It's been a while since I've written so I guess it's time for an update. The last week of May I took a trip to Kankan in the eastern part of the country. A gruelling 36-hour voyage by "bush taxi" (a Peugeot station wagon with eleven passengers) which I don't think I will repeat. Kankan is the second-biggest city in Guinea. While I was there I saw lot of other volunteers, most of whom had gathered like myself for a going-away party for Mara, the volunteer with the record for the longest stay in Guinea -- almost four years. (The standard stint is two years.) We all had a great time.

Haute Guinee (Upper Guinea), as the area around Kankan is called, impressed me mostly as flat and monotonous. I was glad to have seen it primarily because it made me appreciate my own region of Guinea, the Fouta Djallon highlands, that much more.

 When I got back to Maci, I got a kitten. His name is Colorado. My health center colleague Cece Gbilimou cannot understand why I would do such a bizarre thing as keep a cat around the house. Cece is from the forest region, where a house cat would likely be eaten for dinner. Oh well. Halimatou from the sewing group in Kambaco understands me. Every time she comes over she asks for him, and he usually ends up falling asleep in her lap. He is really cute, with big eyes just like those dimestore pictures of kittens. I feed him canned sardines, which are a little expensive. As he gets older I will wean him onto rice and sauce.

Speaking of Colorado, the district of Kambaco has asked me if they could rename a village after my home town. I suggested Colorado (rather than Brooklyn) and they said they would get together to decide what village would receive the honor and then let me know. Then they'll give me a piece of paper when it is all official. I don't quite know what to think about it, but I guess it must be quite a compliment or maybe they are trying to butter me up for something.

Since then I have been mostly hanging around the sewing group. It is going really well so far (knock on wood). We have sold a few boubous, the proceeds of which have gone into the group's kitty. (A "boubou" is a traditional formal outfit of flowing robes with lots of embroidery. Sort of the West African version of a business suit.) Saikou is building up a stock of ready-to-wear clothes. When we have enough, Halimatou will take them to Conakry and sell them wholesale. Saikou figures that just selling boubous wholesale, we can make about a 45% profit over materials. I'm psyched. Saikou's got a couple of guys from town helping him in the studio and they are turning out stuff like nobody's business. I warned Saikou we can't pay these guys. It is ruled out in the funding application and anyway I don't want the co-op to become just an employment opportunity for professional tailors. (It is supposed to provide job training for local women and girls.) Saikou is vague about the terms under which they are working there. Perhaps he figures he can pay them under the table and keep it off the books. Who knows what murky understanding he has with them. I don't mind. I am trying to keep hands off as much as possible. As long as the co-op makes money and spends it for the good of the group, I'm satisfied. As for Saikou, there is nothing he hasn't done for the project.

Although the studio hasn't been formally inaugurated, I have made a point of dragging people out to Kambaco to see it. My friend Aboubacar, who was a tailor in Liberia for years, was very impressed. He says it is better than any tailoring studio in Pita. He is talking it up all over Pita for us. Maria, my APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director -- my boss in Conakry) came out to see it and bought a boubou. Some missionary friends from Pita did the same. Then I got a letter from another missionary, Jill, who runs a clothing store in Labe. She saw the outfit the Pita missionary bought, and liked the embroidery so much she wants to order ten embroidered shirts for a trip to the States in July. If they go over, who knows -- we might be in the export market! Saikou and I are going up to see her about it tomorrow.

I've ordered a few things from the studio myself, including a couple of pairs of pleated trousers. I like the trousers so much I think I might try Saikou on a three-piece suit. The trousers were six dollars. The suit might run me thirty or forty dollars at the outside. He says it would be no problem. I'm still trying to get my nerve up. I'll tell you one thing: organizing a sewing cooperative sure solves the problem of finding a tailor. Every volunteer should do it.

 I've been feeling rather poorly the last few days. I am reasonable certain I have a slight case of malaria. I made the blood sample slides like I was supposed to and took the prescribed medicine; now I am waiting to start feeling better. Later when I can have someone look at the slide, we'll find out if was really malaria or not. It is an irritating illness. I don't have enough energy to do much of anything, but it is hard to sleep. So I am sitting around being apathetic. Plus I seem to have picked up some amoebas in Kankan and at the same time they found that I also tested positive for "intestinal flukes" -- whatever they are. I would probably rather not know. So now I am sitting around and taking all this medicine, the main side effect of which is that it makes everything I eat taste like metal. Yuck. The thing is, this only happens when I leave the Fouta to go to Kankan or Conakry. When I stay home I stay healthy.

