Back in Forecariah

We arrived back in Forecariah yesterday and boy was I glad to be home. The prospect of not having to repack my bag again in the morning was AWESOME and having a bathroom right next to my room is amazing and having my family cook great food for me every night is so awesome and I now realize how much I have grown to like Forecariah and living with my family. It is a little different, though, because Fatim is no longer here, she is in Conakry at university.

So I had all these dirty clothes and Yari came to get me from the café at the Carrefour to give her my clothes and when she saw the pile I had for her, her eyes got real wide and she exclaimed, “Nagnouma! C’est beaucoup!!” I said thank you about 50 times and hauled the water from the well to the house for her, though she was the one to actually haul the water UP the well. I am not ashamed to admit that a 16 year old girl (hell, even a 10-year-old in Mamadaba’s case) is way stronger and more capable to hauling water than I am. Plus she won’t let me haul the water because she says I’ll fall into the well.

So then I went out again and when I got back she had all my stuff hanging out to dry and I thanked her again and went to my room to get her some bon-bons. I had one of my favorite African bon-bons which is like a strawberries and cream Chupa Chup lollipop to give her and a roll of Smarties. I said, “Un petite cadeau pour toi” and she seemed genuinely stoked to be getting bon-bons right up until Mohammed spotted them and started insisting on having some. She tried to give him the lollipop but he was dead set on having the Smarties so I finally went back in and got another roll. Then grandmere is helping Mohammed open his roll and she starts to try to get him to give her some and he keeps moving his hand towards hers but then reversing direction and popping it into his mouth instead, each time of which grandmere would give him a little slap on the back and try again. He finally gave her one and then as he toddled off I caught grandmere popping one into her mouth from her other hand, which contained about half the roll. Sneaky old lady, she loves the Smarties!

Anyway, everyone’s site visit went pretty well, I think I was the one with the best horror story aka the Diahrrea Dash to the End Zone or “Hey, blanc, ca va?” which the whole ordeal has been boiled down to. Tomorrow we do a debriefing and my APCD will be here so I will bring up the housing concerns with her as well. I think as long as I end up with a workable house all will be well in my village.

Site Visit

Well, site visit has gone well and not so well. Ian and I were finally able to get out of John’s site at noon yesterday (still with two empty seats which were subsequently filled along the way rendering the whole waiting a day and a half to leave thing frankly dumb), making our trek from Mamou to site a total of three days. I’m betting we win for difficulty of getting to site.

When I got here I was brought to the Sous Prefet’s house, who is the government-appointed leader of the sous-prefecture which is comprised of five districts. My district, where my village is actually located, has a population of a little over 4,000. The Sous Prefet is really cool and speaks very well so I can understand almost everything he says! So does his wife, which is great because I can speak to both of them very easily, even in my broken French. The others are not so easy to understand, but such is life. At the SP’s house I also met the President of the CRD, which is an elected position and if I understood correctly the same dude has been the CRD Pres since the beginning in 1992. I also met the Director of the Primary School. Then I ate rice and sauce. It was a chicken sauce with manioc (I think). I didn’t eat the chicken, but the sauce itself wasn’t bad. Until it hit my guts 7 hours later and I spent half the night in my toilet, which is actually like 100 yards away from my house and requires me to leave my house and my yard and travel down a path where I met strange men each time I went. More on this later.

After food, we went to tour the government buildings. We went to the Centre de Sante where I met the Doctor (at least, they called him a doctor) and saw the facility. It is basically this: a waiting room with benches and a desk and some signs about tuberculosis, 3-4 sick rooms with 2 beds each where sick people can come and rest and be hooked up to IVs for 3 days (if they are not better after 3 days they are sent to the closest larger city), a room where he gives injections, plus two offices (one for him and one for the Chef du Sante who was sick and in the bigger city). The doctor’s office had a fridge in it where he kept the medicine, but the fridge wasn’t working because he was out of gasoline to power it (there is no electricity in my village). Oh there were also two rooms that had something to do with pregnant women, I’m assuming delivery rooms, but I did not know the right words to ask if he had a midwife he works with for those as well or what.

I also saw the Salle du Reunion, which is just a place to hold meetings and sensibilisations (I will be using this a lot), and the offices of the Sous Prefet, CRD Pres and I think the last one was my counterpart’s office (he is the Chef Cantonnement du Forestiere) but I also think the SP referred to it as “my” office as well. Who knows.

Then I was taken to my house, which is in the middle of town right near all the aforementioned places. It’s very big with 4 bedrooms and a living room and…no toilette. When they walked me to the toilette (as I said before, about 100 yards away) I was kind of distraught but thought, hey, it’s only for two days and then I can tell them if they want me to live here for 2 years I have to have a toilet at least on my property. …and then I had diahrrea all night and decided there was NO WAY IN HELL I would live with this being my only toilet. In fact, once I just popped a squat in my yard because I got sick of walking there and having to saluate every weird dude who said, “Hey, blanc, ca va?” on my way there.

Oh, also, I say it has 4 bedrooms but one is a store room that the owner is using and one has an old woman living in it that the SP said if it wasn’t cool, she would go away. And I’m like…really? You want me to kick an old woman out of her room??? But seriously, I need my house to be MY HOUSE and I simply cannot share it for two years while I NEED my privacy, space to cry, and freedom to walk around without my knees covered.

Anyway, before the diahrrea, the SP sent who I think is one of his daughters, Hoodia, to show me the pump, which is like 1 kilometer away. She got me a bidon of water and I decided that either A. a petite will be getting my water for me or B. I will be using my bike to trek bidons back and forth once a week to build up a stockpile of water in my house.

Then I told her I wanted to take a bath, which I was told I would do at the SPs house, but she took me down to this watering hole where this girl was doing laundry on the rocks and was like “Here you go” (in Pular). I was kind of like…should I be doing this? But then both Hoodia and Kadiatou (the SPs other daughter, I think) stripped into their underwear and started washing themselves and my clothes and I was just like what the hell. It was actually kind of nice. The water was nice and cool and it’s always fun to bathe outside, though I don’t think I got as clean as I do with a bucket bath and I saw a worm in the small bit of water left in my gobelet today so I hope I didn’t get schisto or something from doing that, though I did make sure to ask them before doing it “is it not dangerous?” and they said no. I guess all the women bathe down there.

So after my night-o-diahrrea I was awoken by a “conk-conk” on my door (that’s what they say when they’re knocking) from my counterpart who had shown up with two other dudes and I answered the door bra-less in my tank top and pagne, which was kind of embarrassing, but he took me by surprise.

So after another trip to the bathroom, we took off for the pepiniere which must have been like 3k away near the President of the Groupement’s house. The groupement is the group of people who work in the pepiniere. The site is right next to the river, so there is a ready source of water and is fenced in with a metal fence to keep the animals out. There are no actual trees in it right now, that’s my job, though he said the groupement works on Tuesdays and Saturdays though I’m not sure what they do.

