Like A Rolling Stone, Thursday 11th June 2009

I’m leaving in the morning for Conakry, and flying to Paris on Sunday. Tomorrow I might take the bird, but there’s a chance I get to ride the Ho Chi Minh trail to the airstrip in Bayla. The last two weeks flew by so quickly. I’m beginning to reflect on the two months I’ve spent here but I figure that once I’m gone I’ll have plenty of time to think of all those things.

Pressed with time, I took on several tasks during the past two weeks. I pushed on with my four classes, every morning at 8am until noon from Monday to Saturday. I continued lecturing at the girls ‘Internat’ to prepare them for the BAC on Mondays and Wednesdays. I wrote the compositions for the 10th and 11th graders, helped them prepare, and supervised on the day of exams. After receiving the funds, we bought wood from Kankan and started renovating the ceiling and repainting the walls of the library. I spent an afternoon at the Kerouane hospital visiting the decrepit facilities to evaluate a possible NGO partnership to provide them with additional equipment and supplies. I watched Federer beat Soderling and Obama deliver the strongest speeches I’ve heard both in Cairo and on the shores of Omaha beach on June 6th: “You, the veterans of that landing, are why we still remember what happened on D-Day. You’re why we keep coming back. For you remind us that, in the end, human destiny is not determined by forces beyond our control. You remind us that our future is not shaped by mere chance or circumstance. Our history has always been the sum total of the choices made and the actions taken by each individual, man and woman. It has always been up to us.” It is the decisions we make and the actions we take in the face of coincidences and situations that we encounter during our lives that define who we are and how we live.

Inshallah, Wednesday 27th May 2009

Work began on the library the day after my return from Conakry and within a week we tore down the rotting ceiling, fixed all of the shelves and woodwork, brushed down the walls and floors, and cemented the cracks in the ceiling. The Librarian told me that he prayed to God that we would continue helping them. The funds were allocated to the project within 24 hours of its commencement. The effectiveness of working with a multi-national allowed for rapid deployment of resources, and immediate action to be taken on the ground using subcontractors like cement workers, carpenters, etc... The hardest task was motivating students and the administration to volunteer to help rebuild their own library. They all ask for books, and especially for me to photocopy documents, but in the end, few of them really care about being part of the solution. I called for volunteers at the flagpole one morning, with over five-hundred students present, only two showed up to help. Drawn by curiosity, some kids from primary school who were walking by helped me scrub down the entire library. The same happened at the base: all the employees had asked me for English classes, and when they began, thirty five signed up, 6 attended the first class, and now on average I have four employees taking classes twice a week.

It’s hard to understand why the people here aren’t motivated to make changes or improvements in their community. Talking with the youth, it becomes apparent that they want things to be different. But they often say that they simply don’t know how to go about implementing change. But there is always an excuse. Are people discouraged by the appearance of a vastly more modern constituent in their community? Or are they too reliant on tradition? When you ask them why they don’t add broomsticks to their brooms, they say it is because of tradition and that it’s easier without. People simply don’t believe they can be responsible for bringing about change. They live thinking that it is not up to them to make a difference. Often things can only be solved by divine intervention, or by the presence of an outside motivator, such as our company. Consequently we become the miracle and have trouble handing over responsibility to the locals.

According to their traditions, society and religion, the woman are responsible for the household, and the husband in providing for his family. According to Islam, each man may have up to four wives and over a dozen children. These children in return, may provide benefits to the family in the long term. Using traditional methods, a woman has to spend an entire day accomplishing the basic tasks of washing dishes, preparing food, cleaning clothes, fetching water, and taking care of the children. Prior to the development of technologies that accelerated each of these processes, women in our own society use to be trapped often because of the same responsibilities. Modernization and outsourcing has allowed women to dedicate their time to other things like creating businesses and pursuing higher education. Because in Kerouane women’s work is so demanding, they often don’t have time to go to school, and their daughters are kept at home to assist in the daily tasks of grounding rice, sweeping, cooking, and cleaning. The girls’ volleyball team represents a huge shift in their culture and traditions, but the players struggle to balance the sport and their personal lives. Students, both boys and girls struggle to do their homework and keep up with classes because of their important obligations at home. Although tradition is important in maintaining an identity, technology has allowed new opportunities to flourish within a family. To understand the difficulties of motivating a community, one has to recognize the religious and traditional roots of many of the setbacks that restrain progress from thriving within a society.

