Old Picture Postcards from Guinea in West Africa

As I write this blog post in March, 2022, the world is riveted on Ukraine’s struggle to protect itself against an invasion from its much larger neighbor, Russia. 1991 started out in a deadly and frightening fashion also. On Jan. 17, 1991, in Operation Desert Storm, the United States started bombing including the capital Baghdad to destroy Iraki air defenses after Iraq had invaded its much smaller neighbor, Kuweit, on Aug. 2.

In 2022 I am sitting in Arlington, Virginia in retirement. From 1990 to 1992 I was working in Conakry, the capital of Guinea in West Africa, for the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as a Foreign Service officer in the field of education and training. Here are a few current statistics about Guinea from World Bank sources: Life expectancy 59/62; adult literacy rate 32%; political stability rank #145; Muslim population 85%. Guinea is a former French colony, independent since 1958. The U. S. State Department ranks Guinea as a “hardship post” for the officers it assigns to serve there.

Fig. 1 Map of Guinea

As a Foreign Service officer, when I learn of an assignment to a foreign post, the first thing I do is look at an atlas to see where the country is located. The next three things I do are to (often buy and) read books on the country, buy a good map (Institut national de l’information géographique et forestière––IGN), and start to purchase picture postcards of the country. These steps constitute for me an investment; they will assure I have a fundamental understanding of the history, geography, politics, culture, religions, natural resources, and developmental challenges. USAID would not send me on long-term assignment to Guinea without assuring that I had qualifications to speak and read French. In this case, I had earned a master’s degree in French by studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. Oh, and I married a French woman.

Some of you might well wonder about the highly unusual “postcard” feature of my country preparation. My father brought up his (two) children as stamp collectors. There is a word for those who practice this hobby, philately. Studying postage stamps gives one extraordinary knowledge about countries all over the world. We learn to recognize kings, queens, presidents, inventors, artists, aviators, and artists. We learn about currencies. We notice the year when a country changes from being a colony to being independent. When a country is occupied, special marks on printed on their postage stamps. I stopped being a philatelist the year all my carefully filled stamp albums were stolen when I was away at college.

But it was too late. I was bitten by the collecting bug. That’s the way it goes. Not right away, but at age 40 in a mid-life crisis, I started to collect picture postcards. With postcards, you get not only a stamp (if the card was sent through the mail); you get a cancellation or postmark, you get a picture, and finally you get a message. Before you know it, you are practicing deltiology and have become a deltiologist (from the Greek meaning writing tablet).

Where did I find 200 old picture postcards of Guinea in two days before I ever landed in Conakry airport, you may ask? By scouring Parisian postcard boutiques and flea markets. It’s a cinch if you have the moulah and a nose. The mistake I made at Charles de Gaulle airport was stuffing my weighty backpack under my seat in the waiting room to take a last-minute tour around duty-free shops before my flight was called. Some passenger nearby spotted the act and called security. When I returned and bent over to retrieve the backpack it was GONE!! Panic! Missed heartbeat! I sputtered my frenzy to an airport official; he quickly led me down to the bowels of the airport to a zone where I saw a mountain of suitcases and bags that looked like the Cheops Pyramid. THERE was my backpack on the side. It had not been exploded. Whew!

One of my first calls when I arrived in Conakry in the late summer of 1990 was on the Public Affairs Officer of the American Embassy to show her my stash of Guinea postcards to see if she would agree to mount an exhibit. I reminded her that it was the centennial of the French colony’s being established. It was called “Guinée française.” She demurred, saying that these were French postcards and the U.S. Information Service did not have suitable display space. She dismissed me with a “Go see the French.” On the spot. The director of the French-Guinean Cultural Center dropped his jaw. “We’ve been trying to get Paris Quai d’Orsay to send us materials for a centennial exhibit and they’ve sent zilch. You walk in off the street and we now have plenty to organize an exhibit that will attract loads of visitors. Thank you!”

Fast forward to January 1991, the month I would turn 50. Since Guinea was a predominantly Muslim country and the U.S. was bombing another Muslim country, The State Department feared the possibility of violence against Americans. We were told to vary our times and routes to work, be vigilant, participate in frequent radio checks, and not congregate more than five Americans together. An unexpected advantage of a bilingual family, my half-century was celebrated among French friends. On Feb, 28, 1991, President George H. W. Bush declared a ceasefire, accepted by Iraq on Mar. 3.

Here is a five-minute YouTube video of the opening of the exhibit later the same month, on Mar. 25. Intense excitement reigned when Guinean visitors discovered on the wall 75-year-old picture postcards of their country! Radio and TV journalists listened spell-bound as specialists interpreted what they were seeing. Over 1700 people attended the exhibit, including cabinet Ministers in the government, civil servants, expatriate advisors and project directors, plus busloads of schoolchildren. The novelty to scrutinize old photographs from colonial times was enhanced by spontaneous commentary by the late Emile Tom Papa, journalist and chronicler, who wrote a regular column in the local newspapers on “Old Conakry.”

5min video:

The exhibit attracted not only Guineans, but French and Americans and members of the international expatriate community eager to sop up an unsuspectedly rich cultural experience. One person among the 1700 who visited the exhibit over its three-week duration was particularly struck by what he saw. His name was Hubert Beemelmans, the German Ambassador. He came up to me during the opening and asked, “Mr. Grant, do you have the intention of making a book out of this exhibit?” What?

The story of how the book IMAGES DE GUINEE came into being was scooped up by the Smithsonian Institution in 2021 and turned into a blog post.

Smithsonian blog post :

Living Documents and Historic Postcards of Guinea