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.