To Guinea, With Love.

It's just a place. Just a goddamned fucking no-name little place in the middle of nowhere. Guinea. Republic of. Capital, Conakry. Nowhere in Africa.

No registered address on the radar of the American press. One of the most corrupt and poverty-stricken countries in Africa. Who the fuck cares? Aside from perhaps conspiracy theorists who may now be suffering from the aluminum shortage in light of the general strike currently underway there. I suppose the cost of coca-cola might be hit by the unrest. But we're all trying to quit that shit anyway, aren't we?

It's at least gotten "honorable mention" in the European press. taz. Der Standard. And what does ".za" stand for, anyway, Zaire? But what do we Americans care, really? What's a little aluminum to us? Bauxite? Heck, that Amadou Diallo guy the NYC cops riddled with bullets: 41 rounds, 19 of which hit him-great stuff for CourtTV I guess. Reuters reports:

Guinean police and soldiers clamped a security cordon around central Conakry and other towns on Tuesday to try to stifle violent protests triggered by a general strike in which more than 30 people have been killed.

At least 17 people were shot dead in the West African country's capital on Monday when security forces fired on protesters in the deadliest day so far of the two-week-old strike by unions aimed at ousting President Lansana Conte.

The stoppage begun on Jan. 10 has halted bauxite shipments by the world's biggest exporter of the ore from which aluminium is extracted.

Despite these mineral riches most of the 10 million population of the former French colony, deemed by Transparency International to be the most corrupt country in Africa, live in poverty.

Security forces on Tuesday guarded the strategic 8th of November highway bridge leading into central Conakry.

Residents said police and soldiers were carrying out house-to-house searches looking for protest leaders.

"Last night I did not sleep at my place. The presidential guard were looking for me," said a youth association leader in the Kaloum neighbourhood, who asked not to be named.

But police said the leaders of the two main unions organising the strike, who were detained on Monday with dozens of other people, had been released on Conte's orders.

The general strike exploded into violence after the president, a reclusive diabetic in his 70s whom strike leaders say is unfit to rule, refused to accede to their demands that he step aside in favour of a consensus unity government.

Six people were also killed in disturbances in eastern Guinea on Monday. This, combined with at least eight strike-related deaths reported previously, brought the accumulated death toll to more than 30.

At least 150 people were injured.

Doctors at Conakry's Donka Hospital said they were overwhelmed by the number of gunshot victims and were running out of medicines. Some patients were being operated on in corridors, without anaesthetic, they said.

So I don't know what most Americans think when they hear the word Guinea. Hamster cages and a place where zebras and elephants roam? In the best case scenario, Virginia Woolf, I suppose. At any rate, it's probably enough to give me the heebie jeebies, so I'd rather not think about it. Not now.

Now, the only thing on my mind are memories of is that place, Guinea. Conakry. Kouroussa. Kankan. To me, it's not just some faraway place, one so far off the radar for the American people and the American press it doesn't even exist. And what's a death toll of plus-or-minus 30 after all? 150 injured? BFD.

Problem is, for me, Guinea's more than just a place. It's a lifetime of memories, a space peopled by faces. Faces with names. Families. Stories. People who--despite their poverty, the dire circumstances of their births, their deaths and their lives--have been my primary source of inspiration, of courage, of temerity and toughness for the past twenty years of my life. If they can do it--live, love, dance, drum, dream--on those mean streets of Conakry, Kouroussa, Kankan, Coyah, then goddammit, quit yer fuckin' whining! Get up and dance. And when you bite the dust, get up and do it again.

So I've got these images running through my mind like tickertape in the absence of one single word about the unrest, the general strike, the thirty dead (by official count-my inbox is telling a different story), the 150 wounded. The spirit of revolution and the fortitude it takes to overthrow an unjust regime. And here we sit. World's most famous blathering baboon gives a speech, and even before the first commercial break, the blogs are abuzz. Blatherfuckingblahblahblah.

Here at the Hobbithole, tears stream down my face. I wonder. I worry. I fret.

Someone on this blog once said something very smart, I don't remember who it was: about how having one person to bear witness can make all the difference. In the twenty years that I have spent "bearing witness" to the beauty of these people's lives--photographing, videotaping, telling their stories, teaching their tales--I have hoped that this very small act of bearing witness might just be enough to help someone somewhere, in this place or that.

I don't know what else I can do today but tell the tales. In snippets, fragments, bits and pieces. Snapshots.

These children.

I photographed them in 1988. I returned, in the year 2000 to find them. These children. All grown up now. And to give them these photographs. Funny how that is. Things most of us take for granted here. Childhood photographs. Memories. Oh, how their eyes lit up. The excitement. The milling around. The awe. Oh how the whole village joined in the search to find the children, grown now, photographed here. Smiling for the camera. Oh what joy, the tears it brought to my eyes. This simple gift. An 8 by 10 color glossy. Laminated. To shield against the dust.

