some photos...i hope...

hello from conakary! we're on a field trip of sorts...a day to find the bank and other essentials.

so i can't figure out how to rotate these...and i only have 5 minutes of time left. so tilt your head :)

1) my host family

2) my african comple

3) my house!!!! how amazing is it! i have the apt on the left. didn't get inside, but i'm imagining good things.

4) my compound from a distance. middle of nowhere, quiet, beautiful...it is going to be like a 2 year retreat. can someone send me some candles?

5) my school from a distance

next time, i'll work on the rotation!

august 20th, 2008

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

Before we left for our site visit, Mr. Diaby, the coordinator of our training, told us that this visit was a good time to "reevaluate our committment" after seeing our sites. And after seeing my site, I know that I'm definitely in the right place!
The site visit day was quite an adventure. We departed at 8am and arrived at Bryan's site around 11:30 or so. Bryan is a fellow trainee and will be my cloeset neighbor. When we were 5 minutes away from his site, we saw a couple of white people on the side of the road walking - we stopped to ask them if we were close to his site, and it turns out one of them was the first volunteer to work in his site. She was there in 1999. Amazing luck! She gave us a grand tour of his site and introduced him to all the right people.

We asked how to get to my village and got many different answers and pieces of advice. "The good road is not good for a car because of the rain, so you have to go the other way" was the concensus among most of the men in Bryan's village. "The other way" took about two hours of climbing up the mountain in the Peace Corps car. Every 7km or so, there would be a fork in the road. We'd try to find someone to ask which way to my village. The responses were either: "oh, take the road to the right/left - you're almost there," "you need to turn around and go back the other way for a while, then take the road to the right/left," or "never heard of it." The "never heard of it" responses made me a little nervous. When we got to a point where our driver asked "ou le pont?" or "where's the bridge" when the river was debatable for crossing, I began to wonder if I should laugh or cry. Laugh. Just keep laughing. Somewhere inside I knew we'd get there...eventually! Luckily, everyone in the car, including our driver, had a good sense of humor about the bumpy, long adventure.

When we finally arrived up the mountain to my village, I was completely blown away by what I found. A tiny village tucked away on the side of the mountain - this is going to be my home for the next two years. It was so beautiful. The view of the tropical mountains, the cool, crisp air - I just knew it was right. Although I'll be in the middle of nowhere, it is seriene and calm and so incredibly gorgeous. All I saw on Saturday were a collection of homes and a school. My school. Apparently it is the school for my village and several neighboring villages. No one with a key was around, so I could only look from the outside - but it seems clean and well-kept. Once I get in there, I'll give a real description. Oh - and there is the only full-court basketball court I've seen in Guinea so far in the courtyard of the school. What are the chances!?! I couldn't believe it.
One of the men of the village knew where I would be living and took me to the house. The man with the key was out of town, so I didn't get to go inside. But for now, I'll tell you that the outside was far beyond anything I imagined I'd be living in. I don't want to say more until I figure out why the heck this house was built there, who built it, who lives around me, etc. I am in a compound with two other families, but my house is my own. I have a front porch. I'll tell you that much. And a grapefruit tree in front of the house. At least that's what the best French speaker translated it to be. I'll keep you posted on that one.

The way back down to Bryan's village: half hour. 15km. It wasn't too bad of a road. The tricky part of getting anywhere in the future without the Peace Corps car will be getting from Bryan's village to the main roads. I can bike to Bryan's town, but from his village to the main roads is a little unclear.

I then spent four days at other volunteers' sites. First was Katy's site - she is in a city and has a cute tiny apartment. It was fun to go to the market and eat a dinner that wasn't rice and sauce. She is working on tourism here in Guinea and really knows her way around since she's been here since December. Then I spent two days at a health volunteer's house. He's a Clevelander as well and my other closest neighbor. He has an army of kids that are willing to help with anything - we did a lot of weeding. While we pulled weeds the kids taught me Pular and French, although I don't feel like I'm any better with either language. Tomorrow is my language interview so I tried to write my whole site visit adventure in French to practice. The sentence structure is similar to a third grader's...but better than a first grader's!

