Pictures (Monkey Addition)

So I've been traveling for Peace Corps trainings during these past few weeks, and haven't had time to write a decent post. While I get my thoughts together for next week, please enjoy the pictures of monkeys I took at my neighbors house.

This guy likes to chase me to school sometimes. True story.

This is one of my students, and he was determined to get the her to look at the camera

And, because it might be the cutest picture I've ever taken, 

A Day in the Life

I've spent just about seven months here and I still don't have a many “standard” days. Nevertheless, as requested by one of my readers, I thought I'd describe some my day-to-day life for you.

SUNDAY

Sunday is day three of my weekend, so I'm usually pretty rested and ready to face market day. However, since I don't have to be up before dawn, I'll stay in bed until 8 or 9 before braving the world. The minute I open my door, it's a whirlwind of Susu greetings. “I xi. Tana mu xi? Heri xi?...” Once my door is opened, my neighbors bring over a crockpot of ye frais. Ye frais is a sickenly sweet, liquid breakfast food made with balls of flour, water, sugar, and tea, and no matter what I do, they continue to bring it to me on a daily basis. I appreciate the gesture, but I hate that I end up wasting it. After disposing of the ye frais, I'll go into the kitchen with a post-it and write out my shopping list. It usually looks a little something like this.

-onions

-garlic

-tomato paste

-potatoes

-laundry soap

-mustard

-…

You get the idea. Finally, I head to the market, dreading the chaos. On market day, the population of my village seems to triple and the space seems to shrink. Vans, trucks, and taxis come from all over and converge on little Coliah resulting in packed streets, cars everywhere, and the overwhelming sound of hundreds of people shouting the name and the price of what they are selling. I wade through the throng of people, running into students and friends, and weaving around the piles of onions, fabric, housewares, etc. Eventually, I end up at my favorite market lady's boutique where I can knock out about 50% of my list. As I continue to look for the rest, people scream fote at me, and ask where I need a taxi to...not believing me when I say I live here.

Due to the shear amount of people and traffic. I've adopted the the Getgo motto “Get in. Get out. Get going” and I'm usually back to my house before 10 am. So what do I do for the next 6-8 hours? I read, I write, I lesson plan for the week, and I usually take an hour to make a “decent” meal. After chowing down, I'll head to the well and fill up my buckets, and if I'm lucky they'll actually let me haul up the water. This always provides entertainment for the neighbors. While I do it just as well as they do, the fact that I'm white makes it hysterical.

Sundays really are my laziest day. As I mentioned, I'll read, lesson plan, and I'll often hammock in front of my house. This isn't as relaxing as you'd think. My neighbors will either sit around me and talk to me, or just wander over, greet me, and stare at my for five minutes before going back to what they were doing before. If I fall asleep, I'm always awoken by people yelling in Susu, KADIATOU HOW ARE YOU? YOU ARE SLEEPING? HAHAHA! They then turn to anyone around and say “look, the white person is sleeping in a hammock” in their mocking and sarcastic tone. When the sun starts to set, I'll head in, take my bucket bath, and eat dinner before barricading myself in for the night. And finally, before hitting the sack, I'll call the fam and talk for a solid one to two hours.

MONDAY

Mondays are a special day. By special, I mean really busy. I wake up at 6:30, get ready for school, and get the bugs, who had free run of my house all night, under control. I open up my door, the greetings start, and I wait for the crock pot to arrive. Once that has arrived, I head to school. On the way, I walk past the old ladies sweeping the road, and the sleepy market looking like a house the morning after a party. I greet the people who are up and about, and people scream fote at me. I continue walking to school where I'll see the sun rising over the mountains. I'm usually one of the first people at school, so I sit and wait for everyone else to arrive. At 7:45 the raise the flag. The students gather around the flag pole and sing as it's going up. At 8 I head to the classroom. Most of the students aren’t' there yet, and the chalkboard hasn't been erased. By 8:10 I can usually start class, where I spend the next hour and fifty minutes trying to do a lesson while continuously telling the kids to stop talking. Once my first class is over, I spend the 15 minute break eating a bean sandwich and taking my malaria meds. By 10:25 I'm able to start my next class which goes about as well as the first and before I know it, it's over. I then head to my final class of the day. English. At this point, the kids are antsy and won't shut up, so we get a small amount covered, and then I let them go. By now, it's 2 pm and I head home, stopping to buy hardboiled eggs, or bananas on the way. I quickly eat, and then collapse on the floor for a quick nap. At 3:30, I'm up and head back to school for “revisions.” Revision sessions are basically after-school tutoring. About half of my class will show up, and we spend the next two hours going over problems. At 6, the session is over, and I walk back with my students answering all of their English questions. Along the way, I am greeted by the villagers and my students cackle each time I use the local language. They proceed to ask “Madame. You speak a little Susu?” Upon arriving at the house, I take my buckets to the well and return the crock pot. After that, it's time to throw dinner together. By the time I'm done with dinner, night has fallen, so I shut my door and call it a day.

