Bye (and hello) from afar

I've been back for 8 weeks now. It's crazy for me to think about the day I left Guinea; we were told again and again we'd be going back in the coming weeks. Obviously, the staff reassuring us had no way of predicting just how "out of control" the Ebola outbreak was to become. I was in the last group to leave, staying in Conakry for a few nights and watching a group of around 30 volunteers leave each evening. Too many goodbyes to too many people I love. Finally, our group said farewells to the staff and at last we were off.

My first few weeks back were difficult, to say the least. I did not allow myself to readjust to being back, stubbornly convincing myself that I'd be headed to Guinea soon enough. I hibernated in Vermont for a little. I cried a silly amount. It hurt me so much to think about Guinea that, I'm embarrassed to say, I couldn't bring myself to contact my best Guinean friends until last week. I tried to turn the Guinea part of my brain onto "off" mode. It didn't work. Guinea spilled into my life in so many ways. Silly little things, like greeting and chatting with any person I came into contact with, or saving even the littlest bit of butter and returning it to the fridge, or experiencing something beyond appreciation every time I turned on a light, plugged in my phone, or took a shower.

I can imagine if I'd had more time to say goodbye and to prepare myself mentally for my departure, I'd miss Guinea, but not like how I've been feeling. When I think of all the people I didn't get to say goodbye to there are a few that immediately come to mind. The first is Madame Tounakara, my neighbor, who helped me with my laundry and is one of the more generous people I've ever met. She doesn't speak a lot of French but as my Malinke improved our relationship moved beyond the basic salutations. However, she LOVED showing off the bit of French she knew. Every time we'd say hello, she'd insist on saying, "Ça va au marché?" or rather, "How was the market?" ... Even if I was coming from school, or a neighbor's house, or Kankan. She's certainly asked my host family where I am by now, but thinking about not being able to tie up loose ends with her gives me a pit in my stomach. I also can't help but think about my students. I had no time to tell them I was leaving, no time to say goodbye. The only way I can make myself feel better is to remember that I can always call. Technology is AMAZING.

In fact, I just got off the phone with my principal. I love talking to him. He makes my extreme emotions seem silly, constantly saying he KNOWS I'd be there if I could, but I can't, and he loves/appreciates Peace Corps and knows they will be back one day. I told him a little bit about how much Ebola has been in the media here and asked him how much people in Cissela are talking about it. His answer: NOT AT ALL. He's part of a small group of educated men who goes to the "video club" each night to watch the national news broadcast, so he has a good idea of what's going on. But really, and I struggle explaining this to people who ask me about the evacuation, life in Cissela has barely changed. I myself didn't understand the gravity of the situation. I remember at the end of June I was in the Conakry airport and helped a volunteer with Doctor's Without Borders translate from English to French. He asked me if I was with the CDC; I replied that no, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. "Bad timing for you to be here, huh?" he said. It took me a beat to figure out that he was talking about Ebola. Although from this end it sort of seems like people are dying in the streets all across West Africa, Ebola is so many degrees of separation away from my village. The biggest concern in most people's heads right now is the peanut harvest which is currently underway.

That isn't to say that the outbreak isn't serious. It's been frustrating to follow, watching the painfully slow international reaction to what is now the largest Ebola outbreak in our globe's history. And, without a bolstered intervention, the CDC says that there could be 1.4 million cases by January. A sort of silver lining is that the situation in Guinea is said to have stabilized. Peace Corps Volunteers are doing what they can from afar, helping with opensource mapping in Ebola regions, holding talks in schools and community centers, and writing articles about the outbreak. The situation in Sierra Leone and Liberia continues to be dire; it will take years for these countries to fully recover economically. If you'd like to donate to the organizations doing the brunt of the work (treating the ill, running treatment centers, and "contact tracing" all individuals who have been exposed), you can read more about them here.

