Life in Forecariah

I can’t believe next week is Christmas.

Ok, much to say. Tonight we had the “going-away” party for Teale an Alex, our AgFo trainers. Teale made her infamous “princess punch” which was awesome. You can get Coke and Fanta pretty much anywhere here.

Things you can find pretty much anywhere: spaghetti, tomato paste, laughing cow cheese, mayonnaise, French bread, onions.

As of late I have been frustrated about language learning. I do not feel I am progressing at the rate I need to progress and today Kona (language head) told us that due to budget cuts there will not be private at-site tutoring available as in the past, so if we are not up to speed by swear-in (early February), we will not be sworn in. We don’t know if that means we will be sent home or what. He said in the last stage there were 3 that required private tutoring, which they received, but we shall not be so lucky.

I still like my family and occasionally kidnapping a chick from its mommy. Little chicks are fun to hold. They complain, but they won’t jump off your hand, even when you are trying to put them back on the floor.

Oh, my family thinks Jake is my boyfriend and Scott is my second boyfriend. Hilarious!

The other day I was outside Jake’s house and we saw a big bird swoop down and steal a chick (sort of a bigger chick, but not full-size) and take it away to go eat it. The little chick was screaming in the claws of the big bird and all the other chickens were screaming. It was kind of horrifying. But, c’est la vie!

I have embraced the “water method” when using the toilet for one reason: it takes way too much water to flush toilet paper. Seriously. I am just not willing to waste all that water trying to flush the (pink!) toilet paper when I could just as easily use water to clean myself and not even flush at all! Well, half the time :).

Christmas Eve (Wednesday), we go back to Conakry in the afternoon and spend all of Christmas Day there. We plan to get cell phones and do some shopping and have a Christmas party. There has also been talk of renting a boat and going out to one of the islands to swim. We come back Friday morning. On New Year’s Day we have an outing to a nearby waterfall, which should be fun because we can swim there.

Site announcements are week 5, which seemed far away in the beginning, but now that we are ending week 2 of training, we are halfway to site announcements and it doesn’t seem far off at all.

Tomorrow we learn to build mud stoves and have half a day of language. I want to get in as many language hours as possible because as I said before, I am not doing well on the language front. We are going to start a study group a few nights a week and both Danielle and Scott have agreed to some private tutoring for me.

Also, my toothbrush has not been a subject of discussion past the first couple of days. I have had nothing stolen. Last night, though, someone stole Danielle’s purse, which she had over her shoulder walking to Chey Vicky (a bar popular amongst PCVs/PCTs). She didn’t have much in it, but it brought the whole thing home. Also, someone stole a pair of pants and a shirt from Sajay by “fishing” through his window. Oh and at the beach bar in Conakry, someone jacked Jason’s digital SLR camera, which is the most valuable thing to have been stolen and Sajay’s football.

Last night I had a Mefloquine dream (the malaria meds give me very long, varied, vivid dreams and is my only side effect and I don’t mind it at all!) that I was working on the new Batman movie and Christian Bale was my boyfriend. NICE. But then Ben and I were driving around in the Batmobile and pushing all the buttons. He is the first stagiare to end up in one of my dreams, which I guess isn’t that shocking since I see him a lot as he is one of the three in my language class. I guess Jason is the only one I see more, as he is in my language class and also in my tech sessions (he is AgFo).

AgFo does all the cool stuff. We are the only ones actually doing the things we will do at site: creating a pepiniere with school kids, making a compost pit, growing gardens (we each have our own individual 7x3 foot plot – piment and aubergines), going on field trips (to a defunct diamond mine where people still dig for diamonds by hand and occasionally find some!), building mud stoves, making jam, making solar dryers…AgFo rules!

The Forecariah marche does not have the same stuff as the one in Conakry. Basically, the vegetables you can find are piment (peppers), potatoes, cucumber, onion and garlic (and apparently tomato but I have only seen it served, not sold). So basically my diet revolves around those items. My typical meals: a fresh potato salad (potato, onion, egg, cucumber in mayo), a frite (French fries, onion, egg), black eyed peas and rice (cooked with onion, garlic, piment and spices), potato stew (not sure what all was in this but it was mainly potato and tasty!), and egg sandwiches from the café (French bread, frommage – laughing cow -, onion and egg and sometimes ketchup). For breakfast it is always French bread and one of the following: tasteless, nonrefrigerated margarine, frommage, or peanut butter and honey. I would say my fave of those would have to be peanut butter and honey. Also, I have yet to be served spaghetti, which kind of shocks me because it is so easy to make with a tomato paste and garlic sauce. Who knows.

On Thursdays we have a catered lunch from a restaurant 100k away and it is always good and varied: cucumber and tomato slices, veggies, rice and sauce, beans, bread, etc… I load up on the sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, etc… that come with that meal to get myself some variety and nutrients.

But I would have to say my favorite meal at home is the frite (I should invest in some ketchup to have with it) and favorite meal out (depending on the day) is either the egg sandwich or bean sandwich (when it doesn’t have mashed up fish in it). Both of which can be found at the intersection (Carrefour) close to the Bureau. Although we have to ask the bean lady to be out for lunch the day before, but she has obliged!

I am not a fan of rice and sauce for the most part, mostly because the sauce always has mashed up fish in it which I can taste and do not like. The leaf sauce would be good if they would just leave it at that: leaf sauce sans mashed up fish. I can’t wait to try some Moringa leaf sauce (super healthy!).

Anyway I’m beat and have a long day ahead of me in the morning so, a tout l’heure!