even for the few people who do pay. In Abidjan, people pay their electricity bills, and the electricity functions... even if there is a civil war going on! I tell you, Guinea is the most dysfunctional country in francophone West Africa, and the people here know it."

- Another certain Ivoirian friend

"Ah, la Guinee. It is not easy here. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere."

- A Guinean friend in Yembering, who has traveled extensively in West Africa.

The Instability

A Rough History of Peace Corps/Guinea: The Most Unstable Peace Corps Program in the World

The US State department gives a pretty good history of Guinea, and is accurate and up-to-date as far as I can tell, except for that legislative elections have now been scheduled to take place in November 2011.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2824.htm

I thought that I would elaborate on their one-paragraph mention of the Peace Corps in Guinea.

- 1950's: Guinea gained its independence in 1958.

- 60's & 70's: Peace Corps/Guinea begins operations in . After a few years, the 1st president of Guinea, Sekou Toure, asks Peace Corps to leave. A few years later, he invites Peace Corps back. A few years later, he asks Peace Corps to leave (that's two evacuations so far). Peace Corps decides to sit out of Guinea during the reign of Sekou Toure.

- 80's, 90's, and early 2000's: The reign of Lansana Conte. Peace Corps does pretty well for quite some time. There was a partial evacuation of the forest region around 2000, but the program as a whole continued to operate. Also, sometime around 2000, Peace Corps decides to start training Guinea volunteers in Guinea, as opposed to training West Africa volunteers en masse in Senegal. With the beginning of this "community-based training" style, they start numbering the training groups G-1, G-2, G-3, etc, meaning the 1st group of volunteers to train in Guinea, the 2nd, etc.

- The 2007 evac: In January, Guinea basically ceases to funciton because the entire country is on strike. Peace Corps tells volunteers that they're going on consolidation to Mali. Once there, Peace Corps decides to suspend the program. Goodbye Guinea volunteers. Several months later, the program reopens. A few Guinea volunteers come back. By December, Guinea is training its first full volunteer group (G-15) since the January evac.

- 2008: President Conte dies. Peaceful coup. Peace Corps/Guinea continues operations.

- The 2009 evac: In September, just after my group (G-18) officially swore in, the Guinean military massacres peaceful political protesters in Conakry. Peace Corps tells volunteers that they're going on consolidation to Mali. Once there, Peace Corps decides to suspend the program. Goodbye Guinea volunteers.

- The 2010 fake startup: In September, Peace Corps decides to resume operations in Guinea. A few Guinea volunteers come back. A few, more experienced, Peace Corps "response" volunteers come. But instead of putting the volunteers to work, Peace Corps puts them on consolidation. Turns out Guinea wasn't quite as safe as Peace Corps thought it would be, but not quite so unsafe as to merit evacuating/suspending/closing the program. Many volunteers transfer to other countries or opt to end their service, but a few stick with it. At the end of the year, Guinea holds its first democratic presidential elections.

- The 2011 real startup: In January, Peace Corps finally releases consolidated volunteers to their sites. By July, Guinea is training its first full volunteer group (for book-keeping purposes G-20... there was no G-19) since the 2009 evac.

The Chemistry Education Program in Guinea

In some countries, volunteers are simply trained as "teachers," and then end up teaching whatever subject their school wants them to teach, which they often don't know until their arrival at their sites. Peace Corps/Guinea, in an uncharacteristically well-coordinated manner, assigns volunteers a specific subjec that usually sticks with them from invitation to site. I was invited specifically as a chemistry education volunteer. Peace Corps/Guinea has been training math, physics, and English teachers practically forever, but the chemistry education program started much more recently (with G-12, I believe, in the summer of 2006). Because of all the subsequent turbulence, there has yet to be a chemistry education volunteer who has successfully completed 2 full and uninterrupted years of teaching chemistry in Guinea. G-20 will represent the 4th full generation of chemistry teacher Peace Corps volunteers.

There was some experimentation in my group (G-18) with putting math/science education volunteers at the high school level (as opposed to the usual middle school level), but I don't get the impression that this is continuing.

The Good Wishes

Dear G-20 (July 2011 new volunteers):

You are lucky. Guinea is a very special place. There aren't very many places left where you, as an American, might actually live in a hut for two years. The land is beautiful, and the people are friendly. If you let it, I'm sure that Guinea will one day occupy a special place in your heart.

You will be joining one of the smallest Peace Corps program in the world at this moment, but one with a rich history that is destined for growth. When you arrive, your group will essentially be Peace Corps/Guinea. Kind of empowering, right?

There are unique challenges to working within a program with a history such as Peace Corps/Guinea. And it's a shame that the Peace Corps office is choosing to so strongly limit experienced volunteer involvement in new volunteer training this time around. Personally, I can't imagine coming into Peace Corps for the first time in a program without tons of volunteers to help me adjust. In any case, it's been done before, so you can do it too!

But you've seen the Peace Corps Cribs: Conakry video, right?

http://alittleblurry.blogspot.com/2009/02/peace-corps-cribs-conakry.html

Now you're set. Bonne chance et du courage. And remember, if you can make it in Guinea, you can make it anywhere.

Classes are done. Grades are turned in. I have no more work to do in Yembering, but I'm obligated to stay there until my contract with Peace Corps is finished on July 1st, so I'm mostly twiddling my thumbs. Norbert is in Abidjan; I will join him there in July. Here are some class photos for the yearbook.

My 12-sm students

My 9e-1 students

My 9e-2 students

It was delicious.Special thanks to:Henri, the chickenBobo, the chicken-killerSaidou, the chicken-feather-pluckerVincent, the chicken-skewerNorbert, the chicken-roasterPhilippe (me), the chicken-photographer

I awoke one morning in Yembering to the blaring sound of a loudspeaker.

Not directly in my ear, of course, but it was so loud that it might as well have been. In fact it was coming from the community-center/mayor's-office/nightclub/soccer-field-bleachers across the way from the school grounds. It sounded kind of like the mosque's familiar call to prayer, but not quite. It was creating quite a spectacle in Yembering, and a crowd was gathering outside the building. The loudspeaker continued its crackly, incomprehensible singing throughout the day. I eventually decided to investigate.

I was greeted at the door, and I explained that I was a just a curious foreigner who would like to know what was going on. A man with glasses came and sat me down and started explaining to me. It turns out that a travelling Marabout (traditional/Islamic healer) had come on market day, and was staying a few days to offer his services. The man with the glasses was a sort of spokesperson for the healer, who was done healing for the day and was too important to speak with curious foreigners directly, I suppose. The man with the glasses explained that if someone is spiritually sick, he can come to the healer, and the healer will pray for him, and he will "tomber en crise," and then the sickness will be cured. "Tomber en crise" translates directly from French as "to fall in crisis," but that doesn't quite capture the nuance of how the phrase is used in this context. I think it has something to do with a fit of religious ecstasy. Or something.

The travelling healing show was pretty well-equipped. It seemed to have brought its own generators and speakers, as well as literature/media (all in French), which the man with the glasses gladly gave to me. One pamphlet he gave me was entitled What is Islam? He also gave me two CDs, which I suspect contain interesting video, although I have no way of playing them, even in Labe. In any case, the CDs are entitled Djinns and Sorcerers, and Marabouts and Sorcerers: Satanism under the cover of religion: testimonials from Djinns. Printed on the CDs are links to http://benhalimaabderraouf.com/ and http://benhalimaabderraouf.free.fr/.

But the most interesting thing he gave me was a pamphlet entitled: The Theory of Darwin: The Impossible Randomness: The theory of evolution of living beings, analysed by a believer, written by Keskas Mohammed, who claims to be a biology teacher.

The pamphlet starts off: "Why, today, do certain people continue to defend the idea that we descended from monkeys, or that we are the cousins of monkeys?... When someone accepts that he is descended from a monkey, that means that he is only an animal like the others that populate this planet. He can then permit himself to commit all sorts of abominations: rape, incest, other crimes... he thinks that it's ok because he is only an animal responding to his instinct! So, this theory, for someone who accepts it, is an excuse to follow his craziest desires."

I'm not going to touch that. I'll just put it out there.

And it babbles on so forth for quite a few pages. But the most interesting bit, I find, is the following paragraph: "I will give you an image so that you can better understand. One evening, a knight waits under the palace balcony of a princess. When his beloved princess appears at the balcony, she throws a stone towards the knight to get his attention. The knight picks up the stone and busies himself observing it intently. What strange behavior, you would surely say to me! Instead of looking up to see where the stone came from, and who threw it, the knight fixes his attention on the inert object, the stone itself! In fact, people are acting like this knight. They spend their time studying the creations around them... [when they should be studying God]..."

Thanks, Marabout. That's just what this community needs. Kids need to abandon their science classes and go study the Koran some more.

There are, by the way, more mosques in Yembering than schools. Everyone here is muslim. Everyone here prays five times per day. Everyone goes to mosque. No one has heard of anything other than Islam or Christianity (let alone my atheism). Everyone response to the parting phrase "see you later" by saying "si allah jabi," meaning "if God is willing." In Yembering, God is clearly in control. But PRAY! the Marabout insists.

And while we're praying, let's hunt some witches.http://www.france24.com/en/20110505-village-witch-hunt-triggers-deadly-violence-guinea-conakry#http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hyUoMhyQDg8I9tRNiSd_udLuLv4A?docId=CNG.854889179a7ec590cda41e5232f39aed.701

It's easy for me and my atheist inclinations to want to say that this is bad. Sometimes I just want to rant. To say to my community: stop spending so much time at the mosque and come to school once in a while. God won't pave the road between here and Labe. God won't bring you electricity and running water and computers and all the things you say you want. You have to study! The answers aren't in the Koran or the Bible, they're in education! In math and science and reading and writing! With a solid education, a sound sense of scientific reasoning, and lots of hard work, you can achieve all these things for yourself! *shakes cheerleading pom-poms* Now pay attention to my chemistry lesson!

Reality check: university graduates come back home to Yembering and work harvesting the field because there are no jobs for them. The high school in Yembering is too dysfunctional to offer a complete program of study, which means that for many of my 11th grade students whose families don't have the means to send them to Labe to finish high school, this is the end of the road for them. Their education is over. And the other day I started noticing the irregular bald patches of the heads of my 8th grade students. These students are losing their hair due to malnutrition.

So yes, Marabout. Come to my village and attack Darwin and science. Tell them instead to pray. If I had to graduate college only to work in a field, or if I couldn't graduate high school because my family was poor, or if I was in 8th grade and balding because my family couldn't afford to feed me a proper diet, I might be more inclined to pray, too.

Baby, I was born this way

- Lady Gaga

I think that my last post may have raised questions on the more general issue of homosexuality in West African society. This topic is much to large for a single blog post, and I by no means claim to be an expert on the subject, but there’s so little information available, that I thought I would contribute some comments.

