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!