Dr. No, Sunday 24th May 2009

Riding shotgun was as much of a shock as flying back over Conakry. With barely any glass or tall structures in the city, there isn’t even a glimmer of hope shining at the horizon. Amazing to still see people in the capital living in such rudimentary conditions. Enough time in rural Guinea, and you begin to appreciate the things that we take for granted, like three meals a day, running water, showers and toilets. Essentially Kerouane is a victim of the corruption and negligence that trickles down from the big cities. Back home we're overwhelmed with such excess that we forget how developed we’ve actually become. We’ve gone beyond anything imaginable here. When I attached an ipod to a cassette player the other day, a local friend of mine in Kerouane said under his breath "aah, le blanc..."

First the noise hits you, then an airport shuttle picks you up for a twenty meter drop off. Once you walk through the military checkpoint and customs, two kids in uniform sitting on stools at the front door of the airport, you already think of the mismanagement and waste that corrupts the system. My brother’s driver arrived, and I jumped in and we began swerving down the highway like in BA. You can only close your eyes if you don’t want to see the carts full of garbage being poured over the boardwalk and pilled onto the beaches like seaweed. On one side of the boardwalk, a fire is burning in a lot, melting away some compost, plastic, rubber and other pieces of trash. Beside it is the skeleton of a swing set, and an abandoned playground, and just further along in the trees, some kids are playing football.

On Saturday, my brother, his friends and I, escaped to Ile de L’Os, apparently the islands that inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Palm trees, cabanas, white sand, beautiful rocks and perfect waves, once the launching point for the slave triangle, it was now a little paradise. After a few weeks in the bush, it was the Bahamas, and all I could think about was the island of Dr. No, and Ursula Andress singing ‘Under the Mango Tree’ by Monty Norman. We ate freshly cooked fish in palm leaf huts by the ocean, laid down by the water and bodysurfed the waves until nightfall. We hopped on the boat back to Conakry, rolling through oil spills as we got closer to the bay. You could see the wake turn brown and the smell polluted the air. The scenery between the islands and the port was littered with ship wrecks, wooden fishing boats and oil tankers. Trash floats around like devil ducks in a bathtub. The supertankers would slowly creep past the local fishing boats, in the same way our land cruisers would fly by the cattle plows in Kerouane. Despite the presence of UNCEF, NGO’s and all these foreign multi-national companies in West Africa, there’s still a stark contrast between the old and new. Technology is simply inexistent, unobtainable, or unaffordable. They still haven’t invented the broomstick, so they use straw bundled together to sweep the ground. Either people don’t want to explore new methods because they are satisfied with the way things are, or they’re simply so far behind that it will take another hundred years for them to make a step forward.


The hardest part of coming back from Kerouane was handling the social scene in Conakry. I have to say I was impressed by the grungy night clubs, despite their local prostitutes grabbing you every which way and white expats running around intoxicated like “there’s no place like home.” There were Russians, Lebanese, French, Americans, British, South Africans, Rhodesians, etc… a whole clan of expats living and working in Africa. Some for the pleasure, some the adventure, others for the moral value and the greater cause, but most are here for the money. Working as an expat usually increases your base pay by fifty percent. So you don’t necessarily meet people that wanted to be here, but rather who were obliged to because they were assigned to the region for a few extra bucks. All I can remember is hearing them wishing for a MacDonalds and saying how they had enough and wanted out. Despite the few who were motivated by what they were doing, it’s generally a pretty rough group, and not necessarily the best diplomats for their country. After such an experience with the community work up-country, it was a real shock being back in the capital, and jumping between the social lines of money and customs.

