SATURDAY DECEMBER 15
I left
Dakar at
4:30 am and arrived in Guinea's capital city of
Conakry at
6:00 am. The air was humid but not hot. Not suprisingly, the airport terminal was small. Surprisingly, it had no exterior walls.
To exit the airport, you must present your yellow health card as evidence that you have had malaria shots. I had presented this to the Guinean embassy in Dakar a few days earlier to obtain a visa, but had mistakenly left the card itself in Dakar, perhaps even at the embassy. At first, the airport health representative insisted that I either produce the card or pay 10,000 Guinean francs (about $2.50US) for an inoculation. I didn’t want another vaccination, particularly not one kept in a freezer that doesn’t have power 70% of the week (see below), so I repeatedly explained that I had obviously had an inoculation, or I wouldn’t have been able to get a visa. The woman continued to dismissively insist I purchase a vaccination. Eventually, we reached a compromise: I paid $2.50 for a new yellow health card that said I’d received an inoculation at the airport.
As we drove through the city in the early morning light, I found Conakry quite different from Dakar. It is more spread out—wider streets, more space between buildings, and stretched over a longer peninsula; the ground is rock and dirt instead of sand; slanted roofs outnumber flat ones; trees and grasses abound, as do streams and ponds and hills! It also smells better, lacking the sickly sweet odor of decaying trash mingled with diesel fumes which so often permeates Dakar. With its red clay, pine trees (introduced by the French), and dilapidated buildings, Conakry reminds me of rural Georgia near where my grandparents lived.
Two other ways Conakry is different from Dakar I learned later: city electricity is usually available only at night, and water is available only two days per week. Neither service reaches Jim and Becky's neighborhood, so they have solar panels on their roof and a short water tower in their front yard.
SATURDAY DECEMBER 15
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