My toes are like the concentric rings of a tree stump

So this is what my feet look like these days. If you look close enough you'll notice two bands that run across the big toe which separates the nail into three sections. It's hard to tell the different textures from the photograph but each section is a different thickness reflecting the different amounts of nutrients I was getting. Each line marks the changes in my diet during the past 5 months and the nails have been getting progressively thicker the farther away I get from Guinea.

Here, I'll label them for you:
Pretty cool, huh? I wonder if any of the other refuguinean volunteers have noticed anything similar...

Anyways, I'm flying out of Hawaii tomorrow to Philly for my second staging. I've been reassigned to Uganda. I will once again be a high school science teacher. I'll be traveling a bit light...my bags still haven't made it back from Guinea...but I'm not too worried about it.

Speaking of Guinea, there has been some hopeful news of late. Civilian rule has been restored and there is the usual talk of free and open elections. No one knows if this ultimately will lead to an effective and stable government but the important thing is that this clearly represents a de-escalation from the previous situation. Happy days!
Lastly, many many thanks to my sister and Eric. Three years ago they sold all the stuff out of their apartment and used the money from their wedding to film an independent film about malaria. A year after that they moved to China to work and explore. A year after that and they're working in the Teach for America program in Hawaii and letting me take up their space.

They gave me my first nudge into this incredible world and showed me how accessible it can be. They've been an inspiration and given me support in every way. I love you guys.

(1)When everything is foreign, nothing is strange and (2)Nobody knows anything

(1)

One of the weirdest things about going to Guinea was losing the ability to distinguish what was weird. Since there were so many new things to see and smell and eat and do; it was hard to tell the mundane from the truly bizarre. I felt emotionally monotone on a day to day basis but when I'd sit down to write a letter or pick up the phone to talk to people back home I would have a mental log jam of ideas. There was an overwhelming amount of context required for each story and so many stories to tell. I didn't even know where to start. I still don't know where to start. I guess my host family may be the best place to begin.

The Bah's were good people. They opened their home to me. They fed me and scolded me for coming home too late. They invited me to Ramadan prayer and diligently helped me with my French. They treated me with an incredible kindness and hospitality and I didn't realize how amazing it was until I left.

They took someone into their house who looked different and displayed an embarrassingly small understanding of social decorum. This someone lacked even the most basic ability to communicate. With infinite patience and good humor they polished my manners and language and sent me on my merry way. I wonder if I would have taken in a non-English-speaking-mildly-rude-strange-looking-person into my home. I doubt it. Guineans are great people.

(2)

It's because of part (1) that I am so frustrated with part (2). In the year preceding my departure to Guinea I read a handful of books about the development world. I had the thought that we had poverty and development on the run. It seemed as if these things were beginning to be solved as if they were a particularly complicated algebra problem.

Sachs writes that if the developed world were to commit .7% of their GDP to the developing world they would escape their "poverty traps." Easterly thinks Sachs is a grandstanding buffoon. Collier argues that smartly timed and targeted investments will lead countries slowly out of poverty. Bornstein writes about empowering locally minded social entrepreneurs.

Unsurprisingly they could all be right, they could all be wrong, or they could be a little bit of both. Even though they all argue with tremendous conviction, none of them (or any of us) really has any idea what's going on. There are too many moving parts.

I've really struggled with that since leaving the country, knowing that something needs to change but not knowing how to change it. I've read strong arguments for and against democracy or education or business development as the pathways out of poverty and now I've actually seen a small part of where those arguments come from and why. This drives me crazy. I like to believe that solutions to most problems are within the reach of our reason but I can't wade through the development morass and I'm skeptical of someone who says they can.

At times the difficulties facing the development world at large and particularly Guinea seem cyclical and overwhelming but occaisionaly good news trickles out and I'm reminded that even in tough times there's always hope for the future.

KABLAMMO!

I've been in Hawaii for the past three weeks and the week prior to that I was in Australia and the three weeks prior to that I was in Malaysia and the four weeks prior to that I was in lockdown evacuation camp in Mali. It's nice to be back in the first world but sometimes I feel turned around. I feel displaced and purposeless. Living the last couple months felt like they dragged on so slow but now I look back and I feel they whipped by so fast.

I don't know how to answer some of your questions least of all the ubiquitious "how was Africa?" I don't know how the continent of Africa was because I was only in two countries (those being Guinea and Mali). Sorry I'm being irritating but that whole continent of Africa is an undistinguished land mass thing has really become a pet peeve of mine. Nevertheless I know what you mean and I hide behind a "it's hard to explain" too much. I wish I could sum everything up in a satisfying pithy pharse or four but I can't. The best I can do is:

Mom! Grandma! Earmuffs!

"It's f'd." That's the short answer that may be the best and worst summary about the situation. I don't know. It's hard to explain.

So there I am in Guinea and I'm coming to the uncomfortable realization that I do in fact harbor some ugly bits of latent racism. I walk through the markets my second day there and I see the people all around me. There's garbage and waste and smelly dried, semi-dried, and rotting fish and that was the first time that I ever thought to myself "what have I gotten myself into?"

It was discomforting. I've never seen so much filth before. And on top of that the people are all black and I'm white and I can't blend in and I feel like everyone is staring at me. I've never felt like that in any place I'd been. I've never been more keenly aware of race. Why do I feel this way? Why do i feel this discomfort this anxiety? Like physically feel it. A visceral reaction. What's up with that?

