When in Guinea...

Well here is the blog I was supposed to post yesterday! I tried to connect to the internet for over an hour with no success but finally succeeded today!


August 21st,

Well this week started out pretty normal, but it didn't take long for crazy things to start happening. For example, yesterday I woke up to one of those mutant cafards (cockroaches) crawling on me. I had been exhausted and was going to stay in bed for a few extra hours, but after that horrifying experience, I was WIDE awake. I swear it must have been right outside my mosquito net and scurried in when I turned off my alarm. Speaking of mosquito's, they also continue to terrorize me. Even under the net, I get at least five new bites every night localized to my feet. Some nights, when I want to be sneaky, I remember to put on my socks. However, this means the bites move to my legs, or worse, my wrists and elbows. These critters sure know how to drive a person crazy. Between the anti-malaria meeds (which make you crazy) and the mosquito's themselves, insanity becomes almost inevitable. Since writing this, I actually have what I hope will be good news. I'm going to be switching my anti-malarial meds, so hopefully these won't bother me as much! Another crazy thing that happened was when I accidentally walked outside in my short-shorts. *GASP* I know. I didn't realize until about five minutes in that I was doing this and by that time the damage was done. Oh well, I'm sure I've already done so many shocking things that my family will get over it.
Today we had another one of those medical sessions that will go down in history. We were given 14 different case studies and had to diagnose each case. That led up to a list of over 50 different things that volunteers often suffer from here in Guinea. From tapeworms, to UTIs, to carbuncles, to pink eye, there are plenty of strange problems to go around!
Yesterday Chris' host mother died, so all of the volunteers went to her funeral. Basically, the women sit inside and wail, and the men sit outside. When you go over to the house, you greet everyone outside, then go inside and greet everyone. It's a lot of praying and a lot of sitting. The burial will happen this afternoon (no wasting time) but women aren't allowed to go to it so I'm not sure how the rest of the process works.
Hmmm what other problems?! Oh, the sad story that is my diet continues. The other night my host mom gave me popcorn for dinner. Malnutrition FTW! Other standard meals have become a baked potato with laughing cow cheese, or better yet, beignets and bisap.
I'll leave you now to work on my lesson planning! Practice school officially starts on Monday and so I'll be pretty busy. With the exception of Thursday, I'll be teaching two one hour chunks of math lessons to 10th grade. Thursday I'll have a 2 hour block of english classes with Terminale students.

I DON'T LIKE TO THINK OF THEM AS WORMS

"I don't like to think of them as worms. Instead, I prefer to think of them as little friends." The number of places you can pick up little things like worms and amoeba's is pretty ridiculous (water, food, and even petites) however it's just life here in Guinea. You learn to accept it and move on. It also turns out I have been worried about all the wrong things. No electricity? Pas grave. Squat toilets? Pas grave! Being sick? Pas tellement grave. Things I didn't worry about? All of the mold. Moldy clothes. Moldy books. Moldy everything. With the combination of rain and humidity, nothing here ever dries all the way out. The only times clothes do actually dry is when they are laid out on the road. However, at that point you are sacrificing clean clothes for dry clothes because your clothes are now on top of child and goat poop. I also didn't worry about how much I would miss the freedom to make my own choices and have some degree of control over my life. I can't wait to move into my house where I can cook for myself, get my own water, etc. I also hadn't worried that much about my interactions with other volunteers. However, I frequently find myself embarrassed to be an American, and am not sure how often I'll want to leave site to hang out with the other volunteers!

Given the downs, this weekend was still quite a treat. Some of the volunteers staying at the regional capital took a trip to Port Kamsar and let me tag along. Kamsar is where you find all of the foreigners who invest in the bauxite and iron industries. While I was warned that there were white people in the city, I was quite taken aback anytime I saw one that I didn't know. It's things like that that I never thought I would be surprised by! Probably the most exciting thing about Kamsar is the supermarkets. I found everything from Delallo's olive oil, to mountain dew, to cans of Great Value food, to Heath ice cream bars. While everything is pretty expensive, I can't wait to come back after moving to site and stock up on yummy things like chickpeas and lentils.

I'm about to pass several big milestones. Starting August 15th (which is also Blaze's birthday) every day I spend in Africa is one day longer than I've ever spent outside of the US! Secondly, tomorrow I'll teach in front of Guinean students for the first time! I'm very nervous because it's for 50 minutes and it's concerning co-linearity of vectors! Just like everything here in Guinea, on va voir! Finally, I braved the big market here, and amazingly enough found a shop I had been to before and bought my first bit of African fabric! It's pretty, but don't get too excited, because it's basically just a wrap. I'm saving the crazy outfits until I'm all comfy at site and have outfitted my house.

Until next time…and thanks to everyone who is still reading this! If you have any suggestions (eg. are more interested in certain choses/want me to stop talking about something, just let me know and I'll see what I can do). It's been thrilling to watch my stats grow exponentially with each post!

Back from the Bush

Site visit has been defined by current volunteers as: the best most awkward time of your life, and I think I have to agree. It all started with ten hours of silence next to my counterpart on the way there. During the visit, I got to see the school, meet most of the board, some of the other teachers, and the village authorities. Aside from that and visiting my house, I spent most of my time "integrating". A word here which means stumbling through the various greetings, being laughed and stared at, and eating more than a hobbit. I know there are starving people in Africa, but not in Guinea. Malnourished yes, because their diet consists of starches, oil, and sugar, but not starving. I was really impressed with my soon-to-be house. I have a REAL toilet (seat included) and even a contraption which should allow me to take a shower rather than a bucket bath. If there's one thing to complain about it's that I don't have anywhere to hang my hammock.
The journey to site was quite crazy and it is impossible to do it justice. While I was lucky enough to be in a PC bus for the first six hours, there were some major shocks for the remaining 4-5 hours. The second taxi we took, which was as much a bush taxi as they come, had a cracked windshield that was precariously glued together. The car kept dying in the middle of the road, and everyone had to get out to push start it. During the ride, the driver was pointing and grunting at me and I finally realized that he wanted me to light him a cigarette. Amazingly, I didn't get carsick on the 20 miles of unpaved road between my village and "civilization." On the ride back down that road, the driver drove so fast over all the bumps that the key kept flying out of ignition and even the Guineans were getting sick! We had to pull over so that my neighbor could get out and vomit. I was really proud that I didn't even feel nauseated! After several bush taxi experiences, I am still not sure how they are "safter" than moto's, but I did end up arriving safely in Boke and even arrived at the Peace Corps house in the personal car of the Boke minister of education (long story). I'll spend three days here and then head back to training! The other volunteers from this region are cooking us dinner and I hear rumors that it's soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, carrot cake, and pina colada's. What more could one ask for?