An interesting letter home from then-PCV Josh Forquer.

Well hello everbody, I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season, I am here in Africa, though one can take only so much of sitting by pools and on tropical beaches ya know. How are those blizzards going;).

Well I have been here a year now, and everything is going good. Village is good, a bit slow sometimes, but with just under a year left in this country I am sure the time will fly just as fast as the last year. Not too much is happening at the momentm I am just chillin' in Conakry, capital of Guinea, where good food can be found, for the holidays. Though I recently did make my first foray outside of Guinea, when I went up to Senegal for a few days to see off my friend Jeff, who went home for the holidays. We had a good time and had some crazy adventures. It all started nearly two weeks ago, though it seems months ago.

We set off from the Guinean city of Labe, and took a car Fred Flintstone wouldn't drive!! First we went to the gare, taxi park where you wait for bush taxis, which is the main form of transport here. Basically these are really f#cked up french(peugeot)station wagons. Anyways we went to go catch our car at about 9 am and waited, and waited, and after a bit more waiting, we.....waited some more, it should be noted that the bush taxis have no set schedule and leave when there are a full complement of passengers. Usually 9, but on this occasion there were, including the driver, 12 adults and two small children in the Car!!! Senegal is not a very popular destination apparently. Finally we left Labe about 8 or 9 pm. Then the fun began.

Don't let anyone tell you muslims don't drink, some do. Like our driver, who thought it fun to swerve for no reason, and laugh like an evil maniac. Well after several hours of this the car, which was a exceptionally shitty piece of shit, broke down. So there we slept. Under the stars and moon, and of course this being a land of little logic, we froze our asses off, of course it was only about 55=60 degrees, but its all relative. The next day was more of the same slow going, stopping in nearly every village to get repairs, but at least the driver was sober. After driving all day and night, we finally got to the border, and got to experience the wonderful world of Third world customs posts, Surprisingly this went quite smooth, and after stops on both sides of the border, to get the ol passport stamped, continued on our way. The driver of our car was not set to take us all the way to Dakar, the capital of Senegal, so we had to change cars. So we got to this small crossroads where we dropped off and thought our selves quite lucky as there was a drive there ready to take us right away, or so we thought. This is when the real fun began.

Well the new drive had no intention of taking us to Dakar anytime soon, and so the night was spent at this crossroads, I did sell my soul to the devil and now I play the guitar really good, so that was good. Wait'll you hear me.(that's a joke, I would never do that, except for world power, which wasn't on offer.) Anyways I digress. So the next morning this asshole driver, I call him that for that is what he truly was, disappears on us, and we wait and waited some more, after about 5 hours of this shit we go and find him and yell at him to get a move on. So he slowly gets moving, and we are under the impression we are to get passengers to go to Dakar. Never been more wrong. This asshole decides to go get some to take them to a town in the complete opposite direction so they can take another taxi, still leaving us five passengers short, in senegal they are far more advanced and travel in comfort, rather then jam packing a car till it is bursting at the seams.

Then this asshole, I really can't stress enough what an asshole this guy was, has the audacity to tell us we need to pay for his insurance card or something, and that we would have to wait and hour or two for the office to open. Well finally me and Jeff had enough of this shit and told him to take us to another car, which he did, and after not giving all our money back, we gave him 20000 cfa francs, about 30 or so dollars, he gave us 15000 back on the justification, that he did drive us some where, Velingara, just so you know. Well another car was arranged but surprise of surprises it was quite ready to go. So we went to eat, and then the fun began. I left my wallet in the asshole's car, Well this was the turd icing on the shit cake that our trip had been so far, and now it was time to eat. We went back the area where our next car awaited and asked the guys in charge if the other driver, who, did I mention, was an asshole, had gotten very far.

Luckily his car was being clean a mere 20 yards away. So I went over to recuperate my wallet and not surprisingly it had been cleaned out of about 30000 francs, luckily it wasn't all my money, but I was not about to leave this town with out that money. Well, the kids cleaning his car knew where he was. Well now, you know me, I am not, nor ever have been a violent person, I doubt anyone getting this can name an act of overt mean aggression on my part. But everyone has there limits, and after 3 days of travelling on poor dirt roads and not even getting half way to our destination, I flipped my lid on this jerk off. I got out of the car and there he was sitting under a nice tree having a nice little glass of tea, I started screaming, Donne moi l'argent, which is french for give me my money. I got so worked up I actually pushed him off his bench, like I said I flipped my lid!!! Luckily that is as violent as it got. After a bit of Talking and denials, I had to threaten to go get the Gendarmes, or police, which in a Third world country like Guinea or Senegal is a kin to telling a Jew, who stole from you, you are going to go get the Gestapo. After and hour or so of negotiation, soon after I got there the whole neighbor hood got involved, as they do, he agreed to give the money back, all without the use of law enforcement.

After all that the rest of the the trip went as smooth as velvet. We finally got on the right road to Dakar, but we were so exhausted we spent the night in Tambacounda, where there is Peace Corps regional house, (which is like a youth hostel for volunteers,) other wise we were looking at an early morning arrival in big city neither of us knew about. So we ended up having good time there, the Senegal volunteers cooked up a nice dinner and there was plenty of cold beer. The next day we had nice and smooth ride to Dakar. The Senegalese landscape is quite captivating. Though it is drier and hotter then where I am in Guinea.

We got into Dakar about for and found a nice cheap hotel. We were generally amazed at the state of the City. It was just like being in Europe, especially after being in Guinea, where the second largest city, Kankan, doesn't even have regular electricity. We went even went to a bar that night that would not have been out of place on 5th avenue in NYC or some similar place where really fancy bars are found. The next day was spent at the Goree Island which is just off the coast of Dakar. It was truly a little slice paradise. It had a small village that was all 19th century, clear blue watter to swim in, good restuarants, and of course tons of people hawking cheap souvenirs, and of course suckers like me who gladly shell out 3 dollars for nice bracelets and the like. Anyways wait'll you see the pictures.

Later that night, back in Dakar we saw the Orchestre Baobob, which is a Senegalese version of Buena Vista Social Club, for free, a private showing at some small American cultural center. Some study abroad girls from the US invited us. Naturally they all had boyfriends, very frustrating indeed. The next day we didn't do much, Though we did go back to Goree for dinner. The next day after that, Sunday, and we had left Labe Monday. I flew back to Guinea, and my friend Jeff flew home to the States. That was our trip to Senegal. I actually emailed this to Jeff, so if he has anything to add, maybe he'll send a response out. Back in Conakry for the holidays has been nice. I slept Christmas Eve on a beach on an island off of Conakry. It was nice, though - I kid you not - I was attacked by a crab in the middle of the night, now how funny is that? I was just sleeping and felt some sort of Jabbing on my head, I looked up with a start and I seen the little bugger running away. Not a creature was stirring indeed. Well Christmas was nice. We made a nice lasagna dinner and drank some wine, but in general it was a pretty quiet affair. Last of all I would like to say thank you to everyone you sent packages, I actually got them!!, and have called, you know who you are, I really do appreciate any small show of support.

That is all, finally, and hopefully I will be seeing y'all next christmas, so till then Happy New Year, Love Y'all Ciao Josh Forquer.