Les Ballets Africains with Famoudou Konate on USA 1968 rare!

wow, totally take a look at this!!

Rosaline Nowai

This is a week before I left, last march... Manimou is telling me what his mom is up to, buying chili peppers for the market and then Rosaline is saying something to fode about wanting to eat rice. That was illegal for her back then as she was still recovering from her liver parasites and she wa also telling little Allison to "fabi, fabi" or come here, come here. pretty typical.

Mon Souer Jill et ses enfants et tres content pour gagne une nouvaeu cousin!

Sammy a une fete a englise.

Tout est tres content Rose vien a etats-unis! Regarde ses viages Rosaline! (mon Famile appele elle Rose, je'n se pas pour quoi. )

Ses chat. fo pas puer.

Ally, Sammy et Gavin a le fete a englise.

Gavin est tres content pour manger ses gatau.

Ally et Sammy regale pour ses cousin Rosaline!

toi voir le petite blanc quel-que-choses don le photo? c'est niege.

voila! neige don ma main!

Moi a mon travaille avec les tapis.

Le Boutique de Tapis, mon travaille. Aussi avec le decoration de le fete de Noel.

Le neige qui tumble don le route, Elk Avenue, don Crested Butte.

For anyone who actually looks at this

I was so rude of me to leave you all hanging!
Well Cam made it back and I made it to Paris and then toted all that junk all across beautiful sunny Paris to my friend Pierre's house. Paris was really nice although I was pining to get to Guinea.
I made it to Guinea and had a pretty quiet month during Ramadan. Ramadan is a muslim holy month where every muslim eats before 5am and then fasts the entire day until 7 or 8 pm. They don't even drink water, saying that it is not good to drink water on an empty stomach. Needless to say people try not to do too much during that month and the whole country acts like they've been tranquilized.
Then we went to Senegal to pursue Manimou and Rosaline's medical exam and visa. This was of course done only after extensive discourse with the American Embassy there to make sure we were doing everything right. After 50 hours in a dilapitated taxi we arrived in dakar, ill and paid for two nights in a downtown hotel. $100 bucks! that is crazy in West Africa were many people earn less than $2 dollars a day! Everything took much longer than planned and we rented a small room on the 5th floor of an apartment building in a neaighborhood called Grande Yoff. That is where all the Guineans live.
We finished the medical exam with out a problem and then took rosaline to the dentist to get her cavity dealt with... Two cavities and one turned out to be a root canal! ouch!
I had to return to Conakry, Guinea's capital city by myself and run all over conakry preparing to return to the United States. I was impressed with how well I can navigate that insane city! I went to visit his family and little Katy cried when she realized that I was saying the next time I would see her she would be so much bigger!
Then back to Paris where I ate and bought lots of books. And then on to the states where I ate a hamburger! I really think that they leave out the flavor in Guinea! Don't get me wrong I love rice and sauce now-a-days, I am a real trooper.
Manimou got the visa last tuesday and that was very exciting and hopefully he will be here soon.
Another couple of months I think.
I am in Crested Butte, Colorado but plan on going back to Seattle in a month and a half to be closer to the fam.
j

So cam and i took off from crested butte around 4 pm we cruised into buenavista and gorged ourselves on way to much dairy product! pinapple shake for me and a banana caramel for cam.
and we pushed on to denver where we stopped at a ross to get me last minute new luggage which i am so greatful for and target for some other bunch of junk. burgers for dinner and then the dash board of pauls truck that we were driving with 5000 dollars worth of appliances went on the blink and we steered off the highway into a gas station where the truck promptly bit it.
this would not be so tramatic if there was not so much money sitting in the truck and i didnt need to go to the airport at 5am.
we changed hotels and aleesha hired a shuttle for me which tried to leave me stranded the next morning. so after a couple hours of sleep.
more lata

