Rainy reset

(note: this post was written a week ago. I did not have internet to post until now. Will post an update soon)

Everyone here is so welcoming and friendly. Many have travelled to visit just to see the American married to a Guinean man which just doesn't happen. They all have very kind words and well wishes. The girls are starting the make some friends. My sister in law's family lives close by and the children of various ages come frequently to play. We continue to explore the city and make a final decision of which French school to enroll the girls. 

On a couple of our outings we have had some encounters with the police. The first one made me very nervous. We were on our way to a wedding and needed to make a u-turn. We made it to a busy intersection that an officer was attempting to take charge of. We attempted to make a left turn and were immediately stopped. The officer began yelling. My husband and his brother started yelling back; this is when I started getting very nervous since I couldn't understand anything. They yelled back and forth for a while. My husband refused to give the officer his driving permit. We started driving forward as a second officer came to the car and tried to stop him to no avail. We drove away with my heart racing. The police didn't do anything about it. When I asked what happened I was told that the police officer said we should have moved forward three more inches before making a left turn. Seriously??!? What was really going is that he wanted the driving permit so that he could bribe us to get it back. 

The second encounter was actually legitimate. Our car was missing a vignette on the windshield. We were forced to go buy one immediately along with a 25% late fee. While I waited a female police officer came over to say hello. Hawa was nursing at the time and I was covering up a bit with a scarf. She gestured for me to remove the scarf and was very excited to see that I was nursing. A few minutes later she came back and proceeded to intentionally mess with Hawa becuase she thought it was hilarious to distract Hawa enough to pull off repeatedly leaving me fully exposed. Never in the United States.

Living in Conakry is such a rollercoaster. Every day I have hit rock bottom for any of the following reasons: no power, no water, too hot, no food readily available, food available but no power to cook myself (most cook outside on open charcoal - I have yet to learn this skill and I may choose not to). Nighttime is especially challenging with the added threat of mosquitoes. They stay away with fans on. With no power it's too hot to close everything up and Hawa strongly protests sleeping in the heat. Because the power only comes on for about half the day right now I find myself hoping power does not come on during the day. Yesterday it came on in the afternoon and I was seriously concerned; never thought I would ever be upset about having power. Somehow, every day Conakry redeems itself with playing children, beautiful views, glorious breezes and some pretty magnificent storms.

We had our first daytime storm today. The girls' had so much fun outside using one of the balconies as a slip and slide. With the rain comes cooler weather and a break in the humidity. Reset successful. 

Settling in

We're here, safe, hot, and adjusting. It's still a bit surreal to be in the country that has existed in my mind for the past 11 years. Travel was not a bad as expected. It was long, but we made it. There were a few (now amusing) situations. My husband's mom is not used to travel. Two times she was stopped by security and went through a full body search because she was carrying money under her dress. At JFK we took an escalator on which she began falling backwards and needed to be held up by the people behind her. The final was on the long flight to Paris. I awoke to the flight attendant kindly asking her to get up from the floor where she was lying down and sit in her seat. The girls only broke down a few times. The Conakry airport was actually much nicer than I expected. People were waiting to help us with our  numerous 50 lb bags, although I think it would have been much easier for me to do it than the old man who struggled to assist. A man from security also decided to get in the mix knowing there was some money in it for him once we got to Lamine. I cannot tell you the relief I felt when we saw him in the parking lot. It took about 10 minutes to get through all of the negotiation of how much the men who helped should be paid. Once on the road I got a chance to take everything in. Traffic is crazy. No one follows any traffic rules. It's a madhouse. People go in all directions. The roads are full of potholes and trash. People walking through the traffic and selling goods further slow it down. My nose was immediately offended by all of the different fumes and dust. our first night, we slept outside on the 2nd floor balcony with fans on to keep the mosquitoes away.

Power was out by around 6am and did not turn back on again until around 5pm. Honestly, the first day I was miserable. The heat was unbearable. We ran a few errands to buy goods, but it's impossible get what you need one place. You may have to try 3 different stands to find a particular item and negotiation can take 10 minutes or more. I was sweating profusely sitting in the car with Hawa. Both of us were pretty dehydrated that day. Our only relief was going up to the 3rd floor balcony where there is usually a nice breeze to be found. I've learned where to sit at what time during the day to maximize the benefits. Night two was similar to the first, but this time inside with the fans on. It was great until the fans shut down with the electricity in the early morning. The next day we decided to buy an air conditioner and hope we could get it set up in time for sleep. We did! And all was great until a storm moved in in the middle of the night and power shut down again. We tried to wait it out, but it got hot quickly. Because it was cool outside and there was a good breeze  to keep the mosquitoes away we moved the mattresses up to the 3rd floor and slept outside. It was really quite lovely. Since then we've had power almost 24 hours a day with intermittent breaks, but right now there is another issue...no water as of yesterday. The pump is being replaced hopefully by the end of the day today. In the meantime, we can get water from a generous neighbor.

I've been quite a spectacle to people here, especially children who begin pointing and saying "tubabu" (mandingo) or "fotay" (susu). They get especially excited when I wave at them. Some have never seen an American before and assume I am Chinese because they have seen Chinese before.

The rhythms of the day:
I'm learning the pulse here. Each new day begins with the pre-dawn call to prayer from nearby mosques urging people to get out of bed and come pray. Next comes the calling of the roosters and then the sounds of women gathering water, starting fires and cleaning to get ready for the day. While everything here is a bit harder and much slower the beauty is that you are forced to feel and experience every moment of every day.

Will post some photos soon!