After the long walk back, he asked if I still wanted to go to the schools and I told him another time because I felt like dying. I then spent a few hours laying in my bed feeling miserable until Hoodia conk-conked and I went back over to the Sous Prefet’s house and spent the entire afternoon kicking it with his wife, Hoodia, Kadiatou, Mamadou (7) and Alpha (1.5). He was out of town for the day and won’t return until tomorrow so I didn’t get to talk to him about my house concerns, though I did write him a note about it I plan to drop off before I leave tomorrow. However, his wife speaks French so I talked to her for awhile about various things and I think we will be friends. I would guess her age as late twenties.

Tomorrow is market day so I’m going to try and hit it before Ian shows up with the taxi (inshallah) and purchase some avocadoes, of which the SPs wife said there would be many.

I would say the thing that would have improved my site visit the most would be the lack of modified stool. Second most would be having a bathroom in/around my house. Thirdly, more clean clothes. And last, no old woman living in the room next to me. The end.

2 Days at John's Site

So after Counterpart Workshop, which was two days in Mamou filled with sessions with our homologues, great rice and sauce and one trip to the night club, we all set out to go to our respective sites for site visit. Everyone started off with at least one other person and their counterparts.

In my group was Ian, John, Kate and Katie. The ride to Kate’s site was not bad at all (paved road and all) and there we parted ways with Kate and Katie who went on to their sites and John, Ian and I continued on with John’s counterpart (my and Ian’s counterparts went by moto).

We got to John’s site yesterday at about 4 after being in a taxi since 8am and eventually were taken to John’s house. It’s a new house with a vrai toilet, sink and shower head, but no running water which renders them moot. We had dinner at a little café by the marche (omelettes with fries!) and have already become regulars as we had breakfast there (omelettes again) and dinner (spaghetti with a tomato-ey sauce, fries and onion) today.

So this morning Ian and I get all ready to go on to our sites further north and after breakfast bring our stuff to the taxi going our way, buy our tickets and throw our stuff on top. It was probably 9am, maybe earlier.

So then they tell us they are waiting to fill two more spots in the taxi before we can take off and Ian and I make the mistake of thinking this should not take long at all. WRONG.

After waiting all day and wandering around John’s site, eating at a rice bar, buying multiple sachets of Coyah (water), hanging out in the office of the NGO John is assigned to, at about 6pm Ousmane makes the call that we are not to take the taxi today and instead wait for tomorrow. He made this decision based on many factors: volunteers generally are not to travel at night, this is our first bush taxi experience (including yesterday), and our counterparts will not be riding with us (Ian’s counterpart had already gone ahead to his site and my counterpart was having his moto fixed and stayed around for this whole fiasco but was riding his moto to site).

Starting at about 3pm, Guineans were shocked that we were still there. Apparently it isn’t that common to wait ALL DAY for your taxi to leave. We think the other people waiting for our taxi might have been a little peeved at us for backing out so they would have to wait for tomorrow, but that’s just how it is. I am very doubtful they would have filled those other seats tonight anyway and hopefully in the morning some others will arrive and we can take off. Ousmane said that if we haven’t left by noon tomorrow, we should call him and he will adjust our schedule, though we don’t know what that means.

I think we win the prize for longest time taken to get to site, beating even those out in the middle of nowhere in Haute.

It’s just so frustrating because it should only take an hour to get to my site once we finally leave. It’s the actual leaving that is taking the longest.

Boredom at John's NGO office:

Counterpart Workshop Apprehensions

Tomorrow we leave for Counterpart Workshop in Mamou followed by site visit. Today was not a fabulous day for me and every little thing stressed me out, most of all packing for this ordeal.

I am apprehensive for several reasons. First, that my counterpart will even show up to the workshop. AgFo is different from other disciplines (especially SED) in that our counterpart is the local Chef Cantonnement du Forestier, which is a government appointed position and is the default counterpart for all AgFo volunteers in Guinea. I am supposed to be relying on this dude for everything, basically. He is supposed to get me to my site, provide food and a place to stay (if my house isn’t ready yet, more on this later), introduce me to the community and get me back on a bush taxi to send me back. And hopefully he speaks French because if it’s only Pular there will be problems.

Now to the house situation. No one has seen my house or even knows for sure that the town has officially decided on one. The only thing keeping me optimistic is that my APCD said my Sous-Prefet (local government official) is really enthusiastic and I should be able to rely on him for stuff once I get to my village.

Now the part about getting to my village. John, Ian and I will leave Mamou together with our counterparts and go to Kate’s site, where we will need to get out of the bush taxi and get in another one to go north to John’s site. At John’s site, we will have to get out again to find another taxi to take us further north (on the same road). Ousmane said that by the time we get to John’s site it will be late afternoon and the likelihood of us finding a taxi going north at that hour will not be easy, meaning we will probably have to stay the night at John’s and catch a taxi the next day.

To get back to Forecariah at the end, we will have to go to John’s site and spend the night again, then get a taxi to Kate’s site, where we will spend another night and then the NEXT day finally get a taxi to Forecariah. The only thing keeping me slightly sane about this is that Ian will be with me the whole time as his site is north of mine and the only time I might have to get a taxi and ride in it alone is on the way back on the my site to John’s site leg, which should actually be fairly short and painless. The really painful rides will always have at least Ian by my side which is at least comforting.

I think I am just very pessimistic about the whole thing. I just need to sleep on it. In the morning when I’m all packed and ready to go, I’m sure I will feel better. I really think it’s the whole figuring out what to take and then hauling it all around and being paranoid about the dude riding on the roof of the taxi stealing my stuff or having forgotten something key that I can’t get at my site (I only have market once a week and I don’t know what day it is). Hopefully it will all work out.

In other news, tonight was the last evening I will see my sister Fatim as she is leaving for university in Conakry while I am gone. So tonight I gave her her cadeau (gift), which is a shiny metal keychain I got in a swag bag from WE TV for I think the Independent Spirit Awards. She LOVED it. She squealed when she opened it and then showed it to everyone in the family. I think the family thought that they weren’t going to get gifts, only Fatim, but I am just waiting until I am fixing to leave to give the other gifts I brought (Hello Kitty hairties for Mamadaba, CSULB hat and Obama bracelet for Yari, Rubix cube-like thing for Mohammed and a can opener for mama – they open cans with knives here, though tomato paste and condensed milk are the only cans really - …hmmm I still need some cadeaus for Oumou and grandma!! A project for Mamou or Kindia…). I also gave the family my remaining pineapple from Maferinya and mama looked really surprised and pleased when I handed it to her as pineapples are relatively expensive and difficult to find here even though there is a huge pineapple plantation a half hour away.

Also Fatim told me a chicken has to be over a year old before it is big enough to eat and that once the chicks are big enough to live on their own they will eat the year and a half old mama…or all three of them (we have 3 mama chickens right now and 15 chicks, all of which Allah decided would be girls). In fact today I identified all of our chickens (3 other adult chickens besides the mama hens). I think the family might give me the chick I saved a few weeks ago when I leave. I keep calling her “ma petite poussin” and I think once Fatim asked me if I would take her with me to site. She still won’t be very big but if I feed her rice she should be fine. I dunno. I think that when I go out of site and need a neighbor to watch my animals they might just mange (eat) my chicken. But at least she’d have a good life until then? Or would her life be better if she could spend it with her siblings? Am I reading too much into the life of a chicken? Food for thought (but not for belly…I am a vegetarian after all).

