12/29/2023 Bikepacking Guinea Day 143 : Charles Alpha

by Brian · Published December 29, 2023 · Updated March 3, 2024

“The American people, maybe they think some people in Africa is bad. But you see. The people here is good, no? They want to help you, right?”

I’d been taking to Charles Alpha for a while. Yeah, that’s his real name. I said, “I don’t believe Americans think Africans are bad… I believe that Americans just don’t think much about Africa.”

In my case, that was true; just in planning this trip, I learned how to locate several countries on a skull shaped continent that I had seen on a map, but didn’t know how to place for 47 years.

“It’s too bad your wife couldn’t come to Africa. Seeing is believing,” he continued.

I gave Charles a high-five on that one. I liked this guy a lot, and his English was clear and sagacious.

Charles works as a moto-taxi. “It is hard right now. There isn’t much fuel,” he echoed, like I heard so much the last few days. “We want to work, but the work is hard to find.”

I nodded in agreement. As we wrapped up a long conversation, he also helped translate for a cyclist named Abdoul who invited me to the local group ride tomorrow.

“I am sorry for wasting your time,” he said, “I know that in America, time is money. Thank you for your time.”

“Thank you for YOUR time, Charles. Sincerely!” I meant it. This guy was smart and funny.

***********

You know, since I come from the United States.. maybe I can help people with jobs here, using the American Method as an example.

Step 1: Instead of wanting to work, I think you need to not want to work. After the pandemic, we had a big problem with people not wanting to work, so the employers had to start paying more money to get people to come work. Tell your boss you don’t want work anymore, that way, they will have to pay you more.

Step 2: Also, you need to get your immigration under control here. You probably have people sneaking into Guinea at those border posts in the bush. Those guards are too friendly, making jokes and saying they are going to sneak into the US. They need to be more strict to keep out all those people who are coming in and stealing your jobs.

Another thing that worked for the USA is this campaign called “Black Lives Matter.” A lot of people in the US somehow needed to be told that. Here in Africa, almost everyone I see is black, so a campaign like that would really go a long way!

Finally… and this one is some secret sauce… next time you get some Touba Coffee and it is too hot, see if you can burn your mouth on it. I read about this guy at McDonalds….

Ok, you know I just clowning, dogg…

Photos:

Guinea has captivated me. I want to stay longer. Tomorrow, I plan to ride with the local cycling club. My time in Africa is limited by my medicine (diabetes and malaria pills), wanting to be with Janet, and by the imminent rainy season, otherwise, I could see myself spending quite a bit more time here. —

People write me personally and say that I must be lonely. Africa is the wrong place to go if you’re trying to be lonely! I miss Janet, but after a full day of anything but loneliness, I like to retreat to my tent to process. —

This is Mr. Alpha. After I took the photo, he asked, “When you look at this photo, will you remember me in this ugly place?” I told him all about the journal and how I take notes and try to write everyone’s name down. He liked that. Every day I meet so many friendly people, they don’t all make it into the blog. My biggest regret on this trip is not being fluent in French. That would have really opened up broader conversations with people. —

As I came into Labe, I could see huge queues for gasoline wrapping around blocks and squares. Also, today I did some fact-checking at stores and pharmacies. A liter of fuel is 12,000 GNF, which works out to $5.33 per gallon. The 40,000 I told you yesterday was the black-market price out in the boondocks. The reason for the long lines is that they are limiting how much you can buy. You’re not allowed to fill extra tanks, so in the black market, people buy their share and fill the tank, and then siphon it out into bottles to sell at a profit to people who don’t want to wait in line. Time is money (not just for Americans), but if you have more time than money, your job could be a line-waiter. —

Electricity! Ok, so I found a hotel with electricity. The reviews said no electricity, but it is on as I type this. It has already gone off 4 times since I’ve been here, though. I took this photo of the guys watching the TV at the shopping mall. This mall looks like it may have been nice at one point… but there is only one store (this one) left in the mall where I got a 3rd cache battery. —

This is a the chaos of the afternoon. I went back when it cooled off and there were 3x the number of people! I had to navigate through crowds to try and find food. Canned veggies are $5 a can, so I decided to get more locally affordable foods: bananas, green oranges, bread, candy, and hard boiled eggs (I love that they have these on the street!). I was unable to find an actual supermarket. Also, I just paid asking price, but I lingered to watch what locals paid, and it seemed to be 75% of what I paid. It doesn’t matter, though, because the prices are reasonable for these types of things.

This is Abdoul. He rode from here to Morocco on 2018 with a German.. who paid for his return ticket on an airplane. He’s never been to school, but he managed to learn French in the street. He had an aluminum road bike with completely frayed tires and a cracked top tube. We’re going on a club ride tomorrow. Excited to try and learn more about his Morocco trip…. The two phones; one is mine as he is copying down my WhatsApp. 🇬🇳 🇲🇦

I waited my turn to get bread. The women would grab a loaf, squeeze it, inspect top and bottom, put it back and repeat with another loaf. Basically, their hands were on many of the loaves. I was an easy customer; just give me the first one and I’ll take it; they all look the same to me! 🥖

Running out of time. Everything takes so much time here. You have to go to one lady to buy oranges, another for eggs, another for bananas… each transaction, you have to suck your belly in to avoid getting run over by a motorcycle. Then, you have to deal with the infernal cash problem. The absolute largest bill you can get is worth $2.33. So you need to lay out a big wad of cash for a hotel.. and you probably don’t have the big bills either - which means 4 pockets full of cash to get a hotel room. The smallest bill, which I have too many of, is worth $0.05 USD. Things are different here.

