My Perfectly Normal Morning

7:00am. Alarm goes off. I quickly silence the annoying noise.
I don’t want to get out of bed.
As I come to consciousness, I feel the wooden slats of the bed beneath me.
Through the thin foam mattress.
My pillow has busted open.
During the night.
During the night my pillow busted open.
Brown balls. Little brown balls. Everywhere.
Little brown balls everywhere.
And unidentified fur.
Little brown seeds that look like peppercorns and unidentified fur everywhere around me as I was sleeping.
What the hell are these little brown balls and unidentified fur coming out of my pillow?
This is disgusting.
I want to get out of bed.

I’m up.
And I’m in place that is the closest thing I’ve felt to real life in long time.
I laugh as I turn off the air conditioner.
Air conditioner, aren’t I lucky?
I stumble into the bathroom, flush the toilet, wash my hands, and I laugh.
I have running water, and it’s ridiculous that I have a chance to revel in the luxury of washing my hands.
I wash them again, just for kicks.
Kicks kicks kicks kicks kicks.

I continue my tour d’appartement.
Lap top computer.
Internet.
Let’s check the internet, in my pjs, just for fun.
Maybe I have an email. Maybe good news on facebook.
I don’t really care if I have messages or if things are exciting.
I’m doing it because I can.
And I have emails and pictures and messages of people telling me they love me.
And I love them too.
And I wish that I could be in those pictures and writing those emails with those people I love back.
But for now, I’m happy to be doing a normal American task.
Checking email in pjs.
Checking email in pjs.
You can’t check email in pjs even if you’re one of the lucky volunteers with an internet café in town or in your office.
I’m checking my email in my pjs in my air conditioned apartment. I feel I am not in Guinea.

Breakfast. This is the most normal morning I’ve ever had in Guinea. Let’s continue it.
Breakfast.
I bought cereal yesterday.
At a grocery store.
There is one city that I’ve found in this country with grocery stores.
So while I’m here, I like to go in and walk around, just for the experience.
Yesterday I went to a grocery store.
And I bought a box of cereal.
A box of raisin bran.
Only not real raisin bran. No, real raisin bran would be too lucky.
Knock off raisin bran.
This is the first bowl of cereal in six months. Six long cereal-less months.
I carefully open up the cardboard box. Well done.
I carefully open up the plastic bag. I pull apart the plastic sides, but it doesn’t give.
I pull harder.
Damnit, I ripped the whole damn plastic bag. Perfect normal morning isn’t so perfect, but ripping the plastic bag, for me, is quite normal. I accept the failure.
Normal morning.
Find a bowl in the apartment.
No bowl.
Mug.
I find a mug. A mug will work just fine.
Milk. A can of Nido, the expensive, classy, powdered milk.
Luxurious.
This is not quite as normal on my perfectly normal non-Guinea morning. But Nido is classy by my standards. So I am being classy. And the perfection continues.
Perfect morning with my can of Nido powdered milk.
I put in a scoop of Nido. Must add water.
I have a sink in my kitchen.
A sink.
And a kitchen.
Two more things that I laugh at, because they amaze me. What kind of village savage have I become? I laugh.
I have a faucet that fills my mug with water.
And like Jesus when he turned water to wine, I have turned water to milk.
Water to milk with a kitchen sink. Unbelievable.
Water to milk.
Add cereal, careful not to loose any of those precious flakes of bran.
And there it is, my perfectly normal classy mug of knock off raisin bran.

First bite. Delicious because its cereal.
Flakes of brain. Bites of raisins.
But there is no crisp. It doesn’t crunch. This is not how I envisioned my first bowl of cereal.
The cereal is stale?
The cereal is stale.
I buy a box of knock off raisin bran and it is stale.
Only in Guinea does one accord so much importance and value to a mug of cereal, only to have all hopes and dreams of delicious cereal in powdered milk come crashing down.
Only to Guinea do people sell their boxes of cereal that never got sold after waiting 2 years on the shelf of some grocery store.
This knock off raisin bran hasn’t moved off the shelf in two years.
Let’s sell it to Guinea.
I buy it. I buy stale cereal.
But I devour it anyways, because it’s precious cereal and it’s almost normal.
I take my mug and devour my stale cereal that becomes soggy in the classy powdered milk and I devour it. And it is normal.
My perfectly normal morning continues.