The big overarching news from Guinea is the national legislative elections, the oft-promised follow-up to the presidential elections eighteen months ago. They passed off without mishap last Sunday. there have been some reports of irregularities, but nothing more than can be put down to incompetent officials and overzealous supporters. 137 opposition supporters were arrested in Kankan, but they all snuck out of prison one morning while the soldiers were at roll call. They were later full of praise for the commander of the garrison who let it be known that their arrest was not his idea, and bought them all cigarettes besides. The general unspoken assumption is that their "escape" was just his way of letting them go.

 I went down to the primary school on Sunday to watch the vote for a while before going back home to bed. It was interesting: each voter had to cast two ballots: one for a candidate and one for a list of parties. Like some European voting systems, I think. So there were two sets of ballots, two voting booths, two ballot boxes, etc. They actually got the voters to line up in two lines, one of men and one of women. Then they let them through one at a time. It actually seemed pretty organized, although they were working hard to keep things on track. It seemed like someone was perpetually trying to put the right ballot in the wrong ballot box, or to stuff through the little slot in the top of the box a wadded-up ballot envelope that could not possibly fit. Or dropping their ballots and having to scrabble through the discarded ballots ankle-deep on the floor to find the right one. Or wandering out the door with their ballot paper in their hand, not knowing what they were supposed to do with it. You could see that they have not had many elections here.

Mr. Dioulde, the sub-prefectural education director (in charge of the local teachers) and Madame Fatou, in charge of the health center, were in charge of the voting station. They had five or six people distributing ballots to the voters, making sure they ended up in the right box, and all that. They had representatives of the two locally dominant parties watching to make sure it was all on the up-and-up. (There are 46 parties in all.) After I left, I heard that some Europeans, representatives of some watchdog commission or other, had dropped by and peeked in on things. It all went very smoothly.

One sour note to the elections, though. The community secretary, who knows I have been talking to the people in Donghol about a school (I have also discussed it with the president of the local Rural Development Committee), came up to me today and told me I shouldn't undertake any projects to help people who "are not with the government;" that is to say, who did not vote for the ruling party. Some nerve. I guess Donghol must be some kind of opposition stronghold, which probably explains why they don't have a school already. Unfortunately, African democracy often owes more to Richard Daley than to Thomas Jefferson. But to think he wants to sign me up to his plan to punish Donghol and other sectors that did not vote for the P.U.P. by withholding development assistance -- I could hardly believe my ears. It is probably just as well I have malaria, or I might have had the energy to say something unfortunate. In the event I decided to wait and discuss it with the RDC president, who will hopefully understand how inappropriate that suggestion was.

My goodness, I'm mad again just thinking about it. Well, it'll probably blow over -- these things generally do. It's just one more thing I have to be careful about now. Not letting myself be manipulated into only working in districts that support the government party. I asked the RDC president for the election results. He said I could get them from the sub-prefect when he got back from Pita. I'm going to write them down, district by district, so I'll know. Well that's all for now. Sorry if this letter seems a little spacey. Put it down to the fever. I'm also sorry for the funky paper, but I am out of my fancy grid paper and I haven't been able to get to Labe to get more. This is all I can get in Maci. Happy July 4 and everything.

Love, Woody

Greetings from Maci. Today is the first day of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting and atonement for all muslims. For the faithful who keep the fast, including everyone in Maci except small children and me, no food or drink is to be taken between sunrise and sunset. People here have a special wrinkle they throw in: they refrain as well from swallowing their spit. All day long people are spitting out long streams of saliva everywhere.

Besides small children, the Koran specifically excuses sick people from fasting, as well as pregnant women and nursing mothers. In principle, in fact, anyone who doesn't feel up to it is excused. But here in the Fouta, everybody fasts, period. Needless to say, it is not the healthiest thing for a woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy. I have been trying to introduce the idea that pregnant women shoul not fast, but no luck so far.We will start seeing the first miscarriages and premature births here at the health center in a few days.

