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!