Ballin' in Pineapple Fields & I Don't Think You're Ready for this Jelly

Again, taking this from another journal entry ... January 26, 2009 :

So for training us 12 "small enterprise development" trainees we were each given a good deal of Guinean money, assigned teams, and told to find a way to generate income. My partner Ben and I had the brillant idea of making pineapple jelly. No, we'd never actually made jelly before, but we watched someone else do it the day before. And no, our town does not have access to pineapples.

So on Saturday Ben and I hopped into a taxi to drive to a town not too far away where we heard a pineapple plantation existed. Being my usual self, I had no other plan than to "show up, find pineapples, buy them, and figure out how to get home." I have a very strong faith in a lot of things, including the mantra that "things will always work out." So we're driving towards this town in a bush taxi, Ben and I sharing the front seat (that's just how its done here, 3 in front, 5 in back) and when I begin seeing pineapple plants on the side of the road I turn to the driver and tell him that he can just let us out here. Ben and I walk up to what we think is the plantation entrance and find this guy ... explain we want pineapples. He points us to this sad sole woman accross the street who's selling like, 5. We wanted 25 kilos of fruit. This would not do. As I begin explaining that we're Peace Corps Volunteers who want to buy some serious fruit, our friends/competitors Paul and Mike who decided they'd bike an hour to the same village, arrive. They are planning on buying 60 kilos of pineapples (that's like 60 pineapples) and BIKING BACK HOME WITH THEM, and selling them just as pineapples. They, unlike Ben and I, had done some prep work and had a phone number of someone. Meanwhile, just beacuse we're Americans, a commotion has stirred and, as if by magic, a guy who claims to be the owner of the plantation pulls up in a car and tells Ben and I to hop in. Do we know him? No. Do I want pineapples? Hells yes. Do we get in? Of course!

So Ben and I get in the car (Mike & Paul thought they wanted to go somewhere else, but eventually end up rejoining us later because the dude we found was the right one) and we drive 10 minutes into this huge plantation. We learn that this owner actually worked with the Peace Corps Volunteers last year and knew many of them well, he had studied business and had recently begun exporting his pineapples to Morocco and Paris. In sum, the random plantation I had decided to get out at was legit to the extreme. A rare find in Guinea, mind you. So as we being walking the fields, this ballin' Guinean starts ordering field workers to cut fruit for us, so we're eating the most delicious and fresh pineapples ever, learning about the different varieties, and basically having a hella good time. I mean, I arrive, say I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer, and instantly get treated like royalty. I'll hand it to the Guineans- they are unbelievably hospitable. I will be a better human being after learning from these folks. So after we get a really long tour of this guy's plantation, I'm thinking that I'll just be like "85 kilos of pineapples s'il vous plait" and be on my merry way. Nope, not at all. Instead he says he wants to show the 4 of us his friend's plantation. So back into the car we go, and he drives us a few minutes down the road to this HUGE plantation ... like 80,000 hectares huge. Apparently Libya send this dude over and it's his first crop. So we drive to this guy's house first and it's BEAUTIFUL. Oil money spent well. We're sitting on nice couches outside under this pavillion with a great view, drinking cold bottled water in glasses. (Note: nice couches, cold beverages, and glasses were all luxuries I had thought were inexistant in Guinea up until this point). We sit for a while, shoot the breeze, and then this mega-baller's servant-girl tells us that the mega-baller himself is ready for us. Ready for us? We approach this million dollar mansion, remove our shoes, and enter inside. So now sitting down on more nice couches, in air conditioning, are the Guinean plantation owner, me, Ben, Mike, Paul, this Libyan mega-baller and his translator. There are these super sexed Iraqi music videos playing on the flat screen TV in front of us, and we are served a huge array of nice coffee and cookies. I am taken back ... this was all done, for us? Again, we shoot the breeze some more, but things got a little serious. I mean, we're 4 Americans new to Guinea, all relying on my French skills, and conversation is getting translated into Susu and then Arabic. English, Susu, Arabic, French. Pretty baller. We're talking about economics, and the conversation is smoothly guided into the real reason we're here: We want some pineapples. The atmosphere becomes a little more rigid. It's business time. The price per kilo begins at 2.000 FG, but we quickly and easily negotiate it to 1.500 FG. Business is done, and we go back to talking about world markets and other interesting topics of conversation. There is this whole sense of surrealism as the backdrop to this whole day, because I feel like I get to play a very unique role in all of this. Being the only girl in a country that hardly recognizes women would normally place me in a non-important position. Furthermore, Paul has already started and managed his own business, Mike's lived all over the world working for really cool organizations, and here I am, this kid who just graduated with a Finance degree and has never had a real job. So the situation would normally dictate me to a position of "watch and learn" but because I speak the best French out of any of us, I become the integral piece to all of this. The translator, the negotiator, and person who cracks the jokes at the right time to ease any tension. It's awesome.

Anyways, after some stealth negotiating, we get a tour of this mega-baller's plantation and learn SO MUCH about agriculture in Guinea and pineapples in general. All facinating. So now at the close of the tour, I'm thinking "awesome ... get pineapples and leave." Wrong again! Now we get back into the car of the Guinean plantation owner who drives us to his family's house so we can eat lunch with his family! This is crazy! After another meal of rice and sauce with him and his family, we make our way back to the original plantation, and he then directs his workers to harvest 85 kilos of pineapples. After the transaction of pineapples for francs we load the pinapples to his car and he kindly drives Ben and I back into town to the taxi station and has a friend try to get us spots on the next taxi home. But by now it's gotten late, like nearly 5pm. Ben and I are tired, have probably 90 pineapples with us including the free gifts we were given, and decide that "today was such a ballin' day, let's just go all out and rent out the whole taxi" so we do just that. We're a part of this super competition where controlling costs and turning profit is the name of the game, but we decide to live it up regardless.
(and we didn't let our friends bike home with 60 kilos of pineapples ... I offered to take them from them and transport them. and then they paid us. sweet.)

So Sunday was jam making day. Ben and I had grand plans to make lots of jelly, but here's a problem we didn't forsee: you can't buy things like JARS in countries like Guinea. So that kind of back fired, after 2 days of scouring the market we were only able to come up with four old mayonaise jars that were being sold. But, pas de probleme. We made four jars of jelly, which turned out AWESOME. Absolutely delicious. Good news for all of you back home: my time here is going to make me a professional jelly maker, and you will be the beneficiaries. So we sold our 4 jars of jelly, sold off the rest of the pineapples, and made a ridiculous amount of money. We killed the competition so hard no other group came close, renting out taxis and all. It was fun balling out in Guinea and still dominating ... it was a throwback to some of the good old days in Colli Park.