Giant Araignee

So today when I got home from training I went into the bathroom to germicide (Dettol) my bath water when I saw an araignee (spider) bigger than my hand chilling on the wall right next to my bucket. I did not Dettol the water and instead went back to my room for my Birkenstock, then stood in front of the spider for a good minute considering whether or not my Birkenstock would be big enough to kill it or if I would have to hit it more than once or if it would sense me trying to kill it and start running which would freak me out even more! I then turned around and decided that it would just go away and if it didn’t I would not bathe today.

A couple minutes later, my mom walked into the bathroom and killed it with one swift swat of a FLIP-FLOP and then fed it to the chickens. Yup.

Also, there is something living in my ceiling. I usually only hear it moving around in the evenings and as Scott put it, “it has some girth to it”. Although, last night at like 3am it was GOING TO TOWN up there scratching around and making lots of noise. I was almost afraid it was going to come through the particle board and land right on top of my mosquito net. It didn’t, and I just heard it scurrying around again. I don’t know what it is. Maybe a rat. Hopefully a rat and not a TRULY giant spider!! It is way too big to make its way into my actual room (unless it falls through the ceiling), but still…I have a roommate.

Today there was also a large araignee at Jake’s house when we went by there this morning. But his was way up on a wall above the door to his bathroom in the hallway. Neither I nor he nor his second mom would kill it and it was still there when he got home from training. Apparently his mom finally used the “broom” (a bundle of thin stick-like things tied together) to chase it all the way out the front door.

Inside my actual room I have only had a couple of smaller bugs and spiders but nothing major. Right now there is a cricket hiding somewhere by my door and the last two nights has been singing it’s heart out. A lot of other people have mice and rats that make noise in their rooms at night but not me. Well, other than whatever it is that’s living in my ceiling.

And the weird worms living on my bathroom floor. They look like tiny leeches and I have only noticed them because when I’m squatting in there at night with my head lamp on with only the floor to stare at, I see moving things and on closer inspection see that they are, in fact, little worms living in the water that is perpetually on the floor of my toilette. I wonder what they actually are. No wonder Peace Corps insists you wear flip flops in the bathroom!

I would have to say, though, that one of my bigger fears is getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and stepping on one of those giant araignees as I get out of my mosquito net. I once mentioned this to Dave (who is the bug-phobic-est of all of us) and he was like, “that’s why I keep a flashlight in my net! And then I check my whole net before opening it and examine the whole floor before stepping on it!” And actually, last night Jake peed in a bottle because he knew there would be spiders in his bathroom if he ventured in there.

C’est la vie en Guinee.

PS yesterday my mom gave me a vrai apple that she had bought in Conakry! They are expensive at 2 mil 500 francs a pop (same as an avocado), as they are imported. It was the most amazing apple I have ever eaten and I shared it with Scott.

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.

2 Days til Site Announcements!

Well it has been creeping up on us, Week 5 starts Monday and commences with language placement interviews (to see if you have reached the required level yet so you can start local language) followed by the site announcement session at 10:30am. Apparently they will make a big map of Guinea out of rocks under the Mango trees and we will all go stand on our sites and look around to see who will be close to us and who won’t. It will be intense.

Monday also brings the new volunteer trainers and for AgFo it’s Sarah and Brienne. They will be with us for Counterpart Workshop.

Thursday we leave for Mamou (in the Fouta) for Counterpart Workshop Friday and Saturday, where we will meet our counterpart for the next two years and try to communicate with only the hour and a half of survival language training on Wednesday. It should be tre interesante!

My advice to future volunteers is to get in as much French (or whatever language they will speak) as possible because the better you are at it, the easier things are and the more you will get to learn your local language before going to site. I hope I test up on Monday and get to start local language but we will see.

On Sunday we leave Mamou for site visit which will take all week. We will get to see our houses, meet our town, see our market, etc… Everyone is really excited to figure everything out and the prevalent sentiment is that no matter what site you end up with, you’re going to love it in the end despite whatever hardships it will put on you.

We all can’t wait until Monday and then I’m sure once we know our sites we will be tres anxieuse to see our villages! It never ends.

Just to clarify, I did receive my mom’s first package over the New Year’s holiday, it was postmarked December 8 and hadn’t been tampered with in any way. And she didn’t even follow all of the suggestions on the epic mailing guidelines post. However, she was very vague and boring on her description of contents so I’m sure that helped…

If anyone else has sent something please let me know in some way (via email, comment on this blog or phone call) so I can keep an eye out for it and track what I am and am not receiving. This includes letters as I appear to have not received a Christmas letter from my mom.

Today I went to Jake’s house for dinner and his second mom (polygamous family) taught us how to make a meal. It was fries, hard boiled egg, tomato and an onion sauce which contained onion, garlic, peanut oil (2 spoons, 1 to start and 1 near the end), water (6 spoons?), half a Maggi cube and finished off with some squirts of fresh lime. It was tres bonne.

Almost as good as Animal Style Fries =).

But it was nice to get a tomato for dinner (I miss tomato!!). Tomato is actually kind of expensive at 1 mil for a decent (not spectacular) medium-small sized tomato. But considering the lack of other vegetables available is worth the cost. A good bunch of lettuce is also 1 mil and I have had lettuce with dinner the past 2 nights and it’s been great!!

A small (by US standards) onion is about 200-300 francs, a thing of peanut butter is 1 mil 500 francs (it is literally just pressed roasted peanuts – fresh and with no additives!), potatoes are 500 francs for four small ones or 1 mil for three bigger ones (keep in mind that the terms “big” and “small” are subjective and by US standards all would be considered small), a loaf of French bread is 1 mil 500 francs. Eggs are about 800 francs for a fresh one and something like 700 francs for a boiled one which doesn’t appear to make much sense because it takes more labor to prepare the boiled egg, n’est pas? Actually come to think of it I bought 2 hard boiled eggs from a woman on the street at the military checkpoint near Conakry for 1 mil…so I guess you can get boiled eggs for as little as 500 francs each. Not sure about the Laughing Cow frommage, but a tub of margarine (which I am not too fond of) runs about 15 mil, which is tres cher.

Today for lunch I got 2 eggs and onion in a bowl at the café for 2 mil and put on it half of one of the avocados Scott achete-d for me in Conakry. It wasn’t ripe when I had sliced it open in Conakry so I put it in a plastic bag and prayed it would still be usable when it softened. Well today it was fine and after scraping off some minimal bruised/brown parts I had a brilliant meal. The avocados were 2 mil 500 francs each, which is expensive but they are GOOD and big. I have another to mange tomorrow. I think about it like this: I bought avocados every day in the States even though they were an expensive fruit (at $3 a pop), so if I do the same here I’m not really acting out of character (at .50 cents US a pop). Plus they are just coming into season and will only be around until, like, May. This is how I justify the expense. And many an avocat will be manged.

New Year's Day

Well, it is officially 2009!! Last night was pretty fun. We went down to the Beach Bar and there were a lot of people and dancing and staring out into the ocean.

This morning I took a shower with running water! And used a toilet that flushes!! It was glorious!!!