Famile

So I am leaving my family here in Colorado to go visit my family in Guinea~Conakry.
It is always a little sad to leave the people you love and go across the globe but it is also pretty darn fun. I have so much baggage though, I am going to be exhausted after lugging all my junk across Paris twice in one day. At least I know where I am going this time!
I am very excited to meet up with Dayna and I's friend Pierre, who we met in India and even hung out with in Thailand! It was great! I love how Pierre travels, it is all about the food. And he is making sure I see Paris that way as well! He already has a nice little french dinner planned for us (his brother is in town!) on wednesday night.
The last time I went to Guinee I didn't get really excited until I could actually see the sporadic lights of Conakry, electricity only in the rich neighborhoods, or the neighborhood that is priveledged to have electricity at that time. Then I know I am there. Can't wait for the hot, although it is monsoon season right now.
Jessie
I made the font bigger because aleesha says it is hard to read on macs

Writing

I am remebering now about how I need to write. More than I do I think. It creates a nice kind of flow that helps your whole body function, like a tune-up.
manimou called me the other day, we talked until his phone card gave out and then he bought another and I got to talk to Rosaline.
It is funny to talk to Rosaline on the phone. our first phone conversation she giggled alot, I think because she couldn't really figure out why this machine was saying her name and a bunch of french that she didn't understand.
This time she seemed to have grasped the concept that that voice was her kadiatou that she has been missing. She said, "HALLO! HALLO! KADIATOU!"
"Rosaline, ca va?" (Rosaline, how are you?)
"CA VA! TU ME MANQUE!" (good! I miss you!) (prompted by her dad, manimou)
"Rosaline, je vien don le mois de Septembre!" (Rosaline, i come in the month of September!)
"SEPTEMBRE?"
"Oui, septembre." (yes. september.)
And then she said a torrent of things I didn't understand.
Manimou got on the phone and started describing what she was asking me to bring her. poupee plastique. He said it had little feet and hands and face and was plastic. A baby doll!
So she wants a baby doll.
alright. not to hard.
She is so great.

Aleesha, Cam, le chien Milo et moi faire un promenade don le foret de Colorado

M'enseignant quelques gosses mignons de Guinée.

Some photos

Bonjour, sont ici quelques images de ma vie dans la Crested Butte. L'image orageuse a été parti ma porche, je devrai prendre quelques images de la Crested Butte paraît ensoleillée. J'ai ajouté une image ensoleillée, je suis allé sur une randonnée là-bas il y a deux semaines. Beau. Ils les autres je fais quelque poulet de Morrocan et le riz ! C'était la très bonne nourriture ! Riz !

Arriving at the Airport in January 2006

It was hot but not as hot as I expected. A friendly, wealthy, young Guinean took me and a small group of americans under his wing, promising that with him we would not be hassled at the airport. True to his word, he gathered up our passports, in the somewhat stately airport reception room that seemed to send us back in time to when the french last ruled the colony in the 1960's, and flew us through the immigration checkpoint.
Meanwhile, I noticed this tall scragle-toothed military man approaching every white female in the room and coming to me fast. He looked at the girl next to me and with a concentrated look asked, "Kadiatou?" The poor confused and fairly frightened woman said "What?"
"Je m'appele Kadiatou." I said, could this man be looking for me?
The man's face broke with a grin of relief, as he quickly told me in french that he was Tamadu the director of Ballet Saamato and that Manimou was waiting for me outside the airport.
I started bouncing like a kid on a pogo stick and after ten minutes of waiting in a line and a short haggle with the security, me, the american, the rich Guinean, and Tamadu the militare dancing director found our selves in the baggage claim.
I immediately looked toward the exit where already the Guinean airplane passengers were lined up to be searched before they could exit the airport. Behind all that was Manimou, and once he saw me he started waving and bouncing against the security guards that were holding him back.
I ran and bounced my way to him and jumped on him, giving the security people a shock. And because the world is not fair, the color of my skin allowed him to move past the security and into the airport.
It was good, it was worthwhile.

