The Fun Never Stops!

More adventures in The Gambia! Last month Anna and I went on mailrun, so in five days time we stopped at each volunteer’s site and delivered their mail. One of the drivers, named John, drove us around since volunteers aren’t allowed to drive cars. So we had a good time seeing everyone’s site, laughing at John whenever he yelled at children, or other drivers, or animals in the road—“Hey, move out of the way you donkey *insert appropriate noun here*!”—and trying not to mess up the mail. For some reason I thought that the truck, which was packed to bursting when we left, would empty as the trip went on. I was wrong. Very wrong. As we went along people would send thing to people further down the line or back to Kombo, so as the boxes diminished they were replaced with bags, soccer balls, books, and things like guitars. Many a time could one here from the back of the truck “Where the hell is that last box?!? Can we put some of this crap on top so we don’t have to keep moving it around?” It was pretty much fifty-fifty whether it was Anna or myself back there…Anyway, it was a good time, even with Jaliba (one of the local artists) playing on endless repeat.

After mailrun I went back to village for a week. Besides watching lots of hernia operations, I’ve started helping the family with watering their beds in the women’s garden. Hawa is still in the hospital but doing well. After a week of teaching I went on my spring break. It was supposed to be spring break for the entire region, but the schedule changed. However, I had already purchased my visa for Guinea and received my vacation days, so I went on my own spring break trip to see my boyfriend. Yes, I have a boyfriend. His name is Bob and he’s a recently COSed volunteer in Guinea (I met him on my last trip through Guinea, then we saw each other again at the softball tournament in Dakar, Senegal, and he took me out for my birthday). He’s staying in Conakry because he loves the country. He’s a mechanical engineer, from Tennessee, and treats me like a princess.

Oy, what a wild trip! I left for Basse on Friday and made it in eleven hours. Saturday morning I was at the carpark by 5:30 in the morning and wait until noon to see if a car going to Labe would fill up in time. No dice. At that point I asked for my money back, walked half an hour to the other side of Basse to the carpark going to Vellingara, Senegal. As I walked I called Bob to let him know what was going on, and he suggested meeting up in Koundara instead of Labe. After waiting a few hours at the Velingara carpark for a car to fill, we made the trek safely to our destination. In Velingara I made friends with some people heading in relatively the same direction and they told me that the best way to go to Koundara was to go to Manda and get a car there. So I went to Manda, and waited until nightfall thinking there was only a space left to fill the car. At that point I offered to buy the space, but the driver said no. Fine. I ended up sleeping in the taxi that night, thus kicking the driver out of his usual sleeping space. Meh. He slept in the front seats. The next day everyone waited until 9:30 before approaching me to say there were two spaces left, the other passengers were going to buy one space, will I buy the other? I say no, but I'll pay half (I still end up paying more than anyone else). So hours later, after being hit on at each and every checkpoint by icky police officers--sometimes it's good not to understand French--I made it to Koundara and tried to contact Bob. After several hours of trying unsuccessfully, I called the Peace Corps Director of Guinea, Steve. Steve told me the last time he talked with Bob, Bob was in Gaoul. I don't know any Guinea geography so I didn't know what to do other than wait in Koundara. And wait, and wait, and finally it was dark outside and I found a mat to sleep on in one of the bitik verandas. People weren’t happy with me, but they left me alone because I was crying (I was feeling extremely sorry for myself) about being lost in a country where I didn't know the language and I had no idea where I was except that I wasn't in Labe. So passed another night. The next day I bought water and some snacks from the bitik owner so he was a bit kinder towards my staying on the mat. It was my safe haven by that point and I was loathe to leave it for any reason. I managed to let people know that I was waiting for my 'husband,' and so they were nicer to me in general. So a full twenty-four hours after I arrived in Koundara, Bob arrived with an even worse traveling story than mine (car broke down, he slept on a table in a restaurant while they were still serving people, finally he bought a seat in a passing semi truck). By that point it was evening on Monday, so we found a place to sleep for the night, then Tuesday we headed to Labe. It took about eleven hours to get there, and we ended up sleeping in the same dive of a hotel that Becca and I stayed at when we passed through--I even slept in the same room!--then Wednesday morning we grabbed a car going to Conakry. Because the taxis in Guinea Conakry always oversell places there was no room in the back (two big people, one medium person (me), and one small guy who kept complaining in French), so I ended up sitting in Bob's lap for almost the entire trip. The annoying skinny guy then started making jokes in French about how Bob should have the other lady in the back sitting on his lap, she could be his first wife and I would be the second, blah blah blah. I wanted to tell him in English to shut up because he was the one complaining about there being no room, but I held my tongue. So I finally made it to Conakry six days after I started my journey. If I had traveled back by land I would have had to leave the very next day to make it up country, but Bob said he “kinda wanted to spend time with me other than in a car” so he bought me a plane ticket to get back. Thus I was able to spend four days in Conakry. It’s a pretty cool city, and I was lucky that there weren’t demonstrations, because there were supposed to be. But all in all, I missed the relative quiet and smallness and familiarity of Kombo. Plus everything is in English or an African language I can understand at least some of!

In other news, I’ve enrolled in the Fall 2008 Epidemiology/Biostatistics track of the MPH program at Oregon Health and Science University. I decided I should be closer to home for at least a few years (I haven’t had Thanksgiving at home for the last 6 years!), plus OHSU is a school with a good reputation and as a resident of Oregon, it’s considerably cheaper than Emory (I was accepted there, but cannot afford the $45,000 a year). So, in three month’s time I’ll return to the states, enjoy a few months of readjustment, then head off to Portland at the end of September.

Okay, that’s all for now! I go back to site tomorrow and probably won’t be back until COS conference!