Conakry: Then and Now

If there's ever any doubt about the quality of life in Conakry (and in Guinea, in general), this article published last week from the Associated Press should serve as a reminder of the desperation gripping the country. The report describes how chronic power shortages in the capital have driven students to airports and gas stations off the unreliable power grid to review their lessons before their end-of-year exams. In so doing, they routinely must travel long distances in packs to avoid gangs prowling the streets. Many often return to their homes late and stinking of gasoline.

While the news out of Africa is often of despair, this story is different in that it at least focuses on those who are finding ways to surmount the daunting odds stacked against them, all in order to improve their lives and the lives of their families. Anecdotally, I can confirm many of my own students possessed a similar resilience, some walking over 5 kilometers every day to school and back each day, and many more returning to the school in the evening hours to meet with other students to review their lessons together. Guinean perseverance always amazed me, as visible in the rural countryside as it appears to be in the big city.

Coincidentally, around the same time as I came across the above article chronicling Conakry's despair, I was browsing for images of Conakry during its colonial era (an obscure moment of history with little photographic account), and I stumbled upon Images du passé en Afrique de l'Ouest, featuring a treasure trove of colonial-era images of important French towns. Click here to see a large catalog of pictures of Conakry—a town that has undergone a remarkable transformation in less than a hundred years from tranquil port village to overcrowded modern-day slum.