We traveled via bush taxi back to training town today - my first Guinean taxi experience. It wasn't even a real experience since the whole taxi was Peace Corps people. My host family seemed genuinely excited to see me and has been feeding me all night, as if I didn't eat while away. It is always nice to go back to a welcoming home!

As of tonight, I have 37 more days of training. After my visit to site, they are going to be a long 37 days! I didn't want to leave. It was so nice to have independence again. But with practice school right around the corner (starts Monday!), I know the days will go by quickly. Practice school is 3 weeks of school with Guinean students - only it doesn't count. It is a free extra 3 weeks of school for students in this town. It is a chance for us to really feel what teaching in Guinea will be like - from the 2 hour classes to teaching in French. My nights will now be spent lesson planning...something I can do!

online again!

Today I'm writing from Labe, a big city in the Fouta Region of Guinea, and my future regional capital. We left this morning at 830 to begin our drive to Labe and after about 8 hours, we arrived to the current Fouta volunteers warm greetings. I'll be here tomorrow and then off to my village. The drive today was beautiful...the Fouta is lush and cool. I'm anxious to see more! It is also a nice break from training. Our "rest stop" was around noon for....rice and sauce! I'm beginning to really like it! My new favorite treat is the corn they grill on the coals. It reminds me of the corn we feed pigs and cows in the states, but it is delicious.

I hope this will be the longest noninternet stretch. I'll keep writing entries at home and then posting them when I get to the internet...that's why the dates are the way they are. THANK YOU for all of the emails and texts! The texts kept me sane! And I love hearing about what's happening back home. Keep 'em coming.

august 12th

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Tonight in Guinea, I've put finishing touches on a lesson on Sine and Cosine for tomorrow. For dinner, I ate rice and leaf sauce. This past weekend, I spent some time learning the ways of cooking the sauce. There are a wide variety of sauces - I like the ones that are tomato based (called "soup sauce") with stewed meat (goat I think for the most part) - I learned how to make "meatballs" of fish and the sauce that goes with them. Lots of onions, green onion, chilli peppers, tomatoes, peanut butter, eggplant, and stewed with some potatoes.

Yesterday I picked up my first "comple" - or African shirt with skirt. My host mother gave me the fabric as a gift and Aisitou and I went to the tailor to have it made. This is to wear to events such as weddings or baptisims. I hear it is best to teach in them as well in order to be respected - or at least the skirts with a button down shirt. I have fully embraced the "mouchoir" - the headwrap with the fabrics from the skirts. With the inability to fully rinse out my hair with the bucket bath, it is really nice to just wrap up my hair each day it in! It is encourage to wear them teaching. It is like a fancy bandana that is considered formal wear. Love it. Hopefully my photos attach and you can see my new African wear.

Tomorrow I begin learning Pular - the language of the Fouta. Just survival language for now since on Thursday, we leave to visit our sites. I'll be in Labe, the biggest city in the Fouta for a few days and in my village for the other days. I am really looking forward to getting out of here for a few days. Rumor has it there is pizza in Labe and I can't wait for the internet! I don't like feeling so disconnected. It is definitely the hardest part.

The part of the trip I'm really looking forward to is getting to see my school and my house. I can start dreaming up how to decorate and envision myself at school. I look forward to the routine of school although it will be another 2 months before school even begins. School begins after Ramadan is over, and it is late this year. So it will be the end of October when school begins. I'm programmed to feel the "school's coming soon" mid-August anxiety, but no August start this year for me! That part is still bizarre for me and hard at times. I just finished The Alchemist for the first time, and the boy and his sheep reminded me of myself and my little sheep in Boston. I really enjoyed the book and recommend it if you haven't read it!