A quote from my lonely planet West Africa travel guidebook: “Homosexuality is illegal in 13 out of the 17 countries in [West Africa]…. Regardless of the legality, however, all countries in [West Africa] are conservative in their attitudes towards gays and lesbians, and gay sexual relationships are taboo and rare to the point of nonexistence. Homosexual activity does occur, especially among younger men. In most places, discretion is key and public displays of affection should be avoided, advice which applies to homosexual and heterosexual couples as a means of showing sensitivity to local feelings.”

A quote from the Peace Corps / Guinea volunteer handbook: “Homosexuality is not accepted in Guinean culture or law, even between consenting adults. Volunteers accused of homosexuality may be physically threatened and harassed to the point of having to leave the country.”

Wow. Severe.

The fact is that homosexuality does exist in West Africa, but it is extremely well hidden, which makes it difficult for a foreigner to pick up on. Once a traveler discovers it, however, it leads to an incredibly well-connected network of gays (and lesbians). I’ve been lucky enough to meet gay men from Burkina, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal, and Chad. Their stories are varied and interesting, but all would certainly disagree that homosexuality is "rare to the point of nonexistence."

What does this mean for a Peace Corps volunteer? In West Africa, their encounters with gay host-country nationals vary. It has a lot to do with chance.

• I recall the case of one gay volunteer who served his two years, only to meet his first gay African days before he was scheduled to return home to America.

• I recall the case of another gay volunteer who met gay Africans soon after his arrival in country, and continued to develop friendships with them throughout his service.

• I recall the case of a straight volunteer who unwittingly attracted the attention of a gay African. “I like to go to the nightclub and kiss boys… do you?” “Um, sorry, no,” the straight PCV responded.

In any case, no one in my village would ever suspect that Norbert was anything more than a friend to me. Online social networking has a lot to do with how gay West Africans find each other. That kind of leaves small villages out the loop. If gay West Africans want to find each other, it helps to have an internet connection.

Norbert is incredibly insightful on this subject, obviously. But for now I guess my point is that it does exist. There are gay West Africans. I would talk more, but my internet/electricity time is so limited these days...

Some links of interest:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123973509

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00fjqpzhttp://vimeo.com/21041063

Ok, enough of the gay stuff for now, next post, back to life in Yembering, I promise.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”

- Inscribed on the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island in New York City

“Ouvrez les frontieres, ouvrez les frontieres…” [open the borders, open the borders...]

- Tiken Jah Fakoly

“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

- James Baldwin

I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined this for myself. The cultures are just too different, the language barrier is just too high, the potential just isn’t there, I would have said. But if my time in the Peace Corps has proven anything to me, it’s that life is full of surprises.

I would like to make a formal introduction. Readers, I present to you: my boyfriend, Norbert. He was born and raised in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. When he was 18 years old, he won a scholarship to study fashion design in Paris. He has since worked successfully in the fashion industry throughout West Africa and in France. His most recent project: creating and organizing Ouagadougou’s first ever fashion week (brush up on your French and read about it here under "promotion de la mode").

Norbert is fun, thoughtful, charming, and vivacious. He understands Western culture to at least the same degree that I understand African culture, probably even better. We are comfortable navigating either culture, but both of us still have much to learn. We communicate exclusively in French; Norbert doesn’t speak a word of English.

We met through friends of friends while I was working in Ouagadougou in August. At the time, I knew I was bound for Conakry, so the sparks that flew were somewhat dampened. We saw each other a few times before I left for Guinea, but we didn’t think we’d see each other again.

Then I finally arrived in Guinea, only to get stuck in the strife there. I had the option to take a temporary leave of absence from my Peace Corps service. But where would I go? I took a chance, went out on a limb. I asked Norbert if he could host me for a while, if I came back to Burkina Faso. He considered it, then said yes. So I flew back to Ouagadougou.

We spent day after day together, week after week. We ate together. We travelled together. We lived together. We learned about each other’s lives, and we fell in love with each other.

Agreeing that what we had was too valuable to throw away, we started to discuss our future. Although I didn’t know what the immediate future held for me and my Peace Corps service, I knew that when my service was finished, I wanted to live in New York City and study at Columbia University. The idea of living in America had never before crossed Norbert’s mind, but it was now enticing. If he could move to America and learn English, that would open up a whole new world for his fashion work. After some reflection, he agreed that he wanted to come to New York with me. It made sense for both of us. After my studies there, we could move anywhere in the world.

And then, for the first time ever, I started researching immigration. For a citizen of Cote d’Ivoire (or of any African country), getting just a temporary visa to come to the United States is very difficult. Citizens of developing countries have to overcome the assumption of immigration intent by demonstrating significant ties to their current residence, and this is completely up to the discretion of officers at US embassies. The other option is to try for a long-term immigrant visa or green card, but that can be even harder. Marrying an American is one of the very few reliable paths to permanent residency.

Earlier in my Peace Corps service, I had attended the marriage of a woman Peace Corps volunteer to a Burkinabé man in Gaoua, Burkina Faso. Their plan was to move to America shortly after the marriage. At the time, I never imagined anything of the sort for myself, but I was very happy for them, that they could share their lives together in the place of their mutual choosing.

And now I thought that I could do a similar thing for myself. Of course I couldn’t marry Norbert anywhere in West Africa, but I could bring Norbert to Massachusetts, get gay married there, and that would be that. We are totally ready to make that commitment. But then I researched more, and was surprised at what I discovered.

Although gay marriage is legal in several states in the US, these marriages are not recognized in any way by the federal government. That’s because in 1996, the US passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This act set the national definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman, no matter what other legislative bodies say, be those legislative bodies outside the US, or inside the US. So same-sex couples who are legally married in Canada or South Africa or even Connecticut have no recognition of their marriage from the US federal government. That means they have no recognition of their relationship from US immigration law. But there must be some other options, right?

The fact of the matter is that although many countries in the world offer some legal avenue for same-sex couples to sponsor each other for immigration purposes, the US offers none. As far as the US government is concerned, my relationship with Norbert is nothing.

I had no idea.

I joined the Peace Corps for a lot of reasons, and pride for my country was an important one among them. I was excited about the cultural sharing, and to educate others about the land of the free and the home of the brave. Although I was deeply disappointed after learning about this bigoted immigration policy, I am still proud that I can raise my voice against it.

I could pick any single woman off the street and get her a fiancée visa to the US by simply declaring my intention to marry her. No matter who the woman is, the legal avenue is there. But because Norbert and I are both men, I have no legal standing to help Norbert immigrate to the US. That is wrong.

This is why gay marriage matters, to me. This is why the US needs to legalize gay marriage nation-wide. It’s the right thing to do.

There is reason to believe that DOMA will reach the Supreme Court, where it will be struck down. But things like that are slow, and my Peace Corps service is finishing soon. Even if congress passes the slightly-more-politically-appetizing Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), which would simply allow same-sex couples to sponsor their partners for immigration purposes, it probably won’t do so in time to alleviate our immediate worries.

Norbert is currently paying me an extended visit in Guinea. We know he is incredibly lucky. He applied for a US tourist visa in Ouagadougou, and it was granted. He is now allowed to travel to the US for a short amount of time. What will we do when that time is up? We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I suppose we’ll explore other options for him to legally stay in the US. We shouldn’t have to do so; my relationship with him should be sufficient. It frustrates me that our relationship has no recognition from my country.

But if enough people learn about this issue and take a stand, I am confident that, one day, we can achieve marriage equality for all.

~

Norbert and I in Ouagadougou

"La Dame du Mali," a mountain that looks like a woman's profile near my village.

Norbert and I atop the Dame du Mali

~

Norbert and I aren’t the only ones. Learn more about the struggles of same-sex bi-national couples by reading this Human Rights Watch document Families, Unvalued.

This movement needs as much exposure as possible. Get involved in the fight for immigration equality at immigrationequality.com, especially their action fund blog, and at stopthedeportations.blogspot.com.

Too many couples are being hurt through discriminatory US immigration policy. Call your congressperson in support of UAFA today.

… except in Guinea. Dear BBC radio Thank you. Thank you so much. When I am in village, you are my link to the outside world. Your programming is brilliant, your news is informative, and your stories are interesting. My dinky little short-wave radio that I bought in the village market is one of my most valued possessions. Through it, your charming accents light up my little house with the wonderful sound of the English language, even if they do have to contend with some static. Without you, BBC radio, I would be left with only a few options. I could listen to RFI (Radio France International), but then listening to the news would be an exercise in comprehension, rather than a relaxation. I could go to one of the few "boutiques" in Yembering that use a generator to power a television and satellite, and sometimes I do. When I do, it is pleasing to watch the news with community members, and it doesn’t hurt that the French news stations select ridiculously beautiful French women for their anchors. But the boutiques don’t light up the TV all that often, and when they do, the news is almost always preempted by soccer. I am very lucky to have you, BBC radio, and I have much appreciation for you, but I also have one small suggestion. Lay off the cricket sports coverage. No one cares. Sincerely, Faithful listener

LatrineThis is where I go to the bathroom in Yembering. A hole in the ground, with some bricks built around it, behind my house. The door on the right is my "private" latrine, to which only I have the key, and the door on the left is the latrine that the Guinean teachers use when they are at work. As you may be able to guess, the structure is not animal-proof.Principal with bushrat This is what I found lurking in my latrine one morning this week: a bushrat. I opened the door, and he was huddled in the corner staring back at me. It scared me half to death. I immediately alerted my principal, who fetched some students. As I looked on in horror, the students killed it by hitting it with a stick. They seemed to enjoy themselves while doing so. When the creature was dead, my principal picked it up. I snapped a photo, and then he chucked the corpse over the compound wall. I dread going to the bathroom. When will I meet another bushrat there, or worse yet, a snake? Although the people of Yembering share my fear of snakes, they don’t understand my fear of bushrats. Bushrats are completely unaggressive, my principal tells me, so what exactly am I afraid of? I don’t know, it’s a giant rat! Isn’t that just inherently terrifying and repulsive? The stuff of nightmares? Apparently not, or at least only for crazy white people. There are many reasons why I am not cut out for village life, including my fear of critters such as giant bushrats. When I arrived in Guinea in September 2010, I was ready to go back to Gueckedou, the large city that was originally supposed to be my site. I knew I had a nice house waiting for me there, with a real, indoor, ceramic toilet. It doesn’t seem intuitive that you can have a toilet like that without indoor plumbing, but it turns out that you can, it just involves gathering buckets of water with which to flush. Alas, Peace Corps refused to send volunteers back to the Forest Region of Guinea, because it was too far away and isolated. It was ok when there were 75-100 volunteers in country. Nowadays, with fewer than 15 volunteers, they didn’t want to spread the volunteers out so thinly (for security measures, in case of the need for a quick evacuation). If you were wondering why my site was changed, there’s the reason. So no nice indoor toilet for me. For the rest of my time in Africa, it looks like I’m stuck with this outdoors latrine. I’ll just have to watch out for visitors such as cockroaches, spiders, lizards, frogs, bats, and, of course, bushrats.

