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A different big truck came today and dumped no didn’t dump the young men shoveled all the sand out of it. Its cab was painted the same color as the body and sand leaked through the seams. So I went to Konah to drop of those letters for the AIDS workshop but I forgot the banana bread so I came back and went back again. Took a different route home cause it wasn’t too hot and watched the vultures and little birds and a hawk circling over the freshburned fields where no mouse can hide. I thought I heard a snake but it was a man sitting at the base of the tree wondering why I hadn’t noticed him earlier; but my attention was focused on the creek crossing only dabbed one foot the other totally dry just like the next creek crossing. Bump to the top of the hill where three old oranges where consumed, mostly by me but also by a medium sized grub. Flicked him/her out! Suddenly cellphone credit but too early to call you so back down the hill to the empty center no one at market day because today is marriage day. So out for a walk to clandestinely cut banana leaves with my keys the only tool I had. Sort of wrapped rice and banans with the wide fragile leaves but couldn’t tie with string (see above; re: market day) so just folded and stuffed into the recipient. Started the stove with cancer and cardboard then piled the charcoal on high then the pot on top then half-filled with water then the loose rice packages then the lid then fingers crossed. Left for two hours to allow children to play soccer. I gave them the ball. Marriage sound check DJ check screech check perfume check sneakers check thieboudienne check. Back at home no major catastrophe just a slight tilt to the pot so righted it and cut up the unlucky onions that won’t grow big like their neighbors. Add bacon bits and bacon bits and garlic and fry. Tastes like chinese bao with the pork and sugar and also a tepid crunchy potato salad sesame oil no mayo. Quick colorful clouds make digestion easy. Now light is tiny and the breeze is cooooler. After dark I’ll call.  

Dian

Mamadou Dian Diallo is from Diamiou, a village about ten kilometers from where I live. His father was a businessman (probably a merchant) who did a lot of work in Guinea and in Freetown, Sierra Leone. When he was ten years old, his father moved him to Freetown, where he enrolled in private school and started learning English. While in high school, almost ten years later, he began spending time around the welding school, watching the masters and picking up the basic notions. When the rebels came in 1997, the year before he would have finished high school, he picked up and went back to Guinea. He joined a group of Senegalese welders, and worked as an apprentice for four years. They didn’t pay him, but after four years his master told him there was nothing more for him to learn, and provided him with an attestation of his learning and ability as a welder. They also fed him very well.

His first job after leaving the Senegalese was working on the US embassy in Conakry. He spent almost four years working at the site, moving from operating a jackhammer to welding all of the interior plumbing (a US embassy has quite a bit of complicated plumbing). While working on the building, which is, to date, the most expensive structure that has been built in the country, he was not paid well. At the end of the contract, he and several other Guinean laborers waited patiently, peacefully, and unobstructively outside the gates of the embassy for four days in protest of their non-payment. They were finally told to go home and wait there; payments needed to be authorized by Washington and then converted to local currency, and were in the works, they would be informed via the radio when they would be able to pick up their final wages. He is still waiting for such an announcement.

Since working on the embassy, he has mostly worked out of Conakry, but jobs send him around the country. He has been working in our village for over five months now, first on the home of a wealthy businessman reinforcing the window bars and then making windows and doors for the new school. He says he is doing his best work here; the work is from the heart and not for the money. His young wife is from the village, and he has reminded me twice now that his (future) children will likely go to school in this new school building. He wants his son to inspire awe and reverence when he explains to his classmates that his father made the windows, not laughter or derision because of the shoddy workmanship.

He smiles a lot, smokes some, and always seems to be having an okay day. Two weeks ago he moved back to Conakry.