One kid I met was working for the UN on a project that provided aid to refugees in Africa by using their expertise to offer them asylum abroad. They sift through refugees that come out of conflict zones, like Sierra Leone up until 2002. The idea is to find specific talent, like doctors, engineers, electricians, and other technicians that could successfully be integrated into a workforce in countries like Australia, the US, and Canada. I believe he said that Australia is actually the hardest place to get into because of their strict health policies. I was rather surprised because my immediate reaction was to ask why they weren’t reintegrated into their own country, or into other countries in Africa. If they export all of the talent, then who will be left in Africa to redevelop conflict zones and help improve the future of this continent? His answer was that the people wanted to leave, and feared going back to the countries they had left behind. Of course if I was from Sierra Leone, and one third of the country fled, while 200,000 had been killed back home, I would rather go anywhere else in the world. But then how do we rebuild schools, help educate the thousands of child soldiers left behind after the civil war, how do you rebuild when the qualified laborers aren’t there anymore? Exporting specialists limits development in Africa and reduces the effectiveness of reconstruction.

The weekend allowed me to revaluate the significance of my effort, and there are a few things that I have taken out of my experience in Guinea so far. You learn quite a bit about people, and human beings tend to be able to do great things. Never underestimate their capacity for good or evil. I learned quite a bit about perspective, patience, and the precious gift that is time. When you see the way people live and treat each other in comparison to where you come from, you tend to develop a sense of what does and does not matter. You develop a more patient outlook on the nuances of life. “It could always be worse,” (Donovan Campbell, Joker One). I learned from my experience and from Campbell that failure is an inevitable part of life. It happens whether you want it to or not. School tends to award for a lack of failure, but life isn’t always so refined. Through college my father taught me to learn from my mistakes rather than ponder over my losses. The question isn’t whether or not you will fail, but how you will overcome. How do you respond to failure? You can persevere through motivation and dedication, but most importantly you can get back up and put one foot in front of the other. Finally, in leadership, I have learned that it is about what you do and not what you say.

Riding Shotgun, Friday 22nd May, 2009

Eight hours in the land cruiser and two on the plane. The time it took me to travel from Kerouane to Conakry and back, crossing all of Guinea. The company jet flew me three quarters of the way across the country, but the first 120 clicks to the airstrip are by Land Cruiser through mud and jungle between Kerouane and Bayla. A second time on Monday, I couldn’t have thought of a better way to see the country than speeding through swamps in a four by four and waving to the kids as we raced by little villages on our way back from the airfield.

There’s only one chance to catch the flight from Bayla, so the driver had to be swift and focused because of the wretched roads that connect the two towns. I had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning, pack my bag, grab a bite to eat, and had the time to listen to the morning azan. I strapped in and we set off at 5. “Three passengers on board, including the driver.” We pulled out from the base, waved to the guards, and headed out into the pitch dark. It’s a strange feeling moving around a town and only being able to see what is in front of your headlights. We accelerated and would have to suddenly break before the exit of Kerouane because some sheep or goats were stretched out on the road. Some kids were roaming around, the roosters hadn’t yet begun to crow, and the sun was still hiding over the mountains to the east. I couldn’t read a book because of the swinging motion of the car, nor could I put on my headset because of the roaring sound of the engine as we began picking up speed racing south. Soon after, the other passenger put on the only CD we had in the car, 15 tracks of 90’s techno that will constantly repeat over and over in my head as it did for the next four hours on the road that morning. He said: “we’ve played this one a hundred times.” Shaking our heads to the beat, we were looking for Charlie, accelerating across rice paddies, between palm trees, high grass, and ruthless terrain as lightning began illuminating the sky to the west.

As the sun began rising over 'Mont Tibet' to our left, I realized there was a shovel lying down across the floor in the back of the car. I thought, “safety first”, well done, we have an extra fuel tank on the roof, two spare tires, as well as enough communication gear to call in an airstrike from the Middle East. I lean up front, ask the driver and the other passenger how bad the roads were up ahead, and explained how I thought we were so well equipped for any sort of situation that we even brought a shovel in the backseat. “A shovel?” The passenger turned around, a veteran of the 120K drive, totally confused. So I leaned down, felt the side closest to my feet, and as I started to wrap my hands around the bag it was tucked in, I said: “There’s a shotgun in the backseat.” He answers: “Oh, that’s a twelve gage, I love to hunt, didn’t know the driver put it there.” No problem. I just found out I was rolling through West Africa, aka Apocalypse Now, with a 12g shotgun between my legs. Lekker. Next thing I know, I hear “stop the car,” passenger jumps out, opens my side door, pulls out the 12g from the case, squeezes two shells into the barrels, locked and loaded, he spotted two partridges ahead, walks ten meters in front of the car, and unleashes two canister shots of triple A ammo, the largest of its kind, usually for big game. The safari lasted for another hour as we adopted this shock and awe approach in handling the local partridge. (Pictures are withheld, and I’ll deny everything.)