So, what now? Liberia and Sierra Leone have officially closed their Peace Corps offices. Guinea remains on "administrative hold" awaiting another update on October 15th. I applied for and was offered a 10 month long position with Peace Corps Mali, but I turned it down. I just can't start all over again; I'm only just now a little bit okay with being in the US. Don't get me wrong: saying no to that offer was a painstakingly difficult decision. I'm still not 100 percent sure I made the right choice, but at least the choice has been made and I no longer have to mull it over. I'm applying to graduate schools, seeing friends and family, and becoming reacquainted with Boston. You know what? It's really not that bad. The fact is, you can have two homes. Hell, you can have three. I was so nervous when I called my Guinean friends for the first time after evacuation, scared they'd be resentful or angry I hadn't contacted them earlier. You know what I heard in their voices? Pure joy. You know how I felt when I got off the phone? Giddy. Coming back here, I've realized that if you are close enough with a person you can always fall back into your established relationship. I was in Guinea long enough for that to be true with my Guinean friends and family. Leaving sucked, but these days it's all about the silver linings.

Whirlwind

It was just yesterday that I received the message. I’d been teaching a review math class for my students going into 10^th grade since I won’t be there to teach them next year and the presence or absence of a replacement teacher remains a giant question mark. When class was over, I immediately noticed several text messages and missed calls, the first one from PC CD (Peace Corps Country Director), which read something along the lines of: “Due to Ebola, PCG has decided to remove all V/Ts from Guinea as a precautionary measure. See email for details.” For those of you who don’t speak Peace Corps, PCG means Peace Corps Guinea and V/Ts means Volunteers and Trainees. The moment I read the message, it was like I’d been punched in the stomach.

Let me give a little background. If you follow the news, I’m sure you’ve heard of the Ebola outbreak that began in Guinea this past April. I distinctly remember cooking my dinner by candlelight, listening to the BBC headlines on my shortwave radio, and dropping my spoon when the words “Guinea” and “Ebola” were used in the same sentence.

The days following confirmation that the hemorrhagic fever popping up in Guinea’s forest region was in fact the dreaded Ebola, I was sure we’d be evacuated. I was terrified to eat with my host family or to get into a shared taxi as we learned of Ebola’s transmission out of the forest region and into the country’s capital, Conakry. However, the facts quickly quelled my fears. The truth: it’s actually not very easy to catch Ebola. One has to be in close contact with the bodily fluids of the ill or recently deceased in order for it to be transmitted from person to person. Ebola is not transmissible if the person is not yet displaying symptoms, and when the person actually gets sick, their symptoms cause them to be bedridden. Patient zero probably contracted it by eating undercooked bush meat, such as monkey or bat. So basically, to avoid Ebola, one should avoid the gravely ill, recently deceased, and not eat monkey. Sounds clear enough.

The people in my village were freaked out when they heard about Ebola, especially because of its lack of treatment and gruesome way of liquefying its victim’s organs. This actually wasn’t a bad thing. A lot more people started washing their hands with soap, and my principal found money for us to install “tippy-taps,” the closest thing you can get to a faucet without running water, at my school. Orange, the largest phone service provider in Guinea, sent out PSAs to all of its clients, dispelling myths about the illness (and trust me, there were a lot). Things seemed like they might actually clear up. And they started to, but not for long.

A combination of mismanagement and skepticism from locals has made it incredibly hard to control this outbreak of Ebola. Over the months, the death toll has continued rising and the disease has spread to three other countries: Sierra Leone, Liberia, and now Nigeria. Peace Corps continually gives us updates on where the outbreaks are concentrated in Guinea (mostly in the forest region, where there are no PCVs), reminds us of the things we should do to avoid it, and tells us we can leave site and go to our regional capital if we feel uncomfortable. We were assured that the odds of Ebola leading to an evacuation were slim to none.

Which is why this text message seemed so incredibly out of the blue. Earlier that day, I’d spoken to multiple PCVs about future projects we were planning, I’d given my students math homework for Saturday, and I’d planned to bike to a neighboring volunteer’s site the next day. There was no way on earth we’d be leaving, and so suddenly. But we are.

This past week, two PCVs in Liberia were exposed to Ebola, and while neither of them is displaying symptoms, Peace Corps needs to do something. I understand that. All PCVs in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea are being “temporarily evacuated.”