We are going to go swimming in Dan's pool pretty soon and then we head back to Forecariah, but just wanted to check in.

Make sure to check out the blogs linked on the right as some people have uploaded pics, which I have been very lax about doing.

I will not be back to internet until swear-in (beginning of February) so I look forward to hearing from you call via letters and phone calls (see Right for instructions to get my #)!

Al'hamdulilaih!

Happy New Year!

Well we made it to Conakry for New Year’s Eve. Tonight there is a reggae fest at the Beach Bar and I am considering dropping 30 mil for a vrai pizza. Or maybe I’ll try to split one with someone so it’s only 15 mil each. In American money, 30 mil is only 6 bucks but here that is a lot. That is 6 egg sandwiches or 12 bean bowls or 30 good tomatoes or 60 oranges or 7 beers or 3 bottles of gin, to put things in perspective. But…it will have real cheese on it!!! OMG!!!

So…please send cheese. A mozarella variety would be awesome if such a confection can be found. Then I could make my own pizza.

Everything is going well. My mom has discovered that Americans like spaghetti so she has been making that for dinner A LOT even though I told her like a week ago that the frite is my favorite meal (and she hasn’t made it since, go fig!). I would have to say the spaghetti is probably my least favorite meal out of what she makes so I am a bit baffled that she seems so enamored with it! Maybe it’s because it is easy to make. I dunno. I hope to have a frite when I get back, it's my fave. French fries are awesome.

We are going back to Forecariah tomorrow afternoon after less than 24 hours in Conakry. I don’t think we are going to be able to go shopping or change money tomorrow, either, because it will be New Year’s Day and a lot of places will be closed. That means no shopping or money-changing until swear-in. Which means no vrai cheese from Super Bobo (the supermarket in Conakry). I guess life could be worse :).

I have not received any letters from anyone!! SEND ME LETTERS PEOPLE!! I will not be back to internet until February so letters would be great. In training they should only take about 2 weeks to get to me so GET WRITING!!

Cross-Cultural Adaptation

Cross-Culture story: So on my way back from Chey Vicky, Jake wanted to stop for cigarettes so I went with him and bought two of my favorite bon-bons. It is like a strawberries and cream Chupa pop. I got one for me and one for Mamadaba. I had given Mohammed a bon-bon yesterday. So I give the one to Mamadaba and had been enjoying mine all the way home. Then I tried to explain to Fatim that it was my faaaaaaaavorite bon-bon. And I held it out like, “see, the pink and white one? It’s my favorite!” And she promptly took it from my hand and stuck it in her mouth, only to hand it back to me after she’d had a sufficient taste. I thought about how in the States that would seem like Fatim was doing that because she knew I wouldn’t eat the rest of it if she did. But here, they share the same everything. They use my spoon to finish my plate when I am done just after I’ve popped it out of my mouth. It ain’t no thing.

G17 Presents: Christmas Coup 2008

Well, in case you didn’t notice, we did not go to Conakry for Christmas. There was a coup d’etat, but no shots were fired save the ones fired into the air all night Christmas Eve in celebration. At first in the back of my head I thought it was fireworks (duh, there are no fireworks in Guinea), but then Ousmane suggested everyone get under the patio ceiling, as what goes up must come down. Almost all of us were at the Bureau when it happened and had planned to spend the night anyway, which we did in 13-year-old style glory in the air-conditioned sick rooms.

So the military is now in charge of the country, Camara is now the de facto President, though some old government officials are still claiming to be in charge and asking for international assistance, but Camara’s convoy rolled through Conakry Christmas Eve with no resistance and people in the street applauding and took over the Presidential Palace.

They are still saying elections will be in December 2010, when Conte’s term would have ended (although if he were still alive in 2010 there is little doubt he would have remained in power). The international community is calling for free, fair elections in 6 months so Camara is meeting with all international embassies and organizations (including our Peace Corps Country Director, Dan) tomorrow to discuss the future of Guinea. EDIT: Dan did not end up attending this meeting, but came to Forecariah instead to attend the cross-cultural fair, show his daughters the training site and tour a few PCT accommodations. He also spoke with us for a little while about the situation, what it was like in Conakry and that he is hopeful we will be able to go to Conakry for the New Year’s Eve celebration.

As I type this, the military is firing (hopefully into the air). Today was Conte’s funeral. They just started firing a couple minutes ago. Camara issued an 8pm curfew country-wide for all civilians. Ousmane says it is because everything in Guinea happens under cover of night and Camara is afraid of a counter-coup/mercenaries from neighboring countries. He also said he is strict about PCTs adhering to the curfew because the military tends to get drunk and fire indiscriminately/be scary.

We have been kind of afraid of the military, I think because as Americans we have been conditioned to think of Africans in uniform as dangerous. However, they have all been very friendly and in good spirits when we have seen them out. Christmas Day I was walking to the marche with Jessica and Dave and there was a big group of military outside the Prefet’s office (now the Commondante’s office – they kicked the Prefet out of her house and office the same night they took over the Presidential Palace). They were in good spirits, firing into the air, a big group of people watching them from the road. We jumped as a female soldier let out a burst of shots into the air not 20 yards from us. I also collected a few shell casings, which could be found by the side of the road, though not as many as you would think, considering all the firing. We think petites have also been gathering them up, as well.

Serima (language instructor) said they were firing blanks but Ousmane said he didn’t believe that was true so to watch out. Some shots come very close by my house as our neighbor to the left is military.

Peace Corps isn’t even close to sending us out-of-country. There would have to be violence or a gasoline shortage in order for that to happen and that has not been the case as of yet.

Priscilla (PC Admin) was able to get us cell phones on Christmas Day and had them sent to Forecariah, so we are all now with phone! Incoming calls are free for us and it costs .18 cents a minute to call using Skype from the US. To get the number, email me or contact my mom or dad, who have the number. If you have my old US cell # that is one way you can contact my mom as that # is now being used by my stepdad for his cell phone. Call as often as is practical! We are not supposed to answer during sessions (weekdays 8-12:30pm, 2-5pm Guinea time – 5 hrs ahead of East Coast, 8 hours ahead of Cali), so try to call before or after sessions, at lunch or on weekends. This is in effect until after we swear-in February 4, then call anytime!

A big thank you to PC Conkary for getting those phones for us since we were not able to go to Conakry for Christmas. An even bigger thanks for arranging for the cost of the phones to just be deducted from our settling-in allowance!

Ousmane said that if everything is normal in Conakry next week that we can go to Conakry for New Year’s Eve (leave Forecariah after sessions) and New Year’s Day (return to Forecariah New Year’s night) rather then take the day trip to the swimming hole that was previously planned for New Year’s Day.

Anyway, Christmas was still fun even though we weren’t in Conakry and a huge feast was made, consisting of pasta w/sauce (Danielle), indian food (Sajay), Ian’s special ginger-onion-potato soup, an attempt at mashed potatoes (actually it was Tenise because at the marche they said there were no potatoes, though later in the day Ian found some WTF – me), chicken (3, killed by Nick, Joseph and Jessica – I have video), dessert doughnuts (Jessica and Dave), garlic bread (Caitlin and Corinna), and ginger snap cookies (Julie). I think that was it. We all had to share plates and the few utensils we had. I shared a plate with Juliann, Ashley and Sacha. It was Christmas Guinean-style.

