bonjour from guinea!

after long travels on wednesday and thursday, we're here and preparing for life in guinea! our four-day stay is at the peace corps headquarters of guinea - a very nice compound where they take good care of us. we were warmly greeted by current volunteers at the conakry airport on thursday morning and spent the day learning about what life in guinea would be like. hearing all the details makes me even more excited about what's to come.

first of all, i am happy to report that all of the PCVs (peace corps volunteers) have told us, without the authorities around which makes it more believable, that they feel really safe in guinea. and they all love it. our director says that peace corps guinea is the quintessential peace corps placement, as we are all headed to huts and villages with no electricity or running water. i guess that's what everyone envisions in their minds when they think peace corps. right now, only 17% of guineans are high school educated. the literacy rate 30%. 51% of people in guinea have access to safe water. that's not running water - just safe water. but overall, the country is very peaceful and friendly according to those we've spoken with so far.

most of our trainers are guineans. i had my language test to day with an elderly guinean man who kept asking me question in french and i kept responding "i don't speak french." he just didn't believe me! finally, he got really serious and told me i was going to have to work really hard if i was going to make it. luckily, there are a few others in the same boat as me. one of the other trainers lived in brighton for a while he did his master's at BU. we joked about the B line. from what i understand, in guinea, time has new meaning - many things are slow, late, delayed - but even he thought the B line was outrageous.

today we got a lot of medical info - learned about how to prepare our water, received a big case of "stuff" to take with us to site. we also had a guinean band come to the rooftop of our house and perform during lunch. lots of awkward american dancing. real awkward. but the band was great - they sang in french and a local language. lots of drums.

this evening i played volleyball on the beach with some locals. did i mention the peace corps house is on the beach? the photo up top is tonight's sunset. amazing, huh? okay, i'll be honest here. the beach here reminds me a lot of revere beach. it is the ocean, it is a beach, i like it - yet you can't swim in it, and it is filled with garbage. they've cleaned up revere a bit - but this beach is trashed. from what i understand, you really can't swim anywhere off the coast of guinea except for some islands off of the coast. oh well...it is still the beach!

on monday we will have our adoption ceremony where we meet our host families and move out of the peace corps house and into their homes for 11 weeks. no internet there, but we'll be in the capital now and then - and hopefully i can give you an update on things. i hope i'll say things like "i leaned how to wash my clothes" and "i learned how to say circle, square, and count to 100." who am i kidding - 100 - i need to know a lot more numbers than that. also, by the next time i write, i'll know what region i'll be in for my placement. each of the current volunteers loves their region, so i guess all are fine. there is a region along the coast. that would be nice.

i'll leave you with a photo of a couple of new friends, larc and ashley, and i - just to prove i'm here :) we really don't get out much to meet people from guinea (lots of meetings all day) - so i hope i have stories of some new guinean friends by my next entry.

one more from the good ol' USA

over the past two days, i've learned a lot about what the heck i got myself into.  i thought i'd share a few details.

1) the flight from JFK to Dakar, Senegal is 8 hours and 15 minutes.  from Senegal to Guinea is 1 hour and 15 minutes.

2) there are 25 of us total in the education program.  we're either math, physics, chem, or TEFL (teaching english as a foreign language.)  and......i'm the oldest one in our group.  the median age of a PCV (peace corps volunteer) is 27 ; our group is pretty much fresh out of college.  not quite sure where all these late 20-somethings are.  but i love the enthusiasm.  no one has been in a classroom (with the exception of a couple that have done student teaching.)  there are a few that have worked a couple of years.  i've negotiated a couple of deals - i'll teach you how to teach, you teach me french.  and there is one fellow clevelander (solon.)

3) we'll learn french and a local language.  we're in school M - F but have saturdays and sundays to....study french.  that's what i'll be doing with my free time!

4) we also have a couple of classes on how to take care of a bike.  how to fix a flat, etc.  

5) although guinea looks so small on the map of africa, it is just a little smaller than oregon. (FYI - oregon is the 9th biggest state in the US.  yeah miss hainley.)

everything else we've been hearing seems like common sense.  things like - don't walk home alone late at night or be sure to take your malaria medicine.  my dominican republic students will appreciate this...the trainers made a big deal about the yarn we tied on all of our bags so when we are in baggage claim in guinea, it will be easy to identify our bags; they both still have their yarn and say some of the PCVs from the 60's and 70's say they still have their yarn on their luggage.  (although luggage from the 60's has to be pretty worn out...but i'll believe them for the sake of the story.)  i tied my yarn (which is the same blue color as my cross i wear) on with my hot pink ribbon from our most recent dominican trip.  i wish i would have left the ones from the other years!

next post will be from AFRICA.

86 pounds...

after making some cuts (including my large aveda bottles, contact solution, and all the food - i couldn't sacrifice the graph paper and graphing calculators!), i'm holding steady at 86 pounds of "stuff."  what kind of stuff does one pack when moving to africa for two years?  some clothes of course, a couple of toothbrushes and tubes of paste, camping hammock and sleeping bag, mosquito net, headlamp, a deflated volleyball, crank flashlight and lantern, a few journals (to double as notebooks), can opener and garlic press, lots of school supplies, and an old-fashioned grade book.  the kind where you write the kids names in and record all of their grades.  then calculate the grades by hand.   i didn't even use one when student teaching.  6 pounds over.  not sure what's going to go if they really make me get rid of 6 pounds.

tomorrow (i should say 8 hours from now) i'll be off to philly from cleveland for 2 days of training, and then we'll all be off to guinea via senegal from NYC.  i'll be living with a host family for 11 weeks about 70 miles outside of the capital.  i'll be immersed in french and left with no choice but to learn to survive!  i've had a really wonderful two weeks in cleveland.  old friends, boston friends, family friends...everyday was something fun.  the last installment of the family and friend fun marathon was tonight - family dinner at mom's - mom's homecooking, uncle danny telling the fountain story, and aunt patty's pies.  it was a perfect summer night - sunny, breezy.  a nice night to end on.

hopefully i'll have exciting news for you soon from the other side of the atlantic.