I am a reporter for the New York Times who was recently moved to the Guinea the Great! section of the paper, and to get the best reports and stories for you I would have to move there which I did about two months ago. When I arrived in the tropical paradise the first thing that hit me, besides the beauty of the land, as I was canoeing to the mainland was the heat. At almost 40 degrees Celsius I was sweating buckets. After reporting to work in my new office complex in the capital of the country, Conakry, just off the southwest coast. I live in a small house a few miles north following the beach dunes from the multi-thousand people coast of Conakry. My house is about what you would expect of a costal beach shack, though, because I am a wealthy reporter, its lawn is lined with mango trees and with a small watering hole for the baboons and large cats that occasionally cross my yard. I went to sleep sweating as the scorching and humid day left for a 70-degree, (Fahrenheit) humid night.
Day broke and from my little house in the sandy beaches my eyes opened and I said to myself, “Once I get this paper done I can go and enjoy a few hours of surfing.” This is a copy of the article that I wrote to be further revised later. It is kind of short.
Guinea the Great.
When someone says Africa most people think of a desert or savanna with a safari truck driving by a mountain lined bucket of heat. Off in the distance a lion roars, everyone in the truck is scared to death until two little lion kittens jump out of the bushes. I want to inform you that that is not how things really are in Guinea. Guinea isn’t some lion’s prancing ground and there aren’t safari trucks grazing the landscape with tourists taking pictures of everything, even a weed with an Oooh and an Aaaah. The only thing that people get right about the landscape is the mountains, of which there are a few. Guinea is a lush and beautiful country that will occasionally see a leopard or predatory cat. The Guinean people are kind and great to be with, though the only thing that I didn’t like was that some random girl was chasing me down with a dish of red spicy fish… Have a great year all lovers of Guinea.
The rest is to be left for further editing by my superiors.
I later unwound by surfing by the tropical underwater hills that have become islands off the coast, waiting to start another day much like the last in a Guinean paradise.