As I type this, I can hear that my mouse has returned. I thought he was gone for good but sounds like he's back. He moved in a week ago. When the sun goes down and I try to sleep, he likes to knock over my math books and do laps around my room. He uses the waterbottles, my bike, and the buckets on the floor as obstacles but he's clumsy and runs into them all the time. Then he tries eating his way through my door and it sounds like someone is trying to break in. I started to leave the door unlocked so he can push his way through. One night when the corant was on, I watched the door open and he left. Tonight at dinner, I looked up from my plate and he was approaching my rice and sauce on the table. I asked him what the hell the thought he was doing, and before I could get my door closed, he must of snuck back in. Damn him.

august 6th

Wednesday, August 6th

Tonight the "courant," or electritcity, is on, so I had a chance to recharge my computer. It has to be plugged into a voltage regulator that my family has their freezer plugged into, and after a month of living with them, I finally felt ready to inconvience them for a couple of hours and ask them to use the regulator. My host sisters and I watched Amalie while it charged...it was my way of practicing French for the night. I didn't put the subtitles on :) It was a nice way to relax and my host siblings loved it. Little Aminata fell asleep; she falls asleep everynight on the couch or on her dad's prayer mat and no one can wake her up - she's a girl after my own heart.

The courant comes on every few nights. The way you I know it is has been turned on is all of the "petits," or little kids, start cheering and dancing in the streets - they all then proceed to pile into the nearest house that has a television and watch one of the two channels - one is usually Guinean programming (news, other random shows) and the other is a DVD being played - Ttianic in French, some random Jennifer Love Hewitt movie I've never seen, or random Indian films. One night, after nights of bucket baths by flashlight, I was in the bathroom and heard the kids cheering - I flicked on the lights and started cheering with them.

My days are spent in school from 8 to 5 everyday. We have 4 different types of classes - language, technical language (math language), peace corps information (medical sessions on topics such as malaria, dental health, safety sessions, etc.), and cultural sessions. Everyday is a little different, some days seem longer than others. Today, I had 3 French classes and 1 math language class. Then, at 5pm, we novice French speakers have an extra French tutoring session that is one-on-one. I then come home and work on French homework orlesson plans. We are just practicing now; my lessons have to be scripted word for word, which drives me insane. Phrases like "take out your notebooks and try this example" or "what is a 3 digit number divisible by 2" take forever to figure out. We also learn the methods Guineans do math - long division is the one I still need to practice. Subtraction of 2 or three digit numbers is also unique. Guinean education all comes from the French system. I'm learning more about the Guinean education system is and have a better idea of goals to set for myself in teaching in the schools.

On Friday, we received our site assignments. We officially become Peace Corps Voluteers on September 26th, and a couple of days after that we all move to different villages in Guinea. We are all together until then in this village that we are training in. There are four regions of Guinea - each with its own unique characteristics, and each with its own local language. The French is for the classroom only. A couple of weeks ago, we were able to request which region we wanted. I requested the Fouta - the region of Guinea in the mountains. I hear about how beautiful this region is - very tropical and has rivers and waterfalls and many paths to explore. AND is becomes quite cool in the winter. Cool enough to see your breath in the mornings. My host family is from the Fouta origianlly so they have been talking it up big time. There were only 3 of the 9 math placements in the Fouta and I got one of them! My village is near Mamoa, a pretty major town with a bustling market and internet! So this is definitely the longest internet-free stretch of time I'll go through.

We took a field trip this weekend to the Cascades. We could swim in the falls and we did so for hours. It was so beautiful and a much needed get-away. For some, training isn't so bad - they're fluent in French and then teaching English. For many of us math and science people, we're nowhere near fluent and then have a whole set of technical terms and verbs to learn - we feel like we're always studying. I think the falls were extra special for us!

