Guinea 2022 Day 8
Saturday, July 30th - Just after i hit post on the previous post our driver emerged out of the surrounding fog, and simultaneously, the restaurant guy emerged with the carafe of hot water and a tea bag and presumably the invention to take our breakfast order. I burst out laughing because now we had to go. But Damba assured me we had time to wait for them to quickly make something, and it was decided they'd make sandwiches and we could eat them in the car since we had a bit of a long drive to beehives 20km away.
And with Damba's multi lingual abilities the restaurant guy was immediately sent back for nescafe, which I sipped until only a few minutes later our sandwiches arrived. We proceeded to drive slowly through the thick fog, navigating around the placid yellow cows chewing their cud in the middle of the road. I felt i could roll down the window and touch them as we went past, but as they still had their horns i figured i might get gored.
When i was fifteen or sixteen in Sweden, i for some reason thought it would be a lark to record like literally everything that happened for i think it was three days. I wrote several pages each day in a spiral notepad. I think it might still be at my parents house. It would be interesting to read that now. Anyway, i bring it up because the level of detail I'm finding myself including here is kind of reminding me of that.
And this sudden diversion to 25 years ago reminds me of the disconcerting similar tangents in Graham Greene's Journey Without Maps that I'm presently reading. Funny how the style of what one is reading creeps into what one is writing.
Anyway so we filled our vehicle with trainees. Fortunately i had the front seat, four squeezed into the back seat, and then seats folded down in the back back to accommodate four more. A second car accompanied us with more and apparently some of the trainees were from our destination and would be waiting for us there. The drive of 20km took maybe 45 minutes to an hour, through villages and vacant land. Growing up in California where the only vacant land is uninhabitable desert or protected state or national parks, i assumed all the rest of the world had also already "filled up," so it's still a pleasant surprise to me to see here in Guinea that there's just wild forest between villages.
Anyway met up with those trainees who were waiting us. Eight people put on the available suits and we went walking a few hundred meters to the hives, which turned out to be entirely under two trees. 37 under one and 58 under another. All packed in side by side. I recommended spreading them out, though they said they're less likely to get stolen this way. But of these 95 gives only about four or five were occupied.
When we opened the hives i was alarmed to find the topbars were made very badly -- twice as wide as should be and with no guide whatsoever on the underside, so needless to say the comb in all the hives completed disregarded the topbars. On the plus side all the hives that were occupied were full of honey ready to harvest. It was rather a mess without them coming cleanly one per topbar but everyone was very gratified to be harvesting. After i did the first few combs i let others have a go at it and stepped back to be more of a photographer. My DSLR battery being dead this was on my phone, which requires having a glove off since it doesn't recognize being touched with a gloved hand. Fortunately the bees were pretty nice. Bees here definitely nicer than Ghana.
Damba irked me a bit by sometimes commanding me to "come over here" for example when i wasn't done supervising and or photographing the participants doing something, and he wants me to look at something else, but i think sometimes he misunderstands who is leading this training.
Then we returned to the central location where the trainees were gathered, two full buckets of honey harvested. Traded out who was in suits, walked in the other direction to where there were several dozen more hives but only two were occupied.
Returned again two the central location, and the women began ladling out rice with a cassava sauce into the big communal bowls and a separate individual bowl for me. As I'm eating Danba comes up and says "Kris help me to take off this bee veil. He had similarly had me help him put it on, and I'm happy to be friendly and helpful but i was beginning to feel like his squire or something. Fortunately someone else helped him so i didn't have to interrupt my eating with it.
Then we drove back to town. On arrival i went walking around town by myself for a bit exploring. On top of a hill on the edge of town i found the ruins of a colonial era house which was kind of cool.
I spent the later afternoon sitting at my usual spot at the hotel reading. Because they literally never wipe down the tables my "usual spot is becoming a bit greasy from spilled food and nescafe. I may have to move to a new usual spot... or maybe just suggest they actually try wiping the table.
There appeared to be once again a wedding taking place next door though this one didn't go as late into the evening as the others had.
While i was sitting at the hotel reading, Ibro the country director came by. We were joined by Damba and they chatted for awhile. The hotel owner himself also happened by. He it turns out often travels to the states and had been there just recently. It sounded like his first business was importing clothes from the US to Guinea, and then he opened a boutique in Conakry and a restaurant there, followed by this hotel here. Turns out additionally that he's from Ibro's home village, so i think they must have known eachother all their lives. Then they organization's driver Biallo arrived, he'd been away for a few days attending to the newly arrived volunteers (there's now two more in country), and it turns out he's from the same village too.
We're going there tomorrow.
I asked the owner why no one is ever eating at the restaurant and he said "the problem is no one has money," which is of course just another way of looking at what the suspected problem is, that it's too expensive for locals.
Anyway now it's 21:30, i just finished my dinner. At the hotel restaurant. Ordered "steak" which seemed bold but I've had good luck with the sauces here before, and when it came it didn't disappoint. The sauce was genuinely delicious, a creamy sauce i think involving onions and peppercorns. Sometimes here in Africa when i say a meal was "really good" I honestly mean compared to my expectations and on a grand scheme of things it was merely palatable, but this sauce was genuinely delicious. The meat wasn't bad but it was a bit chewy, far too chewy for the butter knife they provided me with, with which i could have maybe beaten it to death. And they others having departed to get cheaper food themselves, i was confident I'd have no luck communicating the need for a sharper knife to the staff. So i darted to my room and got my hive tool, which was adequately sharp enough to cut the meat well. Meat expert my friend Billie surmises the meat is tough because they only eat their oldest cattle, which sounds plausible.
