Greetings from Guinea! I have officially been living in this
country for over a week now and I wanted to take a minute or two to give a
little orientation to this country because it’s a pretty fascinating place!
Check it out!
1.
Guinea is about the size of California in land
mass.
2.
This is our (Mercy Ships) 4th visit to the country
of Guinea.
3.
The first democratic election in Guinea was held in 2010!
That was only eight years ago!
4.
I’m living in Conakry, which is the capitol of
Guinea. In fact, around the world, Guinea is often referred to as “Guinea-Conakry”
so as not be confused with the countries of Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea,
and Papua New Guinea!
5.
88.1% of Guinean people are Islamic, with 5%
who profess to be Christian and the rest practice animism. Islam had been
practiced in Guinea for the last 800 years!
6.
Of the 48 people groups who reside in Guinea, 30
of them (82.5%) are unreached people groups, meaning they have never heard
about Jesus! Pray! Pray! Pray! What a mission field!
7.
It’s completely normal to see women walking down
the street holding hands with other women, and men holding hands with other
men, but not as culturally appropriate to see a man and woman holding hands in
public.
8.
Guinean people are extremely friendly and
hospitable, however, we ladies on the ship have been told to politely refuse
marriage proposals. We even have an older man onboard who has told us all that
he will stand in the position of our father because it is much less offensive
to tell the man proposing that he must speak to our father, and then Steve (our
ship dad) will politely refuse him!
9.
You may NOT use your left hand to eat with or
shake someone else’s hand ever (too bad for left handed people). This is true
of lots of countries around the world, mostly Muslim countries, because the left
hand is reserved for bodily hygiene and is considered unclean.
10. The
official language of Guinea is French, however there are lots of tribal
languages in the country as well. The most common tribal language we will hear
in Conakry is called “Susu” which is pronounced “sue-sue”). We’ve had a few
Susu lessons and our instructor had an awesome way to help us remember how to
say common phrases! He put up pictures to help us remember each word of the
phrase…see if you can figure some of these out?!?
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11. The
money here is called Guinean Francs and
$1.00 is equal to 10,000 Francs!!! And the biggest bill is a 20,000! That means
the biggest bill is equal to $2.00 so when you go get money out of the crew
bank, you feel veeeerrrrrryyyyy wealthy with your pile of bills that won’t even
fit into your wallet!
12. There
are quite a few Islands surrounding Conakry (our port is actually on an island
connected to the mainland by a bridge). One of the Islands nearby is called
Roume Island and it is the very island that the book, Treasure Island, was
written about!!! Yesterday I got to go to the real Treasure Island and you can
bet I dug for buried treasure!!!
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