Guinea Part 1 - 7 Dec 07 to 27 Dec 07

My first stint in the country of Guinea was from December 7th-December 27th, 2007. I arrived into the Gbessia airport at 3am, in the middle of the night. After an amazingly long day all over the town and attending a couple of neighborhood weddings with drumming and dancing, I settled in at the house of my teacher Fara Tolno's family, in Gbessia.

I spent the next week exploring the city of Conakry and studying doundoun music with Fara's brothers and former teachers. Following are a few pictures of the city of Conakry and of my time studying drumming here.

This is Naby, a good friend of Facinet Bangoura, the Balafon player I play with in the US. They are from the same village in Guinea. Naby plays often with the brothers of my teacher, Fara, at weddings all over Conakry. For those of you not familiar, the balafon is the name of the instrument he is playing here. It is an ancient West African instrument as well as a modern one.

This is my classroom in Conakry. I spent a week intensively studying doundoun rhythms with Fara's brothers and his former teacher, Papa Zito.

Here are Scott and Kellie visiting Fara's family's house. Sekou, Fara's brother, was inspired to photograph the Fotes (white people) eating traditionally. Being sly, he also took a video of us eating without our knowing it.

Going out on the town in Conakry.

Here is a band playing at a wedding in Conakry. There are beaucoup weddings in the city all the time, especially on the weekends. The local professional musicians gig primarily (that I have observed) at the weddings. The styles range from traditional drumming to modern ensembles incorporating traditional instruments and always feature earsplitting distortion through cranked up amplifiers, griot singing through hand-held megaphones and awesome drumming. Generally, a good time is had by all.

Here is the beach in Conakry. Yes, that is 6 inches of trash. Although tempting, I did not go for a swim here.

Hanging out "en ville" (downtown). This guy is putting a new skin on a djembe.

After I left Conakry, I headed up country to attend the Fete de Tabaski in the small village where Mamady Keita was born. Mamady Keita is probably Guinea's most well-known djembefola and has founded schools all over the world. He was taking an international group of his students (about 20) back to his village to play during the fete and show people back home how much their music means to people all over the world. I was fortunate enough to know a couple of the people who were filming this excursion for Mamady, and got the invite to attend the fete as well. As the village is quite far off the beaten track, I had to do a bit of exploring to find my way there. I started off by heading to the town of Siguiri, which is the last major town in Guinea before Mali.

The picture below is of a Bolon player I met in Siguiri, who came to hang out with me and play some. I would characterize the Bolon kind of like the stand-up bass. However, the playing style includes quite a bit of drumming on the resonating gourd inbetween plucking the strings so the sound is really much different.

Here is the station in Siguiri where I went to research the route to Mamady Keita's village. Noone knew exactly how to get there but everyone knew what direction it was in. So, I got on a motorbike and about an hour later I was standing on the banks of the Niger River.

Here I am standing in the Niger. After the motorbike dropped me off, he headed back to Siguiri and I walked across the first half of the river, which was about waist-deep. The man crossing with me took this picture for me. Unfortunately, my camera got wet somehow and stopped working for one week. The fact that it started working again after that and has been fine ever since is an amazing miracle that I am very thankful for. However, I did not take any pictures of my time in Balandougou myself. Fortunately, a friend who was there was able to send me a few photos via email for my blog (see below). Thanks very much Scott!!

Here is a shot of the village of Balandougou, situated in northeastern Guinea very close to the Malian border. After crossing the Niger and finding another motorbike ride, we made it here in another 2 hours, cruising through open fields and bush surrounded by rolling hills. The countryside here is very beautiful.

The Fete de Tabaski is a big party held a couple months after the end of Ramadan. The tradition as Mamady Keita explained it was for the drummers of the village to go around early in the morning just before sunrise and drum the village awake, so that is what he had his students do. I came along and got to play for a little bit.

During the time Mamady's students were there, they went from village to village performing a drumming set Mamady had choreographed. The last couple days, including the day of the fete, the performances took place in Balandougou itself. There were also many local musicians and dancers who came to perform and present. There is a big, open field where everything took place and these boys took advantage of this tree to get a better view.

I made friends with two local boys, Toumani and Keita, who hung out with me, taught me some Malinke and showed me around the village. Here is me with my friend Toumani at the Fete de Tabaski.

My next stop was the town of Kankan. In order to reach Kankan from Balandougou, Mamady's village, I returned again via motorbike along a different route straight south until the main road between Kankan and Mandiana. I say main road because it actually had vehicle traffic on it as opposed to only motorbikes. On the way back to Kankan, I had one of the most exciting/thrilling/dusty/harrowing transport rides in all my journeys in Africa, including controlled slides all over the road, hitting potholes at 30 mph, and frequent stops to let the engine cool so it wouldn't overheat and strand us there. When we arrived in Kankan, covered completely with about an inch of red dust, which had been constantly pouring in the window while we drove, the conductor turned to me and smiled and said "Welcome to Africa".

I came to Kankan to visit a friend named Melinda who is serving in the Peace Corps. Melinda spent her first two years in a small village called Nyandankoro, halfway between Siguiri and Kankan, which I was to visit later. Now in her 3rd year, she is working with various organizations in the bigger university town of Kankan. I followed her around and saw some of the work that she does. One day, we visited a center she works with that helps displaced street children, trying to rehabilitate them so that they can reintegrate back into their families or find work. Another day, we visited a decrepit building the local community hopes to turn into a youth center. It was very interesting and rewarding to revisit the Peace Corps experience and see everything Melinda was involved in, as well as having some great insightful conversations. Thanks Melinda for the hospitality.

Here is a picture of the market in Kankan.

One day, I borrowed a bicycle from Melinda and headed out into the countryside for a little while. I found this beautiful baobab tree there.

Later that same day, Melinda and I were walking down the street when we encountered this wedding in full swing. I talked to the drummers and they invited me to play with them so I played accompaniment djembe for the entire ceremony, for about 2 hours. Afterwards, they even paid me!!

People often put small tips on the musicians' bodies or in their clothes or instruments during weddings here. Look in the front of my shirt.

After a great first foray into Guinea, and with the promise of a later return, I left on December 27th 2007 to head up to Mali and meet my teacher Abdoul Doumbia there. The road is mostly paved and quite good but the last few miles into Bamako are all dirt and it was a bit sketchy cruising along at high speed and low visibility, although nothing compared to my ride on the Kankan-Mandiana road. My time in Mali is represented in another blog posting.