And the fries were good too, though this time the salad, which consists of warm lettuce with a creamy sauce, I've found unpalatable and could barely make headway on. And the salad covered half the plate so I'm still hungry but c'est la vie.
Dinner came out to 60,000 francs, or $6.92. And now I'm going to bed, goodnight!
And with Damba's multi lingual abilities the restaurant guy was immediately sent back for nescafe, which I sipped until only a few minutes later our sandwiches arrived. We proceeded to drive slowly through the thick fog, navigating around the placid yellow cows chewing their cud in the middle of the road. I felt i could roll down the window and touch them as we went past, but as they still had their horns i figured i might get gored.
When i was fifteen or sixteen in Sweden, i for some reason thought it would be a lark to record like literally everything that happened for i think it was three days. I wrote several pages each day in a spiral notepad. I think it might still be at my parents house. It would be interesting to read that now. Anyway, i bring it up because the level of detail I'm finding myself including here is kind of reminding me of that.
And this sudden diversion to 25 years ago reminds me of the disconcerting similar tangents in Graham Greene's Journey Without Maps that I'm presently reading. Funny how the style of what one is reading creeps into what one is writing.
Anyway so we filled our vehicle with trainees. Fortunately i had the front seat, four squeezed into the back seat, and then seats folded down in the back back to accommodate four more. A second car accompanied us with more and apparently some of the trainees were from our destination and would be waiting for us there. The drive of 20km took maybe 45 minutes to an hour, through villages and vacant land. Growing up in California where the only vacant land is uninhabitable desert or protected state or national parks, i assumed all the rest of the world had also already "filled up," so it's still a pleasant surprise to me to see here in Guinea that there's just wild forest between villages.
Anyway met up with those trainees who were waiting us. Eight people put on the available suits and we went walking a few hundred meters to the hives, which turned out to be entirely under two trees. 37 under one and 58 under another. All packed in side by side. I recommended spreading them out, though they said they're less likely to get stolen this way. But of these 95 gives only about four or five were occupied.
When we opened the hives i was alarmed to find the topbars were made very badly -- twice as wide as should be and with no guide whatsoever on the underside, so needless to say the comb in all the hives completed disregarded the topbars. On the plus side all the hives that were occupied were full of honey ready to harvest. It was rather a mess without them coming cleanly one per topbar but everyone was very gratified to be harvesting. After i did the first few combs i let others have a go at it and stepped back to be more of a photographer. My DSLR battery being dead this was on my phone, which requires having a glove off since it doesn't recognize being touched with a gloved hand. Fortunately the bees were pretty nice. Bees here definitely nicer than Ghana.
Damba irked me a bit by sometimes commanding me to "come over here" for example when i wasn't done supervising and or photographing the participants doing something, and he wants me to look at something else, but i think sometimes he misunderstands who is leading this training.
Then we returned to the central location where the trainees were gathered, two full buckets of honey harvested. Traded out who was in suits, walked in the other direction to where there were several dozen more hives but only two were occupied.
Returned again two the central location, and the women began ladling out rice with a cassava sauce into the big communal bowls and a separate individual bowl for me. As I'm eating Danba comes up and says "Kris help me to take off this bee veil. He had similarly had me help him put it on, and I'm happy to be friendly and helpful but i was beginning to feel like his squire or something. Fortunately someone else helped him so i didn't have to interrupt my eating with it.
Then we drove back to town. On arrival i went walking around town by myself for a bit exploring. On top of a hill on the edge of town i found the ruins of a colonial era house which was kind of cool.
I spent the later afternoon sitting at my usual spot at the hotel reading. Because they literally never wipe down the tables my "usual spot is becoming a bit greasy from spilled food and nescafe. I may have to move to a new usual spot... or maybe just suggest they actually try wiping the table.
There appeared to be once again a wedding taking place next door though this one didn't go as late into the evening as the others had.
While i was sitting at the hotel reading, Ibro the country director came by. We were joined by Damba and they chatted for awhile. The hotel owner himself also happened by. He it turns out often travels to the states and had been there just recently. It sounded like his first business was importing clothes from the US to Guinea, and then he opened a boutique in Conakry and a restaurant there, followed by this hotel here. Turns out additionally that he's from Ibro's home village, so i think they must have known eachother all their lives. Then they organization's driver Biallo arrived, he'd been away for a few days attending to the newly arrived volunteers (there's now two more in country), and it turns out he's from the same village too.
We're going there tomorrow.
I asked the owner why no one is ever eating at the restaurant and he said "the problem is no one has money," which is of course just another way of looking at what the suspected problem is, that it's too expensive for locals.
Anyway now it's 21:30, i just finished my dinner. At the hotel restaurant. Ordered "steak" which seemed bold but I've had good luck with the sauces here before, and when it came it didn't disappoint. The sauce was genuinely delicious, a creamy sauce i think involving onions and peppercorns. Sometimes here in Africa when i say a meal was "really good" I honestly mean compared to my expectations and on a grand scheme of things it was merely palatable, but this sauce was genuinely delicious. The meat wasn't bad but it was a bit chewy, far too chewy for the butter knife they provided me with, with which i could have maybe beaten it to death. And they others having departed to get cheaper food themselves, i was confident I'd have no luck communicating the need for a sharper knife to the staff. So i darted to my room and got my hive tool, which was adequately sharp enough to cut the meat well. Meat expert my friend Billie surmises the meat is tough because they only eat their oldest cattle, which sounds plausible.
And the fries were good too, though this time the salad, which consists of warm lettuce with a creamy sauce, I've found unpalatable and could barely make headway on. And the salad covered half the plate so I'm still hungry but c'est la vie.
Dinner came out to 60,000 francs, or $6.92. And now I'm going to bed, goodnight!