A Long Overdue Transcription

February 1, 2006

Hey Megan!
What's going on in New Mexico? Or Illinois, or New Zealand, or wherever you are? Here is all noise and chaos, small, half-naked children running around everywhere. The common mode of discourse is Susu is loud, accusatory, constant, and full of laughter. You would like their method of playing cards here, everyone cheats and then tries to argue their way out of it if they get caught (that only seems to work if you're a matriarch). Everything is talk talk talk, too bad it's all in Susu-not that I'd have much better chance understanding if it were in French, but maybe a little!
Family life here is a trip. I have two moms, Kadiatu and Neneomon. They were married to a man who died last year and now are each married to on of his brothers (both brothers have other wives somewhere). There are something like 14 or 15 kids living here along with Kadiatu's younger brother and sister, and a few older kids live in the capital and come visit on the weekends. My favorite little brother, Abubarkar, takes such care of his younger siblings, always comforting them when they throw hysterics (this happens multiple times a day, Guineans love drama) and he's super patient in helping me practice French. There's this unspoken hierarchy among the children. Littler ones always give up seats to older ones but the youngest are always taken care of. And daughters work hard. Sweeping, washing, cooking, carrying just about anything on their heads-being a woman out here is not an easy thing. On the other hand, though, there is plenty of song, dance, and laughter to go around. One of the trippiest experiences I've had so far was going to a nightclub with a couple of my sisters. Everyone dressed up all normal. I could have been at any club in the US, but I knew that they were going back home to cook on wood fires the next morning sitting on the roots of a mango tree. It was a good experience, looking around and realizing teenagers are teenagers even if they do dance a little funny. Anyway, that was a little tangent but what I wanted to say is that my family sings and dances all the time. Sitting on the front porch in the moonlight with all the kids singing these beautiful songs, random dance fests with my moms in the foyer, it's generally pretty fun around here at night. Taxing, too, my head hurts from trying to understand and trying to speak. Little by little, that's my family's favorite saying. Petite a petite.
This afternoon I came back from a study session and my cute uncle, Kerfala, was at the house. He's in the 11th grade and I thought he was maybe 19, but no, apparently he's 28 and has a kid. Well, anyway, we were talking and about a minute in I realized he was drunk off his ass, which totally surprised me because I thought the whole family were good abolitionist muslims, I mean they pray all the time, but maybe he's something of a black sheep. In any case, he was great fun, wildly gesticulating, got a petite to climb up a palm tree and bring me down a coconut and then got sprayed in the face with coconut milk when he opened it. Good times. I also got some dance lessons from a hoarde of 6-8 year old girls, they really liked it when I wiggled my butt. I love how easy it is to be entertaining! But now I'm holed up in my room because my bad dad, when I went outside to sit with the family, started off with "How's it going Masire? So are you planning on getting married while you're here in Guinea? I think you should find a husband in Forecasiah." It continued on from there, and every time I tried to turn it into a joke he would get this serious expressions and say that I wasn't being nice. Aah! He's only ever here one or two nights a week but every time he traps me in some conversation about how I need to learn to cook like a Guinean or why am I not learning Susu, isn't it a good language? Everyone else is all laughter and smiles but he just takes things so seriously. I think I'll just save up my homework for the days he's here and then barricade myself in my room.
What else? It's absolutely gorgeous here. The rivers especially-smooth green water in snaking curves with plam trees lining the banks and women invariably washing clothes out on the rocks. There are these low blunt mountains you can see in the distance that remind me of the mesas out your way only rounded a little more exotic (I know they have monkeys!). The people are great. Greetings are a huge part of Guinean culture--bonjour, ca va, tana mu femen, there are these ritual exchanges everyone goes through with everyone they see--well for the Guineans it's not everyone but people (especially kids) always want to say hi to us Americans so it's salue and wave all day long. I kind of like it, but some people get really annoyed. Whatever, they'll have to get used to it, got two more years to go. People always want to practice English, too, today I got "Hey, white girl! How are you?" shouted at me as I was walking. Yay. Everyone in my neighborhood knows my name and shouts it as I walk by (again, mostly children) but I'm still working on getting family names down and couldn't even begin to start on the neighbors. Maybe I can start passing out nametags....
Guinea is like this. When the soccer team gets a goal, the whole town erupts cheering. When they win, children parade in the street. When they lost, everyone was sad for five minutes and then they said "well there's always 2008" and settled down to watch the next match. When they power goes out they find the lantern, when it comes back on everyone cheers. I'm diggin it.
Hope you and the kitty are doing well, tell me all about life! Or at least the juicy bits.

Victoria