I got a 10,000 mAH battery pack, so now I have a total of 25,000 mAH. I use 5k per day for the GPS units, phone, and light. Between those packs and having a fully charged spare phone, I think I can stay away from cities for 5 days at a time. After searching long and hard for food in the city, I realized that it’s all the same stuff as what I can get from women sitting on the side of the road (bananas, oranges, bread, hard boiled eggs, potatoes, onions)… so why bother going to a crowded city? I must add here that the people of Guinea are different than Senegal (at least for the four days since the border). So far, no begging. Like none. Friendly, but a little more shy people. I still get some cat calls, which I just ignore. —

I haven’t been able to use WhatsApp, and finally yesterday, some kids explained that I need to use a VPN. DoH! Smart kids. But I think my VPN connections are all blocked too. There are probably some IPs that can make it out. I can’t use Facebook either. You can upload photos to Strava, but there must be a different URL for Strava video uploads because that is blocked too! I have been relying heavily on WhatsApp, so this is a big hit to my communication abilities. If I connect using GoogleFi, I can bypass the blocking, so I’m constantly messing around with TOR, onion browser, VPN, and Google Fi. Really learning some secrets of navigating around governments. —

Every day in Africa, I add 5 or so new contacts to my WhatsApp. I like it, because a few have turned out to be awesome, genuine people - such as Mohammed of Boumia (first week in Morocco). But almost everyone else eventually asks me for a job in America. This one is particularly fun; job spelt “dgoob”. The take home message, though: people here want to work. This guy was actually an immigrant from Burkina Faso. He was working on the roads in Senegal. Here is what the internet says about Burkina Faso: “Burkina Faso is currently 2 on the Global Terrorism Index of 2023. According to the 2023 Global Terrorism Index, there is a 50% increase in deaths due to terrorism in Burkina Faso.” 🇧🇫

Strava Comments:

Mark G.

Labe seems like quite the active town. I am very much looking forward to reading about the group ride.

Martin G.

Excellent take on our recent employment culture and l too look forward to the group ride.

Jonathan ∑.

I believe a lot of Americans think Africa is a country.

Santosh M.

Glad you have the internet to post to Strava.

terri W.

So interesting to read about your daily Interactions. Living vicariously through your blog which is my new daily reading series 😊. Happy to hear the gas prices in the city aren’t as bad as the black market. Sort of reminds me of the oil embargo of 1973. Mob owned gas stations on the east coast were open every day, raking in $$$ but every other upstanding station was on alternate days. Food offerings are simple there but adequate and not unlike most travel except for not having restaurants. I agree with Jonathan ∑piros that probably many if not most Americans think Africa is one country. Sarah Palin once referred to Africa as a country and she was running for VP 😂. No matter where you are life is greener elsewhere although life does seem challenging for every day people in all of the countries. Safe travels! Sounds like you’re set with charging power now.

Ann L.

It’s interesting they have actual organized group rides there. Just seems like that won’t be a thing. I guess it’s word of mouth and the routes are just known. Will be curious what you tell us about it.

Henric M.

As an avid cycle tourer I’ve done my share of developing low income countries. I’ve never really felt unsafe in any of them. But even with that experience I’ve avoided Africa because of this perception of lawlessness and rampant violence…much of that created by watching too much CNN BBC etc. Thanks Brian for taking the time to write about your personal interactions with lots of good people…stuff that never gets on the news.

Dean G.

Had me going for a bit there......

Janet W.

I’ll bet you enjoyed the group ride and heard more stories about life in Labe. Having enough work would be best, but spending time on your bike with the ‘new guy’ is a close second - or do both!

Paula G.

I would like to know what your blood pressure was as you were navigating the busy city. Your ability to adapt to the culture differences, money differences, and wifi (or lack thereof) differences amazes me. When you get home, you may be looking for things to figure out.

Brian L.

Henric Meldgard - thanks for your message. For complete transparency, your perception is partially correct. I’m carefully threading the needle between “bad areas”. I’ve seen how regional behavior can be.. and I think it is the same for violence. Parts of nearby Mali and Burkina Faso have terrorist activity - that is even spreading to neighboring countries. The North of Togo and Benin might be affected, which is changing my itinerary. Also, Mauritania was nice, but if I went any further East, there are problems and risks of kidnappings. South Sudan, and several other countries have violence and security risks as well. It’s not all peaches and pie. Sometimes it seems like people who live near (or have lived through) these types of issues are especially happy when things are “better.” Maybe that is because they know how bad things can ACTUALLY be.