It’s time to get dressed. I know what I’m wearing.
I know what I’m wearing because I wore the same thing out to dinner last night and it’s a good Monday morning dress.
My indigo dress with criss-cross straps in the back.
Office appropriate.
Clean. Unlike my tan pants.
My tan pants are filthy. How can I wash them in Conakry? I have no buckets.
I wonder if the maid would wash my pants.
But I’m not going to offer the job, even if he would appreciate it.
I can’t ask people to wash my clothes.
Just because I’m white does not mean I can’t find a way to wash my own clothes.
My indigo dress is good for today.
The Guineans at the office will appreciate my cultural adaptation.
I put it on.
It’s good.
I add turquoise jewelry.
Pretty, African jewelry. Again, I am scoring cultural points.
Cultural points that I hope will make a good impression on these people.
I am pleased. A great Monday morning outfit, first real day at the office job outfit.
It is good.
A business suit would be better.
But I never even thought of packing a business suit when I joined the Peace Corps.
Who would have thought.
But I have a good Monday morning dress and now I am dressed and my perfectly normal morning continues.

Fifteen minutes before I have to leave.
There’s a TV in the corner of the apartment.
Normally I hate TV. I hate the noise that comes out of that box.
It just bothers me. And if it’s not in English, it just bothers me more.
But it’s a TV. And this is my perfectly normal morning. And I have 15 minutes.
I turn the TV on.
French news. I wish I spoke French with a French accent instead of a Guinean one. But I understand most of it.
What other channels are there?
I flip. Mouths are moving, no sound.
Wait. I am no lip reader, but I could swear that news anchor is mouthing English words.
I can just tell.
I want to know. Find out if I’m right. Why is there no sound?
I increase the volume.
Obviously, problem solved.
And I’m right.
There’s a British guy talking about the economy. It’s CNN. British CNN.
For the first time in six months I am watching TV in English.

How in the world have I become so privileged as a PCV that I am being shown English television?
For the first time in six months I am watching TV in English.
And it is unbelievable. I understand each word. And I don’t have to strain to pay attention. I don’t have to pay attention, and I’ll still understand.
Economy is in shambles.
Investors are risk averse. Overly risk avers.
The markets are doing much better. Investors should take on more risk.
Some Asian reporter flies to South Korea and pays $6 to put a hex on her co-anchor. Some crazy lady under a bridge writes his name on a paper and chants in Korean and burns the paper to hex this British report.
What the hell kind of crap is this?
The shot goes back to the British office.
The Korean reporter is sitting next to her hexed co-anchor.
She’s giggling like a fool.
I want to punch her in the face.
She is not professional. This is not news. Is this really CNN?
She blew $6 on a hex for a co-worker? $6 would feed my neighbor’s family of 10 for 3 days.
She is a giggling fool who hexes people and reports on her crap.
Stop wasting my time.
I’m getting dumber watching this.
They start talking about how to handle personal problems with co-workers.
The hexer and the hexed.
How do you handle discrepancies?
Talk it out.
Be honest.
Be respectful.
Listen to each other.
Crap.
Lots of crap.
If you don’t know how to handle a problem with a co-worker, and you are looking to CNN for answers, you have more problems than just the one with your co-worker.
CNN needs to report real news, not lame messages preceded by crazy Korean women under bridges chanting hexes.
It’s crap.
Utter crap.
I kind of like it.
Although its crap, I like it.
It’s normal.
It makes me feel normal.
I don’t get the luxury of watching crap TV anymore. So I enjoy it for what it is.
A continuation of my perfect normal morning.

And then I look at the time. 7:55 am.
I need to pack up and leave.
I pack up my lap top, place dishes in the sink, lock numerous doors, and leave.
I just had the most normal morning.
And it was perfect.
My perfectly normal morning.

And being a Peace Corps Volunteer, that is anything but normal.

