There and Back Again, a Fote's Tale

As you may or may not know, I traveled to Guinea's “forest region” for Christmas. Since I'd arrived in Guinea, I'd considered the forest region a forbidden, faraway land that was both strange and magical. It wasn't without reason that I had these notions. Due to ethnic violence and it's proximity to both Sierra Leone and Liberia, Peace Corps has not placed volunteers in this region since the early 2000s, and due to the outbreaks of violence, travel there is frequently prohibited. As for being far away? Living where I do, you can't be too much further from the forest. I had heard stories of the wild elephants and chimpanzees that live in the forest. Finally, the forest was where all the Christians were, and where all the animists were with their beads, monkey skulls, and pagan rituals. While I didn't see any elephants, chimps, or monkey skills, I still maintain that La Guinée forestière is a bizarre and fascinating place.

TRANSPORTATION

As I'm sure you know, transportation can be quite an ordeal in this country...and this trip was no exception. I easily spent over 60 hours in a taxi. To get to N'zerekore, I traveled directly from the capital city, Conakry, which took exactly 24 hours. 21 hours of driving and 3 hours of breaks, break-downs, and military harassment. But actually, the fact that it took 24 hours and not more is pretty impressive!

One of the most amusing things to happen on the trip was when our driver stopped to buy a bush-rat. Averaging about 20 pounds, bush-rats definitely fit into the ROUS category (rodents of unusual size). They look like a cross between a groundhog and a rat. It was news to me, but apparently, bush-rat is a delicacy and our driver shelled out a lot of dough for that bad boy, attaching it to the luggage rack before continuing on the way. The rat proved rather troublesome later on when we were at a roadblock and the gens d'armes wanted our driver to give them the bush-rat as a bribe. It involved lots of arguing, but we were able to continue on, bush-rat still attached. I sure hope he had a good meal of it!

So all of that was getting there, and there was still the problem of returning. Part of the trip involved celebrating New Years in haute Guinea's Kankan. The ride from the forest to Kankan took 14 hours and took place on the worst road I've seen so far. I actually spent that ride in the trunk of our taxi because it was much more comfortable than squishing with everyone in the back seat. Don't worry though, this was a station-wagon trunk so I had light, air, and could climb back into the seat at anytime.

That brings me to the last big segment of the trip. Kankan to Coliah, my village. The ride from Kankan to Conakry was supposed to take another 13-14 hours. However, 14 hours later, we were still hours and hours from the capital. Why do you ask? Well for one thing, early-on we had gone off the road and damaged the car's bumper. Then, we got held up at all the roadblocks and the construction that was going on . Quite often we had to wait for herds of cows to clear the road and our driver complained about his damaged car to anyone that would listen. In addition, once darkness fell, we got a flat tire and our diver didn't have a jack. While he went searching for one, I had my lowest moment in Guinea. Due to the flat, we'd all had to pile out of the car, but I was feverish and on the verge of passing at. There was no great place to lie down, so delirious, I spent the next half-hour sprawled across the road sweating, head pounding, ears ringing, and being poked by all the other worried passengers. At some point medicine finally kicked in, the flat was fixed, and before I knew it we were stopping at a volunteers hut to spend the night. We continued our journey the next morning and by that evening, I finally rolled into my village.

MOUNTAINS

One of the great appeals of the forest region is the change to climb Mt. Nimba, Guinea's highest point. Climbing the mountain costs a lot because it's on a reserve and you had to purchase a permit and pay for guides to take you up. However, we were able to get everything worked out and at 7 am we began our trek, eager to summit the mountain. The first part of the trek led through the forest up and down rolling hills and across a river. Aside from some really cool trees, the forest didn't seem too different from one you would find in the US. This first, forest part, was a challenge, but at least it was in the shade. All too soon we had cleared the forest and came to a series of four or five very steep slopes that we had to climb. However, almost as a reward for making it up that first slope, we heard the call of the chimps ringing in the forest.

The series of hills was a painstakingly slow and grueling march and we all collapsed when we got to the base of the summit. We enjoyed a nice lunch that we had packed and hauled up that we then had to share with our guides. No one told us in advance that the guides take neither food nor water up the mountain and instead just take it from the trekkers. At one point they took one of my waterbottles and I never got it back! In my humble opinion, t's not very prudent to climb a mountain without supplies, but the guides explained “that's how things are.” While chowing down, we were treated to cool water from a water source, and we basked in the shade surrounding the water. Then came the final ascent. While I was exhausted, it wasn't too bad and before I knew it, I had joined the “victors” circle at the top.