7 of us spent the night at the Bureau Christmas night as well in the freezing Public Health office (it was glorious except for the fact that I got sick for some reason and projectile vomited half the night, but I was the only one to get sick so I think it was that I ate a couple of bites of chicken and my body didn’t like it).

We opened Secret Snowflake gifts which was fun and everyone got some fun stuff. Dan and Julia sent a box of goodies for us from Conakry, too, including news items which was nice.

All-in-all, a good Christmas (Coup-style).

SOME INFO ON PRESIDENT CAMARA: I have heard conflicting reports on his age ranging from 35 – 44, but all told he is relatively young. He was pretty much unknown until he proclaimed himself to be the new President. He is from the Forest Region, which is really good because the other three regions (Haute, Fouta and Basse Cote) are largely dominated by specific ethnic groups and if someone from one of those groups had become the interim President, there could have been ethnic tensions. Camara grew up poor in a hut with no running water or electricity, is university educated, calls himself a patriot and (here’s the kicker) is Christian! Weird, right? This is a dominantly Muslim country so to have a Christian as the new President is very weird. Here in Guinea most people are happy (or at least not devastated) by the turn of events. Pretty much everyone hated the dude that the Constitution stated would take power in the event of the President’s death (Speaker of the Parliament). They like what Camara says and if he delivers on what he is promising the future is bright for Guinea. My hope is that he will replicate what recently happened in Mali, where there was a military coup d’etat and the dude in power organized free, fair elections in two years and then did not even run, giving confidence that the election was truly free and fair. Camara is saying that he will execute anyone found to be embezzling money from the government, he has suspended and renegotiated the mining contracts (which is where Guinea’s wealth really lies), demoted Conte’s fat cats in the military and committed to making Guinea a better place. I hope he comes through.

RIP Conte

This morning at 1am it was announced that the President of Guinea (who in practice has been more of a dictator than anything else), Lansana Conte, has died. Word spread throughout Guinea like wildfire. Apparently someone knocked on my family’s door at 2am with the news, but I did not hear it.

This morning Ousmane (training manager and acting safety and security officer) called everyone to the Bureau to discuss the situation. As of then, everything was still normal, save some roadblocks in and out of Conakry, the capitol, which Peace Corps personnel were able to get through eventually, but not without trouble.

This means our Christmas trip back to Conakry is in all likelihood canceled, though we will know for sure in the morning.

It was a tense day among the PCTs as we gathered around radios and continually asked Ousmane for updates. At some point in the morning, some military people got on the radio and said that they had taken over the government and that the Constitution was now suspended. A couple of hours later, the Prime Minister got on the radio and said that wasn’t true and that elections will take place in 2 months, which no one believes will happen (at least not a free, fair election), as Guinea does not have accurate voter registration or the infrastructure to actually carry out a free, fair election.

Most of the day went on as planned, but the Incident Reporting session ended up being taken over by questions about the future of the country, our trip to Conakry, and phone calls to all of our parents to let them know the situation, as the news in the US is apparently saying there has been a coup d’etat, which as of now, 9:30pm, is not the case. However, tonight will really tell the tale. If the military storms the government buildings in Conakry, which are located on a peninsula, they could take over and no one knows what will happen. According to the Constitution, the Speaker of the Assembly is now in power, so if the military actually does take over, THEN it will be a coup.

Most of the PCT families have been extra cautious today. Even my family told me I could only go to the Bureau this evening and made sure I was walking with friends, which they have never done before. However, I did end up going to Chey Vicky, as that is where Julie was going and I was waiting for a call from my mom on her phone (which never came).

A little before 9, Ousmane called Julie’s phone and I answered since I was holding the phone waiting for the call. Ousmane said to tell everyone at Chey Vicky to go home immediately and finish their beer in their rooms because “it isn’t safe.” Everyone immediately got up and we made sure everyone had someone to accompany them home and we took off.

Some of us went to the Bureau to ask Ousmane what had happened and he said that 32 names had been read out over the radio as people who want to overthrow the government, many of them military. He did not know how the military in Forecariah would react so he wanted everyone home by 9 so he knew where we were and were not out on the streets.

It is kind of frightening that this is happening, but I think eventually it will be good for Guinea to have the opportunity for new leadership (Conte had been in power for, like, over 20 years – 24 to be exact). The question is will it happen peacefully or not. Considering the volatile nature of the country as of late (Peace Corps was evacuated in 2007 due to rioting and the unavailability of gasoline), it is a real possibility there could be violence.

Here in Forecariah, we are only 50k from Sierra Leone and Ousmane had requested all of our passports in case we need to make a run for the border. Many of us have made “go bags” to prepare for this. Mine has some clothes, soap, toothpaste, moleskin, a sleeping bag, baby wipes, duct tape, batteries, my shortwave radio, all of my money and my medical kit in it. If I do have to use it, I will also grab my Leatherman, which is currently in my day bag, and my headlamp.

Anyway, the morning will bring more news, unless there is a pounding on the door in the middle of the night telling me to get my stuff and run (which is highly unlikely).

Frustrations

Today has been a tough day. I have started to experience some of the “downs” of the “ups and downs” one refers to when talking about Peace Corps. I do not want to spend time with my family today, nor do I want to study French.

AgFo works every single day. We have NO days off. Saturday we have community meeting (a time when we all get together to air grievances, make announcements, set up study groups, etc…), usually followed by a short AgFo meeting regarding the Sunday activity. Then on Sunday we have an Environmental Ed project, so far with the kids at the school where we have our pepiniere. I had a small breakdown at the beginning and a few tears were shed. I was just frustrated because Abdoul, our tech trainer, wanted us to tell the kids about what we had been doing since we saw them last and my brain just would NOT work to put together the French. Our new PCV trainer, Julie, sat with me and said it was ok, French is a hard language and I shouldn’t sweat it. I am grateful that the PCVs are so understanding and will take the time out to sit with you and help you feel better. I guess it’s because they have all been there. She said some days she cries, some days she screams, other days she punches pillows. It’s all part of life in the PC.

In the end I put together a pretty good paragraph about the mudstoves and some of the girls seemed to really understand what I said and explained it back.

In other news, I did not end up switching language trainers for next week, though my class is completely different. I am now in a class with all AgFo: Chris-Heijn, Jessica, Danyelle, and Ian. Jason ended up in another class with Mary and Sajay. The other day Danielle asked if I had had any French before coming here and then said, “You’re doing really well for only 2 weeks of class!”

Those things make me feel better about my progress but I am still worried it is not coming fast enough as we are entering Week 3 of a 9-week training period. And two weeks of it are eaten up by holidays off (Christmas Day and New Year’s Day), counterpart workshop and site visit. So really there are only 7 more weeks of instruction.

I guess I shouldn’t worry that much because in all likelihood I will never speak French at site.

Speaking of sites, the rumor is that AgFo has only 1 site in Basse Cote, 1 site in Haute and 4 in Fouta. Each region has its pluses and minuses and I’m not going to play the game about which region is “better”.