My hut is packed up, I’ve informed those dear to me in Cissela, and a Peace Corps car is coming to pick me up tomorrow morning. PC has purchased us roundtrip tickets departing in the coming days and returning to Guinea in the beginning of September in the hopes that the situation will be tame enough by then that we can return to our work. I have no idea what to expect, all I know is that being torn away from this place I’ve learned to call my home over the past two years with so many unknowns is one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through. After all of the unrest surrounding with elections, the month we were on lockdown at site and not allowed to go further than a 5-mile radius, it’s Ebola that’s sending us home.

So, let’s hope that both the Guinean government and foreign bodies helping out (namely Doctors Without Borders and the CDC) are able to control this outbreak in the coming weeks. Let’s hope, not only for the 102 PCV/Ts being sent home, but also for the 102 communities that will have a hole in their schools/health centers/youth centers, and the population of Guinea that is not only at risk of Ebola, but also lacks information, running water, and basic hygienic infrastructure.

Guinea, despite being hot, uncomfortable, and trying, has a way of sneaking its way into your heart. Regardless of what happens, I am so lucky that I got to spend 25 spectacular months here. As for the United States… see you in the next few days!

The end. (Not exactly)

Close of service (COS) is quickly approaching. My stage, or rather the 19 of us who remain, traveled to Kamsar, a city several hours north of Conakry for our COS Conference. We spent 3 days discussing readjustment to the U.S., logistics of how to schedule our flights, health insurance, etc. We also did a lot of reflecting on and digesting everything we've experienced over the past two years. In so many ways our experiences overlap, but we all have such unique stories and relationships that it's interesting to compare notes. I can imagine it would be very confusing for a non-Peace Corps Guinea person as a fly on the wall, as we've sort of developed our own PCV language.

Regardless, this conference was a little odd and inapplicable to me, because...................................
I've decided to extend for a third year!!!!!!!!!! I know I've mentioned that I was considering it to a number of friends back home but it's now official. In a few months I will be moving to my regional capital, Kankan, and working with an organization that promotes gender equity as the "Peace Corps Volunteer Leader for Gender Equity and Women's Empowerment" (yes, it's a mouthful). This means in addition to the work I'll be doing in Kankan with the women's association, I will also be working for Peace Corps Guinea, developing resources and trainings on issues of gender. I'm really excited; the situation for females in Guinea has truly been one of the most troubling aspects of my time here and I am looking forward to devoting an entire year to the cause. Peace Corps is flying me home for the month of September so I can take a little break and visit friends and family. It's a little crazy to me that today is my two year anniversary with Peace Corps!

The past few months have been very busy: first, the end of school (my students just took the Brevet, the high school entrance exam, this past week). The end was bittersweet; I had been so fed up with my 10th grade class for so long that I was more than happy to say goodbye to them. However, my 9th graders, who work hard and are fun to be around, were upset over the fact that I won't be with them next year. Once I get back to Cissela (I am currently in Conakry), I am planning on holding summer math classes for the incoming 10th graders, as it's unclear if there will be a math teacher next year. After saying goodbye to my students, I headed to Kamsar for our COS Conference. It was really important to me to be with my stage all together one last time, so I'm happy it happened. We ate great food, watched the first game of the World Cup in air conditioned luxury, and swam in a pretty dirty pool.

The day after COS Conference, two other volunteers and I had to hurry back to our villages to go pick up students selected to attend a science camp. The travel was filled with typical mishaps: a crappy car with an even crappier driver, an epic rainstorm with barely functional windshield wipers as we drove through the mountains, and 3 flat tires within one half-mile span (ok, that one is not typical and I have no idea how that happened). After spending 2 days traveling all the way back to site, I spent about 15 hours there only to turn back around and head to Mamou for science camp with two of the smartest 7th and 8th graders from Cissela. Science camp was awesome; it was organized by a couple of Physics teacher PCVs. We ran two experiments a day for five weeks, all completely hands on (building an electrolyser, the dissection of a chicken, learning how to use a microscope, among others), and also had tons of camp-like activities (movie nights, ice breaker games, sports, etc.) It was really special seeing these kids being just that: kids. For one week, they had no chores, no strict teachers breathing down their necks and yelling at them, and activities completely for them. The last night we played a slideshow of photos from the week and tears were shed, exactly like summer camps I went to back in the day. Magical!

