These Are the Dreams I Had Last Night

They are not happy dreams.

I was in charge of watching over Dad’s casket for the night following his death. His funeral would be in the morning.  But the casket wasn't like other caskets, because he was (or was to be?) cremated.  Instead of what you’d normally expect, it was like a shitty electric guitar case, though larger: rectangular, with a textured hard plastic body that was painted a faded light green.  It was roughly the proper length, roughly six-and-a-half feet long, and close to the proper width, maybe 30 inches across, but it was only a few inches thick.  The case was on a bed, on the left side (if you were lying in the bed).  The bed and the room are unfamiliar to me. I was standing next to the bed on that same side, and pacing down its length.

When I got to the end to turn around, the case was gone, and Dad was there in his hospital gown, though not weak and thin like he was at the end.  He was pale, though not deathly so.  He was annoyed at one of the IV tubes, and was reaching around over the top of the bed, which was now tilted up at the head like a hospital bed.  I became upset, because I knew I had to tell him that it didn’t matter: he was already dead.  I moved to help him untangle the tubes and that’s when the dream ended.

The next dream took place a little while after his death – maybe present day.  I was in the driveway of an unfamiliar house, and I was leaving.  I was sad, though not about leaving.  I get the impression I had been visiting its residents for the first time after Dad died, not unlike the recent trip down South that Liesel and I took to see Tante Emmy and Oma.

So I was getting ready to leave the house in an unfamiliar car, when for some reason I became aware (perhaps I just skipped the expository part of the dream; perhaps I just can’t remember) that I could instead take a very fancy black sports car instead.  I decided to do so, and started to take my stuff – an overnight bag – out of the unfamiliar car.

When I got to the sports car, I noticed that the very large spoiler on the back was in fact two separate ones, and now red.  It was more like a wing than a spoiler – raised up rather than flush to the trunk lid – but there was no center.  It wasn’t missing, but intentional.  Then I noticed that each piece was broken in the same way.  The material was like a thick, very hard foam-core that had cracks in several places going front-to-back, getting progressively worse as they went toward the center of the car.  The spoiler(s) would clearly fly off if I tried to drive it.  I had the thought that I was lucky that it hadn't flown off on the drive here, and I didn’t notice that I had already identified the other car as mine.  

The sports car was parked next to yet another car, which I knew belonged to a man that either lived or was just staying at this house.  He was also an electrician, or I think just a hobbyist, and I went inside the garage to ask him if he could help clean some of Dad’s electrical stuff out of the house.

Here’s where the dream became strange, and really sad, though briefly nice.

Once I went into the garage to find the guy, the garage became more like the kitchen I have now, and the man was suddenly Dad.  I immediately started crying and we started hugging.  We were holding each other super tight and I had my hands on both his shoulder blades, which I could feel distinctly, as I could when he seriously began losing weight – like around Christmas 2010.  I’m not sure if I could feel him losing more weight as I held him, but I know that I was aware of his thinness, relative to how he was in his prime.  Still crying, I said, “I miss you so much, Dad.”  To which he replied, “I know you do.  It’s okay.”

That’s when I woke up, still crying.  About an hour later, I called my therapist to make the first appointment of the new round of sessions.

The Terrifying Incident of the Bike Ride in the Nighttime

I was super busy with school and work, and then super busy with relaxing myself into a Reddit-fueled stupor.  It had totally skipped my mind that I even had a blog, let alone that one is supposed to write in these things.  So, in order to distract myself from stressful things of the moment, I'd like to tell you about The Very Scary Bike Ride Through Kankan.

In order to properly tell you of this ride through Kankan, I should first say something of Kankan itself.  It is the third largest city in Guinea, with between 140,000 and 207,000 people, depending who you ask (Peace Corps and Wikipedia, respectively).  The de facto capital of the Haute Guineé region, it is a major hub in Eastern Guinea, and indeed the broader region.  Here's a picture from Google Earth:

Click for larger version.

However (and this is usually the surprising bit), there is no electrical generation in Kankan beyond individual gasoline generators, nor is there any running water.  While no one visiting Guinea or any other developing country is expecting a Four Seasons (although you'd be surprised some places), it is a little surprising to find such a large, culturally relevant city bereft of even the most basic infrastructure.  I can't say for certain - the internet is, not surprisingly, just as bereft of information about the third largest city in a country no one's ever heard of ("New Guinea? Guiana? Ghana?") - but here's what I heard while I was over there.