On Christmas Day we will be getting cell phones and there is good service here in Forecariah so I will be available by phone for the rest of PST. While I have enjoyed being “unplugged” for the last few weeks, it will be nice to hear voices from home once in awhile. Some of the others have had family call some of the PCVs cell phones for chats but I haven’t.

Six of us (one married couple) still do not have water filters. Traian had forgotten about it because when he was here last week and I asked him about them, he needed us to make a list of the names missing them. So hopefully that will be taken care of soon, though I don’t really mind having to go to the Bureau for water. Really I just want it in my hands so I am sure I will have it when we go to site.

Yesterday before community meeting, several of us met to do Yoga and 9-minute abs. Some of my muscles actually hurt! That’s what I get for not exercising for so long!

Today we bought some tomatoes in the market with the kids to show them how to get seeds from fruit (we also bought some starfruit and aubergines for the same purpose). We bought three small, but good tomatoes and they were 1 mil each! In American money that’s only .20 cents but here that is expensive! You can get a whole bean sandwich for 1 mil! However, tomatoes are out of season so that is part of it, too.

Also I noticed that I have spent all of my PC stipend on consumables, save for one 17 mil pagne (a rip-off, by the way, it should have been no more than 15 mil). Beer, food, soap, ketchup, water, oranges…that’s where all my money goes. When we get our next stipend this week I am vowing to spend more on non-consumables, like getting clothes made (which many others have already done) and less on food like egg sandwiches. If I am going to get an egg sandwich I need to cut it to a petite sandwich with only 1 egg and 1 cheese (should be 3 mil) as opposed to 2 eggs and 2 cheese (5 mil). Also I have stopped buying beer. Partly because Traian said it has formaldehyde in it and partly because we go to Chey Vicky’s a LOT and dropping 4 mil per beer (sometimes 5 mil when he doesn’t have change) was eating through my cash FAST. I have also stopped buying fries at Chey Vicky’s (granted, I only bought them once) because it is 5 mil for a plate of like 20 fries and no ketchup. Eff that.

It is funny how valuable a dollar has become (5 mil). Some people keep trying to convert it back to what they paid in American money so “it isn’t so bad”, but you really can’t do that here. You have to guard those francs with your life!! Well, not with your life, but with your discute (bargaining) skills.

At site, the stipend is 1 million francs/month or about $200. In training we are getting about 400,000 francs/month, or less than $100. To put that in perspective, the Guinean per-capita income is something like $500 a year. So comparatively, PCVs have a lot of money.

For Christmas, I have signed up to make mashed potatoes and Sam said she would take me to get vrai butter at a Leb Store (Lebanese store…for some reason there is a big Lebanese population in Conakry and they sell Western stuff in their stores). She also said we could get some boxed milk…so we’ll see how well the potatoes turn out!

Anyway, I’m on garden watering duty today so I am going to try and find a way to bike there without breaking my neck. A tout l’heure!

AND A COUPLE HOURS LATER: My bike’s front tire was flat when I tried to take it out to the garden. So I walked instead. No big deal, I thought, I’ll just repair the tire when I get back. So I get back and take the tire to the Bureau so Ian can help me repair it. We find the hole, patch it, stick it back in and pump it up. I ride it around the Bureau a little bit and it seems good. Mission accomplished? Not quite. As I’m getting ready to leave the Bureau about an hour later, the tire is flat again. C'est la vie in Guinea.

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!

Made it to Forecariah

It is hot as balls in Forecariah. Outside it wasn’t so bad, but in my room I am just dripping sweat not even moving. It is way hotter than Conakry and not just because we had air conditioning some places there. Guess I will have to take a second bucket bath in the morning before heading to training at 8.

My host family is really awesome. There is mama, grandma, aunt Oumou and my sisters Fatim, Yari and Mamadaba (I think). Fatim also has a 1 year and 5 month old son, Mohammed. Fatim is 19, Yari is 16 and Mamadaba can’t be more than 10. EDIT: As it turns out, Mamadaba is mama (Fatou’s) cousin.

Both Fatim and Yari are educated and speak English, in addition to French and Susu. I think mama and Oumou also speak French, but I am not sure. For dinner, mama made me French fries with a fried egg and onions. It was tasty but greasy.

I had my first experience with the pit latrine and can I just say that it splashes everywhere. Also, the whole family got a kick out of my electric toothbrush. I’m not sure if it was a bad idea or not to use it during homestay, as they do say not to let people know what you have, but I mean, it’s a toothbrush. Even if it got jacked, I wouldn’t be heartbroken, I’d have my mom send another. I have an analog backup just in case.

Fatim and Yari were the ones who came to the adoption ceremony. I guess because they speak English. Also, I live like practically next to the Bureau, which is our base of operations for training.

Today Yari took me around and we visited some of her friends and walked to the market. We also played cards: Huit Americain and Monnie. Oumou played a few rounds of Huit Americain with us.

I am so tired, but so hot and I don’t know if I’ll get a good night’s sleep tonight or not. There is a lot more to say but I am beat.

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!

End of Orientation

Today was our last day of orientation. Tomorrow the staff will be off because it is Tabaski, so we have a free day to spend with the volunteers. We are on our own tomorrow and Sadiki (Adam) said we were going to make pizza with Laughing Cow cheese, which is the only affordable cheese you can readily find here. Also the country director (Dan) invited us all to go swimming in his pool tomorrow, which will be great fun!! We are also going to dip all our mosquito nets in bug poison.

Every day we have had hard boiled eggs and fresh french bread for breakfast which has been nice. We have also had a lot of spaghetti and french fries! Last night we went out to a restaurant called Africana in downtown Conakry. The food was similar to what we have been eating - meats, spaghetti, french fries, salad, bread, etc... We had baobob juice which reminded me and Sadiki of Jamba Juice because it kind of had that chalky taste and is thick. Ciara (AgFo Hoe!) said there must have been condensed milk in it.

The ride there and back was CRAZY! There are NO traffic rules here at all. No stop signs or traffic lights (well, a couple). People play soccer in the middle of the street in traffic. There are people EVERYWHERE and a lot of them want to wave and smile at the fotes (white people). People hang out outside in the streets. Everyone honks to try and get their way. Fender benders are a regular occurrence. There's traffic jams on all the major roads. The drive made it clear that Guinea is a very poor country. No one keeps up buildings and some neighborhoods look like war zones. I think I will be happy to be living in a small village in the bush where it is nice and green, calm and clean.

Today I had my first experience washing my clothes. You basically just do it in this big bucket with a wash board (or without) and this chunky soap you can buy everywhere. Dude, it's hard work. Respect your washing machine. I don't even know if I really even got it clean, but we'll see once it's dry. The nice thing is that we have a dryer here at the house so when it is working (Inshallah) you don't have to hang your clothes out to dry. Today it was working so hopefully my clothes will be dry soon. They are practically soaking wet when you put them in, though, so it takes awhile.

The water goes on and off here, as does the electricity. When the electricity goes off, it comes back on a few minutes later, but the water can be out all day. It has made some of us wish we just had pit latrines here because the toilets get WAY more foul than a pit latrine when there is no water. Although yesterday they put out big water buckets so when there isn't water you pour some into the back of the toilet and flush normally.