Everday is a new adventure and some days I can't believe I'm really here. The hardest part is being so disconnected from the rest of Guinea and the rest of the world. There is no post office to send letters, definitely no internet, and making calls is expensive. The news I hear is in French...sometimes I hear "Obama" in the midst of lots of words I don't understand and wonder what the latest news is. There isn't a newspaper or any sort of publications. The days are marked by whether or not the courant is on, and time is marked by the 5 prayers of the Muslims. Other than that, there is no difference between a Wednesday and a Sunday.

Another speical "treat" has been the Catholic Church here. There are about 100 people that attend the mass each week. It is in French of course, but my friend Jo once said something to the effect that no matter where you go, Catholic Mass is the same, so the language doesn't matter. It still feels like home. The music at Mass was really great - drums and a tamborine and a choir. The priest is French and travels to a few churches here in Guinea. It sounds like the chances of there being a church near my village are slim so I'll enjoy this while it lasts!

july 20th

Sunday, July 20th 2008

Tonight I'm writing after an excellent weekend at the Barry's. I spent the majority of the time studying and trying to extend conversations beyond "hello, how was your day" - and I'm starting to understand the responses the the "how was your day" rather than just smiliing and nodding politely. One week of language class and living without speaking English at home will is do that. Each weekday, we have 4 sessions of class; Friday, three of the four were language. And while I though the last thing I wanted to do Friday night was speak more French, two of the other volunteers invted me to join them at a cafe where they were going to practice French. I did and I think the espresso the man served was actually espresso, not the instant Nescafe I've been trying to fool myself into believing is coffee. With all of the African coffee I see in the states, I'm baffled at the fact there is no coffee to be found. Someone suggested maybe this was a good time to cut coffee out...I'll work with the Nescafe before that day comes.

Yesterday Aisitu (my 17 year old host sister) gave me a lesson on doing laundry. It involves three buckets, a washboard, and the electric lines hanging in the yard. I hadn't done laundry since leaving Cleveland, so I had quite a few things. The process of soaking, really letting loose on the washboard, rinse, wring, and hang convinced me that all shirts will be worn until they stink or I spill a lot on them, and skirts need to last at least a week. Aisitu did not approve of this idea. It was a beautiful, clear day when we hung the last sock...promising for drying. The rain came about 5 hours later, clothes were still damp. We rehung them this morning, rain came, clothes came down. I don't know if they'll ever be dry again.

I also learned how to fetch the water from the well. I'm spoiled because they get the water to bathe and cook, and the well is in our backyard for when I need to do the fetching. I just need to get my drinking water. That's a process too...Peace Corps gives us these great filters that you first filter the water then bleach it. I have a "water wand" that was a gift that seems too good to be true - with it I wouldn't have to bleach the water. I'm going to wait until I have my own bathroom before beginning that experiment. The bleached water is working quite nicely for now.

One week in and I've been only shown hospitality here. When we walk the streets, people are friendly and when we enter cafes, people greet us as they do each other. Economically speaking, most of the people of this village seem to be doing alright; everyone is dressed nice and have shoes. People find a way to make a living - selling their produce at the market, teaching, sewing, etc. We are seen as rich Americans however the difference I've found so far between being here and one of the few white faces and other places where being white is being on parade is that no one ever asks for anything. There is no need to ever turn people away that are looking for a handout. My justification for this so far is that the only Westerners that ever come to Guinea are NGOs like Peace Corps. No tourism that lead to the idea that western face means possible donation. To them, we're just the "fotes" that are always at school and don't bargin when they charge us too much money at the market. People are always curious about what we're doing, why we're here, etc. And the some kids just can't stop staring. But beyond that, we just go on our way.