Lansana Conté was the "president" of Guinea from 1984 until his death in December of 2008.  During that time, he...well, wasn't very nice, to sum up (badly)?  He did lots of mean things to lots of good people.  The bit that's relevant is that, due to some sort of disagreement with the governor of the Kankan prefecture, he shut down and destroyed Kankan's hydro-electric power generation along the Niger.  So the short answer is that Conté was a bit of a dick, and that's the main reason that Kankan has no power.

So let me set up this ride for you.  I was at my house not far from the city center, and was biking to the Peace Corps Volunteer House on the outskirts of Kankan, where a goodly number of PCVs had gathered. Each region of Guinea had a volunteer house, and I was lucky enough to be placed in the same city as the one in my area.  This meant that I would have had a constant stream of potential buddies to hang out with. Here is the route I took - click the caption to blow it up to a readable size.

Click for larger version.

The trip was just over two miles, but that wasn't part of the problem.  With the amount of biking we'd been doing, I was actually in great shape (for me), and was quite comfortable riding long distances (again, for me). In fact, when I traced the route in Google Earth, I was really surprised at how short it was (until I remembered the time I walked it carrying a suitcase). No, the real problems were: the roads, the people, the darkness, and quite unexpectedly, the light.

THE ROADS in Guinea are...how to put this delicately...shitty.  Not great.  I very distinctly recall a particular pothole on the road to Moribaya that we drove into and out of.  Though there was nothing like that in Kankan, the roads are definitely better suited to walking than any sort of wheeled transport.  Biking is no problem - you just have to watch where you're going and make sure not to run into any of

THE PEOPLE, who expect you to know what the hell you're doing.  As I said, I was quite comfortable on my bike, but I've only ever been called coordinated sarcastically.  There were a lot of people on the roads, which have, obviously, no explicit nor implicit divisions between pedestrian, bike, and vehicle areas. So it's important to watch out for people, which is made particularly difficult due to

THE DARKNESS.  It is dark.  It is really goddamn dark.  It's so dark that you can't see the hand in front of your face sometimes.  There are a number of little lights by the side of the road wherever people are selling things or gathering to hang out, but generally speaking, it's friggin' dark.  Luckily, I brought

THE LIGHT with me.  Specifically, every one of us (as far as I know) brought a headlamp with us.  They're terribly useful things in general, and particularly so for two specific uses: poopin' and bikin'.  It is pretty frikkin' hard to hold a flashlight and do either of those activities (or both for that matter, but I don't know that anyone tried that).  "But Dave," you may ask, "why would the light be a problem for your no-good-very-bad bike ride?"  I'll tell you, and thanks for your question.  The headlight is placed on the forehead, which, because of the normally super-helpful spread of the beam, puts a nice glare right across the front of my glasses, making it just about impossible to see.

So I spent the right going extremely slowly, barely able to see through the glare of my light into the darkness, trying not to hit anyone or fall off my bike.  So I went those 2 or so miles very slowly, and quite scared of, ya know, dying - or worse, looking silly on my bike.  Once I got onto the newer road, it wasn't too much of a problem, though then I had the added difficulty with the sparse traffic.

Long story short (too late), I made it to the Volunteer house, where I vowed to never ever do that again.

Road Trips and Rifles

A very good friend of mine is getting married next weekend.  He lives in Georgia now, so I get to take a road trip (with another very good friend) all the way down there!  Road trips are almost always fun, and this upcoming one reminded me of some of the road trips we took in Guinea.  They were (sometimes) fun, so I thought I’d share a story or two.

Long-distance travel in the developing world is not the same as it is here: there are complications that would never have occurred to me.  In the US, we expect that if we break down, we will have all the supplies and assistance we require within easy reach, even if they are expensive.  We expect good, well-marked roads almost all the way to our destination; gas stations at reasonable intervals; food, water, and toilets readily available whenever we desire them; and we do not at any time expect to be required to defend our right to be on the road or to travel to a particular destination.

With few qualifications, none of these expectations could be met while traveling between African countries, or in many cases within an African country.  Such was our experience in Guinea.  The bit I want to highlight is the last one: barrages.

Literally, “dam” or “roadblock,” a more accurate translation in this case is “checkpoint.”  They serve nearly no purpose in peacetime and, when I was there, Guinea had had a decades-long peace.  They are staffed by bored, underpaid soldiers who had erected the most crude sort of barrier across the road, often just a brightly colored string or a series of tied sticks.  So while I never understood why they existed, we quickly learned the procedures when encountering a barrage.

First and foremost, follow the lead of the driver (this assumes you are in a taxi – Peace Corps cars were generally just waved on through, even going around lines of waiting nationals).  His demeanor and attentiveness were a huge clue for us.  Being polite and proper are hugely important, particularly in this power dynamic, but anywhere in a culture that prizes so highly the quality of personal interactions.

