Site Announcements

Today was site announcements and language placement interviews. For site announcements they drew a big map of Guinea with chalk on the floor (however inaccurate/not to scale it may have been) with all the names of the sites and major cities. Then the APCDs read out a description of what each trainee said they wanted in their site placement interview and announced the site that they were given, which in general fit pretty well to what people had asked for in their interviews. There were a few disappointments but everyone has moved on into the acceptance and readjustment phase and all are excited to go for site visit.

My site is near the middle-west of the country just north of a bigger city. It is right on the border of Basse Cote and Fouta Djallon in what we like to call “the foothills of Fouta”. My closest neighbor from G17 is John about 20k away and then Ian about 40-50k away. Scott is about 100k from me on a passable road.. According to the Rough Guide it would take 2 days to bike it, so it may be more of a bush taxi trip than bike trip (we hear that it takes 6 hours by bush taxi because they have to drive very slow). However Ian is willing to make the trip with me. Our regional capital is technically Boke (Basse Cote) but we think it will be faster to get to Labe (Fouta regional capital) so we may try to switch that.

My site is a small town (not sure of the population yet) but on a good road. It has it’s own market once a week, so I won’t have to go to another village for market, but if you miss market day, you’re screwed! There is no running water or electricity but I forgot to ask if there is a pump or if it’s all well water.

My APCD said that when she went to my site they showed her two houses, neither of which were appropriate. Apparently one was HUGE and on the outskirts of town and just was way too big for a volunteer and not in the ideal location which is immersed in the community. The other one was ok but it was right by the marche and a mosque, which they try to avoid because of all the prayer calls and safety issues surrounding being very close to the marche. So apparently the town decided on a third house that she has not seen and I will be the first to lay eyes on next week during site visit. I hope it is a hut!! I hope it is perfect!! She also said that my Sous-Prefet (local government official) is really excited and accommodating and is still in office after the coup, so that’s great!

In total, the most people ended up in Fouta but there are great sites in Haute and Basse Cote that I plan to visit and do tech exchange (every Public Health volunteer I can find!) and a lot of my closer friends will have the same regional capital as me (if I switch to Labe, which I might).

The national language I will be learning is Pular, which I have heard is hard. Also, I placed into Intermediate Low on my French interview today so I still have to take French classes until I reach Intermediate Mid. Then I can start Pular. I hope that maybe by the time I get back from site visit I will have practiced and studied enough to petition for another interview so that I can study Pular for the last 2.5 weeks.

All-in-all a very nerve-wracking kind of day. But as predicted, now that we know our sites and who will be close to us, now all we want to do is see our villages!

We leave for Counterpart Workshop (followed by Site Visit) on Thursday.