Such frustrations aside, things in Maci might just possibly be looking up. We have a new sub-prefect, who seems to be a very dynamic and ambitious guy, in contrast to the last one, who was a complete cipher. He makes a big point about wanting all the officials and functionaries in the sub-prefecture (among whom he counts me) to work together in a transparent and open manner. It's a little hard to believe; a little too good to be true. Yet when I went up to his office yesterday to show him a couple of school projects I had started working on; he jumped right on them. I have to admit I was a little taken aback; I'm not used to working with Guinean authorities who actually give a damn about anything. I'm reserving judgement until I see how he actually follows through on things, but so far I am encouraged.

The co-op in Kambaco is still coming along, although not to the extent I had hoped. Sales are slow, even on the wholesale market; motivation of the members is flagging, and their training is progressing slowly. However, soon we hope to make our first series of purchases with the proceeds from the atelier; and as the members see, by and by, that they are benefitting materially from the work they are doing, I hope to see their motivation improve.

I am also working on an interesting projected with Dr. Maladho Bah of the prefectural health administration. We are designing a week-long seminar on AIDS for the health center staffs of the twelve sub-prefectures and other representatives of the communities. Peace Corps Guinea is in general trying to get less involved in building things and more involved in teaching and training, and we hope that this could be a pilot project. I already have had a very positive response from Conakry, and as soon as we have a firm budget established, I'll try to find some money to fund it. (The main expenses are in the form of transportation for the 40 participants, who have to travel in from the sub-prefectures; a per diem of $5/day since here in Guinea nobody will attend a seminar unless you pay them to do so; and the most expensive item-food and drink for the daily lunch break.)

That's about all that's new for the moment. As usual I have a million and one little things going on, but maybe I'll save them for my next letter. I hope you are all well, in good health, etc. Write soon  and tell me what is new with you.

Greetings from Guinea, the pearl of West Africa. Pardon me for using the blue pen as I know black is easier to read on this grid paper, but it is the only one I have with me and I want to get this letter off with someone who is leaving for Conakry today. In fact if I have to break off abruptly, it is because they have come for my letter.  Last week was the Feast of Tabaski, and a great number of  people who claim Maci as their ancestral home but who live elsewhere came back to visit their families and pass the holiday together. This to be followed  by a big meeting on Friday to discuss the development priorities of the sub-prefecture and try to make some positive decisions. In order that Allah should smile upon the development of Maci, they spent the entire day and night leading up to the meeting in holding  special prayers and ceremonies in all the major mosques and, notably, in performing several large sacrificial feasts for which countless goats, sheep and  cows were slaughtered. The platters of food prepared numbered in the hundreds, maybe the thousands. It all culminated in a night spent reading the entire Koran out loud in the main mosque in Maci. It was attended by hundreds of people. In all, it was a very impressive example of public mobilization.

I was invited to participate in the big meeting the next day, but Iknew it would be held entirely in Pulaar (no matter what they might tell me in advance) and I wouldn't be able to follow except in the most general way.

Well -- my friends are here and they are in a hurry. I'll try to write another letter tomorrow and finish the story. Know anyway that I am well, things are going well, and if I am writing less often lately it is because I am more busy than ever. So long; I'll write again right away.

So -- it is two days later and I will try to finish the story. They wanted me to go to this big meeting, and I didn't really want to. I had something I wanted to do in Pita on Friday. They asked me at least to address the meeting before I left for Pita. So I told them, if I were to address the meeting it would be to ask the following question:  Why had all these thousands of dollars (millions  of francs -- I heard estimates from two to ten million) been spent of sacrifices and ceremonies to seek God's benediction for the development of Maci, when they could have actually been used to do something for Maci such as digging wells, building a school, or even installing a solar electric system in the health center? They agreed I should go to Pita instead.

It seems people can always be counted on to mobilize and contribute their resources for a religious purpose (or a social one), but when it comes to investing in the future of their community it is a different story. If Guinea is any example, the only difference between rich and poor countries is in the management of their resources.

As I write, the dry season has not broken yet, and I am beginning to hear people remark upon it. It rained a couple of times in April, but since then, nothing. The wind continues to blow hot and dry out of the northeast, and in the afternoon the sun gets uncomfortably hot. I feel dehydrated all the time. Plus I feel dirty. The dust gets into everything. When I wash my hair, the water that rinses out of it is brown. Even so, the land is remarkably green. Right now is the peak of the mango and papaya season, and the trees are laden with fruit in a voluptuous display of abundance.

