A very Merry Christmas and a happy Coup year...

all I want for Christmas...is coup....baby

Just a few days before christmas, we heard the news that the President of Guinee, Lansana Conte' had died. Now, there had always been rumors that he was dying but most people didn't give them much credit as he had been dying for the past 10 years or so. But with his death, the military took power and the constitution was dissolved and the civilian government disbanded. A military official, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, declared himself president and has appointed a 32-member council to rule untill the country can hold free, credible, and transparent elections in December of 2010. He is calling his new regime the National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD). As the country had already begun the process of registering voters, I hope that the international community with which President Camara is to be meeting with today will convince him to hold elections earlier sometime in 2009. Despite all of the hubbub and worry, we are being told that many Guineans are very happy with the change and the turnover of power has been very peaceful thus far. The late president Conte' was buried today and the Prime Minister,Ahmed Tidiane Souare has ceded to the military president.




Through all of this, Jon and I have been safely swaddled (not unlike the baby jesus) in the volunteer house in the capital with air conditioning, electricity, and internet. We passed a lovely, though slightly unreal christmas, together with other volunteers. And amazingly we were able to bring in a lot of the christmas spirit with decorations, food, and even a christmas tree and eggnog! we spent a few late nights stringing ribbons, decorating the tree, and cutting snowflakes out of paper and I must say that we did very well. Jon even got into the spirit by playing Guinean RISK with the fellows in Santa hats.

My friend Isy and I carried on my christmas tradition of making sugar cookies. We quickly realized however that we did not have any cookie cutters at all. So what did we do...we improvised like all good PCVs and made cookies cutter trees and santas and candycanes out of ...what else: beer cans. I must say that I am very impressed with everyone's christmas spirit and wonderful creativity.

I was able to get a nice call on Skype from my mom, dad, bro, and my aunt and uncle. It was so wonderful to hear all their voices through the magic of the interwebs. Its always so nice to hear the voices of friends and family always, and especially at christmas. There have been many troubles with our cell phone reception and we have missed many calls so I was glad that they were able to get through. For anyone who has been trying to reach us, keep trying and hopefully you will get through!! We love you!





At this time, we are allowed to leave the compound during the day but there is a government imposed curfew from 8:00 PM until 6 in the morning. Most likely we will all be going back to our site a smidge early, most likely the beginning of the week. Although Jon and I were really excited to spend some time out on the islands off the coast, it seems that until things are a bit more stable, we will be passing our time back at site.

Hopefully we will have the time for one more update before we leave but for now, Merry Christmas to Everyone. You were in our thoughts and very missed during this holiday.

Kim

I only (claim to) love the night

no flashlight : mt. eerie

I can only love those dark hills
because I live in the day.

I can only see the mountain
because I live in town.

I only (claim to) love night
because I have only smelled it.

Actually living in the night means not talking about it.

I can only say "no flashlight"
because once I accidentally forgot it.

Actually living in the night means actually walking
in the dark, means

to find caves in song.

Every night when the sun slowly sinks and as the last liquid colors leak from the horizon I think about this song. The nights here without electricity or light pollution are so dark that we are nightly confronted by our reliance on light. We go though incredible numbers of candles and I can say that I have never felt so rested in my life as our nights tend to end very early as the clockworks of our body have changed in tune with the moon. But all of our friends and neighbors wander through the night, fully aware and a part of that darkness. I sleep with my headlamp next to my head, ready for any sudden noise, with that infantile yet ingrained fear of the darkness. My body now is so accustomed to waking with the light and sleeping when the sun goes down that here, in Conakry, amidst the lights and television and computers, I am constantly overstimmulated and I stay up until strange hours of the night enthralled with Facebook because my body doesn't know how to shut off now with out that darkness. Perhaps I am beginning to love the night.


In other news, I pedaled out to a nearby village last week at the request of a student of mine in my 7th grade class named Bintouraby.I was able to go and visit her whole wonderful family. We went out into her father's plantation and I saw acres of orange trees, rice patties, palms, and even coco and pineapple plants for the first time. Bintou had specifically asked me to bring my camera and I was able to take many phots of her family. Everyone is so pleased to have their photgraph taken and some of the nicest gifts that you can give to someone is a picture that you took. We also went over to where her father processes all of the rice that he grows. The picture can not do it justice but the dried rice is put through a machine that is run by a motor of which both appear to have been made 100 years ago and leak oil like a seive and the shaf is removed from the kernel. After that, the rice is shaken and sifted using these big round woven discs and the rice is gathered to be sold. After my visit I was given a huge bag of oranges, grapefruits, bannana, and plaintains...and to top it all off....a rooster. It is difficult for me to accept the overwhelming generosity of the guinean culture but for them, that is just how things are done. They told me that I am now a part of their family and hope that I visit soon. They were so thankful that I was teaching at the school. Its completely overwhelming since sometimes at school I feel like I'm just treading water with the students and yet they are so n=very thankful for the work that we are doing, or at least trying to do. Above is a picture of Bintou and our new, soon to be name rooster friend. Our other cadeau chicken, Mia, had been carefully attending to 9 eggs and we look forward to seeing the funny new fluffy ones when we get back to site.



Other then that, we are just resting and relaxing in Conakry and doing all the research for secondary projects that we would like to implement in our village. At this time we have 3 projects that the village would like our help with: 1. a solar panel to run a water pump that would bring water to 5 spouts throughout the village. Right now it runs sporatically with the assistance of a generator but when it is working everyone comes running with theor buckets and bidons. 2. Help to research and set up a chimpanzee reserves on Mt. Bena..yeah thats right, aparently there are chimps here! How rad! So we are going to try and work with the Jane Goodhall Society with that. hopefully we will be taking a trip up to see the area after the new year so stay tuned for photos of that. 3. The expansion and imporovement of the market space in moosaysah. Although this project will have to wait until my Sussu gets a lot better, but it is something that would really benefit all the hard working market ladies in the village.



We are doing a little decorating around the volunteer house to get ready for Christmas but its a bit hard to get into the spirit when you look out the window to plam trees or take a step away from the AC. Hopefully today when we commence the cookie making and christmas music, the spirit willl arrive. But we have set up a little (fake) christmas tree but Jon's mom sent us some balsam fir insense so we are trying to pretend a bit. If only we had one of the cheesy fake fireplaces by which to hang the stockings with care. I will be putting up some pictures of our christmas festivities in our next post. Jon and I are planning to spend a few days out on the Isle de los off the coast of Guinee which is supposed to be really stunning.

More to come but just wanted to get something posted. Hope that you are all well and are traveling safely to your holiday destinations. I hope that the falling snow is beautiful and that you can all curl up and enjoy it with some tea, a napping cat, a crackling fire and a nice toasty blankets. i miss that.

Love to you all,
Kim and Jon