TUESDAY

Tuesdays are a little different in that I don't have school until noon! I can sleep in, do my laundry, and clean the house. I will also sometimes do “spa” days, be it painting my nails, shaving, or doing a face mask. After killing time all morning, I head to school for 10^th grade English. They laugh at lot at their pronunciation and sit there and talk the whole time while I tell them to SHUT UP. After class, I head home, grab my laptop, and immediately leave again. I walk to the taxi gare, where I sit in a plastic chair for the next two hours waiting for my computer to charge. During those two hours, I do an English lesson with the owner of a boutique, who is quite a character. He has a very fiery personality, and is quick to anger. I've had lessons abruptly end because he gets into fist fights or screaming matches with people. I'm also forced to eat rice and sauce which I force down and then gag on because it's so spicy. They then give me a bag of water and sit there howling because the fote can't handle her peppers. After English, I usually get held up by students who ask me to go over problems with them. Imagine teaching on a rickety chalkboard, in an alley, under the shade of a mango tree and having every passerby stare at the math as if it's sorcery. After two hours of this, I head home for the standard evening routine; water, dinner, reading, and writing.  

STANDARD

At long last, and as chosen by you, the following are the top five things I consider standard that definitely are not. And the results are...

5th PLACE How d'body? How d'business?

So thanks to colonization, English is spoken throughout much of Africa. However, what they call English wouldn't ever fly in the United States. It's normally some kind of mix between English and the local language, and an accent on top of it all. Guinea borders the countries of Sierra Leone and Liberia, both English speaking countries, so I run into people all the time who greet me in English. They don't ask how are you, instead my typical conversation goes like this [with my part in italics] “Good morning. “Good morning.” How d'body? “Fine?” “Good. How d'business?” “Fine?” This can go on for about five minutes and at that point I no longer understand anything coming out of their mouths, although they claim it's English. In fact, because I don't understand them, this leads to people claiming that I don't really speak English. I've had people here test me on my English to make sure that I can really speak it!

4^th PLACE The US. Is that in North or South America?

The US. Is that in North or South America? Obama is the President of all of that right? I always took it for granted that the United States of America was in North America. However, because both continents contain the word America, this causes some confusion around the rest of the world. North America, South America, Central America, it's almost as bad as the number of countries with the word “guinea” in them. In addition, I've had someone inform me that Obama was the President of both North and South America. News to me!

3^rd PLACE 8+ people...5 seats

In case you aren't familiar, the typical car fits four to five people. Two in the front and two to three in the back. It's hard to say exactly when this stopped being the case. A typical taxi is a 5 person car where they cram 4 people into the back row, and two into the passenger seat. That is if you are lucky. If you aren't lucky, there are 4 people in the back sitting in the seats, and then people sitting on the laps of those seated. In the front, they will often add a person to the drivers seat. Oh and don't forget about the people in the trunk and the ones riding on the roof. Talk about safe! While it's completely normal to have seven people in the car, I've had up to 11 in a 5 person car, and up to 18 in a 9 person car. If that wasn't bad enough, I've actually had rides with 8 people in the car and was happy about it! I consider a ride where my hips aren't crushed, the car doesn't break down, and where I don't get peed on a very successful voyage!