While my family has been incredible, it is hard to think about living in this room (that is becoming smaller and smaller as PC gives us more and more supplies - I now have a bike in here with me) for another 10 weeks. We have to let our families know what time we'll be back at night so they can let us in. It is a strange loss of independence and regression to the days of curfews and being on womeone else's watch. One "cross-cultural" lesson was about how in Guinea, no individual is more important than the family, and now we're a part of that. It is fine, just sometimes a little too much.

july 16th

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Today is my third day in the village where we are training; it is a smaller town about two hours from the capital. I'm writing from my bedroom of my homestay. To give you an idea of the size of the room, it is about the size of a convent room, minus the entry part with the closet. Enough for a twin bed with a giant mosquito net, a table, two giant water buckets, and my luggage stacked neatly against the wall.

The first activity when we arrived in Forecariah was the adoption ceremony. Before the formalities began, there was...awkward dancing. Guineans love to dance with the Americans. Then, both the mayor and the prefect of Forecariah (both women - rare for Guinean society) gave speeches, followed by the director of Peace Corps Guinea and one of our "trainees." We are then matched with a family for the next three months. I hit the jackpot of families of Forecariah - The Barry Family. (By the way - there are lots of Barrys here. It is like Jones or Smith) It is because my French is so poor that I was matched with them; their seventeen-year-old daughter speaks French and a little English. I call her the mayor of Forecariah because everywhere we go, she knows everyone and is always shaking hands with someone. She and I played basketball with some of the boys; we held our own, She was pretty decent. So she, along with the fifteen-year-old nephew (who lives with them as well) have been helping me out big time. And the rest of the family is fantastic to live with - a sister that is 5 years old and a brother that is 8. They gave me my African name: Aminata. This is the 5 year old's name. AND they have a 3 month old baby that I have the pleasure of helping out with while their mom needs free hands. They also have a 21 year old niece that lives with them. Both the niece and nephew are children of Mr. Barry's deceased siblings.

Their home is very nice and they treat me like a queen. I'm gone most of the day at class but when I'm home, I'm eating some of the best Guinean food - Aisitou, the 17 year old, cooks most of my meals. The typical Guinean dish is rice and sauce. The sauce usually is a fish sauce. When the families are trained to take us PCVs into their homes, they are told we like peanut butter, bread, eggs, and pasta. So breakfast is tea, bread, peanut butter that is so tasty - is very similar to the natural peanut butters in the states, and an omlette of eggs and onion. Some of the other PCVs get pasta for breakfast. Dinner tonight was pasta with onions and garlic and as always, a bowl rice and sauce. All so good! I went for a run today and really felt the past week and a half of pasta and rice all bouncing around.

About the run...I'll begin with telling you that the Guinean soccer players are in amazing shape. They play for hours and hours. When we were in the capital, we saw them doing circuts together after playing. What you don't see is anyone running for exercise. So the sight of two "fotes," or white people, running in the rain today caused MANY stares and lots of comments. The most important part of Guinean culture and trying to integrate into the community is the "salue," or the greeting. The salue goes like this: "Bon soir," "Bon soir," "Ce va," "Ce va bien" - hello, hello, how's it going?, going good. It is never just "hello." So on this run, everyone in the streets was staring and then would yell "FOTE" or salue us - so we had to salue back or it would be rude! The last thing I want to be is a rude American! So we ran along greeting along the way...or being laughed at. We get a lot of stares and giggles in general, so the run was nothing new.

One of many elements of African life that is an adjustment is the time the sun is out. It rises around 6:30 and sets around 7:30. It is always dark in my room. I need a flashlight to take my bucket bath (by bucket bath, I mean that I have a bucket of water, and I stragetically pour it on myself - washing my hair is a skill I have yet to come close to mastering), a flashlight to use the latrine, a flashlight to try to dig out something from my bag, a lantern to study at night. It is dark. Everywhere. People hang out on their porches and chat. Tonight I played a version of "Go Fish" with my host siblings. Pretty chill. It is something I like now but think I'll have to adjust to. Now, I'm so busy all day with classes that by the time I get home, I just want to crash. My head is spinning from language class. But I can't imagine always just wanting to "chill" at night. It is a luxury to be busy, or at least that's how I've lived in Boston!