Articles tagged with: guinea
Guinea 010
Monday, December 18 10:30 a.m.
Taking this room and staying in Conakry an extra week has had the desired effect. I’ve ceased to obsess about getting on the bicycle and “go, go, going.” I’ve relaxed and slipped another notch into what I’m beginning to think of as a Guinean pace of life. And even loading up my bicycle with my four pannier bags and cycling the …
Guinea 009
Sunday, December 17 9:10 a.m.
Evidence continues to mount that I’m an idiot. I was in Sundar’s shop yesterday when a heavyset Sierra Leonian woman struck up a conversation. She appeared to know Sundar quite well and had taken a stool to rest from the exertions of shopping. She’d bought quite a large amount of goods, including a case of fifty tins of tomato paste and …
Guinea 008
Saturday, December 16 4:50 a.m.
My second trip to see the rooms that are available for rent was strange but probably fairly typical for Guinea. At least I was the only one who seemed to find the process a bit unusual.
I went to Marie’s small apartment at 6:30 as we’d arranged. The small door into the compound was open and I just walked in. The yard …
Guinea 007
Friday, December 15 11:15 a.m.
I changed my pattern today and went out into Taouyah before my morning coffee. It was still cool and I wanted to take a look at the Taouyah market. Silly me I thought I’d already seen it – the row of stalls lining the main road. But yesterday Sundar sent the young boy who works at his shop off to the …
Guinea 005
Wednesday, December 13 9:17 a.m.
I’m back at the same cafe, Le Club Altesse, where I’ve started most of my days in Conakry. The short walk to get here does not overwhelm me anymore. Certain things – the people, the roads, buildings, colors, smells and sounds – are falling into familiar patterns so that it doesn’t hit me all at once and my mind has begun …
Guinea 004
Tuesday December 12, 9:30 a.m.
It turned out there was nothing sinister going on at the cinder block cafe. I was imagining that these men were recruiting soldiers to fight Foufana or forming their own splinter group. Such is the power of arrival disorientation. The truth was so harmless as to be laughable. The men were gambling. The cafe I’d stumbled into was a bookie’s establishment. …
Guinea 002
Sunday, December 10, Le Club Altesse, Conakry
I must skip ahead in my story here. This is the first time I have ventured out by myself. It seems a small thing, but it is not. It’s 2:45 in the afternoon, and the full heat of the day is beating down. It stuns me to think that in a very few days, I will be out there …
021 – Bira effellegallo
Most nights I was extremely tired and not good for much so I went to bed early. I liked the early nights. It meant I got a good night’s sleep and I was woken gently by the sun peeping through the cracks of the shutters, shutters which, again for reasons unclear, Zebachew insisted I close tightly each night. I never knew if these things on …