Also, we put away anything electronic, particularly iPods, but anything American.  The guards are going to want some sort of bribe, and you don’t want to give them any ideas about the nature of that bribe. (Though “bribe” is often too harsh a word, it is the most appropriate – “toll” is too soft and official-sounding.)

Bribing was something that Peace Corps Volunteers tried to avoid, too.  Despite being comparatively wealthy, Peace Corps did keep us on a tight budget, and we wanted to avoid setting up the expectation that PCVs are easily parted with their money.

We encountered one particularly worrisome barrage on the long cross-country trip from Conakry to Kan-Kan.  (My upcoming Philly-to-Augusta trip will take almost as much time, but cover nearly twice the distance. Ugh, those roads…) We hadn’t yet gone far when we were stopped and asked to pull off to the side.  You’re expected to hand over your passport, but having surrendered those to Peace Corps (for just this reason – you really don’t want to have that confiscated), we used our PC identification cards.

It was not unusual, and it occurred here, for the soldier to collect the card from each passenger along with the driver’s paperwork (presumably vehicle registration, etc.).  What happened to them varied: sometimes they were glanced at and handed back, other times they were studied carefully.  At this barrage, they were all collected and taken to someone else to study, out of sight of our car.  This instantly made everyone nervous.

Meanwhile, another soldier demanded that we open the hatchback, and we of course complied (really, we just failed to object as he opened it himself – we were still in the car).  A more seasoned PCV in the front yelled back to me to watch him as he rifled through our things, so I turned around in my seat to “assist” him.

He immediately noticed our med kits – their cases were hard black plastic, and stood out easily in a country where a plastic bag is a sometimes precious commodity.  He demanded to open it, but I was told to refuse, as he would certainly demand some of the medicine as a “toll.”  I had my hand firmly covering the med kit, and he had his hand casually holding his rifle to his side (something I was acutely aware of, if not actively worried about).

I had let him know that it was medicine, but said it would all spill out if I were to open it.  After much shouting in French and Sou-Sou (I almost spoke the former, and could say 3 words in the latter) between the soldier and our experienced volunteer in the front, a PC employee came over to talk with him.  She had been riding in another car which was heading in the same direction, and had been (luckily) stopped near us.  She carefully opened the case, explaining constantly how the medicine was for the next two years, and all had to remain with each volunteer.  She did a great job, and we were on our way tout de suite.

A few hours later, that experience still fresh in our thoughts, we had another rough experience, but one that ended in one of the more surreal experiences I’ve ever had.

Once again, our IDs were taken out of our sight, but this time, something terrifying happened.  In a country where being polite is highly prized, an officer (!) came up to the car and shouted as loudly and angrily as he could “I want to see each one of you, over there, one by one!” In French, of course – French sounds quite flowery and pretty when spoken between two Parisian lovers, but it can be pretty scary when it’s shouted by a man with a really big gun.

Quite nervously, we all followed the crowd toward a small hut on a low hill on the side of the road (again, there were the two other cars of PCVs that had been stopped at roughly the same time, but this time even the PC employee was stumped).  These huts are very common, and during the hottest parts of the day, when the sweltering sun beats down mercilessly on the bored soldiers, the barrages become quite lax, allowing a quick pass-through to allow the soldiers an equally quick return to their shady hut.

Once inside, we were greeted, again quite loudly and angrily, by a man claiming to be a general (maybe, my French wasn’t to be heavily relied on at this point – suffice to say, he had decorations on his comparably well-pressed uniform).  He had our stack of ID cards in his hands, and he barked out the top name in a voice that would any Marine drill sergeant jump.

“JAKE!” He pointed at the ground in front of him, and in my head I heard R. Lee Ermy follow up with “Front and CEN-ter!”

Jake walked up to the officer, who sweetly and politely said “Merci pour votre assistance.”

After laughing at the grand joke he had played on us, the officer gave a very moving speech thanking us for coming to Guinea and working to make his country a better place.  He then handed Jake his card and told him to return to his taxi.

He called each of our names, with varying degrees of success, personally thanking each of us.  It was a fun and moving experience, not the least due to the adrenaline coursing through my system.

Despite these two more colorful experiences (rather mild compared to some others I heard about), the barrages were largely uneventful – they served only to interrupt one’s music or already-fitful sleep.  But more than that, they served to remind us that even something like a cross-country drive is a very different experience in Africa.

I’m quite looking forward to my upcoming road trip, where the most worrisome part is the traffic around D.C.