At this point it should be noted that Mt. Nimba's summit is located in both Guinea and in the Ivory Coast. The two countries share the summit, allowing one to be in 2 countries at the same time! Since arriving in Guinea, we'd all be secretly wanting to do an on-foot border crossing...and that's exactly what we did. The view, as you'll see shortly, was spectacular despite the clouds. The mountain range forming the border stretched on for miles, boarded on both sides by forests.

Well, the hike up had taken 6 hours, so all too soon it was time to head back down. The hike back was much worse. All the very steep things we'd come up became the very steep things we had to climb down and we all fell more times than we could count. The trek back through the forest was equally exhausting, but we were in for a surprise when we stumbled into a clearing and saw a very surprised white woman. Stephanie was her name and she is an American doing research on the chimpanzees for Cambridge University. The way she is living seems crazy even to me. She is incredibly isolated in that forest, and never even gets to go into the city. She was obviously thrilled to see other Americans and we enjoyed a nice chat before resuming our trip.

6 hours after summiting, we were back where we had started that morning. Tired, sweaty, and hungry, but happy and proud of what we'd accomplished. I could say more, but I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. 

G-24 at the summit

After a long hike, G24 goes topless

Our guides

Driving through Haute Guinea

As close to McDonald's as I'll get here

Made it to the top!

Victory Cuban

N'Zerekore

View from the summit

Heading back down the mountain

Nearing the summit

Mt. Nimba

View from the summit

SLEEPS 'N EATS

The never ending Peace Corps Volunteer dilemma. Do we use our hard earned money for a nice hotel room where we can just relax and bathe in luxury, or do we become stingy and stay in a dirt-cheap, critter-infested hotel that may also function as a brothel? My solution so far has been to try and find something in-between, and for the majority of the trip, that's exactly what I did. We were able to find a cute and reasonably priced restaurant/hotel combo with a generous and welcoming senegalese woman running it. She was very familiar with Peace Corps and was more than happy to have us stay there. The first night, she gave us each a FREE dinner and the next morning she brought me breakfast in bed. Tea and toast with butter and jelly? I had tears of joy running down my face. During our stay we didn't always get free food, but every meal we paid for there was more than worth it. It was hands down the best food I've had in the past 6^th months. Because I was sick for most of the trip, I spent most nights at the hotel. One night Kelly and I asked for loco (fried plantains) and peanut brittle. An hour later, she brought us back a plate of each, free of charge! Her hospitality knew no limits and she even invited us to stay with her if we are ever in the capital at the same time.

Sadly this couldn't last forever and all too soon we said goodbye before heading to our next destination. The hotel there was a measly 30 000/night. A nice hotel will run you 500 000/night, and a decent one 150 000/night, so you can imagine just how crappy this hotel was. It was definitely one of those places where people take prostitutes. It was very relieved when we left 2 nights later.

FOREST CULTURE

And this brings us to the last section, forest culture. If you've read my blog before this, you are familiar with the word FOTE, how I feel about it, and that it is screamed at me on a daily basis. Get this. Not only was I not called FOTE in the forest, I wasn't even called the equivalent in their language. The forest has an insane amount of “tribal”, or local, languages, and there was never any one word continuously screamed at us like there is chez moi. When we passed kids, they didn't take to screaming! Sure they stared, but then they would go back to what they doing. With few exceptions, the adults who greeted me used Madame and didn't jeeringly use “la blanche” or their equivalent of white person. It was incredibly refreshing to walk somewhere being treated like a normal person. I had forgotten what it felt like.

Since I didn't really have any long conversations with people native to the forest, I can't say much more about the culture. To me, I observed a friendly, welcoming, laid back, and vibrant culture. Whatever they are doing down there, they are doing it right!

And so concludes this FOTES tale. It was a long trip there and an even longer trip back, but when I finally returned to my village I was greeted with the beaming faces of people who had missed me and were glad I had returned. So even though I had my lowest moment in Guinea on the trip, it was balanced by the fact that my first afternoon back home was probably one of my best days in Guinea. For the moment, I've done all the traveling I can handle and will be staying “au village” until further notice!