Photos

A woman weaving a rug to sell in the market. Konia Village, N'zerekore, Guinea

Rosaline Nowai Camara looking silly with a plastic bag of cold water, Dabompa, Conakry, Guinea

Manimou Camara with me, Jessica Towns, at the airport, moments before I got on the plane. Conakry, Guinea
Manimou and I at Voile de la Mariee, Kindia Village, Kindia, Guinea

Lilia Camara, a friend from Ballet Saamato, G'bessia City 1, Conakry, Guinea

Courage, Madame Camara, Courage

It sort of amused me and struck me when the old ex-pat french man who owned the hotel where we lived with the Liberian poets and the monkey said, "Courage, Madame Camara, courage." He said this to me as I walked past him offering the usual Bonjour, his hand extended toward me and the gate that led out of his hotel-schoolyard compound. Courage.
"Je trouve mon courage toujour."
But what about? This is a common saying in Guinee. You need to summon up courage to just wake up, or to walk through the monsoon and heat or to survive malaria. People like to talk about limanya, courage.
And now I need my courage to think about my love on the other side the planet, and getting some kind of job.
Sometimes I let myself have daydreams of seeing Manimou, and they are always great as most daydreams are. But I can't let myself go there to often because I don't know when I will see him again. Within the year for sure.
I remember my neighbor in Guinea asking how long it would be and telling her less than a year. Her husband immigrated to Paris and only see's her every 4 or 5 years. Her own daughter, who is 5, lives with her mother in Coyah, an hour and a half from G'bessia city where she lives and she only see's her once a month.
Rosaline, Manimou's five-year-old daughter, keeps asking where I am and when am I coming back. Manimou told her that I went to N'zerekore with his sister and that maybe, if I could, I'll be back in a few months, maybe July. She'll remember and she'll start asking again and she'll wonder why I haven't come. In her sphere of understanding maybe she'll reason that I got sick and had to spend all my money on medicine. None the less, kid's don't like broken promises and she has had enough of those.
Undoubtedly someone will say the word courage to her, she just needs courage.
I suppose that life is fairly simple.

The Sudan, Invisible Children and Oprah

I hope by now you all have heard of these two tragedies that are going on in Eastern Africa. (If you watch Oprah then you have, she can do alot of good that woman!) In Sudan there is a full on genocide happening and as we all know this is not right but our leaders need political support from us in order to do anything about it. You have an opportunity to send an email to President Bush to let him know that you support him in sending aid to Sudan. click here! www.savedarfur.org
As for the Lord's Army which is made up of children that have been kidnapped from their homes and forced to kill, please visit www.invisiblechildren.org

There are so many injustices on the great continent of Africa that being there makes you realize that for all the problem we have in the west (US, Canada, Europe), our problems are minimal and insignificant. We have an obligation to help our family in Africa.

Thanks for reading, Jess

I'm Twenty-five

My birthday was two days ago, April 3. I tried to organize the stuff that lives in my car, what a mess. Then my big sister suprised me by coming over with her kids and a cake they made themselves. "Happy Birthday, cha cha cha!" They were all too cute. Thanks guys.
My family also bought tickets for me to Les Ballets Africans on Saturday, it was awesome and I got to speak french and Susu and see some people I know from Guinee. Thank you to my wonderful family.
I love you guys,
Jessie

Le Grave

I think that's how that's spelled. Le grave. In the end of febuary all commerce in Guinee's capital city, Conakry came to a standstill. At first I thought that Guinees football (soccer) team must be playing a game, because when they play everyone is in front of the telly, the government even turns on electricity to every neighborhood in the day time. But there was no football. And then we heard "pop! pop! pop!" We went home. Manimou told me that it had happened before and that the police were only firing "stuff that makes your face and eyes burn", tear gas. So I stayed at home for a few days, and Manimou only left to try to find rice and sauce to eat.
We didn't know what it was about, no one really did, government workers were demanding higher wages and the taxi drivers were demanding that the government subsidize the price of gas. That or the taxi unions would have to almost double all taxi fares which were already high for your average Guinean.
What happened over the next few days was that everyone walked everywhere. when you looked down the auto route you could see a few cabbies trying to eek a living without results; everyone was walking. It was like having only pedestrian traffic on I-5 in Los Angelas.
Eventually President Lasana Conte gave all goverment workers a raise of $2.50usd a month and relieved gasoline prices and everything went back to what it was before.
One month later I received an email from my sister that explained the cause of the price in gasoline, Shell Oil pulled out of Guinee. My sister new why when no one around me did, in the forest they thought maybe it had something to do with Liberia because many of their issues are inflamed by the situation in Liberia.