I spent the past week in Spain with my brother, Ethan. It was good to get out of Guinea for a bit: eat good food, see some interesting places (a huge bullfighting ring, among others), attend a Rolling Stones concert in the Real Madrid stadium, and enjoy comfortable travel in a bullet train, where everything leaves on time and you get your own assigned seat....

I am now back in Guinea, right for the start of Ramadan (no food anywhere). I'm happy to be back: I'll be spending the next two weeks helping to train the new group of Education volunteers coming in on the 3rd. One person among them will be replacing me in Cissela! After these two weeks I'll finally go back to site -- it's been far too long. I'll embrace my last 6 weeks there before heading back to the states for home leave. Then it's back to Guinea for round three!

Dust off those mosquito nets

I was recently speaking with someone close to me about malaria in Guinea, explaining that I had gone door-to-door to hang mosquito nets that had been sitting under peoples' beds, unused. He asked, "Malaria isn't actually that widespread in Guinea, is it?" I'm beginning to realize how much I take for granted the fact that malaria is the number one killer in this country; to me, that's common knowledge. The disease accounts for 34 percent of all consultations, 31 percent of all hospitalizations, and 14 percent of deaths in Guinea. Essentially all Guineans have had malaria by the age of 2; considering how dangerous the disease is to children under 5, this is a staggering statistic. 

I've found that combating this disease isn't easy. The simplest and most effective way to prevent malaria is to sleep under a mosquito net. Luckily, last year the Global Fund and President's Malaria Initiative (thanks Obama!) funded a country-wide net distribution. Ideally, this means that every family in my village received brand spanking new insecticide-treated nets, enough to cover all individuals. (In practice, of course it didn’t end up perfectly – but they still did a damn good job.) So, after receiving a new net, obviously you hang it up, right? Not necessarily. On my house visits this year I’ve found a lot of nets collecting dust under peoples’ beds.

Sleep under your net, and you won't get malaria. You'll protect your children and pregnant women from death, you'll save a lot of money that you would have spent had you or one of your family members gotten malaria, and you'll be able to continue to go be productive in the fields or doing whatever work it is that you do. Simple enough? But that small act of hanging a mosquito net and tucking it in every night before you go to sleep is a behavior change that has to be learned. Simply telling people once to sleep under a net isn't going to do it. Malaria is such a fact of life here, it's accepted. Hence why I say, combating the disease isn't easy.

That being said, it's not impossible, either. This month is Malaria Month in Guinea, and volunteers all over the country are partaking in malaria-related activities and projects. The momentum we've gained this month is amazing, and seeing other volunteers working hard to stomp out malaria is inspiring; this is definitely the good kind of peer pressure.

I've been happy to dive into malaria work. The school year is winding down and the motivation levels of even my 10th graders is so low that it's a little painful for me to go to school everyday. In addition to helping my community, selfishly these projects have helped me out, too. So, what have I done to STOMP out Malaria? I've worked with a group of ten of my best and most enthusiastic 9th graders to make them experts on malaria. While it may be hard to get people to sleep under their nets, I've found simply giving the facts about the disease and dispelling myths can be incredibly effective. NO, malaria is not caused by mangos, or milk, or dirty water. After these 10 students became experts on the disease, we went to the health center on "vaccination day" to speak with pregnant and nursing women and explain to them the facts about malaria and the importance of sleeping under a net. They did a fantastic job, pairing off into groups of two and speaking one-on-one with 29 pregnant and nursing women throughout the morning. 

The most enthusiastic of the students, a boy named Bakary, then invited me to his village to go door to door and hang nets. Most of the nets were covered in dust, so we took this as an opportunity to teach how to effectively wash mosquito nets without destroying the insecticide. We told each household that we'd come back in one week to check and see if the nets were washed and hung; if they were, we'd take a picture of the net's owner and hang the photos up in the health center. We'll be going back this Tuesday to see if they've hung their nets -- although, Bakary has told me he's returned to their houses everyday to see if their nets are hung, so something tells me we'll have no problems by Tuesday! 