View from the Top

This is the view from my front porch. You can see my private "yard" that is landscaped with trees to cover up the wall. It's safe ... no one can climb over the wall and I have guards 24 hours a day to protect me. And you can see why I love drinking coffee sitting on my front steps and looking at the mountains. Mamou is the most gorgeous city in the most gorgeous region of arguably the most gorgeous country in West Africa. Love Life.

Proof that I actually do live over here.

Okay ... from the top:

1. last week my friends were like "kiki ... sunday morning at 8am, we have a surprise for you." I wake up, and they take me on a surprise picnic into the woods. Adorable. We made tea all morning and a delicious tomato/avocado salad. I love these guys.

2. one of the pictures from my birthday party, inside my house.

3. a group shot of a bike ride we took out to some gold mines back in december. this was before we instructed that in case of an emergency, we were to bike under the cover of darkness to the Sierra Leone border.

4. me and sacha, another volunteer, during our party after our swearing-in ceremony. theme: dress up like a movie character. presenting: Juno & Bleaker.

5. me and some pcvs that live nearby. no, we don't always look so snazzy. but it was the morning of our swearing-in event ... we had to keep it klassy.

alright, i know, 5 pictures is kind of weak after 6 months of living over here, but this has taken nearly 3 hours. enjoy :)

Conakry: once you can get past the military tanks & sewage, it's kind of a nice place.

I walk into the Peace Corps house in Conakry and sit down on the couch, next to a bunch of volunteers I’d never met before. We do the introductions. Name. Where we live. What we do. Why we’re in Conakry. My name is Caitlin but they call me Kiki. I live in Mamou. I work for World Education. And I’m here on a business trip, we’re discussing potential micro finance projects to implement in the Mamou prefecture and my role in them.

Oh cool, so did you used to be a Peace Corps Volunteer?
No. I’m a volunteer here now. I just got here.

Once again, God has taken life, picked out all the best parts of it, and threw them at Kiki Barry. So while everyone else is Conakry for broken teeth and picking up friends from the airport, I’m here on official business. Yes, I’m staying in a luxurious apartment. In this apartment I’ve seen my first Guinean elevator, I have not only running water but running water that can get hot (I completely forgot that we can have hot showers in normal-life). I have electricity, with AC. I have a TV, and I can watch more than just the Guinean news on it. There is a kitchen. There is a refrigerator. And when I thought it couldn’t be any sweeter, I get a laptop with internet. Damn. These next 7 days may be spent in a city that terrifies the life out of me, but they will be spent in luxury.

I’ve been here twice before, both times safely barricaded in the Peace Corps compound. But other than the two times I’ve been babysat by the Peace Corps (when I landed in this country and again when I swore in), the only times I’ve heard about Conakry would be in tidbits of the following conversations:

“oh, the Coup d’Etat just happened. Not any serious danger, but military are running around Conakry shooting bullets in the air” or
“…there’s a tank parked outside of the US Embassy in Conakry, facing its guns towards the front door. But no serious danger,” or
“today the national football game is being held in Conakry, the air is really intense. And if we win, steer clear, rioters will be everywhere,” or
“we had a beautiful palace in Conakry, but during some turmoil rioters tore it down and burned parts of it.”

So basically, Conakry: guns, militia, tanks, riots, burning buildings. Go alone? Business trip? No problem.

But I’m here. I’ve survived two nights. And it’s not so scary anymore. I mean, they have 3 grocery stores. I will withstand anything to set foot into a grocery store. So in addition to going to grocery stores and working at World Education’s main office, I’ve gotten to acclimate to Conakry, watch episodes of The Office on a friend’s laptop, and watch the sunset over the ocean sitting at the Beach Bar. (Not to mention it’s nice being a little bit more anonymous in this big city, there aren’t 50 people I have to stop and greet and ask about the wife/kids/evil/peace/house/and health.)

So Conakry: not scary anymore, a glimpse of the modern world, and I sometimes I even see white people.

Kiki Barry meets Happy Gillmore

High school. Just thinking about high school brings back a slew of emotions where I was acutely aware of my surrounding and overwhelmed by insecurity. Pretty enough? Cool enough? Smart enough? And are my friends pretty, cool, and smart enough? But four years later, you’re out the door and you’re done with all that nonsense. Unless you follow one of two paths: Young Life leader or Peace Corps Volunteer. Lucky me, I’ve managed to follow both, yet no matter how “done” with high school I am according to that diploma, I keep coming back for more.