We made it to the airstrip in Bayla on time, and already I could hardly wait to do it all over again.

The Dreamers, Thursday 21st May, 2009

The Bac Blanc's began at the Lycee on Wednesday and the administration was hurrying to write subjects at the teacher meeting we had on Tuesday. On the morning of the mock exams, the teachers were still hastening to come up with their subjects. At first the English teachers didn’t want me to write the exams, but at the same time they were absent at the meeting, and showed up the next day at 10 without a subject for the students who were meant to take the exam that day. The Director talked a great deal about preparation and showing up on time, but unfortunately his words often wash out with the rain and nothing gets done. Classes are meant to start at 8 am everyday, and despite his lectures, no one is ever ready. They gather the students around the flagpole at 8:05, they raise the Guinean flag around 8:10 to the sound of a somber national anthem, and then at 8:15 the Director makes a heroic speech about standing around mango trees instead of being in class, and by 8:25 or 8:30 classes generally begin. In the urgency of giving the Terminale students an exam, they simply distributed last years BAC.

Since I was leaving for Conakry on Friday morning, I wanted to meet with the ex-English teachers to get to know what sort of exam they were thinking of preparing for the 12eme, or 11th grade. To pass, they have to write a composition on the 8th June. As I expected, the teachers agreed on handing me the torch, and letting me write the exam since I was leading the classes. Not surprising after what I saw at the Bac Blanc. So I'm actually rather excited since I have been teaching these students for the past month or so, and we've made incredible headway. Most of them had little English knowledge whatsoever and have improved immensely since we’ve started. Others still struggle but I’ve noticed that my youngest class, the 11eme have been highly motivated, and the Terminale highly talented. The program in Guinea has only been reintroduced this year, and 11eme is the first grade in high school in which the students can begin learning English. They only started in March, but they almost surpass the kids in the grade above. Most of the Terminale students will pass their BAC, and I’m hoping all of the 12eme will succeed in writing their composition. If I gave the same exam to the 11eme, they would probably do just as well. I remember they were the first class I taught, and they were applauding and shouting with joy when I first arrived.

The students who are usually the most fluent in English either come from more prosperous families, or have relatives that live in neighboring Anglo countries in Africa. Usually it’s a brother that made it to university either in Kankan or Conakry, the two main cities in Guinea. Once they have their university degree, they try and find work abroad where they can make more money to support their families back home. In Africa if you begin to make a healthy living for yourself, families expect every penny to trickle down. The importance of sharing is nothing like we know it, and it is very hard for a member of the family to become wealthy even if he has a far superior job. “If you have money, then why don’t you help us?” Of course all of us believe in supporting and helping our families in times of need, but it is rare to systematically distribute your earnings across your entire extended family. Because of their religion, a Guinean son who is earning new wealth in England for example, will have to support his seven brothers and three sisters living back home, as well as his father and two to four wives. And of course the son will have to cover his own expenses and family. Nevertheless the advantage of having a brother, sister or relative abroad is that it gives the rest of the family hope. Hope to one day follow in his footsteps, travel, earn more money, and head into the unknown. Therefore they realize that learning English can enable them to accomplish their dream, and thus they are motivated in class and enthusiastic about the material.

Two of my strongest students in 12eme and 11eme each have their own story of family wealth and community involvement that act as driving forces in propelling them to the head of their class. Since our first lectures, N’Faly and Bashir have stuck out from the others. N’Faly, 19, I found out is a community representative for the school that speaks with our company on a regular basis to update them on developments, sentiments, and movements going on with the youth in Kerouane. Bashir’s father on the other hand is in the diamond business, his sister lives in Mali, and brother works in Nigeria. He excels in class and on the basketball court, he's 18 years old. He goes by the nickname “Jay-z.” N’Faly is one of the few kids in town that is actively partaking in community projects, while Bashir is simply motivated by the widened perspective he received of the world from traveling and learning by example from his siblings. Both realized the necessity for English and the advantage it would give them in their future. Often the youngest kids are trying the hardest, somthing which is hard to distinghuish in some classes where the students range from 13 to 26 years old. N'Faly and Bashir are some of the few that don’t expect things to be handed to them, but rather actively partake in shaping their own destiny.