There's Bijou.

Famoudou's daughter. Child of his second wife. Adama. Thank god N'adama lived long enough to receive the picture when I returned in 2000. She was dead by the time I came back a year later.

There's Billy Nankouma, and is that Djiarra I see? Djiaka, in the background. We filmed and photographed her 16th birthday party a few years back. She wants to go to school to become a computer programmer, but I suppose the schools are closed today.

Yeah, that's a goat's head they're eating. It's a delicacy. We were celebrating the New Year. Bon annee. Sali ma fo. On New Year's Day in Conakry if someone says "sali ma fo" and holds out his hand, that means he is a person in need, and if you don't give him a Guinea (Franc), well, then, I guess you're a schmuck.

There she is again, Djiaka.

Yeah, with her mom. Nanyuma. Famoudou's first wife.

Famoudou, you say? Who's Famoudou?

The legendary. There, there he is, way back in his younger days. 1988, I believe.

Ja. Famoudou. It was great while it lasted. It was love while it lasted. There are few regrets.

Legends are few and far between. Yes, we know. Here's another one though.

Fadouba. Yes, that's Fadouba Olare.

There he is again.

There are no words to describe the events of that day. But you can buy the CD (Museum Collection, Berlin, 1991), I suppose, and try to imagine.

Who'd a thunk one human being could jump this high!

You had to be there. Really.

There's that old baobab tree:

It's gone now. Poof! Killed by the ravages of the predatory capitalist onslaught. Oh, but back then, how it welcomed--indeed, beckoned--us home: like a beacon, it could be seen for miles around. Nobody needed a map. The tree told the way.

Oh and that cowhide I was talking about the other day.

There it is.

There's Djiaka, and Billy and Bijou. Fode, too. I swear to god that kid hasn't aged a day. He still looks the same as he did then.

See? There he is. Center stage at a concert in Loshausen, Germany, just this last year.

One helluva drummer, that kid. And one helluva Mensch.

And the women. Oh the women. And how they can sing.

And dance.

And drum.

(Even though people in America--red, white and black to a man--like to tell them "they're not allowed!")

The women. Yes, the women.

Oh, the women of Guinea, you'll never hear them whine. All they can do is sing. And dance. And drum. And work their asses off, without so much as one "oh woe is me, wo is mine."

Have I ever told you about Siribe? Siribe, the albino. You know what they say about albinos in Africa: they aren't supposed to live very long. It's the sun. Their skin just can't take it.

Can you imagine what courage it took for Siribe to spend those nine long months wondering if her child, too, would inherit this gene, share her same fate, of a short-lived life?

Here she is. About 7 months along.

I brought her one of those funky umbrella hats folks round here wear to the Bud Billiken parade.

Oh what great joy! Oh what great fun! No one down there had ever seen such a sight!

(The baby, btw, was born healthy and chock full of melanin!)

Good god, those were the days!

Indeed, those were the days:

`Course it wasn't always a rose garden, a day in the sun, everybody loves a parade.

You may notice that those drummers look a little downhearted, somewhat sad. Yeah, well that's because we'd just gotten news that one of their sons had drown in a well. Bad shit happens to good people, you know?

Best you can do some days is to sprinkle a handful of water on the ground:

Then get back to the dance.

There's Sidiki, the cora player.

He's since gone to the grave.

I sang him a song to send him on his way.

Do you think maybe he heard?

There's Nansedy and Sayon. In the village. At Karem. End of Ramadan.

Oh, the tales I could tell of that little trip.

But you shoulda seen the look on those guys faces when we presented them those t-shirts-with that pic on the front, and this one on the back:

And when we told them: "Hey, we'd like to invite you to Chicago, whatdaya think about that?"

And they said: "OK, boys, let's ROLL!"

But we warned them: "Hey, man, it's fucking COLD in Chicago, in November, you know."

And their answer: "Oh, no problem, we have this shea butter we rub on our skins to stave off the cold!"

Oh, how we rolled our eyes and laughed. (They're skinny little guys, I loaned them a coupla down coats).

But, man it was fun!

And if I were a little better organized here, I'd bore you with stories of how they reacted to their first sight of snow.

For now, all I have to say is we've gotta helluva lot to learn from these folks-protesting now, in Guinea, putting their lives on the line. Raising the roof.

You say you want a revolution?

Well you know...we all want to change the world.

Maybe we should start taking our cues from folks in the third world on this one, eh?

Anyway. Can't say I'm not worried anymore, but this diary was one way to let off steam about it.

Prayers and Godspeed to the People of Guinea.

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