Riot gear to jubilation

Bizarre day yesterday, to say the least. Had to close the school down.

The results of the elections were supposed to be announced Sunday but, Guinea being Guinea, they weren’t. The election results had initially been due last Wednesday but the head of the Independent National Electoral Commission said he was delaying them to give time to consider election complaints that had been posed by both sides. Since the elections on November 7th, people have been getting more and more impatient and frustrated with the delay of the results. The more the week progressed, the more rampant the rumors of anticipated violence became. Naturally, the accompanying angst caused by these rumors could be felt everywhere in Conakry.

Democratic elections are a first for Guinea and people just can’t seem to wrap their heads around the idea that someone will win, and subsequently, someone will lose. The results are still not out, and already both parties are contesting the results, saying that there was massive fraud committed by the opposing parties. People are scared, and have reason to be, considering the history of political turmoil they’ve been through in the past 52 years. However, and hats off to them, people are extremely hopeful that this democratic transition from the military junta that took power in 2008 would take place peacefully, and also very hopeful that the process will ultimately end in electing a government that will represent the majority of the people.

On Sunday night, I got a few calls from parents as well as teachers inquiring if the school would be open Monday morning, considering that the previsionary results of the elections would be announced at noon Monday. I phoned the regional security officer at the US Embassy for consultation. Dave mentioned that it had been a quiet day and that he didn’t really see any reason why we couldn’t open. Slept soundly, phone close to me on my side bed table.

The following morning, I got a few more calls from parents inquiring if the school was open. I let them know that yes, in my opinion, it was safe to venture out, but if they had the slightest doubt that their children would be safe and put in harms way by letting them travel to school, as parents, they could (and should) make the decision to keep them home despite the fact that the school was open.

The trip to school was uneventful, almost unusually quiet with the usual number of goats grazing and men urinating along side the roads. Most shops were closed, public schools were closed until next Monday, people were staying home. According to Bivan our driver, people were scared. Scared of what? I ask, just to make small talk. Scared of the reaction of some people when the results are announced, he says. Good old Bivan, always on top of things.

Got to school and the first person I met was our business manager, who’s usually cool about these things. She tells me that she was at school to make sure the support staff got paid but that she intended on leaving as soon as the cheques were distributed, because, things were definitely going to get hot on the streets of Conakry. OK, that’s reassuring. By that time, I’m already thinking early dismissal...like noon.

I get a phone call from the acting chairman (the chairman is out of the country) of the School Board. He is surprised that the school is open, and does not hesitate to let me know that, in his opinion, we should not be opening the school. No arm twisting here, I decide to close the school. I ask the secretary to advise the security guards at the entrance to advise drivers and parents who drop off their kids of the situation. Kids start arriving, I don’t even let them get out of the car. Two kids start arguing with their dad that they want to go to school. Boy, that never happened to me when I was a kid...my parents telling me that I did not have to go to school and me insisting that I wanted to go. However, when I advise the drivers of the change in plans, they all seem to be relieved that they do not have to venture out later in the day to pick up the kids. When I sensed their relief, I felt better about the decision to shut her down.

I met with the staff at 8AM, when we normally have our morning assembly, and explained the reasoning behind my change in plans to close down the school. I explained to them that, although I felt good about the decision, I still felt a bit defeated by it. Defeated in that I find that everyone has been running on fear for the past two weeks, and that closing down the school was again wedging us even deeper in the grips of fear and taking away from the kids any sense of normalcy that they could have in their lives in the midst of these uncertain times. By closing the school, we were in some way reinforcing this idea of fear in that we were giving substance to the reasons for being fearful. I wasn’t really making very much sense, and when one teacher asked me if she could go home, I realized that it was perhaps not a good time to get into some philosophical and psychological discussion with the staff about the intricacies of fear. I also realized that I was perhaps getting confused with some off the emotional baggage that I had recessed in my mind since my time in Riyadh. There, you needed to deal with the circle of fear on a daily basis. As an expat living in Saudi Arabia in 2003, you were in fact targeted by a political movement (which I will deliberately neglect to mention so that it is not picked up in any Google search) and when ‘they’ succeeded in causing enough fear, you would choose to leave the country, which was all part of ‘their’ game plan. Over here, it’s a whole different game. We are not targeted by anyone, as a matter of fact, no one is. There is certainly fear, but it is fear of repercussions of one’s actions, fear of the reaction of others who may not have the same views...and the bottom line, fear of the unknown and the uncertainty.

Madeleine and I were the last to leave the school at 9AM. On the way home, other than a speeding truck full of riot police that sped by, things appeared fairly quiet and normal...but obviously a tense normality. Got home and told Jeanne, our housekeeper, that she should forget the ironing for today and be on her way before noon as to be safe at home if and when the announcement of the results were made. She seemed to be oblivious to what was going on, but agreed to go home.

Got a phone call from Dave, the security officer of the US Embassy, to brief me on what he knew. These guys really have their ear to the ground when it comes to things like this. Shortly after one of the candidates had prematurely declared he had won, the other candidate said he was the winner. In the melee that followed, security forces fired on supporters of one of the candidates in an area of Conakry, killing three people, a spokesman for the military police had said. Gunfire could be sporadically heard throughout the day as demonstrators set tires afire in an attempt to block roads and throw stones at security forces armed in riot gear as they patrolled the streets in pickup trucks. The forces fired tear gas and live ammunition against demonstrators, many of them boys who had thrown stones and then retreated into buildings. Though most of the streets were open, most of the stores were closed on Monday, a day before Tabaski, a muslim holiday, when shoppers would typically be out in force stocking up on foodstuffs. Dave, the security guy, told me that the French school had decided to close for the day, and that I might want to reconsider opening ours. I let him know that I was sitting in my living room, and that we had closed our school for the day. Good call, he said. Again, I was reassured that the decision I had made to close the school was a good one.

The results were suppose to be announced at noon. No results at noon. The street in front of our apartment building was unusually empty all afternoon. Finally on the radio, they announced that the official reading of the results were to happen at 6PM. Waited, watched TV, listened to the news on the radio, waited some more.

Finally, at around 8PM, all stations on local radio were broadcasting the reading of the results from La Maison du Peuple, not too far from where we were at. Stepping out onto our balcony, everything, and I mean everything, was eerily quite all over Conakry. No traffic, no people walking around. I guess people were huddled around their radios listening to the same thing we were listening to.

Finally, just before 9PM, the tally of all the votes was announced. Close call, 52.8% to 47.2%...but we had a winner; Guinea had a duly elected President!

The instant the results were announced, all of Conakry appeared to erupt in jubilation. At first, we thought the cheering and the yelling was coming from our radio, but we quickly realized that it was coming from outside our building. We stepped out onto our balcony, and the scene there was almost indescribable. People, men, women, children, running around in all directions, yelling, jumping for joy, hugging, kissing, dancing, something right out of the movies. We weren’t really able to make out what they were yelling, but occasionally we could decipher the victor’s name through all the commotion. It was as if a herd of a thousand young ponies that had been cooped up for too long had all been suddenly released from their holding pen. The energy, the excitement, the rejoicing, and yes, the hope, of the celebration that was unfolding in front of our very eyes was, to say the least, palpable and almost tangible.

I turned to Madeleine and said, Boy, Canadians sure didn’t react this way when Stephen Harper was elected! A new era for Guinea had just started, and we were there to witness it.

From riot gear to jubilation... that’s the kind of day it’s been.