Conakry - Post Report Question and Answers
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In no way should this be a family post. In my opinion, it is a horrible place for children that are past elementary school age. - Sep 2022
As I said above, don't end your story in Conakry with “there's nothing here”. There's plenty here, if you actually care to look at it. That said, one of the perks of Conakry is in fact the “nothing”, the things that stand out for their absence. You'll appreciate the lack of aggression and attention. A foreigner can walk down most streets in most parts of Conakry and not draw much more than an occasional glance. You won't have hordes of kids following you, beggars harassing you, hawkers accosting you. Maybe it's the history of anticolonial defiance, maybe it's the pride (arrogance even?) of a people descended from great West African empires, maybe it's the relative isolation from the rest of the world—for some reason people here maintain a guarded, low-key dignity. They wouldn't abase themselves to make a fuss or a spectacle of a foreigner on the street. You'll appreciate the lack of violence, the lack of tension rooted in glaring inequality. You will quickly notice that there aren't many “nice” neighborhoods in Conakry; everything looks kind of rundown and mid-grade. But think about it a second, and you'll realize that the corollary is that there aren't any desperate slums in Conakry either. The poor and the rich live side by side, in varying degrees of shabbiness or elegance, with the extremes a bit muted. In fact, if you look even more closely, you'll notice that the wealthy houses, those with enough resources to drill a water well of their own, usually place an extra faucet or two on the outside of their wall, so that everyone in the neighborhood can draw from that well. You'll see that those kids rolling about in the oil-soaked ground are in fact apprentices; the local auto mechanic is part of a community-wide effort to teach the kids a trade and provide them some food. If you open your eyes, you'll start to notice both what's lacking in Conakry, especially the ills that are lacking, and you'll start to identify real assets hidden amid seeming squalor. Maybe you'll ask yourself if this odd little place on the globe has some lessons to teach the rest of us about how to face the challenges of economic development and underdevelopment in the 21st century, while maintaining some of our ancestral values in the process. - Jun 2021
Conakry is definitely one of the most difficult posts, but it has wonderful people who are trying hard to make a better society for themselves. Guinea has a diverse and interesting culture and it is one of the most beautiful countries I have ever seen. - Sep 2009
Conakry is a tough place, but the Guinean people are really wonderful and make being here an enjoyable experience. The experience is what you make of it. - May 2009
Everybody has heard the horror stories about Conakry and its reputation as one of the toughest posts in the Foreign Service. It is what you make it; it is challenging, but the people are warm and the work is interesting. However, if you're determined to be miserable here, Conakry and its hoards of mosquitoes will definitely oblige! - Mar 2008
