We have a saying
in English, “when you gotta go, you gotta go.” In Guinea apparently the motto is, “when you
gotta go, just go.”
Last week I was
surprised when one of the young girls going to get water suddenly dropped her
skirt and urinated right on the main path to the faucet. We’ve seen plenty of guys peeing on the side
of the road (this is common both in Panama and Africa, though apparently in
Africa you don’t even have to move off the side of the road), but never girls
and never right in our backyard on the main trail that people walk on every day
to get their drinking water, cooking water, bathing water, laundry water,
etc… I was even more shocked, however,
when one of the grown women did it the next day. She was nice enough to move behind the
nearest tree, but apparently, “when you gotta go, just go.” I’m thinking this is a principle we need to
teach our family. I’m pretty sure Abi
wouldn’t have a problem with it. Already
she runs into the school bathroom, takes care of business, and runs out without
her pants on. For Nathanael too, this
isn’t too far from his roots. There was
a time in Panama when he would actually choose to walk out the front door, pee
off the patio and then come back inside.
I’m not sure how Jen will handle it though…
On to money
matters: one of the big adjustments to
daily life in Guinea has been the money.
Little did I know, but I am now a millionaire. The reason is that the exchange rate here is
about 7,000 Guinean Francs to every dollar.
If this isn’t enough, the banks here prefer to hold onto the big bills
and usually dole out their cash in 5,000 increments—the largest bill I’ve seen
so far is a 10,000. Imagine paying for your groceries using only ones or
quarters. But it’s like that for every
purchase you make. This means when we
walk out the door to run errands, our pockets are bulging. In fact, I no longer carry a wallet; I just
carry my backpack around. And since
we’re still new, every time I make a purchase I’m constantly counting out each
bill, trying to figure out if I’ve got it right. I feel like such a snob pulling out these
huge wads of cash just to buy a few boxes of cereal. Yet somehow I always feel
like I’m being taken advantage of cause I usually have to ask the vendor to
make sure I’ve counted the right amount.
And the worst part of it is that
most wads of bills are incredibly dirty and old; definitely not a good place to
be germaphobic. And if you’re saying, ‘why
doesn’t the guy just use his credit or debit card’, the simple answer is that
credit card machines are non-existent here.
I haven’t seen one place yet that accepts a credit card, not even when
we were in Conakry. Paying for it on
your visa is indeed, priceless. And
Master Card is not truly everywhere I want to be (or is that American
Express?).
The other part to
the money system is that some places you can bargain with the vendors, some places
you can’t. I’m still figuring out where
it’s acceptable to negotiate and where I need to just let it drop. For example, when paying for general
groceries in the store, prices are fixed.
But when I go next door to buy a bath rug, bargaining is accepted. Sodas bought on the street, the price is
fixed. Vegetables in the market you can
negotiate for. For the most part I’m
pretty good at the bargaining and enjoy the process. In some ways bargaining is a test of a
person’s intelligence and will. Someone
who is too soft and gives in too easily can lose respect as they’re considered
bad businessmen and too easy to push around.
On the other hand, someone who drives a hard bargain and can bring a
vendor close to their bottom line price earns respect and is considered savy
and strong.
For example,
today I went out shopping for soccer equipment.
I wrestled with the vendor for about 20 minutes, trying to buy a larger
quantity of balls for a nice low price.
We went back and forth for some time, he trying to tell me that long
term it was better for him to hold out for higher prices, me trying to convince
him that a larger amount from me today was more secure than waiting for
hypothetical business later on. In the
end he gave in and gave me the deal I was wanting, but he concluded by
declaring that we were now friends. The
implication of course is that I’ll return to his store next time I need
something, but I earned his friendship by driving him down to a “friend’s”
price. I’m sure most times this is still
the white friend’s price, but I think
I’m getting better at this and developing relationships in the process.
So the moral to
the story is, if you gotta go, just go, but don’t forget to take a wad of paper
with you.
On another note,
the Snetselaars arrived back this week from Holland. It will be interesting to see how our school
dynamics change with Jesse in the mix.
I’m a little worried that Nathanael will get left out now that Pablo’s
best friend is back. Diana and Andres
have also told us they’ve had talks with Pablo, reminding him not to leave
Nathanael out, but this was in fact the case when we had our luncheon on
Friday. While the kids were all playing,
Nat came and told me that the other boys weren’t playing with him. It’s hard cause the other boys are used to
each other, they are older, and Nathanael is often more reserved. He also tends to do better with just one
friend, not always knowing how to play with bigger groups.
Finally, this
week is the country’s independence day, on October 2nd. As part of a political move to gain favor
with this district, the President has chosen Boke as the site where he will
spend the celebrations. The town has
been working fervently to get everything ready for his arrival, putting in new
street lights (solar powered), clearing out space for a town plaza, and building
new guest hotels for all the visitors.
This weekend the military also moved in and have blocked off the main
road through town. Unfortunately all of
the expats and missionaries seem to be more fearful of these events. Part of it is due to the protests last week
in Conakry. The two main political
parties have been fighting again, and two people were killed, so people are
worried that some of this will spill over here.
The other part is that there are so many “strangers” in town. Boke is usually a small, quiet town, but with
all this attention and activity lots of people also means lots of thieves,
vandals, etc… And the military doesn’t
seem to offer much comfort as they have a reputation for bullying people into
giving things. We’re told they are more interested in seeing what they can get
for themselves than in actually protecting the interests of the people. So we’ve been instructed to sit tight and try
not to go through town too much. This is
a shame as we would love to be able to see how Guineans celebrate their 4th
of July. I think there’s a possibility
that we might still go into town and check things out early on Tuesday. Andres and I might go see if it is safe and
then bring our families later if things look ok. Either way we have a day off to rest and
relax.
“Thank you, Lord
for your provision for our family. Thank
you that we have always had everything we need and more. I pray God that you would help our school to
transition well with the addition of Jesse.
Help us to be able to teach him and help him, and help him to adapt well
to our routines. Please help Nathanael
not to feel left out. Help him to be
able to mix in well with the older boys and make friends with Jesse too. Lord, please bless and protect this country
as they celebrate their independence.
Please give the leaders of this country wisdom and humility to continue
to lead and direct this nation. Continue
to protect the freedom of religion that exists here, so that your people might
worship in freedom and continue to spread your truth to all peoples. And, Lord, please protect us and this city
during these celebrations. Deliver us
from all evil and any plans the devil may have to cause chaos, harm, and
fear. May you be glorified in these
events. Amen!”
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