Willie: I have some information for you, but it's gonna be hard to hear.

Bart Simpson: Why, because of your stupid accent?

Willie: Ach, nay! Because of its upsetting nature.So much in common.

· We both live alone in a shack on the school grounds where we work · We are both immigrants · We both speak in an accent that is often unintelligible (or at least ridiculous) to the locals · We are both very proud of our homeland · We both keep the keep the school grounds (it’s sort of my job to lock up the school at night, and make sure no one is abusing the school water pump) · We frequently give contradictory accounts of our past lives · We are both quick to anger, and quick to yell at kidsOther than the fact that I actually teach, whereas Willie does not, we're practically the same person.

I’m standing in front of a 9e class with my principal, who is introducing me. “This is your new teacher. He came all the way from America to teach you, so respect him! He will be teaching you chemistry…” dramatic pause “and also we will be adding English to your schedule.” At this last comment, the class erupts into cheers and applause. Kids here are ecstatic to learn English. And that is a good thing. Peace Corps volunteers love to feel like they have a role that is both valued and appreciated in their community. I’ve discovered that I like teaching English because the kids like learning English. With chemistry, it’s harder. At times it can seem ridiculous that kids are learning about the difference between esters and ethers in a community such as Yembering that quite frankly has bigger issues at hand. I just have to remind myself (and occasionally my students) that everyone, in their educational career, learns facts that he or she will never need to recall again. It’s impossible for education to be entirely and exclusively vocational. Instead, what schools should seek to do is to help students establish a basic, academic educational background (that includes chemistry). Within the vehicle of academic discourse, students learn to problem-solve and think critically. And with those skills honed, they are more likely to be able to solve the more relevant problems that they will face in their personal communities and their lives. At least that’s what I tell myself to convince myself that I’m not a total waste of space here. But English! The 9e students are thrilled to get a head start on the language, which they normally wouldn’t start studying until 10e, where the more-experienced Guinean English teacher gives English lessons. I know their excitement is bound to fizzle out when they discover that learning English is actually difficult. But for now the kids can’t get enough of it. What is the allure? I’ve tried asking the students that very question. Mostly I get non-answers (see below). So I have to do a bit of guesswork. I suspect that kids here are excited to learn English because they know that it can be a ticket out of here. If they learn English, they can travel, and see amazing things. And everyone wants to travel and see amazing things. Maybe, just maybe, if they are lucky enough, they can move to an English-speaking country and work there and have a slightly better chance at a better life. At least that’s the dream. And if I can help them get just a little closer to that dream, I’m happy to do so. My first activity in each of my classes was to ask students why it was important to study chemistry or English. Here are some of the reponses I got. 12sm: Why is it important to study chemistry? - … to know how to make things - … it is a very rich subject that is indispensable. Many things are made with chemistry, such as bombs and alcohol. - … chemistry teachers us natural phenomena that are important in human life. 9e: Why is it important to study chemistry? - … to know what I don’t know about chemistry - … chemistry is very important in daily life, like making medicine. - … chemists make different metallic objects - … it’s interesting - … to know electricity and corrosion - … if you study chemistry a lot you can become an intelligent chemist (that one is my favorite chemistry response…) 9e: Why is it important to study English? - … to understand English (this was by far the most common response…) - … it’s an international language in the world - … English is a beautiful language - … English dominates the world - … English is the most spoken language in the world - … it is the richest language - … to understand the English words on computers - … to better communicate with people - … English is the most interesting language in the entire world. We study English so that we can travel and work in Anglophone countries. I am very happy this morning. (and that’s my favorite response)

Greetings, from Labé! I’m in my regional capital picking up a few supplies today before I head back to my village of Yembering. Here’s a quick run-down on the latest phase of my Peace Corps service. The Fouta DjallonIn Yembering, early morning mist clouds the hills of the Fouta DjallonThe Fouta Djallon is the lush and mountainous middle part of the Republic of Guinea, inhabited by an ethnic group called the Peulhs. There are small groups of Peulhs (sometimes called Fulani, Fula, Fulfulde, or Fulbe) scattered throughout West Africa, but as I understand it, the Fouta Djallon is their original home, where their Islamic kingdom existed in centuries past. The two principal towns in the Fouta Djallon are Mamou (in the South) and Labé (in the North), the latter being the larger of the two. Peulhs have a reputation for being a bit more reserved and conservative compared to other ethnic groups in West Africa, and I would be hard-pressed to disagree on that assessment based on my short time in the area thus far. The cool and breezy Fouta Djallon is a beautiful place to call home; while the hot season is well under way in Burkina Faso, here I find myself sleeping with pajamas and a blanket, and even wearing a jacket in the morning. Yembering The "downtown" map of Yembering. Objects in map may be smaller than you think... Yembering (also spelled Yambering or Yimbering, even within the village itself) is by far the smallest village in which I have spent an extended period of time. It sits 45k north of Labé, and 40k south from its sister city of Mali, which is, rather confusingly, often called Mali-Yembering in order to distinguish it from the country of Mali. Mali (or Mali-Yembering) is also the name of the general area north of Labé, where the mountains of the Fouta Djallon rise to their highest. Guineans associate this area as being the coldest in all of Guinea. The road from Conakry to Labé is paved (albeit very poorly, and very long ago), but if you want to continue on north from Labé to Yembering, it’s a rough dirt road. There are very few resources in Yembering. I can easily walk from one end of the town to the other, and the town market is really a skeleton of a market, even on the designated “market day” of Sunday. I am the fifth Peace Corps volunteer in recent history to have served in Yembering. In Yembering there is no electricity and no running water. I get my water from a pump right located conveniently right outside my front door. Like the rest of the teachers at my school, I charge my cell phone using the solar panels at the school library. These panels were donated and installed long ago by a forgotten NGO, but they have held up surprisingly well. There are a few shops that run a generator to power a fridge, but not very consistently. Saturday night the mayor’s office turns into a night club, which attracts much of the town’s youth. They pay a small fee to dance under the black lights, where the biggest generator in town powers the biggest speakers in town. I’ve come to appreciate many aspects of West African culture, but I can’t help but find the music anything but awful. Lycee de YemberingLycee de Yembering is a very weathered building.There is one solitary secondary school in Yembering, and that’s Lycee de Yembering. Just to remind you, Guinea follows what I think is a francophone educational tradition, wherein students take four years of middle school (7e-10e) and three of high school (11e , 12e, and Tle). Classrooms belong to the students, not the teachers, meaning it’s the students who sit in one classroom all day while teachers go from classroom to classroom teaching their subject. Guinean students all take the same subjects for each of the four years of middle school; for the science curriculum this includes short, individual classes on physics, chemistry, and biology. English isn’t officially part of the curriculum until high school, although there is a movement to start English in middle school. My school has all four grades of middle school, plus the first two years of high school. Each of the middle school grades is divided up into two classrooms (10e-1, 10e-2, etc), except for 7e which is divided into three classrooms. If students want to complete their final Tle year of high school, they must move to either Mali or Labé to do so. I suppose if demand were high enough, there could be a class of Tle at Lycee de Yembering, but it didn’t happen this year. Because of all of the political hub-bub at the beginning of the school year, the ’10-’11 academic calendar in Guinea has been kind of compressed, and moved back. Students are taking their 1st semester finals this week. I start teaching next week. My school administration and I have already planned out my schedule for the coming semester. I absolutely love my teaching load. I teach three days per week, 12 hours per week total. Monday Tuesday Wednesday 8am 12sm Chemistry 9e-2 Chemistry 9am 10am 9e-1 Chemistry 12sm Chemistry 11am 12pm Lunch Break Lunch Break Lunch Break 1pm 2pm 9e-2 English 9e-2 English 3pm 9e-1 English 9e-1 English So you can see that I have eight hours of chemistry and four hours of English. My school was pretty excited to have me teach English, which is fine. Since the English is a bonus on top of the regular curriculum, it’s pretty low-stakes… I plan on doing mostly fun activities. My 9e students have never had an English class before, and there are tons of Peace Corps resources on teaching English at the beginning level, so this should be pretty easy. Both of my 9e classes supposedly have around 70 students each, whereas my 12sm class supposedly has around 20 students. Chez Moi Home sweet home. Also, the principal's office.The door on the left is the principal’s office. The door on the right is my house. That’s right. I live next to the principal’s office. It’s a dilapidated dump and, in my opinion, a completely inappropriate location for a volunteer to live (lack of privacy? hello?). I categorically despise it. I’m the only person who actually lives on the school grounds. Complications are currently arising due to the fact that the principal likes to have the school grounds locked up during the night, but the door is only a padlock door, and I don’t want to be locked into the school grounds, and I don’t want to get up early and let everyone into the school in the morning either. I may finagle my way into a more amenable house, but if not, I can survive here for my few months. My principal lives across the market from me, and has pretty much adopted me. I eat every meal at his house with his family. It’s a pretty nice system. His wife makes good attieke. All right, ‘till next time. Wish me luck with the start of classes next week.

Today I was going to write an update about my new site, but that can wait a few days. Some things are just more important than how I'm getting along in a new village.

When I was on administrative leave, I met a good friend of Norbert's named Vincent, whom he had known since childhood. Vincent hosted Norbert and I for a while, and I have nothing but kind things to say about him. We have since stayed in contact. Vincent currently lives in Adibjan, where he is a high school history teacher. I received the following message from him on facebook today.

"salut philippe, comment vas tu. ici a abidjan ca va pas la crise post electorale fait ravage. nous avons quitté le quartier les rebelle ont pris le quartier de violent combat depuis mi fevrièr. la population souffre nous sommes refugiés chez des amis. pas de vetement, rien. c'est avec un desespoir que je t'ecris."

rough translation: "hello phil. how are you. here in abidjan it is not going well. the political crisis is wrecking havoc. we have left my neighborhood. the rebels have taken over that neighborhood with violent combat, fighting since mid february. the population suffers. we are finding refuge with friends. we have nothing [but the clothes on our back]. it is with despair that I write you."

What's more, Norbert says that he has been in contact with his family in Abidjan, and that they are unable to leave the street where they live, where they are barricaded in.

When you don't know anyone involved, it's so easy for things like the news coming out of Abidjan to go in one ear and out the other. When you've met them, shared meals with them, shared a house with them, been recipients of their personal hospitality... it's really, really hard.

I responded to Vincent that I was very sad to hear his news, and that I hope it gets better soon. What more can I do? What more can I do?

Birds flying high

You know how I feel

Sun in the sky

You know how I feel

Breeze driftin' on by

You know how I feel

It's a new dawn

It's a new day

It's a new life for me...