So many things happened, my life is good

Well, we are still in love, and now i'm completely smitten with his daughter Rosaline Nowai Camara. I'm a little sad right now to be home and a little at a loss as to where to begin with all this paper work, visas and homeland security.

There are so many things to write that I didn't get to when I was there with the slow internet and screwy french keyboards.

Rosaline and some Grasshoppers

Rosaline Camara, almost 5 about to go to Room. She's standing outside of our house in G'bessia city.
Bon appetit! This is village food, i was offered some but manimou said they were gross, he doesn't even eat them. These old women prepared these and once when they open up the pot on the fire, one came jumping out. she threw him back in a closed the lid. hilarious. i think i would have chucked if i actually ate one.

a letter to Cedar

ahh cedar, travelling to hot hot places makes me miss the spring in washington! on the islands no less and all the odd interactions thats just the odd odd transition people make from season to season. soon all the little greenies will be out and everyone will be smiling and getting it on.I think only some people think im lazy, but i talk about work at home and also the people here see me leave for repetition witht the ballet and also sabars and other events that artists work at. here im an artist and when i dance at an event that earns me a small meal of rice and oil with my friends.i have a friend on an islad here who is french, he came here over a year ago and he works as a fisherman here, he even bought his own pirogue and is fluent in Susu, the local dialect. he jogs the beaches almost everyday and goes swimming and drinks beer and shakes a leg with the locals. he is a local, people refer to him as mon frair my brother. kids in my neighborhood call me tante, auntie and friends refer to me as sister. i think alot of people are guarded at first but once they know you, they let down their barriers, let go of their racism and see you for the human you are. And some people no matter where you are on this earth will never see you like that, even people you think of as friends. There is alot to learn and we dont have the space in one lifetime to take it all in, you have to make choices. peace cedarboo, i love you too,jessica -------------------------------- --- cedar wrote: --------------------------------- Hey Jess, Out in the fields today pulling posts and prunning grapes. the birds surrounded me in springtime song and a woodpecker fooled me with its many voices... those downy's are little rascles. life swings full here. we have plans to make sails with a friend from Adventuress in PT and I am late night working on sponsor letters for our expadition. it's all rather exciting. esspestialy the PT thing, it's going to be fun spending a week there checking out the scene and rolling around in sail cloth. I hope you are dancing and smiling. I miss your playful spirit. not much of it around here these days, mostly akward interactions and much time spent running from one place to the next. Looking at a picture of kids playing soccer in remote Paraguay I got to wondering how strange it would be to travel to that place and try living. would I seem lazy? would I be excepted? what do people think who have never traveled themselves... never had the privlage to? How are you being excepted? what crazy adventures are you in? I often think about traveling but then I also think about all that i don't know about this place. traveling has helped me know more about both the people and the other creatures that live here. maybe not intimately but at least in a general sense. it's late and I love you cedar