2^nd PLACE Screaming

Even though I'm a redhead and people always make references to my “fiery personality”, I'm usually a pretty calm person. I hate confrontations and worked at Getgo for years and never screamed at anyone. Then I came to Guinea. Sometimes the screaming isn't even out of anger (although it usually is). Being loud is just a part of the culture here. If you aren't VERY outspoken about something, they will assume you aren't serious. So for example when a taxi drivers yells at me to get in the car because we are leaving “toute de suite”, I yell at him saying I'll get in the car when we are actually about to leave, which I know will be two hours later and NOT right away.

When it comes to anger, I often surprise myself. It takes a lot to just walk out of the house every morning, and that snotty adult condescendingly yelling rude words at you can make you snap. I'll often scream at adults that I'm not an object, but a person, and that I have a name. I also scream that I don't have money to give them, and then there is always screaming at the people on motos who try to run you over. I'm sure I'm forgetting others, but you get the idea. I've gained extreme amounts of patience being here, but once I run out of that , it's all over. I just hope I can calm down before coming back to the states!

And the winner is...daily marriage proposals

When I say marriage proposals, they come from two different types of men. The stranger and the non-stranger. The stranger proposals happen every time I travel. Men will demand that I marry them and then actually become angry when I refuse! The proposals aren't very elaborate. They demand my money and a visa to the united states. They promise me I'll be happy, and they occasionally tell me I'm pretty, or fat. They do anything they can to get my number, and then just stare at me. If it weren't so obnoxious it would be really funny. I guess I get to enjoy it when I travel with other girls. When I'm with other girls the men usually target them leaving me to enjoy the scene and be thankful it's not happening to me.

The second type of proposals are from guys in my village. They greet me by my name and then they add their last name. They tell other people I'm their my wife and then ask what I cooked for them. While they are kind of joking, they really aren't, and so when I say I don't want them, they think I'm joking! Everyone in my village expects me to get married while I'm here and either take my new husband back to the states, or stay in Africa for the rest of my life. I mean, sure, it could happen...you never know!

So I hoped you enjoyed that, and I apologize for the delay! I was so busy this week I didn't even have two hours to waste charging a computer!  

PEACE CORPS GUINEA CHRISTMAS CAROLS

PEACE CORPS GUINEA CHRISTMAS CAROLS

I know this is coming a bit late...but there is still snow on the ground in the US. Enjoy!

THE CHRISTMAS SONG

Lesson planning by an open fire

Sweat drips slowly down your nose

Late night dance club plays it's music all night,

And folks getting bit by mosquitoes

Everybody knows a pizza and some nutella

Would be better than more rice

More petites than you could ever know

Will be salue-ing you tonight

They know that's foté's on his way

Just ask him once and he'll take you off to the states

But every villager is going to cry

When he sees I have no money for him or I

And so, I'm offering this simple phrase

To kids from Haute

To the Basse Cote,

Although it's been hot for the last 90 days,

Merry Christmas to you!

-Dante Bugli

GUINEAN JINGLE BELLS

Driving through the dust

In a neuf place bush taxi

O'er the bumps we go

Vomiting all the way.

Goats and babies scream,

Making my ears blood,

How cruel it is when neene

Elbows me in the guts tonight

CHORUS

Oh bush taxi, bush taxi

Breaking all the way.

Oh what fun it is to ride

In a yellow death trap today!

Bush taxi, bush taxi,

Sweating all the way.

Oh what fun it is to sit

In a traffic jam today!

A day or two ago,

I thought I'd take a ride

And soon this big tanti

Was seated by my side.

Her flappy boobs were out,

The driver was a grouch,

and a herd of cows fell asleep directly in our route

CHORUS

- Brian Brady and Courtney Clark

THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS IN GUINEA

On the 12^th day of Christmas, Guinea gave to me;

12 hours in a taxi

11 babies crying

10 tan lines

9 petits dancing

8 delicious mangoes

7 flat tires

6 mothers milking

5 vomit bags

4 broken windows

3 French men

2 crawling bugs

and a gendarme harassing me!

- Dante Bugli