Guinea

Combine Lord of the Rings with Black Panther and you still wouldn’t have all the amazing things that are in The Guardian of the Word by Guinean author Camera Laye. It's a family saga of how a great empire was created with people shapeshifting into their animal totems, prophecies, proverbs, poetry, intrigues, banished princes, owl messengers, and not only power and agency of women, but also inclusion of disabilities. The most powerful woman has a misshaped spine and the most powerful man couldn't walk until he was ten years old. Unlike some of the online reviewers, I found it easy to read. Yes, they throw in a few genealogies, but what oral tradition doesn't? Why don’t we have a movie of this story? It would be great!

See if you can help me figure out some of the proverbs from The Guardian of the Word. There are footnotes with explanations, but I’m not sure they help. When the text says says “One never digs a rat's hole with a pestle, for if one does, one runs the risk of blocking the hole completely and never reaching the rat” the interpretation given is “If you abuse the kindness of a generous person, you run the risk of his refusing you everything.” Does this mean the rat is generous?

Here’s another proverb from The Guardian of the Word, “When the egg falls . . . on the rock, it is the egg that breaks; when the rock falls on the egg, then it is even worse.” The interpretation given is “When a young person has unpleasant dealings with an old one, it is always the young one who is wrong.” I never would have understood that from eggs and rocks! I thoroughly enjoyed this mind-bending book which I borrowed from the Los Angeles County Library.

A more contemporary piece of literature from a Guinean writer is Ticha Ticha. It was presented as readers theater with an author interview with Hakim Bah at PEN World Voices in 2017. Just a warning, Mom, you won’t like this one as it is as intense as Medea and as frightening as Poe with inspiration from modern authors Faulkner and Beckett. Yes, it’s true that sometimes I like things my mom doesn’t like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuYazQIUxfU

Let’s talk about how to find resources on this country because it is Guinea, not New Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and certainly not Guinea pigs, Guinea fowl, or Guinea hens! It becomes even more complicated because Guinea (the country in Africa) is part of Guinea (the region of Africa along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea that includes twelve additional countries). Searching for the capital city Conakry got me started and from there I could click through related items. Besides the literature above, I found great music, fun acrobatics, a meaningful piece of art, some recipes, and a couple of works showing both past and present challenges.

I love the mellow music of Mosi Conde and Soul Bang as well as the traditional music of Guinea. I also found an explanation of some of the instruments and a long collection of recent music.

· Mosi Conde: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEGS4JP1Sgo

· Soul Bang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPcXxImRzjI

· Traditional music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye3_V-Q6G0w&list=RDmzHIO36bR24&start_radio=1

· Discussion of the instruments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Bo2_e_bVk

· Contemporary Guinean music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgWqmwcfT30

After all the years watching my kids perform in the youth circus at the Redlands YMCA, it was fun to find video from the Centre d'art Acrobatique from Conakry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzHIO36bR24. Here is another group from Guinea competing in l'Afrique a Un Incroyable Talent saison 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2MOjh6319s

Here is both a written and video explanation of a mask from Guinea: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-africa/west-africa/guinea/a/headdress-female-bust-dmba

The Friends of Guinea put some Guinean recipes on their webpage and made a cookbook available to download with ingredients Peace Corps workers could access in Guinea. Good to know what I could eat if I went there! http://www.friendsofguinea.org/about-guinea/recipes/

Past challenges for Guinea include slavery. The movie Prince among Slaves is particularly challenging because the protagonist’s reason that he should not be enslaved and the reason the United States government eventually set him free was that he was from the social class that sold people into slavery. I watched it on DVD from the San Bernardino County Library and it is also on Amazon Prime.

A present challenge in Guinea is transportation. The series Deadliest Roads takes this opportunity to address healthcare as they show how vaccine deliveries, ambulances, a cesarean section, and pediatric immunizations are impacted by poor roads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLqW3OtAyig

Even with poor roads, there are beautiful and interesting places to visit in Guinea as shown here: https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-places-visit-guinea/. I know my local travel advisor would have good advice for my trip. Shout out to my favorite travel advisor, Kaitlin Darnell at Laura's Travel in Redlands. May the travel industry survive and thrive - may we all survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace and health to flourish in Guinea and throughout the world.

Photo Credit: Jeff Attaway https://www.flickr.com/photos/attawayjl/50177083893