Taxis in Conakry

So catching a cab here is a form of high tech hitchhiking. Place your right hand down and shake it means you would like to go straight on the road you are standing on. Hand up and shaking to the right means you want to go right after a bit and shaking your hand left means you would like to go to the left.
You do this shaking until you see a cabbie looking at you and shaking his hand in the same fashion, as he drives by you shout your desired destination and the number of seats you need. He will either shake his head and keep on going or pull over and open the door you should get in. You then walk up to the door and say your price and he agrees or doesn't.
Prices are 700 cents fg in between each MAJOR destination, some places it is 500 cents fg. This is supposed to be all standardized but occationally you get a bad cabbie.
I have been thinking that it might be useful to develope a similar system in Crested Butte. A certain hand waggle for the Mountain, Riverland, CB South, Almont and Gunnison. But then I'm sure most Buttian won't be having the Guinean four people in the back and two in the passenger seat shindig.
This seating arrangment is often unbearably uncomfortable and now that I understand more french I get when the driver I demanding that a large lady confess that she is not actually one place but two and that she should pay for two places beacause it is unfair for her to insist on four people in the back because that is no good with her there. She of course is adamant that she is indeed only one lady and will therefore only be paying for one place. After she makes her exit everyone sighs with relief and rehashes how she was really two places.
This reminds me that everyday Guinean conversation can be hilarious. For instance, "Look at those children running in the night like that, they will fall on their faces and then they will cry for their mothers. They should not run like that at night it is not good." Many things here are not good, sitting with your head in your hand is not good. Not eating a ton of rice is not good. Drinking water in sips is not good.
But there are so many things that are good here. I'll tell more later

The Kids, the Monkey and the Liberians

I am now living in a room that shares a courtyard with a school for youngsters, a monkey that is "bandy", and some Liberian refugees who drink gin at 9am.
The children are cute, I can hear them all morning yelling "madame! madame!" because they all know the answer and want to be picked. How the teacher handles all 40 of those 4 to 6 year olds I have no idea.
The monkey, or Booboo, I feel a little sorry for, he's all tied up and cries all the time at night. I give him bread and bananas, although i make Manamou hand the items to him as I am actually afraid to get to close. As Dayna knows and those of you who heard about the bad bad monkey in Agra, india can testify, I am not a monkey fan.
The Liberian are nice, they always ask me how I am and invite me to eat and drink gin if they have any to offer. I of course don't drink the gin but sometimes I'll sit and listen to them. It is sad to hear them talk about wanting to go home but they can't because home has nothing for them. One woman told me, "Before, I lived in Senegal and it is better their because the food is cheap. I came to Conakry because it is closer to home and Guinee is good because their is the freedom to walk around but food here is very expensive, so it's hard because we don't always eat. I want to go home and try to find some of my family but it is worse there, there is no food, no work, and nothing for me. Here, I must try to find a way to make money so that when I go home I might have something and make myself better. I would like to go to school, to make myself better but I don't think it possible. Someday, maybe I will go all the way home to America, that is where we Liberians are coming from before, and maybe I will be able to make money and send it to my family and we will all be better."

African Juicebox

An african juicebox may mystify you at first glance, what are those white orbs that woman's selling? They are carefully stacked in groups of three and have artistic swirls and stripes. On further investgation I see that the madame is peeling mid-size green oranges and the white orbs are her finished product, the african juicebox.
So I fork over 500 cents FG (about 12.5 cents usd) and take off down the road with three oranges, handing one to Manamou to see how you go about this juicebox business. Bite off one end, squish and suck. This of course, sounds far easier than it is in actuality.
But after some practice I have become quite adept.
Really, you should all give this a try, very refreshing.

So I made it! I'm in Guinee!

There is nothing like a reception that involves a lot of dancing and drumming.
Right now I am living in a room that shares a courtyard with an elementary school. In the morning they sing the national anthem and put the flag up and you can here them singing their lessons. Very cute. Our place also has a guardian who is an older man who watches over the property all day to stop robbery and vandalism. He is also very nice and always says "Bonjour Madame, Ca va?"
We have been going to alot of Sabars and doundounba's. I think I prefer the sabar although the dance is way to fast for me but it is much more like dancing at a club than the doundouba.
The other day I danced at a sabar with some local clowns which was pretty funny and gave everyone a good laugh.
Things are going well.

Tired but happy

It's the final push here in Issaquah before I board the plane tomorrow morning. I'm so tired but as my sister says, you'll get there and everything will slooooooooow down a whole bunch. maybe, you never know. I'll report back soon.