In an effort to promote student involvement, responsibility, and motivation, I’ve recently focused my attention on creating student groups to get kids involved with their establishment and their future. Two of my students volunteered to assist in the creation of a Library Club at the Lycee. At the beginning of the year when I asked the Director if he had any course books, he brought me into a decrepit house, eaten away by termites, bats, bees, spiders and dust. Some of the books had been chewed in half. The place was a mess, all of the windows were closed and as the Director handed me a course book, I quickly walked out. Recently I went over to Linko’s house for tea, one of my volunteers nicknamed after the village he is from, and he put two or three books in front of me like trophies. One in particular was on American Imperialism, so I tried to joke around and explain to him that it was Communist propaganda. He had no clue what I was talking about. If the students have no library how are they suppose to learn anything? They have no schoolbooks, no paper, just old notebooks that are often passed on by their brothers and sisters. They'll never know about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, of Martin Luther King, Mohammed Ali, or even of Nelson Mandela and the ANC. They'll never learn the motivation and perseverance it took to end apartheid or to fight 'The Thrilla in Manila,' let alone inspire others and bring change to the community. The objective is to create an access for children to the schools abandoned library. It should be filled with students, but today it's littered with rotten books, broken chairs and tables, crooked shelves, and dirt. I have to teach the kids to mobilize and form responsible and cohesive student groups that reflect the improvements that can be made in the community.

Linko and I sat side by side on Wednesday and outlined a plan to form the Library Club. Once we rehabilitate the place, the most challenging thing will be to make it sustainable. The student’s organization will be essential in guaranteeing that the library does not return to its previous state. The importance is always to lead by example, but to teach them how to take responsibility on their own, sometimes for the benefit of the community.

At the end of the day Linko and I left the tree trunk we were sitting on by the checker players in town, and after a few games of foosball, he accompanied me back towards the base. I always have a grin on my face when I walk by those checker players, because each one of them works at the Department of Education right next door. Obviously at three in the afternoon they have better things to do, like play checkers. And then something surprised me even more, just as we walked by the local cell phone charging booth that runs on a generator, and after our long conversation planning the objectives and purpose of the Library Club, Linko turns towards me and says "Si vous allez a Conakry, achetez moi un phone, s'il vous plait, tout mes amis ont des phone." Essentially he wanted me to buy him a cell phone in Conakry because all of his friends had one. A Guinean will do anything to buy a car and a cell phone before he can even feed his family. I was shocked, but I smiled, touched him on the shoulder, and said that it was best if money never got between us since we were friends. Despite the hurdles, it’s crucial that we build trustworthy relationships with the youth, but it is inevitable that it will take time and patience. After all, “Rome was not built in one day.”

Before we went separate ways, we stopped at the local radio and paid them to diffuse the English revision schedule. Since the school told all the students to come at different times, I finally realized we had to take things into our own hands.

