The routine...

I'm sitting in a hotel in Paris, not far from Montmarte and Sacre Coeur, thinking that I should finally write a little bit about my routine.  I found myself telling someone the other day that my life was rather mundane, same old same old.... to which the person raised their eyebrows.  The guy selling tickets in the train station asked me this morning if I was a war correspondant!  So I guess, even though I have got into a bit of a routine, life's still not exactly boring.

I'm now doing my 8th trip into Guinea in what has been nearly a year.  Normally I have a few drinks with friends in Mossley on the Saturday night, then get up early on Sunday and get a lift to the Manchester airport. Cruise through to the lounge with maximum efficiency, hop on the plane, get off in Paris, cruise through to the next lounge, say hi to the other people heading back in (there's always someone I know) then sit back and relax for about 6 hours.  Some people complain about Air France; personnally I have a great time.  People come with drinks, then food, then more drinks... I watch a French movie with a nice glass of cognac while trying to remember how to speak the language, all most relaxing.

At Conakry I step off into the wave of humid heat and lap it up.  It's just like home (Brisbane I mean, not Mossley obviously!).  I get my bag (hopefully!), say hi to the Rio Tinto greeter and we all get on the bus to the hotel, before going off to work the next day.  (There will be a few changes now that the Air France schedule has changed a bit, but nothing much).

On the way home it's the trip to the airport, a glass of baileys in the lounge (free), onto the plane, try to stay awake for the food then fast asleep overnight until Paris.  Then it's the reverse, into the lounge at Paris, try and find that week's Economist, grab a perrier, sit down, get up, go get the plane to Manchester, fall sound asleep again, off the plane, go through the non-EU passport line all by myself (yay), grab my bag (hopefully!) and catch the three trains home, trying to avoid the junk food options at Manchester Piccadilly train station.

Back in Mossley I check my mail, avoid doing housework, go for a few walks in the hills, spend a few afternoons in the pub, do never as many things as I planned, head into Manchester for a day's shopping to stock up on creams and other things from Boots, have my hair cut, pick up a few other necessities and go to my favourite restaurant for lunch... before doing it all over again!

Conakry

Day out on Roume

As predicted, I ended up staying a full 5 weeks in Conakry, which is the longest I’d ever stayed there. Normally I come in on the plane from Paris, go to the hotel late that night then head to the office and from there back to the airport to go out to Canga. So apart from the time in 2009 when I came in as a consultant to look at the electricity situation here (the same thing that I did this time) and once when there was a problem with the plane, I’d never spent more than a night here.

Fairly upmarket local restaurant

So this has been really interesting. Now at least I understand French better, and more particularly the Guinean accent, so I can get along quite well on the street by myself. I’ve now been out to the famous MLS nightclub (it was actually pretty good), several restaurants, got out to the islands and even right out of Conakry.

I’ve definitely been living in England for too long, because these villas seemed absolutely HUGE to me, but when I thought about it, they weren’t that different to many houses in Australia.)



President Alpha Condé's house

I managed to have a few days off, and so one colleague who was up at Canga for the week very kindly lent me his house (with its pool). That was lovely and relaxing. I went to a few local places for lunch and dinner – eg 10,000 Guinean francs (€1) for a plate of gras riz (fat rice - go figure...) with fish or some local chicken (the very much not battery farmed variety, ie scrawny with masses of taste) and spent plenty of time in the pool of course.



I also managed to sneak in a photo of the house next door.... where the president of the republic of Guinea just happens to live! He hasn’t moved into the Presidential Palace yet. Needless to say getting down the street meant talking nicely to the military guards. The Rio Tinto villas themselves all have 24 hour guards as well.

Intercon security guard at a colleague's villa, happy to pose

Then it was back to the hotel to try and arrange the logistics to get me to the islands for the weekend – less relaxing. Because this isn’t the best regulated traffic in the world, Rio Tinto has a rule that expats may not drive themselves but must only travel in a Rio car with a Rio driver. All very well and good if you know the trick to always have a Rio car and a Rio driver at your fingertips. I haven’t worked that one out yet – for me it consists of begging the resident employees for their personal drivers.



Ile de Kassa



In the end however I managed it and took a small boat (pirogue) out to the islands. My second trip – I’d gone out for a day trip my first weekend. This time however I went to a different island, Kassa, and stayed overnight in a nice little chalet. Lots of swimming, reading, eating, sleeping... you get the idea.

Unfortunately I didn’t take many photos in Conakry. During the military junta government it could be a bit dicey, especially if you accidentally captured a red beret in your photo, so I’ve never got into the habit of taking a camera around. I did take lots of photos of power stations, including the hydro stations some 300 km out of Conakry that I got to visit on a little adventure (with a night’s stopover in the best hotel in Conakry, the hotel in Kindia owned by the family of my boss who were absolutely lovely) which I think won’t be of great interest to most people.



Residents of the Matoto substation



Still, I did particularly like the goats amongst the transformers in the switchyard at Matoto....