he neighborhood we are staying in may not be representative of the country, but nevertheless, in walking around the neighborhood, one gets the idea that Guinea has a strong commitment to education. There are several schools right around our house. In the same block, there is a private language school that teaches French, English and Spanish. There is a university a couple blocks away – the Universite Nongo Conakry. And there are other schools within a few blocks of our house.

Yet, given that the illiteracy rate in Guinea is around 70 to 75 percent, one wonders how effective these schools are. We have driven past the national university on a few occasions, and I don’t know about the quality of the education there, but the facilities do not appear to be very good. I would suspect that the instructors are underpaid and probably many of them work only part time for the university.

There also does not appear to be many bookstores around the city. We saw one and are trying to arrange a visit there, and there may be more downtown, but they are not too common. Most of the vendors in the city seem to be small storefronts that open directly to the sidewalk, or small tents and kiosks right on the sidewalk. They sell mostly necessities -- food, clothes, cell-phone cards and DVDs, along with services such as beauty shops, tailors, and the like. Open-air markets are common around the city, and there are no shopping malls that we have seen. I am very curious to see what types of books are available at this bookstore that we plan to visit.

I also do not know much about religious education in Guinea. The national mosque is located on a large area that is called the National Islamic Center or something like that. They likely have religious education there. I would assume there are other Muslim schools around as well. We have not had much contact with anyone who could tell us