I have had a shower every day. A COLD shower. We have hot water, but at the end of a hot, long day a cold shower is very welcome.

Last night we had a dance party. Everyone got out their iPods and played all the new dance songs for the volunteers and put a headlamp on "flash" so it was like a strobe light. Too funny.

Tonight I ate a few small pieces of fish at dinner. It was pretty good (L'pouisson est bonne), but weird to eat meat. I know that I have to start building up my resistance for homestay though because my family will probably make me meat, though Ousmane and Cice (in charge of training and homestay) said they would tell my family that I don't eat meat. I think I might be able to eat fish regularly but goat, pork and beef are not going to work out. Maybe some chicken.

I am so excited to go to homestay on Tuesday because it will be an authentic Guinean experience. We are insulated here at the compound, even though Dan (country director) said that they were sorry that due to budget cuts this stage did not get to have orientation at a more "comfortable" location. Pretty much the whole group said we would rather be here. The only really foul thing has been the toilets when there wasn't water.

I still feel bad/ill sometimes but I have found that when I start to feel that way I just need to have some rehydration salt in my water and I feel much better. I have actually started to like the taste of it, which is bizarre because the first time I tasted it, it was really bad. I actually think putting flavoring in it makes it worse!

All our stage does is laugh. We are a group of people with great humor, though Katie (fellow trainee) said, "Well if we didn't laugh, we'd cry!!"

And my final thought: as we were driving back through Conakry on the way back from the restaurant, I remarked, "Ï'm still not having that 'holy shit I'm in Africa' moment." And Sadiki said, "Just wait until you're taking a shit next to a rhino."

P.S. there are no rhinos in Guinea, but we do have hippos :).

Moonlight

This evening we ventured to the beach bar, which is located right behind our compound. It was fun and loud (we were making all the noise). Toward the end, a few of us ran out toward the water (but were sure not to touch it as sewage in Guinea dumps directly into the ocean completely untreated). We yelled into the wind and looked at the stars. I stood for awhile, just gazing out on the moonlit water and felt a real sense of peace.

I think I will like it here.

Day Two in Guinea

This is a photograph of my "stage" (the group of trainees I arrived with). Everyone is really awesome and we all have so much in common and the same goals and aspirations and I couldn't have hoped to be placed with a better group of people.

Today was our second full day (it's 7:30 here). As I said before, yesterday I was ill and vomited several times. The only vaccination we have had so far was Yellow Fever. Today we had our medical interviews and the doctor looked at it and said he thought I might have had an allergic reaction to the vaccination, so I have an ice pack and ibuprofen and am to see him in the morning. But today I felt fine, so that's good.

Guinea is beautiful, green and surreal! Our transit house compound is right near the beach and when you go to the roof there is a beautiful view of the ocean and some islands.

Monday is an Islamic holiday called Tabaski (sheep holiday), so our "adoption" ceremony has been moved to Tuesday (when we meet our host families and move into their house). Until then I will be here at the transit house with access to internet so feel free to send emails!

They feed us a combination of Guinean food and American food. Last night we had spaghetti and salad and tonight we had french fries and salad (well, the others had some goat, too, but I abstained). Lunch is the Guinean meal and consists of rice, vegetables, sauce and some meat. I just eat around the meat. I am the only vegetarian in my stage. Today for breakfast we had hard boiled eggs, plantains and
fresh baked french bread. Breakfast is my favorite. I could definitely eat that every day!!

Tonight I am going to go to the beach bar with a bunch of the other PCTs and PCVs to have a beer and be on the beach.

Anyway, there are others waiting to use the computer so I am going to sign off, but just know I am safe and feeling good and excited to start PST (pre-service training) on Tuesday.

I love you all!

We Made It!

Well, I am sitting in the transit house in Conakry and I can hardly believe it! We made it all in one piece and with everyone's luggage! Unbelievable!

I was worried because when we changed planes in Dakar it was INSANE. I ended up taking control of getting everyone checked in and all their bags loaded even though I felt like I was going to pass out. I am the one with the loudest voice, so...that worked out :).

Jessica, Scott and I were the only ones who had to rearrange our stuff at JFK in order to conform to the airline rules, which I thought was kind of shocking. I was the first one to be told to step aside and figure it out - so I win! But we all got all of our stuff here, even though Jessica's brewer's yeast exploded in poor Scott's bag and got ALL OVER all of his stuff. We tried to clean his bag in the bathroom and did an ok job but it needs a true wash before we go to homestay. He had to wash all of his clothes today to get the yeast out. I felt sooooooo bad. I was going to help him but I was sick all day. In fact, I was the first one to puke in Africa (in the Dakar airport, no less)! I win again!

Actually it was awful. It wasn't until we got off the plane in Dakar that I started to feel ill and then it just progressed and progressed and all told I puked probably 5x today and was told to put the rehydration salt in my water and it is FOUL! So I was also the first one to have to drink the rehydration drink in Guinea! I win AGAIN!

I wasn't able to eat lunch at all today, which was a traditional rice and sauce type meal (I managed to get down a plantain but that was it). However, I did eat dinner, which for me was plain pasta (the others had a meat sauce they said was really good) and salad. I asked Liz, one of the PCVs currently serving, if it was ok for us to eat lettuce because I heard it wasn't. She said as long as you wash it in bleach it's fine. YUM...

Everyone is really awesome and we are all becoming great friends. The drive from the airport to the transit house was surreal (and HOT! - it is really humid here) and we had our first little kid yell "Fote, fote, fote, bye bye!" We all laughed but I know being called fote (white person or foreigner) will get old fast.

The transit house pretty much insulates us from the real Guinea. It's like being at a hostel and it's a compound with guards and tall walls and barbed wire to keep us safe. I don't know how I ended up being the only girl in a room with 7 dudes. But it's cool. We did venture off the compound with a couple of the PCVs to go to a store right across the street to buy laundry detergent. It cost 600 Guinean francs which is like 5 cents. But you use the whole packet for one "load". The store had cold sodas, laughing cow cheese and candy among other things.

We had an orientation today but for the most part we had time to ourselves to rest, deal with our bags and talk to the PCVs here to train us for the first couple of weeks. Tomorrow breakfast is at 8 (in the future it will be 7) and then we have a full day of sessions with plans for an early dinner (5ish) so we can go to the beach bar to watch the sunset over the ocean.

So, aside from being really ill, dizzy and exhausted all day, things went just fine! I am confident that when I wake up in the morning I will feel fine, as I am already feeling pretty good. As far as I know, we stay at the transit house until Monday morning, when we go to Forecariah to be adopted by our host families for homestay.

Right now I think my biggest apprehensions are language and figuring out my way around. All in due time.

I love you all and want to once again say thanks for all the support. Send me letters!!

Off to Stage in the Morning...

Well, it still doesn't seem quite real. I remarked today that I am at the point I should have been at a week ago. Yeah.

I am definitely going to be the one hauling around the most junk. I mean, it's pretty epic. I ended up with a large internal frame camping pack and a large rolling duffel bag (both just slightly under 50 lbs. each), and then my pilot-case type carry-on and backpack. I guess the only thing "extra" is the pilot case, but yeah.