My friend Alpha Mabiri's grandfather passed away last week. He was a highly respected old man, with a reputation for wisdom and learning. I made one of my rare visits to the mosque for the funeral. However I failed to anticipate how crowded it would be and had to pray on the gravel outside with the other latecomers. The funeral was at 2:00 in the afternoon, and the gravel had had ample opportunity to bake in the sun all day. And of course Moslem prayers are always recited barefoot. So there was nothing for it; I had to stand on the burning hot gravel until the prayers were over. Any other alternative would have caused great embarrassment at a very solemn occasion. There were plenty of other people in the same situation, but it didn't bother the villagers at all. Their feet are hard as nails. As for me, I think I've had enough of the mosque for awhile. A week later, my feet are still sore. Alpha Mabiri is getting married tomorrow, to a second wife. He didn't really want to; he has been happily married to Habibatou for 18 years and had no intention of taking a second wife; but he is in a difficult situation. Since his father died a few months ago (he's also lost his uncle and a younger sister in the last few months -- it's been a rough season), he has become responsible as eldest son for his father's three widows and the rest of the family down in his natal village of Mabiri. However his wife and children need to stay at his compound in Maci Centre so the kids can attend school (Mabiri is too far). Poor Alpha spends all of his time running back and forth. It is about an hour each way by foot. What he really needs is a second wife down there in Mabiri who can keep an eye on things for him. His family was leaning on him to marry again, and recently Habibatou weighed in on their side. When he consented, she even helped to make the arrangements, approaching the family on Alpha's behalf to obtain their consent (what would traditionally be his father's role). Everyone thinks it was quite a gesture on Habi's part. Jealousy usually goes hand in hand with polygamy, but she able to quite rise above it.

At least the girl (she is sixteen) Alpha is marrying is happy with the situation. In fact it was she who proposed to him. This is not as uncommon as one might think here in the Fouta. Sometimes a marriage is arranged by the parents of the two families, but it is often initiated by the couple themselves, and it is not considered untoward for the woman to approach the man first. What does seem strange, however, is that it is considered immoral for two people to marry if they are already friends, and even more immoral if they have dated. If you are engaged to someone, you are not supposed to socialize with them. My friend D.T.O., an executive with an international N.G.O., told me his first engagement was broken off when the girl's father happened to see a picture of the two of them together at the beach. Once it was established that they already knew each other, marriage was out of the question.

Okay, that's all for now. I am at the DPS for a planning meeting as I write this, and everyone has finally arrived. I'll break this letter off and take it back up again later.

It is now the next day. The meeting I was having with the DPS (Directeur Prefectoral de la Sante, or Prefectoral Health Director, in charge of all the doctors in the prefecture) was about the planning for our AIDS seminar. In fact it has turned into more than a seminar: a multi-faceted project of which the seminar is only one part. Before the end of May, STD-AIDS committees will be set up in each of the eleven subprefecture in Pita. Then in July we will hold a five day seminar for them, which will end with each committee establishing a three-month action plan which, upon approval, will receive funding for logistical support. At the end of these three months will be an overall evaluation followed by new 3-month action plans. I will be gone by then, but the ball will be rolling.

We have had a stroke of luck in getting this project funded. What happened was that our seminar proposal found its way to an NGO called Population Services International (PSI) at just the moment they were looking for a new way to promote AIDS publicity and education. In past years they have tried to do this by funding the National AIDS Comittee, a creature of the Health Ministry that manages, like any other Guinean government department, to swallow up its entire budget in overhead expenses without actually doing anything. PSI, itself funded by USAID and dominant in Guinea in AIDS education and family planning, was looking for a way to fund activities on the regional or local level when they received the proposal I helped the Pita AIDS Committee to draw up. They pounced on it like a tiger, and have already decided to use it as a national model, starting with a pilot test in Pita. The Pita Committee, the DPS and I are all very excited. The National Committee is in a big snit that their money tap is to be turned off. They are trying in Conakry to prevent the project from getting off the ground. However PSI has enough clout and credibility, plus a great track record, to be able to deal with the National Committee. Anyway, the Committee still has a budget from the World Health Organization for its directors to steal from.

I hope I don't sound too cynical, but it is a universally recognized fact of life in Guinea that the government exists solely to provide a system by which the elite can embezzle money. It is the type of government that has led to the invention of the word, "kleptocracy." On the other hand I must say that my DPS and his team are really exemplary; they are committed, hardworking and sincere. I have been working with them more and more lately, and it is a real pleasure because we all have the same goals.