And I'm feeling good-Muse

When you fall, get up, oh, oh...This time for Africa-Shakira

I'm heading back to Africa! Peace Corps finally cleared my re-instatement for Guinea; I leave on February 18th and my COS date is July 2011... turns out persistence can pay off sometimes. I've had some good times during my visit back in Seattle. Namely:- Showing up at my parents' workplaces to surprise them with my US arrival... priceless!- Seeing a show at the Showbox with Aaron- Almost making cookies with Lauren- Downing 99-cent margaritas with Mari in Portland- Dancing at R-place with Sam- Hanging out in Bellevue with Sophia- Eating delicious, delicious food at my parents' houseMy Seattle vacation lasted longer than I had anticipated, and I'll admit that I've been extremely anxious to get off the futon in my parents' basement and do something useful (like get kids excited abouts science). But this may be the last time I see Seattle for a very long time! While it may always be my hometown, it kind of doesn't feel like home anymore... maybe because I have someone special waiting for me in West Africa? In any case, my next post will be from Conakry. Cheers!

1) My Peace Corps service is a joke2) It makes me sad that my blog speaks more to the administrative inner workings of Peace Corps than volunteer life in Africa.

3) I chose to take "Interrupted Service" and flew out from Accra on January 3rd.4) Volunteers in Guinea were cleared to be placed at their proper sites on January 4th, the very same day that I arrived in Seattle.5) "Interrupted Service" is a special option that volunteers may choose to take when there is not a viable assignment for them in-country. It is like an "Early Termination" (quitting) except that the fault does not lie with the volunteer, and the volunteer is eligible to return and finish his or her service once a viable assignment becomes available.

6) I specifically asked my Country Director if there was a minimum amount of time I would be required to return for, should the program fully re-open. She said no. Upon my arrival to the US, she recommended to HQ my immediate return to Guinea with my original COS (close-of-service) date of July 2011.7) Peace Corps HQ has denied my request to be re-instated with my original COS date of July 2011, contrary to the recommendations of the program in Guinea.8) I wrote the following letter to HQ today.

Dear [HQ],

Thank you for arranging a conversation between myself and [the HQ regional director]. I enjoyed the opportunity to speak with him. I would like to re-iterate, however, that I am extremely unhappy with the decision being made by the regional office to deny my re-instatement with my original COS date. When I discussed taking "Interrupted Service" with my country director in December, I was never given any indication that the re-instatement process would require extending my original COS date. In fact, I specifically asked if I would be required to re-instate for at least a year, and was told that there is no such rule. [My country director] knew that I fully intended to return to Guinea, and also that I fully intended on planning graduate school in the fall. And I thank her for recommending a COS date in July 2011, as we agreed. But with the decision now being made by the regional office, I feel like I have been misled. I feel like a third-party is now unexpectedly intervening and changing the rules in the middle of the game, with severe negative consequences for my personal life planning. If I had any idea that this situation would arise, I never would have taken "Interrupted Service." And although I realize that a case like mine is rare, I would like to see the Peace Corps take steps to ensure a situation like mine does not arise in the future, as it is a misfortune no volunteer deserves.

I would implore you, [HQ], to share this email with [the HQ regional director] so that he may make one last consideration. But in the case that a COS date extension is absolutely required, I will do some personal reflection and let you know if I can accept a COS date in July 2012.

Cheers,Phil

Hello SeattleI am a mountain nearIn the hillsAnd highlands-Owl City

I am incredibly lucky to have Norbert, and him having a place for me to stay in Ouaga is the least important reason why.

When I first arrived in Africa, I was struck by the poverty and the backwardness. I observed the shantees lining the streets in Conakry, the sewers overflowing with garbage, my host father with two wives in Forecariah, my host mothers preparing dinner over a campfire, and my host siblings cleaning their teeth with sticks. Africa is barbaric, I said to myself; it is primitive and poor and hopeless. My subsequent travels around West Africa did little to dissuade me of this conviction. And even in Burkina, this is the Africa in which many Peace Corps volunteers live and work. They live in a small village. They eat tô with their neighbors. Even in Koupéla, which is a fairly large town with a computer lab in their high school, my neighbors ate tô everyday, and thatched-roof huts were just a stone’s throw away from my concrete cube of a house.

Norbert has shown me an entirely different side of Africa, a side to which Peace Corps volunteers traditionally have very little exposure. Yesterday he presented his design work at a fashion show he engineered in downtown Ouaga. It was remarkable. It was chic. He successfully presented his clothing line and snagged important French clients. All this from someone with very humble beginnings in Abidjan.

-- > A night of fashion and fun in Ouaga.

Norbert has brought me into a world where Africa is elegant. Africa is rich. Africa is beautiful. And there is always hope for the future.

~

Oh, by the way, there is peace in Guinea: http://www.voanews.com/policy/editorials/Guineas-Election-An-Example-For-All-111947964.html

~

My extended vacation in Ouagadougou is quickly coming to an end, albeit an uncertain one. I leave tomorrow with a bunch of volunteers for the beach in Ghana to celebrate Christmas. But Peace Corps is not administratively allowed to give me any more of my magical "admin leave" days past December 30th. And despite the good news coming out of Guinea, current volunteers there have still not been posted at their proper sites, and the incoming stage that was supposed to come in December/January was cancelled. To top it all off, I have still not been offered a COS (close of service).

What does all this mean? And where will I be come the new year? I have no frickin' idea. But I'll be damned if that's gonna prevent me from enjoying a magical Christmas on the beach. Peace out for now. And a very joyeux noël to all my readers.

I wanna be laughed at, laughed with, just becauseI wanna feel weightless, and that should be enough...

I wanna feel reckless, wanna live it up just becauseI wanna feel weightless, 'cuz that would be enough...

-All Time Low

In your eyesI lost my placeCould stay a while

- The Used

I'm leaving for Ouagadougou on a plane tomorrow.

I've been in Guinea for over six weeks. School is in its fourth week. The entire time, I've been stuck in Dubreka with all the other volunteers (there are 17 of us total now). None of us are able to do the work that we came here to do. We are not allowed to travel overland, anywhere within Guinea. Elections have been delayed countless times (the latest date is November 7th, but we'll see). The US Embassy has been categorical in its insistence that we all stay together in Dubreka. No travelling to our sites. No travelling to Conakry. Just sitting and waiting.

I'm done. Life is too short to sit and wait.

We, as Peace Corps volunteers, have four options on the table right now. We can take Interrupted Service and get a plane ticket to our home of record (no cash-in-lieu). We can seek permanent transfers to other countries. We can sit it out and wait in Dubreka, searching for temporary work here. Or we can take administrative leave without pay... meaning we are still Peace Corps volunteers, but we're not getting paid.

I'm choosing to take leave without pay.

I hope I can come back to Guinea. I honestly have no idea what will happen to this country or the Peace Corps program here. I've said that I'll come back to Guinea when the Peace Corps program is ready to send me to my site and let me teach. No one has any idea when that will be. I can only hope that I can survive on my savings until then.

But for now, I'm a free man. I'm going to hang out in Ouagadougou, then go wherever the wind takes me.

Peace out,Phil

So you don’t wanna wait

I hate to hear, that’s such a shame

Cuz if you play it side ways

Ain’t no time out in my game

They already on the way

I know you wanna win

And you wish I would let you in

Get in line over here

You can play, but hold up

It’s just the way the game is played

It’s best that you just wait your turn

-Rihanna

I guess an update is due. The very night I made my last post, the ministry of education got on the radio and declared that school would start the next day: October 4th. This was kind of a surprise for everyone. School is officially supposed to start the first week of October, but the ministry of education in Guinea has a strong history of officially delaying the start of the school year, usually for logistical reasons. Not this year. Politically motivated? Probably not...

Shortly thereafter, the transition president proposed that the final round of presidential elections occur on October 24th. This may or may not happen in reality. The leading candidate is not all too happy with the new head of the election commission (the old one died and had to be replaced). Like with so many things here in Guinea, we’ll have to wait and see.

But throughout receiving this news, we continued training the response volunteers (new Guinea volunteers who have done Peace Corps in other countries). I was dying to get to site, but we were told that we would finish the training in Dubreka as scheduled, then be allowed to go to site. We even had a counterpart workshop, where we all met our principals. My principal seems nice, and I’m very glad that he had the time to come down to Dubreka for a day, considering it was the during second week of school over there. I’ll talk more about the Lycee in Yembering when (and if) I actually get there.

The response volunteers officially swore-in on October 13th. We were all hopeful. The country had been peaceful.

The following day, our acting Country Director told us that she would like to be sending us to our sites… but instead we would be heading back to the training center in Dubreka for consolidation. Indefinitely.

Devastating.

The reasons we are being held back are complicated. Technically it’s safety and security, but there’s so much more to it than that. I’ll just say that the relationship between a US Embassy and a Peace Corps program in a country is not uniform worldwide. The relationship is not as simple as it may appear on paper. It depends heavily on the history of the host country, the history of the relationship between the Embassy and Peace Corps in that country, and the personalities of the decision-making people involved on both ends. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

It really sucks that I couldn’t be at site for the start of school. I’m sure this will seriously damage my ability to integrate into my community of teachers, and the community of Yembering in general. Each additional week I sit here in Dubreka is a week of my Peace Corps service being robbed from me. I guess that’s what I get for deciding to come back to such an unstable place. The soul-scorching heat of Burkina Faso doesn’t seem so bad in retrospect.

I just hope I get to site soon. I came here to teach, not to sit by waterfalls all day. And sitting by waterfalls all day with a completely uncertain future is actually getting to be kind of stressful.

Dear everyone:We don't know when elections will be held.

We don't know when the school year will start.

We don't know when we will be allowed to go to our proper sites.

But there are worse places in the world to be stuck than in Dubreka.

With love from Guinea,

Phil

One year ago today, thousands of Guineans gathered in the national stadium in Conakry to peacefully protest. The president, who had seized power in a coup d’etat 10 months earlier, had again delayed elections. During the early months of his presidency he had spoken of organizing national elections and promised he would not be a candidate. Now he was saying that he would run in the elections, if they ever came. Guineans had heard this story before. There is a big difference between free and fair elections, and crooked elections simply put on for show so that a dictator can add a thin guise of legitimacy to his rule. The president was consolidating his power and tightening his grip on the country. Guineans gathered to say: no more.

One year ago today, the Guinean military opened fire on those peaceful protesters in the national stadium in Conakry. More than 150 Guineans were killed. Countless more were injured. Women were raped, with guns, out in the open. The military unleashed terror on its own people.

When I think of Guineans, I think of Mendeya, my kind, soft-spoken, and endlessly patient chemistry trainer. He strove to help us become the best chemistry teachers we could be. I think of Malal, my French trainer, who ran every French session with a contagious smile. I think of my principal and vice-principal in Gueckedou, who treated me with kindness and respect during my short time at site. I even think of Ifono, my Kissi teacher, who was ridiculous but endearing.

