Coming Together

It's a rainy day today; sometimes raining so hard that we can barely hear each other talking over the sounds of the raindrops pounding the metal roof. In Conakry, the rain is such a part of life that most people don't use umbrellas or rain jackets. It's so nice and cool though; almost too cool to have a fan on during the morning hours. 

We have power now! 24 hours per day. We ended up investing in solar power. We have 6 large panels on the roof which connect to an inverter and 6 very large batteries. When EDG (Electricité de Guinée) is available, it charges the batteries; when it's out, the sun does the work. For the first week or so I honestly felt guilty about having power when the rest of the neighborhood was out. I've gotten over that and now fully enjoy at least being able to have a fan on and not worry about the food in the refrigerator spoiling. While the weather is much cooler than when we first arrived it can still be quite humid. My hair is constantly in a ponytail. The few times I've attempted to wear it down last no longer than a few hours. 

Other things are coming together. We have someone to help clean. The floors have to be swept and mopped every single day because of all the dust that comes in. Cleaning here is back breaking work. For a mop, people use a towel and brooms are held in your hand. I have never seen a more effective broom. It's seriously impressive; it can even cleanly pick up wet sticky rice. All of the work is done bending over. Laundry is also all by hand with a washboard, but my clothes have never been cleaner. I'm told during the rainy season sometimes in can take two weeks for clothes to dry. We've been lucky so far with two days at most. We also hired a cook just this past week. It was beginning to get complicated for one person (my sister-in-law) to cook for everyone here which includes our family, two of my husband's brothers, two nephews, a "niece" - not related but lives as a daughter to my sister-in-law, my sister-in-law, and her niece. The cook's name is Prince and he's excellent! He just cooks one large meal a day right now and we manage just fine on our own for the other two. He's adding a variety to our meals that we weren't getting before. Speaking of food, I've been able to venture into the markets a bit more. A couple of weekends ago we went to a large market a bit east of where we are in Matoto which is considered more of a wholesale market. For around $25 (230,000 Guinean Franc) we purchased the following:

• 6 avocados
• 5 mangos
• 2 pineapples
• 1 kilo carrots
• 1 kilo cabbage
• 3 bunches cassava leaf
• 4 kilos okra
• 5 onions
• 2 bulbs of garlic
• 1 liter red palm oil
• 30 eggs

Meat is very expensive; definitely not much cheaper, if at all, than in the states. Local chickens are bought live and are fully butchered at home. A few times we've gone to a "supermarket" (lots of things available, but still quite small) to purchase some imported comfort items for the girls like cheese and butter. Overall, I think our digestive systems are pretty well adjusted although we all got hit a couple of times for not washing some of the fruit well enough.

This week the girls and I also started with French tutor. We have a handmade blackboard upstairs on the top balcony and each have our own hour long lesson each day (Sireh and Ramata together). So far, so good and I definitely have lots of opportunity to practice! Figuring out formal schooling for the girls was quite tricky. We were hoping to put them in French school, but they all wanted Amina to re-do 1st grade. Those of you who know Amina understand that this idea is absurd. We finally sat down with the Director of the English Speaking Community school which was willing to put Amina in 2nd grade in French, but she asked us if we had considered whether we would be moving back to the states at some point and what language we wanted the girls to reason in. These are things I had not considered. I was originally mostly considering the language aspect not the full education system. The methods that are taught may get to the same answer, but there are major differences between the French and the English systems. With this in mind, we decided to keep the girls in English, but taking French classes and intensive daily French tutoring.

Still awaiting the arrival of our things on the container, but that should get here later this week or early next week if all goes well. Customs is the tricky part. Things that I'm looking forward to the most: a couch!! our kitchen supplies, and our beds. I can't wait to see how much it transforms our lives when we get everything and how many things we decide we don’t need at all because we’ve gotten used to life without.

Overall, I would say I’m doing well now. There are still some low moments, but they are much fewer and farther between. Things are coming together.