Catch-22, Tuesday 19th May 2009

Sunday I got another taste of the corruption and calamities dealing with the administration in Kerouane. My plan was to head out in the afternoon and go for a swim at the waterfalls near the foot of the Simandou Mountains, about 45 minutes away by car. I went there once before with my bro, and kids usually go every Sunday. I was going to take one of the vehicles, with a driver and invite a few of my students and kids I've met around town to come along. That day it took about two and a half hours before we finally got there. The kids added the usual 45minutes to an hour to show up, they had no gasoline in their motorcycles, no water, and no food even though I told them we would be having lunch out there. After buying a liter of gas for each bike, I took them to the market and got them some avocadoes, bread and peanuts. Meanwhile, after a few coffees with some locals and my driver, my body was pumping caffeine and sugar. I was ready to roll. We hit the switch on the radio, and called in to HQ to give them our position and destination before we were going to head off. A few seconds later, a scrambled voice asked us to immediately return to base. At this point I'm irritated, we're nearly outside of town, so I grabbed the radio and asked for them to give me a reason. More scramble, the driver tells me we have to head back. After racing back to the main gate, I let him jump out and see what was going on. Apparently they wanted us to stop by the Director’s house of something or other to get his authorization. We get back in the car, and it's just past 12. We stop by his house to pick up an authorization, but he assures us it's no problem, and 'Inshallah' have a nice day. We mount up again, make the call on the radio that we were pulling out of Kerouane for the falls, and a after a brief pause, radio control calls in saying "negative, it's illegal," and the Prefet, or military appointee administered to the village, “banned any foreigners from going up there.” At this point the sugar wore off, and the caffeine was kicking in. I'm sweating and dizzy from driving in circles. After a few trips back and forth, we return to the Director's house who, quietly put down the dictionary he was reading since we had left, and now tells us it's illegal. Despite our request for a written authorization, he insists on calling up the guard who watches over the water plant a few kilometers from the falls. Coincidently he was in town. Finally in Malinke, he tells my driver that we have to compensate this guard for his displacement because he's going to escort us all the way to the falls. I was grinding my teeth when I learned this half way there from my driver. I’m not sure where things went wrong, whether it was over the radio, at the Director’s house, or the ridiculous claim that the falls were illegal to foreigners. It’s a typical example of the procedures in dealing with different levels of bureaucracy in Kerouane. At the end of the day, TIA, we eventually made it to the falls, and I threw myself in the water hoping I could cleanse myself of the whole affair. The few pictures resume the fun and laughs we had sitting underneath the cascade, oblivious to the corruption, problems and dishonesty we left behind.

I got away from town when Victor, one of the geologists at the base, asked me if I wanted to hitch a ride on the ‘Squirrel,’ our helicopter heading to the drilling sites up on the mountain range. It was Monday, and what a great way to start the week flying around West Africa at 200 kilometers per hour through the mountains in a chopper. The Rhodesian pilot, Julius, made it memorable, or “lekker,” “cool” in Afrikaans. We took off from the helipad in Kerouane in an upwards spiral and accelerated across the plains and over the tree tops to the waterfalls on the other side of the valley. The same place I went with my bro and had so many problems getting to the day before. And there I was in less than a few minutes from the time we took off, looking at the water plunge a few hundred feet into the reservoir. We hovered at the bottom of the falls, just enough time to snap a few shots of the landscape, and then accelerated upwards over the hill and across the mountains. We were racing at about 20 meters from the treetops until we reached the drill site.

The reason things here will only transform with the investment of a foreign development team working hand in hand with the people is essentially because the ruling party is inept at implementing any change. It is essential to lead by example so honest men can follow in our stead. The presence of our toys, our cars and helicopters have certainly impacted the local population, and if drilling does in fact commence once the mining concession is recovered, allot more action is going to be taking place on the ground and in the air. The effort to mobilize the youth is important because they are the leaders of tomorrow, and in Guinea, the force of today. The improvements we have made in the community are vastly done unilaterally, employing local work forces and using the dictatorial powers of the Prefet because the system in place is incompetent in making quick decisions and being honest and efficient. Everyone will try to pocket a little something, and those who strive to help the people end up being neglected or stifled, giving them little passion or incentive. It is essential to respect the elders and put ourselves at their disposition, but also maintain our initiative to accelerate projects that are continuing to help the people in this region. Many new technologies are being introduced here as a population is pushed into the twenty-first century. The idea is to earn their support while motivating them and preparing them for the future, whether it is by teaching at the school, encouraging sports and youth activities, to developing and improving infrastructure and public facilities. In order for us to succeed, a fine balance has to be drawn between each group in order to have their respect, yet it is important to always be pushing forward to avoid getting tangled in their web of setbacks and catch-22’s.

Outside The Wire, Saturday 16th May 2009

The first crack of lightning blew the power sockets, and the second shut down the electricity on the whole compound, followed by the smell of burnt plastic...The thunder rolled over and the lightning struck us right on our heads and hit the cable box in the office next-door. Can't even imagine what would happen if you got struck by lightning. Apparently total disintegration! I had class this morning, teaching roughly sixty students present continuous and prepositions in English. The rain had dried up, but I was a little unstable this morning because of another rough nights sleep in Kerouane. Coming from the loudspeakers of the nearby Mosque, I hear "Allah Akbar" over and over recited with verses from the Koran at four then five in the morning, some roosters trying to add their two cents, and then the kitchen crew laughing hysterically and catching up on their life stories in Malinke at six. Together with the whistle blowing from the feeble flag raising ceremony at seven, you begin to understand why everyone goes to bed at nine.