Perhaps most of all, I think of my host father in Forecariah, who welcomed me into his family for my first eleven weeks in Africa. I think of the time that I asked him, in my still-very-clumsy French, what he did for work. He explained that he was in charge of an organization that lobbied for free and fair elections. “It is important,” he explained to me, “that you understand that we don’t support a particular candidate. All we want is democracy. Do you understand?” Yes, I said, I understand.

All he wanted was democracy. I can only imagine how he felt, one year ago today.

Guineans are good people. They’re just like you and me. They have hopes and dreams for themselves and their families. They’re not saints, and I can certainly attest to their faults, but these faults are no greater than those found other people.

Guineans deserve the ability to choose their own leaders. They deserve a government that works. They don’t deserve to be shot to death, to be slaughtered en masse, to be oppressed by a tyrannical government.

One year ago today, 17 freshly-minted Peace Corps volunteers were on their way to what was to be their new homes. They were lodged in all corners of Guinea. They were filled with excitement and anticipation, looking forward to two years of service in a country that had shown them unyielding hospitality. In a country like Guinea, rumors were slow to travel, and real news was even slower. They had little idea of what was going on that day in Conakry.

What has happened since then?

The Peace Corps program in Guinea was evacuated and suspended. The volunteers who once called Guinea home moved on to different phases of their lives. Political events in Guinea unfolded in a way that no one could have anticipated.

But on June 27th, 2010, Guinea finally held national elections: a presidential primary. For the first time in Guinea, a sitting president was not a candidate. For the first time in Guinea, elections were internationally judged to be free and fair.

Then the suspension of Peace Corps Guinea was lifted.

Now that the suspension is lifted, Guinea has a small handful of volunteers (both old and new), but the US Embassy is currently insisting that we stay together at the training center in Dubreka until the final round of presidential elections.

So we sit in Dubreka, not yet able to start the work that we are in Guinea to do. At this critical time for Guinea, we sit and wait and hope. Hope that Guineans find a way. Hope that they find democracy and peace. Hope that the terrible event that occurred, one year ago today, in some way leads to a brighter future for the Guinean people.

~

Read a timeline of Guinean political history at the BBC country profile page: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1032515.stm

Read the official UN report on the September 28th massacre in Conakry here: UN Security Council Document S/2009/693 at http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4b4f49ea2.html. It's pretty gruesome.

Keep up to date with Guinea http://friendsofguinea.blogspot.com/ and at http://www.allianceguinea.org/

The flight from Ouaga to Bamako to Conakry is on a small plane, on an obscure airline called Asky. The small plane has many empty seats. I am one of maybe a dozen passengers. I'm pretty sure I am the only American.

I arrive at the Conakry airport. It's not as run-down as I remember it from last time. Did they remodel? Perhaps. My passport and yellow card are inspected. Yes, everything is in order. My checked bags arrive all in one piece. Whew.

Priscilla and Dioulde greet me at the exit. I'm very happy to see the Peace Corps staff again. The Peace Corps car drives us back to the Conakry house. I absorb the sights and sounds of the city. The ocean.

We arrive at the Conakry house. "What other volunteers are here?" I ask. "Well for now, it's just you," Priscilla responds. Oh. Ok.

We enter the house. It's familiar... but it's not. It's empty. So empty. We go to the office. We chat: about Guinea, the politics, the peace corps program, and about optimism. Optimism especially.

Details emerge, of a possible future. Later today I will be joined by three other education volunteers. We will be two G-18ers and two G-16ers. Together with the two extentionist (non-teacher) volunteers who are already in Dubreka, that makes a total of six volunteers in Guinea. For now. We will all work in Dubreka to help prepare a nice training program to welcome the bulk of the response volunteers who arrive in another week. I leave Conakry for Dubreka tomorrow.

And then I will move to site. Yambering. In the Fouta. On the road between Labe and Maliville. It's small. Smaller than Gueckedou or Koupela. It's mountainous. Green. Cold. Very cold, everyone tells me. Before evacuation, their high school had an English teacher. But now they need a science teacher.

But this future is only a possible future. Today it was announced that elections will be delayed. Again.

One day at a time. And optimism.

I gave up all my worlds

And got up and left

– Mon Frere

I’m leaving Burkina Faso and moving to Guinea to finish out my second year of service.

I don’t even know how to start explaining why I’m doing this or how I feel about moving. It’s all so complex. But in any case, my flight from Ouaga to Conakry leaves on September 15th.

I’m in the process of saying goodbye to my neighbors and friends in Koupéla, and my school here. Then I have to pack up all my stuff I want to take to Guinea, give away everything in my house that’s left, and finish up final paperwork at the office in Ouaga.

Why am I doing this? It seemed so clear when I was fighting the seemingly impossible administrative battle to get my transfer cleared. The program in Guinea is re-opening! I said, They need volunteers there! NO, the regional office said categorically, YOU ACCEPTED A PERMANENT TRANSFER TO BURKINA FASO. YOU CANNOT GO BACK. But after time, their tune changed. And now my ticket to Conakry is bought.

And then, when I started explaining to my site and to my fellow volunteers that I was moving, it started sounding awful. What, Burkina isn’t good enough for you? What, you’re dumping us? You don’t like Koupéla? What’s so great about Guinea? You said you’d stay another year, why are you choosing to leave?

No, I said. You’ve got it all wrong. I love Koupéla. I love Burkina. But I’m here first and foremost to work. And my school says that Koupéla has too many science teachers. And that the computer lab will now run fine without me. My work in Koupéla is done.

Why not move to another site in Burkina? some ask, At least that way you could stay in the country. True, I could do that. But the Peace Corps program in Guinea is in shambles. It would be more valuable for me to teach and help re-build there, rather than teach for another year in Burkina. It’s certainly not the normal Peace Corps experience, but then again, mine never really was.

So much is still unknown. Will I go back to Gueckedou, or get a new site? Don’t know. If I get a new site, where will it be? Don’t know. How long will I stay in Conakry before getting a site? Don’t know. Will I be at a middle school or a high school? Don’t know. What will I be teaching at site? Don’t know. Will violence again erupt in Guinea after the final round of presidential elections there, scheduled for 4 days after my arrival? Don’t know.

All I know for sure is that this experience is very bittersweet. It is bitter because I’m leaving Burkina so much earlier than planned. It is sweet because I know that Guinea really needs me.

Things I will miss from Koupéla

• The Waongo family. They have been excellent neighbors. Momma Sylvie and Poppa Pascal, their little boy Joel, their little girl Annick, their young brothers Sylvan and Dennis, their adopted daughter Clarice.

• My sitemate, Sara! She is about a cool as sitemates come.

• My friends at site: Sékou, Charles, and especially Jean.

• Grilled chicken (the good kind!) at Calypso la Joie.

• My cat, Sassy.

Things I will miss from Ouaga

• Dancing at Calypso.

• Bowling at the bowling alleys!

• Pizza from Pizza-lady Karen.

• Kicking it with volunteers at Rezoo or Fiesta.

• Pitchers at the Dolphin or Titi’s.

• My friend Ismael.

I will especially miss the volunteers in Burkina. Coming here as a direct transfer, one of my biggest fears was that I would forever be an odd man out, not belonging to any stage here. You have proven me wrong, welcoming me with open arms.

Wish me luck with my transition. My next post should be from Guinea.

I kind of feel like Will Schuester from Glee.

I've been in Ouaga working for the American Language Center, part of the US Embassy in Burkina Faso. The ALC borrows Peace Corps Volunteers to work their summer sessions. These summer sessions are kind of like summer camps for high school kids. They spend the first part of the day doing traditional English lessons with Burkinabe teachers, then us volunteers crash the party and do fun stuff to help them learn English.

Being a teacher for this program is extremely different from teaching at site. For one, these classes are expensive. So only very rich Ouagalais families can afford them. These kids have laptops, have been to America, and take piano lessons. Whoa.

And not only are the kids rich, but the program itself is rich too. TVs, DVD players, and Boomboxes, and AC in every classroom. Class size? 20 kids.

At site, I'm always thinking "oh shoot, I have to cram in all this information so they can have a shot at passing the national exams next year." Not so at ALC. We waste time by watching American movies, making colorful art projects, talking about American culture, doing word-searches, playing Simon Says, doing three-legged races, and, of course, singing American songs.

The kids get pretty into the song performances. Check 'em out.And that's why I kind of feel like Will Schuester. It's like a lost episode of Glee. Well, at least I like to think so.

And that's my update. Watch out for my next blog post, I might have some pretty big news...

So we're driving around in the back of a pick-up truck with our Safari-man Stephen. We see antelope and baboons. Meh. We see tracks of lions and hyenas. Meh. Then, suddenly, off in the distance, we see an elephant. An angry mother elephant with several baby elephants. She does not like the fact that we are in her space. So she makes her angry elephant noises and starts running at us. She would charge towards us, stop, make her angry elephant noises, and then charge a little closer. It was pretty terrifying. Fortunately some of the terror was captured on video.

Terror

"Here Phil, film it!" Mom was saying. I was more concerned about having a quick exit to the opposite side of the vehicle in case the elephant decided to actually ram us. Apparently it wasn't too far off from that... the Safari-man Stephen ended up shooting the elephant. Not shooting it dead, just kind of scaring it away. Except it wasn't that scared. And although the driver had stopped the truck, he was having trouble starting it again. For a minute I thought we would be gored to death. But then the truck started and we quickly drove away.

On the way back we saw some elephants on the main road. They were calm and used to people. They didn't make any angry elephant noises. Basically they were boring.

Boring

So I'm glad we got to see some angry elephants.

I think one of the only things I learned when I studied abroad in Germany was that the beta thing they use (ß) is pronounced like a double s. I therefore present...

episode 2: scheiße!

At this point Mom and I are done hanging out at site. She's met my neighbors, met my friends, brought fabric to the tailor to have made into skirts. Next up: going to the parks in SE Burkina to see elephants. Now these parks are pretty isolated. I'm lucky because I have great bus service from Ouaga to my site, but to get to the parks we have to get a bush taxi. It was a pretty memorable bush taxi ride.

We wander around looking for a ride. Buy our ticket. Start piling in (all 25 of us). Start piling all the luggage and such on top of the van. We end up smack in the middle of the van. Middle row, middle seats. "Can't we get a window seat?" Mom complains. "It's so hot; I really want to be next to a window."

"No," I reply grumpily, "we're all settled in, I'm not going to shuffle myself around anymore."

So we set off. As it turns out, we are sharing our ride with three German-Swiss passengers, who also speak English. Mom is clearly jealous of them because they got window seats. We're not 10 minutes on the road before it starts raining. Like, storm-of-the-century style. And because our bush-taxi is so decrepit, water is leaking in. Especially by the windows. Everyone by a window is getting kind of wet, but one of our German-Swiss friends who is right on the (very leaky) window is getting downright soaked. Not just with rainwater, mind you, but gross dirty rusty rainwater that passed through everyone's luggage. Each time the bush taxi turns a little bit, all the water rushes off the top of the taxi and onto his shoulder.

