The 12 Days of Christmas

For the holidays this year, I’m on my first African trip outside of Senegal. I’m spending twelve days in the beautiful (!) Republic of Guinea, two countries to the south. This Guinea is commonly referred to as Guinea Conakry (CON-uh-kree), after its capital city, to distinguish it from Guinea-Bissau to the north and west, and Equatorial Guinea to the southeast.

I came to Conakry to visit my friends, Jim and Becky. I knew Becky at graduate school in the ’90s, but never expected to see her again because she was planning to live overseas! I bumped into Becky and Jim last spring when they were evacuated to Dakar during political unrest in Guinea, and they invited me to visit sometime. Seven months later, here I am! (Let that be a warning to anyone else who might lightly toss off an invitation for me to visit you.)

Subsequent posts will tell a little about each day. The photo above is from the Fouta Djallo region, as we neared the mountains. I have so many interesting and beautiful photos, I’ll try to figure out how to set up a separate page on the blog for some of them.