Enough about that. Today was Alpha Mabiri's wedding, and I went down to Mabiri to attend. A wedding in the village is an all-day affair, and like everything else it revolves around the preparation and consumption of food. The cooking began early in the morning, and as the guests began to arrive, prodigious amounts of rice and sauce began to appear. They disappeared soon enough.

Last night I noticed that the wind direction had changed from the northeast to the southwest, the direction from which moist ocean air flows inland during the rainy season. Sure enough, it was lightly overcast this morning and as the day wore on, thunderheads could be seen building to the north and south. We had a couple of sprinkles in the early afternoon, and as the climax of the wedding approached, a real storm cut loose, driving everyone onto porches and inside houses. This was considered all around as a tremendous blessing upon the marriage, especially since the rains have been so late in coming.

At the climax of the wedding, the bride is "kidnapped" from her village and carried off to her new home. (This ritual seems common to many cultures; I have read of it being observed even in China.) She is completely veiled and pretends to cry. In reality, sometimes she really is crying, because she may not have had any say in the marriage and may not desire it at all. Happily of course, that was not the case today. The groom, by tradition, hides himself at the moment of the bride's arrival. No one seemed able to explain to me the reason for this part of the custom.

Anyway in the middle of the downpour, an advance party from Oumayatou's village arrived to warn of her arrival. They were all soaked to the bone. Alpha ran around to the side of the house and locked himself in a storeroom. Minutes later the rest of the party arrived, with one of the men carrying the ostensible kidnap victim on his back, as customary. Everyone dashing through the rain and thunder, as wet as if they had been swimming with their clothes on. A couple of men brought out antique shotguns and fired them into the air in celebration. This too is traditional. All the hullabaloo, the gunshots, the thunder and the noise of the rain on the metal roof combined to to make it quite a moment. Then the bride was brought inside and cloistered away, Alpha came out of his hiding place, and we all ate more rice, rather as though we were drinking a toast.

After a while the rain started to clear, and as it was getting on toward dusk I left with some others to go back to Maci Centre. However it looked like like a party was laid on for the evening. Other guests were continuing to arrive, and Alpha had even brought down the old electrical generator he has and strung up light bulbs. They are probably dancing down there tonight in that little village as I write this.

I can't help remarking again what a positive omen the rain seemed for the marriage. We are all hoping it was not an isolated phenomenon, but indicates the beginning of the rainy season.

Love, Woody

29 June 1996

Greetings from the Fouta. Rainy season is moving into full swing and everybody is out in the fields growing the rice and cassava they will eat for the rest of the year. It really is beautiful this time of year. I have always known that I would be leaving Guinea at the height of the rainy season, and I am glad I will remember it this way.

Rainy season is also malaria season and flu season of course. The health center is very busy. I saw a little girl with whooping cough the other day. Something you don't see often at home. Unfortunately all the health centers are desperately low on medications. In a related development the Guinean health minister has, after initial denials, admitted the truth of a report on French radio that more than a million dollars in health funds has disappeared without a trace. This scandal, though unremarkable by itself in Guinean terms, comes on the heels of the announcement of a government anti-corruption campaign. Apparently the military mutiny in February convinced the president that public discontent was getting out of hand and he was in danger of going the way of the presidents of Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia (deposition in a military coup) unless he cleaned things up. In April he made a remarkably honest television speech, castigating the corruption of his own administration and promising to put in place a special commission to investigate corruption in public administration.

The country was generally pretty skeptical, considering that the president is considered the crookedest member of the whole crooked bunch. Stories abound of secret midnight shipments of gold buillon to the border of neighboring Guinea-Bissau. One time, they say, his own wife was arrested by French police for trying to smuggle diamonds through the airport in Paris. He was obliged to go there himself to get her released. When he was accused of stealing government money to finance his re-election campaign, he responded, "That's where I work. Where do you want me to get it?"

So far the anti-corruption campaign has had two notable results. The first is to bring down the roadblocks on the national roads. These roadblocks are manned by the Gendarmerie, or national police, ostensibly for the purpose of checking for proper documentation of vehicles and travellers. In reality they function as freelance tollbooths as nobody, papers or no papers, gets through without paying a bribe. (Except for Western development workers like myself who are excused by tacit understanding.) They can't actually arrest someone if they have the right papers, but they can pull them over to check and simply not get around to letting them go on their way. Anyone who doesn't pay the bribe is liable to spend the night there. If they try to leave without permission, they can and will be arrested, possibly beaten and thrown in jail.