"Scheiße!" he would yell. With nowhere to go, there was little he could do.

Now, this is pretty funny in itself. Everyone in the bush taxi was certainly laughing at him. But it became evident after a while that it was even worse than it looked. Amongst all of the luggage on top of the van, there was a goat (of course). The goat did not like the rain. You might say the goat was scared shitless. And the goat-shit was being washed down into the inside of the van, through the faulty window-door... directly onto the guy's shoulder, with all the rainwater.

"Scheiße!"

Needless to say, Mom decided in hindsight that the middle of the van was a very good place to be.

Lucky there’s a family guy

Lucky there’s a man who

Positively can do

All the things that make us

Laugh and cry

He’s a family guy

- Family Guy

I am a family guy. Because I had family visit me in Burkina. And by family I mean my mom. So, for your reading pleasure, I present a series of three posts describing parts of her visit.

Episode 1: a plague of locusts

So we get to my site in the late morning. That afternoon it rains, so we don’t go into town, we just stay inside. By the evening, it had stopped raining. It’s dark out, and I have my living room light on, as well as my front porch light. We are sitting around in my house, and I notice a bug. A rather large bug. Not a cockroach, but some sort of giant flying ant. I think they’re called carpenter ants? Anyway, I promptly get my broom and kill it. No sooner had I killed it than I spot another. And another. I look outside. There’s a lot of them outside, flying up against my screen door. Now, my screen door, like shaving cream here, is not very good quality. Even when closed, it has spaces where bugs can get in if they want to. And there were enough of these bugs that they wanted to do just that. As I continued to kill the bugs that sneaked in, the quantity of bugs outside my screen door increased to biblical proportions. Seriously. If the bugs had a taste for human flesh, there were enough of them that they could have eaten you alive. As the bugs outside my screen door grew in number, so did the ones that were sneaking into my house. I swear it was like God sent a plague of locusts or something...

I am getting somewhat frantic at this point, shouting at my poor mother to help my kill some of the bugs. I think she is too tired to really care. She is more interested in laughing at me as my house is under attack.

My neighbors, who are more certain than I that the bugs can’t hurt you, are outside on my porch at this point. I am amazed that they are standing there in the swarm of carpenter ants.

“Is this happening just to my house, or everywhere?” I ask my young teenage neighbor boy, Dennis, through my closed screen door.

“Um they’re everywhere,” he replies nonchalantly, as the insects fly all around him. Seeing that I am upset, he kindly starts to kill some of the bugs who are outside. There are so many of these bugs that it hardly helps at all. “You know, if they’re bothering you, you can just turn off the light.”

Brilliant! Thanks Dennis! I turn off the porch light… which leaves the bugs to be attracted only to the light inside my house... which means they all start coming inside. Ah! No!

I quickly turn the porch light back on. “Um, it didn’t work,” I tell Dennis.

“Yes,” he says, “that’s because you have to turn off all the lights.”

Ok. My house is being consumed by insects. And I’m supposed to sit inside in the dark? Seeing no alternative, and the bugs showing no sign of going away, I try it. My mom uses a small flashlight to help me find the bugs who still wander in.

And we sit in the dark together.

After maybe an hour, I dare to turn the lights on. The insects are pretty much gone. Thank goodness.

The next day I talk with my neighbors. Lots of bugs last night, right? Is that normal? It is? Really? That happens often during the rainy season? Because of the rain? Oh. Ok. Um well thanks for helping me last night.

Mom insisted that we go to the Catholic church service in Koupela next Sunday. Thinking God was sending plagues on my city, I saw no harm in it. No plagues since. Flawless.

One year ago today, my plane touched down in Conakry. I could never have guessed what was in store for me.Cheers to my year in Africa.

Cheers to making it through the next one.And cheers to my 10-day vacation in Paris. My flight leaves Ouaga tomorrow.

Peace and love,Phil

Greetings, from Ouahigouya!So my breakfast options at site in Koupela are pretty limited. I can choose from:- oatmeal (good, but plain)- omelet sandwich (don’t get excited, it’s literally just a fried egg and bread)- bread and butter (well not butter, but blue band, some strange sort of vaguely butter-like margarine that doesn’t melt completely in the heat)- pb&j (jelly doesn’t actually go bad very quickly)I could have corn flakes and milk (they are available for purchase in Koupela), but it would be powered milk mixed with warm water. Yuck. I could buy real milk… but I don’t have a fridge at home so it would go bad instantly. Which sucks.But I’m not at site now. I’m in Ouahigouya hanging out with the new stage of volunteers. All the trainees have host families, but trainers don’t get families (we did that once already, thank you very much). So the Peace Corps hooks us up with a communal-type house to live in during our stay in Ouahigouya. And in an uncharacteristically generous manner, Peace Corps decided to equip said house with a fridge. Yay for fridge!!!Yes there’s a fridge at the volunteer transit house in Ouaga, but typically I’m not there for very long to enjoy it, because I’m only in Ouaga for a few days at a time, taking care of business at the Peace Corps office. But I’m in Ouahigouya for almost three weeks. Which means I get access to a fridge for the entire time. Which means I can have corn flakes and milk for breakfast every day. THIS IS A BIG DEAL. I mean, I’m excited about the new volunteers. But I’m also excited about my new breakfast plan here.Corn flakes with milk (fridge not pictured)And of course we also have a sink with running water and a mirror at the house here, like in Ouaga. I’ve tried shaving at site with a bucket of water and a little hand-held mirror at site. It sucks. I always make sure to shave when I go into Ouaga.I wanted to take advantage of the sink and mirror here. So I decided to shave my ugly beard. But something important to understand about West Africa is that everything you purchase here is of the absolute lowest conceivable quality. Things you didn’t even know could be low-quality are low-quality. Like clothes pins. Seriously. They snap in half after being used twice. And shaving cream. Or shaving cream bottles, I should say.So I got out my shaving cream, purchased in West Africa, and squirted some into my hand. And then set it down. But the aerosol can kept oozing shaving cream. I shook it, hit it, banged it against the sink (which might have actually made things worse). It continued oozing out shaving cream. It oozed and oozed and oozed shaving cream for a good twenty minutes. I ended up with an entire sinkful of shaving cream, and an empty bottle of shaving cream. Because aerosol cans, like everything, are of very low quality here.endlessly oozing shaving cream But I got a really good shave. But seriously, I've really enjoyed working with the new volunteers (er, trainees), teaching them this and that about living and teaching in West Africa. But alas, my time with them is almost up. Next week is a whole new adventure: Mom gets to Africa. And I'm sure that will be an adventure neither of us will forget.

Sometimes, I look around and wonder where I am. I’m in Burkina, (duh), but what does that really mean? I take a walk and wander around the outskirts of my town. I see the donkey carts, the huts, the cooking of plain food over an open fire, the water pumps. There is nothing modern. I must have travelled back in time. There’s no way this can be the year 2010. I ride my bike into town, and motorcyclists whizz past me on the poorly-maintained road. While talking on their cell phones, the motorcyclists weave frantically through a pair of bush taxis: vans so old and decrepit that they seem likely to implode at any moment. No, I think. I must have travelled forward in time. I am living some sort of post-apocalyptic existence where technology is used but not created. I look out on the landscape past my town. The ground is dry and barren, with only the faintest hints of greenery starting to emerge. The sparse trees twist and turn, reaching towards the blue sky. The land is flat, and the wild bush stretches on, seemingly forever. Perhaps I have not travelled through time, but instead walked through a portal into a completely different dimension. With how hot it is, I wouldn’t be surprised if this were a dimension of hell. But then, I return to my town after an absence. The kids in my neighborhood chant my name as I ride by on my bike. My neighbors smile at me and welcome me back. I walk into my house and see all my belongings. I text my friends to let them know I am back in town. Home? ~ Yes I know that was incredibly dorky, but I couldn’t just post my summer plans all plain-like, now could I? Summer game plan Late May -Kick it in Ouaga and decompress June -Workshop to be a volunteer trainer -Welcome the new volunteers to Burkina -Assist in their training in Ouahigouya July -Mom comes to visit Burkina! -Kick it at site with Mom -Hunt for Elephants in Pama -Vacation time in Paris and Swiss Alps August -Maybe working for a month-long English-language-learning summer camp in Ouaga -Maybe sitting and staring at the wall at site for a month September -Brace myself for the coming school year -Start teaching? Something? Maybe?

...well, at least the half when I was here.

No more pencilsNo more booksNo more teacher's dirty looks

Well we got no classAnd we got no principlesAnd we got no innocenceWe can't even think of a word that rhymes

School's out for summer...

-Alice Cooper

That’s right, Alice, school is indeed out for summer. And let me tell you: even though I’m a teacher now, summer break is just as exciting as it was when I was a student.

So how did this school year treat me?

When the new semester came and I finally started teaching, things were rough. It absolutely broke my heart when, in the first few weeks of teaching, I learned that my entire class had gone to the administration complaining that they couldn't understand the new American teacher. It was discouraging, devastating even. What good was I if I couldn't even deliver a comprehensible lesson to my students? But I had no choice but to learn from the situation and trudge on. I reminded my classes to ask questions if something isn't clear. I included more comprehension checks in my lesson plans. I had students repeat, in their own words, what I had said. And I think my classes improved.

So we learned, together. I learned to put more effort into speaking clear French, and to take it slow. My students learned about the states of matter, the phases of the moon, the different ways of arranging an electrical circuit, and combustion reactions. I prepared them well for the next year, I'm sure. I even threw in lewis dot structures and balancing chemical equations, which are pretty much my favorite things ever.

And speaking of favorite things, I think I discovered my least favorite thing ever: dealing with discipline. To make a long story short, I got lazy and gave two exams on two different days that were insufficiently different (stupid, I know). Cheating for the class that took it on the second day was rampant. And I had to come down hard by taking away a lot of points. And the kids weren't happy about it. So they went to whoever they could, including their parents and the principal. One parent in particular put pressure on the principal, who then told me to change my grades. Major ethical dilemma. The principal tried to explain fairness to me, and we obviously have different ideas about it. I don't even know what's right anymore. We ended up compromising. All in all, not fun. Being fair is incredibly hard. And I still have a lot to learn as a teacher.

Anyway, here are my end-of-the-year class photos that I took. Me and my two classes of (roughly 9th grade) physical sciences. Can you spot me? Where's Waldo?

My Monday/Wednesday class: the "insatiably curious about America and my personal life" class.

My Tuesday/Friday class: the "seriously how many times do I have to ask for silence?" class.

Voila. Thanks kids, you put up with a lot this year (as did I).I'm learning to fall.I can't hardly breathe.When I'm going down,don't worry about me.- Boys Like GirlsAnd oh right, there's this whole other giant aspect of my job: the computer lab. Yes, I breathed a sigh of relief when I had finally fixed up all the computers. But the real struggle was only just beginning. My administration and I can never quite see eye-to-eye on how it should be managed. To be fair, they're not quite getting what they expected back when the requested a volunteer. They wanted someone to sit in the computer lab all day everday and magically form classes and teach computer lessons and basically never leave the lab. And I said hell no to that.