Yesterday was quite different form the other days. For the first time I was invited to go over to a kids house to have tea, 'pour prendre le the', and I accepted. In the first few days I arrived, kids had asked me why I didn't hang around more often, come by their houses for tea, and that it's hard to see me apart from when I'm at school and on the basketball court. I've realized that I've built a stronger bond between my students and the other players than I had thought and that they really enjoy having me around, both as a friend, and because with our community work here, we've been able to trigger their curiosity. Also, I quickly realized when I first got here, that sometimes I spent too much time within the confinement of the space station, and not enough time outside the wire. I usually get dropped off at school via landing pod, since while adhering to my style I'm preparing the class up until the last minute. Then I would use my radio to call in for extraction. For the first few days in town, it seemed like a safe way to move around and for me to get to point A and point B without any trouble. Once I got to know the back alleys, I started to venture out by foot to explore the market, to get to the basketball court, and to adventure through the rice paddies to find trouble and build a relationship with the locals. Almost every kid now calls me by my first name.

Everyday now I set out on a little adventure to meet new people and try and practice my Malinke. The other day I packed for a little expedition through the back alleys of Kerouane. After only fifteen minutes, I was invited to sit down with some young men drinking tea, and in the next half hour, with a caffeine buzz and a new guide Doris, I set out for an exploration through the rice paddies on the outskirts of Kerouane. They drink a sweet green tea, a similar version to a Moroccan tea, except they sometimes add peanuts to it, something they produce in excess throughout the region. They make 'tia' or peanut butter in the markets that they sell in little plastic bags. Organic, fresh, excellent. Doris Barry, my guide, was one of the few I’ve encountered who speeks Malinke, Susu, French and a little English, so he also became my translator. Surprising for a little boy from Kerouane, I quickly learned that he grew up in Conakry before moving to 'Haute-Guinee'. We spent an hour or so, maybe more, walking through the rice paddies, the 'cages' and houses that outline Kerouane. We sat underneath the mango trees and I took some great pictures of the locals who were more than happy to hear me say a few words in their local dialect as we walked past their yards. “I ni soma, inike, tama tele?” or “Good morning, hello, how are you?” in Malinke. Women would put their hands up to their eyes, as if they were looking through binoculars, and I realized they were asking me to take their picture. Soon I had a troop of little kids, boys and girls running after me, screaming 'babouni'... impossible to blend in!

When I joined one of my students for tea, it quickly turned into a four hour conversation with kids from my other classes gathering around as well. I was expecting questions about the US, and how it was the land of opportunity, and sure enough, many of them wanted to know what it was like, and if white women liked black men there. Talking about girls was more of a touchy subject than I thought. When I asked who was the best at chatting up girls, they resisted at first, but I soon learned that they all had more than one girlfriend. And when you ask them where they all are, they answer that “they’re at home", always, either at home, making food, cleaning the house, or doing some other manual labor while the men sit around and drink tea, doing nothing but talk talk talk, or sleep. Today I organized the second ‘match amical,’ College vs. Lycee, basketball game. I thought that I could leave some space to allow them to take some initiative and test their team captains, but everything sort of fell apart. Even though they are all close friends, they will easily trigger one another into a rage that disallows any sort of reason. They will still fight over water bottles, many of them won’t share, even though the captain is put in charge of distributing it among the players. They can’t make teams, trust each other, or follow the rules that the trainers set up in order for them to progress. Only with better leadership will they learn any sort of discipline.

The inability of the team leaders, or captains, makes the team structure incoherent and nonexistent. But despite their inability to work as team, they progress consistently as individual players. With time, and the right training, we can motivate them to trust each other, believe in each other, and especially be confident of their talent and believe in themselves. They are capable of so much, and have such a vast playground, that I hope we can at least teach the youth the power that is in their hands.