Africa.
Africa.
Africa.
Like my heart beating over and over again. At long last I am here. It feels like a homecoming. The place I’ve always felt tied to - - connected to. The plane descends. We step off onto the tarmac and the wall of heat and pungent smells hit us immediately: Welcome to Guinea.
As a coastal city, Conakry is quite humid. The heat is intense. Burning garbage, inevitable body odour, pollution: the smells are firmly planted in my memory.
Military men with weapons ready greet us. Nothing compared to the L.A. airport: I’m not worried.
“Jeune Fevier?” Now there’s something to be worried about. I don’t have the legally required Yellow Fever vaccine, for ethical reasons. Aside from issues with vaccines in general, this one is synthesised with chicken embryos. Trivial? In the circumstances it appears so. But if one can’t hold true to one’s principals in the Face of Adversity, then what good are the principals at all, if one can remain that firm in a flexible, fluid place like Guinea? How to explain this in a “second language” to an airport official?? Sigh.
I do have a letter, in English, saying that I’m exempt from the vaccine for medical reasons (allergy). It’s not very official looking – not even a seal – - very important in Guinea where hierarchy is central to the organisational structure.
My French is not “coming back to me” the way I had hoped. After nearly two days of travel and sleep deprivation, I am at a complete loss for words.
A small man in military uniform approaches and grabs my arm.
“Lynn? Victoria?”
“Yes!” I respond, and his face errupts into a smile.
Just in time, our soon-to-be-dear-friend, Gigla, has come to the rescue. With a curt word to the “lowly” airport personnel, he leads me through to the luggage area. Bewildered, Byron quickly clutches passports and paperwork from said Personnel, and does his best to follow us through the crowd.
Introductions take place once we are safely in the luggage area, though there is still a good deal of urgency lest someone should be of a different mind regarding the level of Gigla’s authority (it is not a question of right or wrong or rules; simply a question of rank and bribery).
Our luggage arrives. We more-or-less sprint out of the airport, past the group of eagerly awaiting (our flight was delayed by several hours) friends.
Feeling tired and overwhelmed, we wait again in the parking lot: the trunk of the car won’t open. Eventually, someone gains access, and, fearing we may never see our bags again if the same event should re-occur without a successful outcome, we surrender our baggage to the car, and set off from the airport at last.
Drinking in all the sights and sounds, we travel no more than two city-blocks when our car dies. Unbeknownst to us at the time, this is to become a reoccurring phenomenon: virtually every time we set off in hopes of a new destination.
Waiting on the side of the road, we are quickly and fearlessly approached by children wanting to touch my skin (to see if the “white” would rub off) and to have their photos taken.
Stalls with peeled oranges for sale (to drink); our first glimpse of a butcher’s stall: a large hunk of meat hanging in the sun covered in no less than 10,000 flies; a “phone booth” -- a gentleman sitting in the shade with his cellular phone and an egg timer, offering calls to people for a per-minute fee; mothers with babes tied snugly on their backs.
The children, as you would envision, have no shoes on their feet. A sign of poverty, yes. But also, I like to romanticise, a sign of freedom.