Anyway, a recent announcement on national radio said that these roadblocks were to come down. Sure enough, when I went to the Thursday market in Pita last week, there was no roadblock on either side of town. Maybe the Gendarmerie are going to have to start living on their salaries. It will certainly save drivers and travellers a lot of time and trouble. Just between Pita and Conakry you can get stopped a half-dozen times, and traffic backs up behind each roadblock as the drivers and gendarmes negotiate the terms of each bribe.

(A Cameroonian acquaintance told me of a recent trip he took to Bamako, the capital of Mali, with a group of Guinean associates. While driving around the city they were pulled over by police and the Malian driver went back to confer with the policeman. When he returned, the Guineans in the car asked him, "How much did you have to give him?" The Malian driver informed them indignantly that he was not so foolish as to offer money to a policeman. You get in a lot of trouble for that. The Guineans looked at each other in surprise. In Guinea, you get in trouble for not offering money.)

The other notable result of the anti-corruption campaign has been the customs fire. Two days before an investigative commission was to begin its inquiry into the customs office of the international port in Conakry, possibly the most notorious bed of corruption and graft in the entire country, the second story of the customs building was destroyed in a fire of suspicious origin. The accounting department and all of its records went up in smoke. Now the notorious Colonel Bangoura, the head of the customs service, is going around belligerently challenging anyone who accuses him of corruption to back up his claims with evidence. A pretty safe challenge,now that the evidence has been burned.

One minor incident has been the suspension of the prefect of Beyla, who is apparently responsible for diverting $25,000 collected from the population there for the government's biggest pet project, the hydroelectric dam at Garafiri. This is really a positive sign as in the past, cases such as this or the million dollars missing from the health ministry budget would have just been quietly swept under the rug with a few well-placed bribes or "gifts." Perhaps indeed the government is serious about cleaning up the public administration, as unlikely as this would seem in the West African context in general and the Guinean context in particular. If they are, I certainly wish them luck. Guinea without ubiquitous corruption would be something to see. I don't know if I would recognize it.

On the local level, nothing much is new. I'm spending one or two days a week at the health center which as I said is busy. My erstwhile collaborator Cece has become even more apathetic, if that were possible, since was passed over for Chef de Centre de Sante back in January. I have given up on trying to teach him the principle of putting the vaccination files in order by date of birth. He'll never get it in a hundred years. I just go through them first thing in the morning and put them back in order before the patients start arriving. It's a pain, but it saves me spending a half-hour looking for the file every time a mother shows up with a kid to be vaccinated.

On two recent inspection visits, Cece got yelled at for re-using needles in vaccinations (Guinea is beginning to discover AIDS) and came hair's breadth from having his government motorcycle taken away for his stupendously chaotic management of the leprosy/tuberculosis program in the health center. His bosses are finally figuring out how worthless he is. Of course he'll never lose his job; functionaries are simply not fired in Guinea. It goes without saying that he'll never change either. To think they once considered making him Chef de Centre. That would have been scary.

On the other hand, I really enjoy working with the new Chef de Centre, Dr. Bobo. He is an interesting guy, intelligent and well-read (the only Guinean I ever met who could discuss Taoism), hard-working, proud of his competence, and polite. Meeting him in Guinea has been like coming across an alien from outer space. He put in a well next to the health center at his own out-of pocket expense; an improvement never even contemplated by the local authorities. Now he wants to plant pine trees around the building. We have spent many hours working together on my project of an expanded six-tape version of the Pulaar public health information cassette. Sort of an African version of a home medical encyclopedia. He is as enthusiastic about it as I am, which never fails to amaze me. It is certainly refreshing to work with somebody who has such a positive attitude.  (Maybe he feels the same way.) I am only sorry that he arrived here so late in my stay in Maci, and that I am so busy with other projects that I can't really initiate anything very ambitious with him.

Well that's about all for now. I hope this letter finds you well and enjoying summer in Colorado. It is a little strange to think of it being summer, as here in Guinea the season is cool and rainy and is in fact referred to as "hivernage" (French for "winter"). But then that's only the least of the dislocations of living here. I'm looking forward to getting home in about three months, as much as I know I'm going to miss Guinea and at least some Guineans. Still I have a lot to do before I leave and am working hard on finishing it all up. Wish me luck. I'd better go.