When the school was given the computers (by some Belgian NGO, as I am told), two teachers were trained on how to give computer classes. This is the computer. This is the mouse. This is the keyboard. This is the monitor. You click like this. You type like this. You open documents like this. This is the internet. All the stuff that I seriously do not have the patience or temperament to teach. And it worked! Last year they held regular classes and did trainings and students got certificates. Success! This year they decided that the computers had gotten too many viruses and were slow to the point of uselessness. So they closed the lab (until my arrival).

I was happy to fix up the computers. But I had no interest in taking over teaching computer classes. After spending weeks trying to drum up support for forming classes, I realized that teachers here want nothing to do with the computer lab. They hate it just as much as I do, perhaps even more. In fact, there's a teacher here who owns the cyber cafe right next to the school. Conflict of interest? I think yes. And it also raises the question of what the hell I'm doing here in the first place when the school obviously has the resources to run the computer lab themselves, but that's a whole other story.

So I decided I would go to the students. There are students here that have laptops, and even internet connections at home. There are also students who have never seen a computer in their life. So together they should be able to do some peer-teaching.

I put a lot of effort into posting for computer lab assistant positions, interviewing students who applied, and training the ones that I chose. And they did pretty great. So I let them do their thing. We held open computer lab hours. We operated on a self-learning model with my assistants acting as general supervisors and lab problem-solvers. But apparently having students in charge of stuff is not ok. The school administration shut down my computer lab, and we were at a stand-still for several weeks. My APCD (Peace Corps boss) recently came down and helped with some cross-cultural communication, which resulted in the re-re-opening of the lab. And now my assistants can do their thing. So I think things are pretty much set for the computer lab now.

Here are my computer lab assistants: Didier, Anselme, and Aubain.

And here are some students working in the computer lab.

Once upon a time,I didn't give a damn.But now, here we are.Whatya want from me?Whatya want from me?- Adam Lambert

And that's my shcool year in review. What do I have planned for the summer? Well, I'll talk about that later. More Koupela (Keeping Kool) pictures added. Peace out for now.

The UW produced more Peace Corps volunteers last year than any other university. Voila.And speaking of producing Peace Corps volunteers, the new batch of volunteers gets to Burkina next month. I'm gonna be helping to train them. I am so excited for the new volunteers to get here... especially my old Guinea stage-mates! Remembering how useful blog packing lists were, I've gone back to my list that I posted way back in July and added some comments. So if you are a future Burkina volunteer, feel free to check it out.

Other than that, not much to report from site. There's just a week and a half left of school. A bat found its way into my house the other day, and I had my neighbors kill it. That was pretty much the highlight of my week. Very thrilling.

Let it rain, let it pour

Let it rain, let it pour

Hallelujah, hallelujah

Let it rain, let it pour

-Ok Go

I’m only happy when it rains

I’m only happy when it’s complicated

And though I know you can’t appreciate it

I’m only happy when in rains

You know I love it when the music’s bad

Why it feels so good to feel so sad

I’m only happy when in rains

-Garbage

Can you hear the thunder?

Can you feel the rain? It pours.

Nail down all your windows

And barricade the doors

-BFMV

Last post about weather, I promise.

Last night, Burkina Faso decided to rain on me for the first time since my arrival in early November. It’s about damn time.

And what a rain it was. We’re talking violent winds, thunder, lightning, the whole works. The best part is that the temperature dropped… a lot. So beings the transition from hot season to rainy season. Hallelujah.

How hot is it, in the peak of this hot season?

It’s so hot that it’s up to the 110's during the day, and only down to maybe the 80's at night. I’ve left my mercury thermometer out in the sun and come back to find it reading 50C - that's 122F!!! But the numbers don’t really do the situation justice. Just what does that kind of heat mean?

I’m hot cuz I’m fly

You ain’t cuz you not

This is why this is why

This is why I’m hot

-Mims

It’s gettin’ hot in herre

So take off all your clothes

-Nelly

- It’s so hot that the guy who sells ice in my neighborhood is my best friend right now. I see him everyday, without fail, and sometimes multiple times per day.

- It’s so hot that the air-conditioner in my school computer lab overheated and died.

- It’s so hot that I drink up to six liters of water every day. Most of it hot water, unless I came straight from the ice man.

- It’s so hot that when I wash clothes, they dry within seconds.

- It’s so hot that what I miss most about home right now is the cold, crisp air of the pacific northwest.

- It’s so hot and dry that we get dry thunderstorms, without a drop of rain.

- It’s so hot that I sleep naked and uncovered, with an oscillating fan blasting directly on me, all night, and I still wake up drenched in my own sweat.

- It’s so hot that the heat has sucked away all my motivation to do anything except sit in front of my fan all day.

- It’s hot as hell.

That’s how hot it is. And there are plenty of volunteers who are even further north than me. God save them, those poor souls who are even closer to the desert.

The rainy season can't come quick enough.

Storytime!

The eight of us who went to Togo for spring break are hanging out together on the beach, right outside our bungalow-hotel place, on its private beach area. Locals come and go from the beach area, no big deal. I'm relaxing. Bovard and Leslie decide to throw the frisbee around; I decide to get some action shots with my camera. Then I decide to join them in the water. I leave my camera on my sandals next to the 4 or 5 people who are still lounging in the sand.

I swim and toss the frisbee for a while. It's fun. I come back and put on my sandals. "Um, where's my camera?" I ask the rest the group.

"It's not there?" they respond. We look all around, but it is nowhere to be found.

"Well did anyone come up to you guys while we were in the water?" I ask.

"Oh yeah, there was this one guy who came and sat down and talked to us but we pretty much just ignored him because he was annoying," says Carolyn. Fair enough. I would have done the same thing. But clearly he took my camera.

"What was he wearing?" I ask Carolyn.

"What's that brand with the elephant? Ecko? Yes. He was wearing an Ecko shirt." So I go up to the hotel guys and tell them the scoop. They tell me that my friends are inattentive. Thanks guys, but what I really want is to file a police report.

"Oh no, we'll just go find him. He was the guy in the Ecko shirt, right? Yes, he's caused us trouble before," they say.

"What? No this guy came here like an hour ago. He's long gone."

"We'll find him." Fine. Whatever. I return to the beach, angry at myself for being so stupid as to leave my camera out in the open.

About 15 minutes later, the hotel guys come up to me. "Hey, could you and the person who saw the thief come over here?" So Carolyn and I head over to the hotel entrance. Commotion. What we see there is a man surrounded by a bunch of other guys, some of whom work at the hotel, others of which seem just to be random guys. They are basically all hitting the man who is clearly being accused of thievery.

"Give back the camera!" one of them shouts. *Punch*"Yeah, go get it! These two saw you steal it!" shouts another. *Slap*"Ok ok, I'll go get it!" the thief finally cries. Then the whole mob follows him out of the hotel. Carolyn and I are in a state of disbelief. Did they really just find the thief and hit him until he agreed to give the camera back?

We head back to the beach, and within 15 minutes the owner of the hotel proudly hands me back my camera, good as new. I am extremely pleased. The owner continues to explain to me that the guy who stole my camera does not represent Africa. What Africa is all about is community. "See those two guys walking over there?" he asks. "They are plain-clothed policemen. See the woman over there? She comes by here all the time selling snacks. In Africa, everyone knows everyone. And when something goes wrong with someone, it's everyone's problem."

I couldn't agree more.

Dear Everyone:Wish you were here.With love from Lomé,Phil

riding trains to ends of lines still we got nothing but time -Matt & Kim What can I say? Life continues to progress at site. Science classes are going. Computer lab is going. But all work and no play makes for a dull Peace Corps experience. Sometimes I hang out with my friend Sekou, who works at one of the many cyber cafés here (actually there are computers and internet, but no café, so we just call them cybers). How do we kill time in Koupela? I’m glad you asked.And yes, I tried myself, and fell on my rear end. No video evidence of that, sorry. And that’s that.* video music by mon frere.

I recently opened up my computer lab at the school for general business. All the students, teachers, and staff are welcome to use the computers. The possibility of what they could do is almost endless. They could take a walk through the streets of New York City with Google Maps Street View. They could freely access the sum of human knowledge on Wikipedia. And what do they do on the computers? The top things teachers want to do on computers: - watch youtube videos of reggae concerts - check their email - look for information on US green cards The top things students want to do on computers - play pinball - look up pictures of professional wrestlers - look up pictures of dj arafat - visit badoo.com - watch youtube videos of teletubbies - watch youtube videos of lil’ wayne But there’s light at the end of the tunnel. After some gentle nudging, some of the more mature students have started accessing things like historical maps of Africa, or Wikipedia articles on Ousmane Sembene, or biographies of Norbert Zongo. One of their favorite things to do is ask Google essay-type questions that they probably got assigned in their French class. Example: “What are the responsibilities of leaders of rich nations to poorer nations?” Whatever. As long as they’re not Googling 50 Cent all day.

Other miscellaneous things:- The new header on my blog depicts a section of my quatrieme physique/chimie students in lab. They're observing distillation on the left, and finding the mass of a beaker of alcohol on the right (so they can calculate its density). I had mixed feelings about taking out my camera in class, then more mixed feelings about posting the pictures online, but then I ended up doing both of those things. Oh well. Makes for a nice header.- I'm going to Dakar, Senegal next weekend for the West African Invitational Softball Tournament (WAIST), which I guess is basically a big event that a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers in the region go to. I'm so excited to see some of the other Guinea volunteers who got scattered around West Africa!- I took a new African name. My students call me Mr. Waongo, my friends call me Phillippe. So I guess that makes me Phillippe Waongo.- Guinea looks to be on a good track, finally. Read the NYTimes article.