Which leads to yesterday afternoon.

My friend Souleymane had invited me along to go see his school and scope it out. I was excited at the prospect of seeing the empty campus, meeting the principal, and seeing where he spends his day. But when he comes to get me at my house he’s wearing his backpack.
“Souleymane, what’s the backpack for?”
“My notebook.””Why would you need a notebook just to visit school?””Oh, Kiki, did I forget to tell you? We’re going to my economics class.”
And then all of a sudden, I had no option, but to grab my own notebook and pen and head to class.

Standing around a cluster of worn-down cement buildings, awaiting the teacher who showed up to class 30 minutes late, the aura of high school insecurity was tangible. Even myself, who has already graduated from high school AND college was suddenly painfully aware of ‘what others might be thinking.’ I guess some things don’t change no matter how rich or poor you are. But then I caught myself worrying about my coolness level and laughed- because as a PCV I have no hopes of fitting in; either I’m rockstar cool or devastatingly an outsider. Or perhaps both at the same time. Anyways I decided to aim for the “rockstar cool” route and started chatting up the students. There was an overwhelming majority of boys, and the students in the equivalent of “senior year” of high school ranged from what looked like 17 to 27 years old. I met the philosophy teacher who was wearing a psychedelic lime green and navy blue patterned suit, dragging on his cigarette as he taught his class. And then before I knew what was going on, I heard a stampede. Running. Screaming. Fighting.

What the heck? All of a sudden about 100 self-conscious crazed adolescents start charging one of the buildings. You would have thought they were handing out 50 Cent concert tickets. But no, the professor had finally arrived and unlocked the classroom. Well shoot, I’m trying to fit in too so I start elbowing and shoving my way into the classroom and then I find out what we’re fighting for: seats. In this classroom are crammed together tables and benches, built for two, sat in by three. I share with my 2 friends. And before everyone is stuffed into this cement block of a classroom the professor starts mumbling some mumbo jumbo and people are frantically writing down every word. For lack of anything better to do, I also took notes. And this is how it went: the professor showing up half an hour late comes to class and spews out in less-than perfect French a lesson he had written. And students copy it down verbatim. And I’m talking verbatim. So when Souleymane has to go pray the 5:00 pm prayer, Abdoulaye takes notes, and then they switch off. But in all the frenzy, they’re lucky they can catch up and recopy from me and other students. Literally, it was 90 minutes of frantic chaos. And nothing was explained, just dictated. Apparently the teacher will explain the lesson next class. But what kind of system is that? Maybe because they don’t have text books, they have to write their own text book one day and then study the next? I don’t know, it’s crazy. And the classroom was so hot and uncomfortable that it takes a true devotion and willingness to be there. We don’t realized how spoiled we are in our own personal desks with pretty illustrated textbooks and air conditioned classrooms. I mean, I feel utter shame at how I habitually skipped classes at the plush R.H. Smith School of Business with fold-down padded chairs in a beautiful auditorium with microphones and beautiful lighting and air conditioners and projection screen televisions. These kids would die for something like that.

Anyways, I got to be in high school again yesterday and it was painfully awkward and uncomfortable at times, but what is high school if it’s not like that? Not to mention I learned how the Bretton Woods System impacts the structural adjustments of Guinea. Whatever that means … I guess I’ll have to go back to class to decode my scribbled down notes.

Otherwise, things here are great. My friends surprised me Sunday morning by taking me on a picnic to the woods. And then got a hold of my camera and did a photo shoot, again. But this time they busted out the model poses and were even taking off their shirts. If GQ got a hold of these guys, they’d be receiving a sure ticket to America. They’ve got the looks, the walk, and the poses. How am I so lucky?

Also... HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARA!!!!!! Miss and love you tons, thanks for the beautiful letter and Kiki's Kicks CD. Having not gotten any new music for 6 months and utterly sick of everything I own, this CD has been on replay and will probably wear out by the end of the week.

Love you all. Peace.