This past week, Tess and I organized a soccer match between our two villages, hosted in Cissela. During the game's half time, both of our schools performed malaria-themed skits. These were a HUGE hit. My students (those same 10 ninth graders) dressed a boy up in drag as a pregnant woman; the play essentially explained the importance of mosquito nets, especially for pregnant women. Tess' students' skit had a great message: if you don't sleep under your net and you get malaria, you'll have to spend your money on treatment; if you do sleep under your net, you can spend your money on something cool like a new phone or clothing (I think this hit home with the middle school crowd). I was so pleasantly surprised with the work the students had put into the skits, not to mention the audience's reception.

The cast of our skit -- with a pregnant woman and four mosquitoes

Malaria month is only halfway finished, and I've got lots more planned, including a bike tour with Tess to 5 villages; we'll teach lessons in primary schools in each village. Like every month here, Malaria Month is flying by! My time in Guinea is quickly disappearing, so I'm trying to make the most of it.

Still in Guinea.

So much has happened and I’ve had so little internet since December that I haven’t been able to post.

What to write about? My parents’ weeklong stint in this beautiful country? The Peace Corps organized regional spelling bee hosted at my school? The nutrition conference that three of my students attended on an organic farm? The ever-persisting battle between me and my 10^th grade students about their work ethic? The departure of two of my best friends from my village, and the ensuing cry fest I had?

The short of it: the second year is inexplicably different than my first. When I first arrived in Cissela, every day was a hurdle. When I got back to my hut in the evening, it was a relief. The highs were unbelievably high and the lows lower than low. This year, the days are hard but for reasons that are more normal. School days are challenging: of course there is the issue of discipline, compounded with differing opinions with other teachers on appropriate punishments. We have received so many new teachers this year that I, the foreigner, have seniority. My principal even went so far as to promote me to assistant principal (although I think he did this mostly because I do all the paperwork without complaining). My relationships with my students this year are intense. I spend so many hours in my 10^th grade each week that we certainly have what can be described as a love/hate relationship. They’ve started coming to me with problems beyond the classroom; typically social issues they are having with other students.

Outside of school, things have become somewhat strained with my host family. Hawa, my dear friend, moved to Conakry to join her husband. She was the link between me and the family; the day she left I was a tearful mess and the family didn’t quite know what to do with me. I still try to spend time with them, but it’s a lot of me sitting and reading while they move about me. On the flipside, I’ve been spending a huge amount of time with my principal’s wife. She and I are the same age, but we have had very different lives. When she was 16, having never gone to school, she was living in Conakry as an apprentice for a tailor. Her parents contacted her to say they had found her a husband, a man she had never met: my principal. Both my principal (who I respect greatly) and Nansira (his wife) have confided in me in the difficulties in their early marriage.  He was in love with another woman, but his parents arranged the marriage with Nansira and would not accept the other woman. As a Guinean man, he could have married Nansira and then taken the other woman as a second wife, but he knows that polygamy comes with problems. He and Nansira have learned to love each other in their own way, but it’s still tragic for me to hear their sides of the story. Regardless, Nansira is a goofball, and has filled the Hawa-filled hole in my life.

The highlight of the past few months was a 2-day conference that I led for young women students from 4 villages across Guinea. The event, called the Young Women’s Nutrition and Leadership Conference, took place in Kindia, a town that is known as the agricultural capital of Guinea. Four PCVs were involved; myself, along with three close friends from my training class. We each selected three of our best female students to bring along. Tess and I, living not too far apart, traveled to Kindia together.

I woke up at 5:30 – before even the first call to prayer – strapped on my headlamp, and biked to my principal’s. Fortunately, the three girls had spent the night at his house since they did not want to be sleep through our departure. Shortly after, Tess and her girls showed up in a 9-place taxi that they had hired from Tess’ village. We spend 10 long, sleepy hours in the car to arrive finally in a small village outside of Kindia. The girls were thrilled – they were constantly calling their friends and family on each step of the journey to give updates, feeling special for being selected among their peers. By 6PM we had finally arrived at the farm, a beautiful setting in tropical Basse Cote. The manager of the farm is a young man named Chico, a Guinean who spent many of his formative years in the states. His family has created an impressive farm; it is a semi-organic, experimental farm that grows a variety of species of plants and raises animals that are not typically found in Guinea but could be easily adapted to diversify Guinean farming and increase nutrition intake (for example, he experiments with different species of bananas and distributes seeds to his community; he also raises fish and rabbits to increase protein availability). The family has also constructed a training center, where they bring in Guinean agricultural groups for information sharing. It was at this center that we held our conference.

