Homestay Tomorrow

Well, this will probably be my last post until Christmas. Tomorrow we head to Forecariah to be adopted by our host families and move into the homes that we will stay in for the next 2 months during training. I am looking forward to having my own room, as living in this "Peace Corps frat house" (as one of us put it) is starting to be a bit draining! We will come back to Conakry for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so I will have internet then. That is also when I will get my cell phone and email out the number. Incoming calls are free so call as much as you want as long as I have service! The volunteers said about 85% of them have rezzo (service) at their site.

Today our CD Dan opened up his pool to all of us and we went swimming. We kept spinning around in the water saying, "Peace Corps is so hard!" When everyone at home sees pics they will think all we do here is party. But just know that is not the case! The next two months we will train from 8am to 5pm, Monday through Friday, with additional assignments and activities after 5 and on Saturday mornings.

AgFo is a small group, just six of us: me, Jessica, Danyelle, Jason, Chris-Heijn and Ian. You can find blogs for Jessica, Ian and Chris-Heijn on the right sidebar (as of right now). Some of our training activities include planting and maintaining a 30 meter x 30 meter garden, tree and leaf identification, Moringa tree education and working with high school kids in a local school in Forecariah (among many other things!). Engaging the youth in the environmental future of this country is going to be very important. According to two of our volunteer trainers (Ciara and Teale), the older generation in Guinea sees the problems but are just too old to do anything about it. It will be up to us to help get the youth to see it, too.

This morning we went to the marche (market, pronounced mar-chay). I was in Sidiki's group (each volunteer only took 4-5 trainees as it would be WAY too hard for us all to go there together) and Paul, Ben and Ian all bought some traditional African clothes to wear to the adoption tomorrow. Clothes for women are a bit trickier. You really need to go to a tailor to have something made. I really wanted to wear something Guinean to the ceremony but the girls told me women do NOT wear bubus (like a mumu, kinda) unless they are very old and that was really the only thing I felt comfortable buying without trying on or being tailored.

The market was crazy and it was a slow day!! Since today is Tabaski, not many were at the marche, but it is like this crowded "indoor" area with these tiny little walkways that you just have to push your way through. There are all kinds of weird sights and smells and if I ate meat I probably would have been horrified by the meat section. The others were. It was what I was expecting: cuts of meat just sitting out, flies all over them. Stinky!

However it was nice to see that there were plenty of things for me to buy...pasta in packages, tomato paste, peanuts, rice, peppers, carrots, tomatoes, lemons, avocado (YUM AVOCADO!), mustard, ketchup, french bread, eggs, oranges, pineapples, bananas, melons, potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, onions, garlic, peanut butter (fresh, not jarred), spices in little bags (have to ask what they are), flour, peanut oil and lots of stuff we could not identify! However, I did not see beans though Jess told me there are beans there and I must have missed them. She also said my local market will not have as much stuff. I figure I will grow a lot of things in my garden and keep rice, beans, pasta and tomato paste around as a staple food. I hope my local market is also a little more spread out! It was a little bit overwhelming to be in that crush of people in those tiny walkways, dodging unidentifiable puddles on the ground. Sidiki stepped in a puddle and had to wash his feet when we got back. And again, it was a slow day since it is Tabaski!!

Apparently there are also mango and corn seasons. But the mangoes will be free as long as you can shake one off a tree! Oh and the other night at the restaurant I tried some baobob fruit which is chalky but tasty!

Jess taught me how to eat an orange the way a Guinean does, which entails using a paring knife to cut off the outer layer of skin (which took us like 5 min per orange and would take a Guinean woman 10 seconds), then biting off one end, spitting it out and sucking the juice out as you squeeze the orange. Make sure you spit out the seeds! Very fresh.

Oh AND there is popcorn here!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!! Julia (CD Dan's wife who he met when they were serving in Peace Corps) made us some at the pool and the few precious fluffy white crunchies I had were amazing. Oh, popcorn, how I love you.

Well, tonight we are making pizza, pasta salad, upside down pineapple cake and whatever else for dinner. The pizza will be made of bread, homemade sauce and vache (Laughing Cow cheese). I'm excited.

Paul is sitting next to me working on his speech for the adoption ceremony tomorrow with the help of Katya (our retired volunteer from Russia originally). I think he will be really good. All of us are really excited to move into homestay.

SEND ME LETTERS AND PICTURES!! I have none to show my host family and they will think I am an orphan. :)

Well, au revoir! Talk to you again at Christmas!