I actually just put it aside for a time. Put it aside for a long time actually and eventually it went away or I forgot about it or I got used to it. I mean if you don't know what to do with an uncomfortable situation what do you do? You fake it! You pretend like everything's fine and eventually it is unless it isn't and then you have to fake even harder. I do this. You do this. We all do this, right? Whatever.

As I sit here and try to illustrate this for you without coming off like a total boob I'm doing my best to put it together. My discomfort was itself discomforting. I didn't want to feel like I felt but I couldn't very well not feel what I felt.

Put more formally, there are two parts to the racism game. One part intellectual and one part reptillian brain subconcious.

In college I learned and studied the intellectual side and understood conciously why racism is garbage. This served me well in lily white suburbs, uptown bars, and college campuses because the whole exercise was in the theoretical realm. I could tsk tsk thoughtless comments from friends and releatives and strangers. "I know racism is bad because I read yadda yadda by some dude and he said blah blah and I agree." I mean it wasn't that brainless but it was certainly that detached from any sort of real life experience.

The tricky part for me was to reconcile that with what I was feeling directly. Mostly discomfort and anxiety. My intellect tells me everything is gravy but my gut, my gut, il est pas bien la bas! Not good homes. There was a part of me that didn't respond to what I knew in my head. There was discord and it was frightening. How do you fix a knee jerk reaction that you don't control?

But like Andy Dufrane I walked through a filthy market and came out clean three months later. I'm not saying it was quick or concious or that I'm even finished really learning to be tolerant. At the least I've found a new part of me that needs more work and at the most I've taken my learned beliefs out for a test drive in the world.

I know now there is more to the game than intellectual theory. These things must be used and practiced. The reptillian brain must be challenged and conquered by repetition until the unfamiliar becomes routine. We fear the unfamiliar and once we get to know the world directly we might see that it's not so bad.

chumming the village for children

After a bit of a feeding frenzy, we were able to control ourselves and behave like gentlemen. Fine portraiture ensued.

14 Guinea Stories Plus Petite

1] I'm going to the Imam's house for lunch. I cut through a neighbor's compound, jump a creek and bushwack my way back to the path. I surprise a pack of monkeys who scramble back into the bush.

2] Phil had a bot fly larve living under his skin and Kevin was bitten by a spider while he was sleeping. Both injuries resemble the entry wound of a 9mm bullet except they also ooze pus.

3] I watch a bush taxi carreen around the bend. There is a driver, two people in the passanger seat, four in the middle, three in the back, a bunch of baggage on top, another person on the roof, and a live goat sitting placidly.

4] I'm still getting my squat toilet technique down. I imagine it's approximately as operating a diver bomber during World War II. Sometimes you're not terribly accurate and your bathroom stinks for a couple of days.

5] The village doctor (hell of a guy by the way) has a fat little third grade son. He tells me to give him my bike ("Yagouba, donne moi ton velo") and I tell him to give me his dad's TV. I tell him to give me his shirt and he demands my sandals. It's a nice little game we play and it goes on for hours.

6] I have tan lines from my thong sandals. Really bad ones. I know there's a joke in there somewhere about me, tan lines, and thongs but I can't tease it out right now.

7] We're getting evacuated to Bamako tomorrow. We were told to pack one bag of "only essentials." Did I pack my Cole Haans? Yes. Yes I did.

8] I've got a brick of Guinean Francs in my bag. One point three million Guinean Francs actually. Official exchange rate is $1 to 5,000 GNF. You can do the math. Be sure to include the annual 15% inflation.

9] Carrying around bricks of rubber banded currency makes me feel like a drug runner.

10] Mr. Dioulde Barry (fluent in three languages, Oxford educated, director of the Peace Corps Education Program) and I are climbing a mountain to test out my cell phone coverage in village. He's dressed impeccably and wearing fine Italian loafers. He's in front. He looks over his shoulder and says, "Jake, when you write your memoirs" he gasps for air "make you sure you include this." He gasps for air again and thinks then adds, "But run it by me first."

11] Still haven't read any French poetry. Sorry Bruss. I'm looking.

12] "I'm not wearing this funny hat. It makes me look ridiculous." I said that while wearing a full on formal traditional Guinean boubou. I know there's pictures floating around somewhere. There's a video too.

13] I don't want to leave. I love it here. It better work out. I hope it works out my way.

14] Poop.

addendum:

sworn in like sin

I'm officially a full fledged volunteer. I'm not sure what else to say about that. I'm in Conakry right now and I'm set to leave for my village on Sunday.

I'm not really in a blogging mood right now so I'd like to direct your attention to the Failed States Index website. Do notice that Guinea clocks in at a respectable #9 overall behind Somolia, Iraq, Sudan, and A-Stan. Tough competition for sure. Happily Guinea is a more failed state than Pakistan and North Korea. Take that Kim Jong Il!

It's kind of an inside joke with the other volunteers (we feel like we get hardcore points!) and I don't want to trivialize the very real issues that Guinea needs to confront...and here it comes....BUT there's so much that's wonderful about where I am and what I've seen/done/lived and the people I've met. I'll try to get a more coherent thought down to paper sometime soon.

I'll be out of email/phone contact for the next month or so. Take care! I love the letters and care packages! You really don't know how good it feels to get something/anything from home.