Niger Currents
Exploring life and technology along the Niger river

Tomorrow. I woke up this morning with a smile. After all the planning, preparations and discussion it is finally about to begin. Tomorrow we will get on a bus from Bamako, the capital of Mali, and work our way towards the start of the Niger River, somewhere near Faranah, Guinea.

My smile belies an anxiousness, the anxiousness normal for me before I begin a new endeavour. It's the same feeling I had before I got on a plane to Ghana two falls ago, the same feeling I had walking to my first day of class at university.

I've learned to enjoy this feeling. It's a harbinger of the interesting, exciting, wondrous and rewarding for me. Maybe anxiousness isn't the right word for the feeling - it's a mix of everything good and bad - fear and hope, excitement and worry and a whole slew of other emotions and feelings.

I'm excited to get underway, to meet people and get to know their lives and stories.

I'm also nervous - for two Anglophones with limited French travelling through francophone countries and in rural areas where many people only speak local dialects, communication will be a challenge. I'm also worried about the gender barrier being two young males will present - in a society with strict gender roles it's often difficult for a western man to communicate and interact with women. My biggest fear is not being able to communicate enough to build a connection with people, especially women. Eli and I are both working to develop enough of a vocabulary in Fula and Bambara to at least greet people and make them laugh (it's usually not difficult - westerners' attempts at local languages are often enough viewed as comical!). A Guinean friend eased our worries when he told us there are usually at least a couple of people who speak English in most villages. But we're still planning to keep our eyes out for someone who can be our guide, someone who can interpret both the cultural and linguistic landscape for us. There are so many idiosyncrasies and customs particular to each country and all are very important in building trust with the people you meet along the way.

I think both Eli and I are excited to get into Guinea. I was excited to be back in Bamako; it's a city I really enjoy spending time in. But the heat has been difficult: so far is has been above 40 degrees Celsius every day and it takes its toll. I'm used to it having lived in Northern Ghana for the past year, but for Eli this level of constant heat is new. If anything it was the 48 hours spent getting from Tamale to Bamako that wore us out - 5 hours of sleep while travelling for the better part of two days can take the wind out of your sails.

Everything we have read about Guinea tells us to expect cooler temperatures, especially when we are up high near the headwaters. Of course the humidity won't be a welcome companion, but just having a change in climate and scenery from the hot and dry Sahel will be nice. I'm also excited to experience somewhere new - Mali and Burkina Faso are already familiar to me, and as much as I love both of these countries I'm excited to see Guinea and get to know the people who live there.

Tomorrow we move - move from planning and preparation to starting our voyage, move from the known and comfortable to the new and undiscovered. After months of preparation we're both excited to get underway.