Today was an unremarkable day. This morning at 8:00 a.m. Mouctar showed up at my door. I was still getting dressed and he had already hiked all the way from Kambaco. He's Saikou's star student and assistant in the literacy group out there. He said Saikou was sick with a sore throat and did I have any medicine?

I gave him some cough drops I had and recommended tea with lemon. I also recommended he gargle with salt water. I had to look up the French word for "gargle" (se gargariser) and demonstrate for Mouctar what it meant. He thought it was pretty hilarious. I told him Saikou probably had the flu but if his sore throat lasted more than three days, he should come in and get checked for strep.

Mouctar brought a little notebook with him and asked me to set up a sales register for the condoms I brought them last week. We had discussed the group becoming a sales outlet for Prudence condoms as part of the AIDS campaign, and Saikou had designated Mouctar and Ramatoulaye to be in charge of the enterprise. Mouctar for the guys and Ramatou for the girls. Then I brought back the carton of condoms from Labe and presented them with it, along with a little demonstration using bananas to show how to put the condom on correctly. I told them they would have to actively promote the condoms and they couldn't do it if they were shy about talking about sex. I made them repeat the demonstration for me and as an exercise had them tell me all the dirty words they knew in Pulaar. They were pretty reticent.

I asked Mouctar today as I was drawing up the sales register (Saikou was supposed to do it, but I guess he didn't feel up to it) how the promotion was going. He said they hadn't sold any yet, but he had talked to about ten people about it. Unfortunately Ramatoulaye, who is younger and much more shy, hadn't gotten up the courage yet. I hadn't really thought that Ramatoulaye was such a great choice; she is too demeure. There is another girl in the group, Oumou, who is away visiting her family in Conakry but may be back in a few days. She is more outgoing and I have used her and Mouctar together for health education in the schools. When she gets back we will have her take over from Ramatoulaye.

I finished the sales register and gave it back to Mouctar. The idea is for it to be self-sustaining:  they will keep track of the number of condoms sold ($.05 for a packet of two-subsidized by USAID) and the money they make, and when most of the condoms are gone they will give me the money for another carton and I will get it for them.

When Mouctar left, I hiked out to N'Dantary (12 kilometers-about two hours) to visit with Amadou Sara, the local health worker in the dispensary there. I brought him a carton of condoms too. (I have also placed a carton with Dr. Balde in the N'Dire dispensary, and one with Mamadou Alpha, one of the storekeepers in Maci Centre.) I am trying to  do at least something to make condoms available in the subprefecture before I leave. They are of course essential, not only as a means of birth control, but to fight the spread of AIDS.

I also brought my little tape recorder with me out to N'Dantary, so Amadou Sara and I could work on the Pulaar public-health cassette I'm putting together. We managed to record all of the chapter on hygiene. Eight chapters down, four to go. I might actually finish this before I leave. When it is finished it will be six cassettes, with one chapter on each side of each cassette. There will be a considerable amount of unused space on the cassettes, but it will be simpler to use this way.

(We are working from a UNICEF/WHO public health manual called Facts for Life in English but better known in Guinea in the French version, Savoir pour sauver. I managed through a Guinean acquaintance who works at the National Literacy Service to get a pre-publication copy of the new Pulaar translation, Aandugol fii Daandugol, and this is what we are using to record the cassettes.)

Amadou Sara showed me three of the fluorescent light bulbs of our beloved solar-electric system that have burned out. We'll have to go to the supplier in Labe to get them replaced. Now normally the Health Center Management Committee would be responsible for this, but in Maci this committee, as with many other things, basically exists in name only. They were supposed to re-elect the committee six months ago, but the authorities never seem to get around to it. So I'll go to my friend Sani, who is from N'Dantary and managed the construction of the dispensary for me, and ask him to take care of it. If he doesn't do anything I'll bitch and moan to the Chef de Centre and try to get the district president to take care of it. If still nothing happens, well, it's their damn clinic, not mine. It they want it to fall apart, there's not much I can do to stop them.

I hiked back from N'Dantary in the afternoon, getting lost twice. Everything looks different because the fields have been burned and turned over for planting. I thought I knew the way blindfolded but all the landmarks have changed.

Well, my bucket bath is hot now, so I'm going to go and wash. Then I'll have my nightcap of vodka (cheap French stuff I get in Labe) and go to bed. I'm thinking of you.