Some responses that my students gave during my first day of teaching: - Physics permits us to study physical phenomena. Chemistry permits us to study chemical phenomena. (This response was especially popular) - Physics and chemistry let us know how to decant air in water. - They let us distinguish solids from gasses. - They help us with math and biology. - They let us do calculations. - They prepare us to be technicians, executives, and electricians. - They help us operate our electronic devices. - We use chemistry and physics to know the source of life. - They develop medicine, electronics, and mechanics. - It is good to study physics and chemistry so we can discover things. - They permit us to have a mastery of earthly objects, and how to manipulate them. - It is important to study physics and chemistry to better know the states of matter and also to know about the atmosphere and its importance in the life of humans and animals and also plants. They also permit us to know the importance of combustion and how to use it. Furthermore, physics and chemistry guide us in our life and permit us to protect our environment. - Thanks to these subjects, certain laws were declared. Science developed, and our country became developed. Certain remedies were discovered by the research of geniuses of science. In summary, one can say that thanks to physics and chemistry, the world has evolved… (illegible)… those who make of us superior elites. I guess my favorite response was the following: - We study physics and chemistry to be able to do experiments and to be sure that what science says is true. ~ So yeah, I started teaching for this term. Two sections of quatrieme physique/chimie, roughly akin to something like eighth-grade integrated physical sciences. Eighty-some kids in each class. It could be worse. At first I was kind of upset that they were only giving me eight measly teaching hours per week (each of my two classes is four hours per week). I came here to work! But then I took a tour of my school’s science lab. It looks really well-run. They have tons of materials, and all the chemicals are neatly stocked and labeled and organized. They have a guy whose sole job it is to run the lab. And while I was there, one of the teachers was doing a demonstration and needed a Bunsen burner and gas tank. Seriously. My school does not need me to teach science. They obviously have that covered. The kids already have a sense of scientific curiosity too! (After my lesson on physical transformations, a student asked to see a demonstration of sublimation!) My place is first and foremost in the computer lab.So I accepted my tiny teaching schedule of two science classes, and retreated back to the computer lab, where I continue to tinker while I am not teaching. Hopefully, when I'm done tinkering, there will be a grand re-opening of the computer lab. And it will be grand.

Ok now I’m going to talk about my computer lab. Here’s one of my earliest conversations with my principal:

Me: So you have a computer lab here? That’s great!Him: Yes, we have 15 computers.Me: Great. Do they all work?Him: Well, some of them have some viruses.Me: Oh. Well I can probably fix that. Is there an internet connection?Him: Not anymore. But now that you’re here, we’re going to reconnect to the internet.Me: Ok. So who’s in charge of the computer lab, exactly?Him: You are!Me: No I mean, who was in charge before me?Him: No one.Me: No one?Him: That’s why you’re here!Me. Oh. Ok. But I want to teach science classes, too, remember?Him: Hmm? Ok fine, but here let me show you the computer lab.

We walk to the computer lab. He opens the door (quadruple locked) to reveal a mess of computers and cobwebs and lizards. Clearly nobody has been in here in a very long time.

Me: Ok first thing, we need to clean this room up. This is gross.Him: Ok, I’ll get the janitor.

~

A few days later the janitor comes and cleans up the room. Ok, now I can be in here without inhaling too much dust and mold and death. First off, let’s check to see how bad off these computers really are. The computers are actually neatly labeled with the numbers 1-15.

Computer #1: Slow, but good.Computer #2: Low virtual memory, very unresponsive.Computer #3: Slow, but good.Computer #4: Will start up, but won’t get past the texty beginning part to the windows xp operating system.Computer #5: Slow but good.Comptuer #6: Extremely slow, literally takes 5 minutes to open any window.Computer #7: This computer immediately pops opens inappropriate internet sites on start up.Computer #8: It seems to power on, but nothing appears on the monitor.Computer #9: Needs a start-up password. Of course, nobody knows the password.Computer #10: This is just a monitor. The actual computer body is nowhere to be found.Computer #11: Slow, but good.Comptuer #12: Even slower than computer #6.Computer #13: Low virtual memory, very unresponsive.Computer #14: Slow, but good.Computer #15: Slow, but good.

So we have maybe 6 out of 15 computers that are marginally usuable. After waiting a few days for the internet connection to arrive (which works great on my laptop), I try updating all the software on the computers and running some anti-virus on them, but it doesn't help much. There’s no way computer classes can be held in these conditions. By the time a student accomplished one simple task on these junkers, class would be over. It’s clear that I need to reformat all the hard drives and reinstall windows, which means I need a windows installation CD. I go to the principal.

Me: So I need to find the windows installation CD that probably came with the computers. Do you know where it is?Him: No, I don’t know.Me: Do you know someone who might know?Him: Maybe Henry, the English teacher.Me: Ok.

So I go visit Henry.

Me: Do you know where the windows installation CD is for the computers?Henry: It might be in the computer storage room.Me: Oh. Where’s that?Henry: I’ll show you.

We go visit the computer storage room, which contains a few other computer parts, a smattering of cds and random hardware, and a giant locked file cabinet.

Me: So I don't see the CD, but that locked file cabinet looks like it might have important things in it. Maybe the CD is in there.Henry: Yes, perhaps.Me: So who has the key for the cabinet?Henry. I don’t know. Maybe the principal?

~

Turns out the principal doesn’t have the key. We spend roughly a week trying to find the key, asking various people, looking various places, but no luck. Finally the principal brings over a carpenter to break open the cabinet. And behold! Not one copy of windows xp, but three! What luck! Now the real work can begin.

After clearing one hard drive and starting to install windows, I find that the product key that was scrawled on the CD’s envelope is not valid. Major road block. I can’t install anything without a valid product key. Not sure where to go from here. Partly because there’s only so much work I can do with the materials I’m given. Partly because I’m not really a computer technician and don't really know what I'm doing.

So I’ve failed to get the computers into working condition, and meanwhile I still don’t know what my science teaching schedule will be for the upcoming trimester. Awesome.

~

what else I’ve done since arriving at site:• had the inside of my house painted so it doesn't feel like a jail cell• commissioned two tables, a chair, a bed, and 5 shelves from a carpenter, and bought a bunch of other household items at the market• started cooking for myself with my gas camp-stove I bought here… mostly pasta, or rice and sauce• became addicted to the lemonade that my neighbors make. seriously. the kids have a mobile lemonade stand. it's super.• biked to tenkodogo (my regional capital) and back, in one day… that’s 100k! actually it’s like 92k but we biked all over tenkodogo while we were there, so I’m counting it as 100k.• visited a neighboring volunteer in the very tiny village of nakaba• biked back to tenkodogo for christmas and got sunburned on the way. that's right, while everyone back home was dreaming of a white christmas, I get sunburned for the occasion. how wrong is that?• attended a real burkinabe marriage! my immediate neighbors with whom I share my compound hosted, and it was neat to see them all decked out in their fanciest attire. they served goat. it was delicious.• had 3 other volunteers come and stay with me in koupela for a visit!• chalked up some artwork on my compound wallI miss Seattle.

what’s on my plate for the immediate future:• new year’s with friends in ouaga• a week of in-service training (IST) in ouaga, where hopefully I can get some computer-fixing help• get back to site and start teaching some science classes!

So then, from the computer lab at Lycee Kourita of Koupela, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone reading my blog. Cheers to 2010!

... hopefully for longer than a week this time around.

It feels good to finally have a house to myself. It's sort of a peach colored house. I share a walled-in courtyard with another family. I'm in the process of painting the inside and having some furniture made. You know, settling in.

My principal at my school is really excited to have me... not so that I can teach science, but so that I can fix up their computer lab and teach kids about computers. Then because I basically refused to teach math, they're reluctantly giving me a couple of physics/chemistry classes, but the introductory-middle-school kind instead of senior-in-high school kind. So instead of teaching kids about organic chemistry and chemical kinetics and reduction/oxidation reactions (all of which get me excited because I'm weird like that), I get to teach them what science is in the first place, and how to type. Blah. Maybe I can get excited about this gig once I start teaching in January. I certainly hope so.

It's hard not to compare it to what I had in Guinea. I need to just get over the fact that what I had there was perfect for me, and what I have here is not. That's that and I can't change it. I can only make the best of what I have here.

There is grilled meat everywhere here. It's pretty good.

Btw, pics are updated. Feel free to check 'em out.

My familyWithout your care packages, your phone calls, your text messages, and your emails, I might have quit long ago.

My friendsThe ones I left in Seattle, the ones I made in Guinea who are now scattered here there and everywhere, and the ones I am starting to make here in Burkina.

Being AmericanLife in West Africa is hard. I get to board a plane and trade it for an American life one day. Most people here don’t.

FanChoco frozen chocolate milk barsThey have ice cream men here! Guys cart around coolers and honk their little horns and I get pretty much as excited as I did when I was a little kid and heard the music of the ice cream man's car. On a hot day in Ouaga, nothing beats these.A hot day in Ouaga. Right. Like there's any other kind of day here...

Greetings, from Ouagadougou! (Everyone calls it Ouaga for short. Say it like WAH-gah.) It’s pretty hot here.

The team at Peace Corps Burkina Faso has been kind enough to set up a training program for the five Guinea transfers. It’s hard to have a good attitude about it. I mean, I just finished eleven plus weeks of training in Guinea, and I’ll be doing almost the exact same thing here as I was going to do in Guinea. I just want to settle into my house and start working! But we have to train… because they’re still finding me a house for me at my new site. I complain, but really it’s not that bad. But yeah, that’s what we’ve been doing since we got here: general orientation, local language (Mooré), studying the structure of the education system here, blah blah blah. Speaking of the structure of the education system here, they combine physics and chemistry here. Like, they’re the same class, even at the upper levels of high school. And it’s pretty physics-heavy. Weird. I don’t like physics. Not even a little bit. This is bad. And the other volunteers here in Burkina are super-dooper friendly and fun. But they’re not the people who arrived here with me, who trained with me, and who helped me adjust to life in West Africa. I miss my Guinea volunteers. This is bad. And wow, Ouaga is much more developed than Conakry. Roads have been recently paved. There is electricity and running water everywhere… all the time! The transit house has a functioning washing machine… and dryer! And the schools! We visited one here in Ouaga that had actual science labs! With sinks and fluorescent lights and physics contraptions and chemicals and beakers and flasks and everything! What!?!?!? My school in Gueckedou had naught but rooms with chalkboards and wooden desks, and another room with no books that they called the library… and that was something spectacularly extravagant! But anyway, to kill some more time, we’re visiting other volunteers around Burkina and watching them teach for the next two weeks. Then we get to site after thanksgiving. Then, since there’s only two weeks left in the trimester, we hang around until the new trimester starts in January. Then finally I might be able to teach a real science class… six months after I arrived in Africa. I am so useless. This is torture. But my Peace Corps experience will get better. That’s what I keep having to tell myself. It will get better.

Well, Tubaniso is just about empty now. All the painful goodbyes are done. Everyone has gone home, or to their new posts. All that remains here is the five of us transferring to Burkina Faso, who leave tomorrow (and a couple leaving for Madagascar on Thursday). Why have our transfers have taken so long to confirm? I don't know.

What is that? You've never heard of Burkina Faso? Oh. Well it's a little land-locked country that sits on top of Ghana, not terribly far from Guinea.

Voila.

So yeah, tomorrow I board a flight (on fabulous Burkina Air) from Bamako to Ouagadougou. Not sure exactly what they have in store for us there. Something like a couple of weeks of orientation and training just for the five of us, and then hopefully I can start actually teaching! And Burkina Faso needs teachers like crazy. They have the lowest adult literacy rate in the world.

But really, this is going to be a major shift of gears. Check out the google-satellite pictures. On top is my site in Guinea. On the bottom is my (potential) site in Burkina Faso.

Goodbye, forest. Hello, desert. Wish me luck. I'm gonna need it.