October 3rd

     Yesterday was the grand 54^th Anniversary of Independence Day  of Guinea.  Cees invited Jen, Andres, and I to join him and his landlord to go into town to see the celebrations.  After dropping the kids off with Diana and her kids, we drove through Correrah to the river.  There we embarked on a “pirogue” (dug-out canoe) to cross to the other side.  After a temporary delay by some soldiers (apparently it’s illegal to photograph the military) we hiked up the hill past the local garbage dump into the center of town.  We then followed our guide (Cees’ landlord) to try to find a good viewpoint where we could watch the parade.  Unfortunately there didn’t seem to be any good point to view it from.  The place was jam-packed.  Guinea’s idea of a parade, at least one in Boke, is to demolish a string of buildings therefore creating enough space for a plaza, to set up a grand stand to seat all the dignitaries, and then to have the parade pass by the grandstand, make a quick loop through the plaza and end.  This means literally hundreds of thousands of people were all crowded around the perimeter of the plaza trying to get a glimpse what was happening in the center. 

     So finally we thought we had found a good spot to watch from, aided by the fact that our guide found a rock that Jen could stand on.  This spot also happened to be right on the edge of a main walk way where old widows came by carrying handheld megaphones.  Their fundraising strategy is to yell at you through the megaphone until you give in to peer pressure and give them money.  Apparently it’s more effective if they travel in groups too.  So you have five or six women all yelling at you from their megaphones until you give in.  Thankfully Cees was apparently in a generous mood and had a stash of cash in his pocket just for the occasion.  But these weren’t the only people stopping by to ask for money.  We also had some clowns, musicians, and kids.  And of course, more groups of widows.  Cees appeased them all with a joke and some cash.

     Eventually, some activity other than the beggars caught our attention.  The president arrived.  I didn’t exactly see him through the crowd, but we could tell it was him by the cars, the choppers, and everyone craning their necks, standing on each other’s shoulders, and employing any and all means to get a glimpse of him.  I think Jen spotted him from her rock.  This was also about the time that some bright young man decided to climb onto the roof of the nearby store.  After about twenty or so other bright young men decided to join him, the roof collapsed and nearly smashed the crowd below.  The good news from this was that there was now more rubble for people to stand on. 

     Then the parade began, not just once, however, but three or four times.  The reason we could tell was that the people in the grandstand stood up and cheered three or four times but then nothing else would happen.  Finally, after a few false starts the parade did begin in earnest.  I got some good glimpses of it by holding the digital camera up above the crowd, but that’s when the crowd began to push against the military so they could get a better view.  The soldiers tried pushing them back, literally shoving them off the edges of the plaza and beating them with their belts.  Things started to get rough (and hot) so we decided to move on to try to find a better view.  The view we eventually found wasn’t much better and indeed the crowd there was getting more restless too.  Suddenly, a gang of celebrants decided to form a parade of their own, pushing their way through the crowd going nowhere in particular, like a conga line only five or six people wide.  The crowd pushed back.  Things got intense.  We left.

     All in all it was definitely a learning experience.  Jennifer especially was able to make lots of interesting observations, including taking notes on some really interesting make-up and hair styles—many of the women here choose to wear wigs, and no one has a problem painting on eyebrows.  I didn’t quite have the courage to take any close up pictures of these, but it’s the first time I’ve seen blondes, brunettes and red heads with such dark skin.  Actually, now that I think about, the hairdos and outfits were probably the most interesting things I saw in all of this.  Even the bits and pieces of the parade seemed to be pretty plain, mostly schools and companies walking by in their official uniforms.  And to top it all off, on our way back to the boats Cees stopped a bit to talk to some acquaintances.  When he caught up with us, he told us he had just seen the President.  Sure enough he had a picture to prove it.  There was the President of Guinea, special guest to the little tiny town of Boke, walking out of the building we had just passed by only two minutes earlier.

  Later that night I spoke with one of the other missionaries who had gone down town to see the celebrations.  “How did it go?” I asked.  “Great,” he said.  “I definitely wouldn’t want to do that every week, or maybe even ever again, but I just had to do it.”  That pretty much sums it up for me too.  I probably don’t ever want to do that again, but I was glad I did it.

 P.S.  (can I write a post script at the end of a blog?) the best part of having the President visit your district, more than the freshly painted rocks on the side of the road, is that the water is turned on 24/7.   Today at 5 o’clock, Jen announced, “the President is gone!”  Indeed, the water was off.  It was nice while it lasted, though.

P.P.S.  I haven’t posted anything on the blog for a while because we haven’t had good internet lately, probably due to the increased visitors in Boke.  Andres has been talking with a guy from the cell company; they are supposed to install a new internet service and give us special routers that will enable us to have wireless in our home.  We’re praying this happens soon, but so far we’re afraid to get our hopes up too high.  The guy also seems to be ignoring Andres’ phone calls.  Thanks for your patience.  Please pray that God would increase ours, and pray that this dream would become reality.  Thanks!