The training had two major themes. The first was to inform the 12 participants on basic facts of nutrition and how to improve nutrition using ingredients that are readily available in all Guinean communities. The second was to equip the young women with effective communication strategies and to inspire them to reflect upon their futures. We led sessions on fundamentals of nutrition, nutrition of children under 5 and pregnant women, and a cooking class. We discussed the difference between passivity, aggressiveness, and confidence in communication, and at the end of the conference we had each participant practice giving a mock sensitization, where they taught a food preparer with a specific family situation what they had learned about nutrition that would be relevant to that family. When each participant arrived in her respective village, she was then responsible for visiting three families and giving the cook in each family a nutrition sensitization.

Beyond this information sharing, the highlight of the conference was a panel of two successful Guinean women who came to share their stories. One, Chico’s mother, named Hadja, is an older woman who has had an incredibly rich past. When she was younger, she pushed the boundaries in Guinea and entered the world of politics in the capital. After several years, she chose to leave politics and return to her community, where she began her career of service, starting up the farm and eventually founding an organization called AGUIDEP (Association Guinéenne pour le Développement) in the nearby city of Kindia that continues to do important work today. Through her story, she highlighted the importance of pushing through despite obstacles and discouragements. She went against all norms as one of the only women in the realm of Guinean politics, and she explained to the girls that while it can be incredibly difficult to be the only female in a sea of men, but that perseverance allowed her success. The second panel member was a much younger woman named Mariame. She works for Hadja’s organization AGUIDEP. When she was a high school student, her parents told her they had found her a husband, but she explained to her parents that she wanted to finish her studies and be financially independent before marrying, and her parents respected that decision. Upon graduating university, she visited dozens of businesses, offering to intern for free of charge, until finally her persistence paid off. After several unpaid years at AGUIDEP, she was taken on as a salaried worker, and within a month she married (she explained that men were constantly knocking at her door, but she insisted on being financially independent before marriage); she now has one child. Mariame made a huge impression on the girls: she is young, attractive, married and with a child (which is certainly a dream for Guinean women), but working and financially independent. To see that both of those dreams are possible to attain at the same time was a novel idea for most of the young women. Coming from rural areas, this may have been the first time for many of them to see literate, salaried women. Despite all we as PCVs can tell our female students (“yes you can do it!” or, “stay in school!”), nothing has the effect of actually seeing that it is possible, as both a Guinean and female, to achieve one’s goals. The looks on the girls’ faces said it all.

The conference has made me think a lot about the lasting impressions Peace Corps Volunteers can have on their communities. Many volunteers come in with hopes of building a new health center or creating a new pump, creating a lasting imprint of their two years spent in village, but we as Education volunteers have it a little differently. One thing I can safely say is that those girls will not forget that trip we took together in January 2014. They kept journals, documenting every moment of everyday, and I’ve seen changes in the way they interact with other students and teachers at school. My expectations of what difference I can make in my students’ lives is by no means grandiose, but I’d like to say I’ve expanded their horizons and made them think in a different way. Who knows, considering that’s impossible to measure.

I’m now in Kankan for another Girls’ Conference, this one much larger, for our entire region. There are 27 participants; the conference does not have a theme but is instead aimed at educating the young women on social issues such as environment, sanitation, reproductive health, and nutrition, among other topics. There is something very meaningful in taking young women out of their homes, bringing them into a new place with a group of new faces, and allowing them to see that while they may be one of the few female students at their school, there are many other young, bright, and motivated females in Guinea.

Spring break is coming up; I will be traveling to the capital for a food security training, then taking a few days of rest on the tropical island off of the coast of Conakry. A quick note to those who are worried: I DO NOT have Ebola and am at essentially zero risk for acquiring it. Let’s hope that soon the outbreak will be over; Guinea has had enough trauma for this year. Thank you to all those who asked about my well being!

Til next time. Hopefully that will be sooner than 4 months from now.