Too much stuff. If I had another week I probably could have pared it down a lot but...let's just hope the Universe is on my side and gets all my stuff to Guinea safely. I definitely stressed too much about packing.

Anyway, I have to be up in about 4 hours to catch my flight to Philly, but wanted to have one last post from CA before I left. It doesn't seem real to be saying goodbye to my friends and family. I have been under such stress the last few weeks, so much so that I haven't really been able to feel apprehension, excitement, sadness, etc... Really all I have felt is stress and a sense of urgency. And am leaving my mom with more stress (as I did not do a very good job of getting rid of all my junk). I definitely think I needed another week.

But, c'est la vie!

See you in Guinea!

2 Days til Stage

I got up at 7:15 this morning because my stomach was churning and I couldn't sleep. This is odd for me, as I have been accustomed to a 9:45 rising for the last few weeks.

Last night I called my mom and asked if she could come up to help me today. My friend is coming around 10 or 11 to help me with my bed and take it to my mom's place. Then she is going to follow me back because I need help. Mostly I just want her to clean my room/bathroom for the girl moving in. And maybe help me run some stuff over to Goodwill. And decide to bring or leave a few more things.

My bags are really pushing the limits. They recommend carrying 35 lbs. in my camping pack and it's definitely getting up to 50 lbs. I will probably try to leave it in the duffel until we get to Africa. I am going to be just under the airline limits on both bags, and way over PC's limits on both size and weight. I don't care! I've done my best to narrow it down and I just can't narrow down any more!

I am carrying on my usual pilot case type carry-on and it will have my stuff for staging (clothes, toiletries) and whatever food I can stuff in it. Then my backpack, which has all my books and paperwork, my laptop and my Alphasmart. It really may be too much stuff. But I just can't deal with trying to narrow it down more. I will just have to suffer through dragging it everywhere. Once I am at site I bet I will be glad to have everything.

So I have an insane amount of things to do today and I'm glad my mom is going to come help me. I'm supposed to have a little get-together tonight but I don't know if it will happen. I might feel better if I just got everything out of my apartment and finished that out, spent some time in Long Beach with Ricardo and Evangeline and slept at my mom's place. That way in the morning I can just deal with taking things to Goodwill and moving the keeper stuff into the guest room closet and have a leisurely last evening on the couch.

Ugh. I can't stop over-thinking. Any prospective volunteers reading this, don't underestimate how much time you need to prepare. Go hard, go early.

6 Days To Go

So, I am not ready. 6 days to go. Not ready. I ALMOST have my iMac ready to give to the guy buying it from me, but I have had major computer crises in the last couple of days. Trying to figure out how to merge all my iTunes and iPhoto files is a nightmare. And there is like NO space to work with on this laptop. It has an 80 GB hard drive which is 85% filled with applications.

Also, I can't get my big files off my iMac. That's really all I have left to get off of it but my stupid hard drives are doing that stupid thing where they won't copy any files over 5 GB. And I can't remember how to reformat it so that it will! ARGH!!! On top of that my optical (CD/DVD) drive broke and will take a week to repair (but thanking my lucky stars I invested in AppleCare so it will be free). So basically I have to give it to the guy I am selling it to without reformatting and giving a clean install (so who knows how much of my info is still on there, though I did try to manually clean it out) and then HE has to take it to the Apple Store and have it repaired. But the good news for him is that the machine is covered under AppleCare until August 2010.

Stress. Seriously.

Also, I am pretty much out of money. Which is the other reason why I need to get these last stupid files off this stupid computer so I can get paid for it and have some freakin' money again.

Dude, I am really feeling the pressure right now. It's like nothing is going right. I have to have lunch with my old boss at 1, and then I'm going to Best Buy to get ANOTHER hard drive (I have, like, 10, no exaggeration) and try to get a Geek Squad guy to tell me how to make it copy huge files. And pray that I can finally be done with the computer fiasco tonight.

I checked the U-Haul website and they want to charge me like $150 for the smallest truck! All I need it for is to move my bed to my mom's place. The freakin' bed only cost like $200!! So I asked a friend with a truck if he could help me out this weekend so we'll see what happens. He has already helped me move like 3 times and I feel bad asking him again but I just DON'T have that much money to spend moving a bed.

My packing is also a disaster.

I have no idea how I am going to finish everything in 6 days. I might have to make my mom come up here and help me finish closing this place out. Time is running out.

The Packing Wars Wage On

Packing is super stressful. I would say the weight thing isn't really a problem, it's the size of the bags. One of my bags, my main bag, is 59". We are allowed 107" which puts my second bag allowed at 48". The backpack I bought yesterday is way over 48" fully loaded.

So. Stressful.

When I put 50 lb. of stuff in the big bag, I'm left with hardly anything else. Well, except food. There is really not going to be space for food. Hmmm...

I guess I should stuff my O'Gio backpack totally full (my under-seat carry-on) and see how much stuff that alleviates.

With only 9 days left until I depart for Philly, packing snags are unwelcome. Really unwelcome.

EDIT: Well, after checking the airline's website, I should be fine on size. They allow two 62" bags of 50 lbs each. My bags are about 59" and 55", so I am well within the airline limits. Also, should be fine on weight. So, a little sigh of relief. Considering I still have a list of stuff I still need to procure!! I think I'm going to be ok, though...still not much space for food, but...oh well!

The Epic Mailing Guidelines Post

Guidelines for Mail

I am told that receiving mail and care packages is key to keeping up morale in a successful volunteer. Please write often and send packages as often as is practical. In a place with few comforts, a box of things from home will seem like Christmas any time of year (and no matter how hot it is!).

MY ADDRESS:

Dorian [you know my last name], PCT (PCV after February 6, 2009)
Corps de la Paix Americain
BP 1927
Conakry, Guinea
WEST AFRICA

The way mail works in Guinea is that the only place that actually has a mail system is the capital, Conakry. This is where our PC headquarters is located. All mail should be delivered to PC HQ, and then they do a monthly mail run out to my site to give me everything I have received. During training (12/4/08 – 2/6/09), I may receive mail more frequently.

Something you send could take up to six weeks to actually get to me, and outgoing mail is no better. But PLEASE send letters and packages as often as possible. They will keep up my morale!

Anything that will arrive after February 6, 2009 should say “PCV” (Peace Corps Volunteer) rather than “PCT” (Peace Corps Trainee) after my name.


LETTERS:

When you send letters, number them clearly at the top and put the date. Also, make a photocopy of the letter before you send it in case any get lost in the mail, so we will still have it if it never gets here.

Good things to send with letters are photos (especially of you and your kids, and my cat [Susan!]), comics, and news clippings. NEWS ITEMS will be especially important, as I will have almost no access to news from the US (I will need to know how Barack is doing!!). Due to budget cuts, Peace Corps recently canceled the Newsweek subscriptions they have provided to volunteers since the beginning of the Corps. Do not send money or anything valuable as oftentimes the edges of letters will be clipped to see if there is anything of value inside.

If you’re sending a postcard, put it in an envelope. The pretty pictures are likely to end up posted on some Guinean’s wall instead of mine.

Be sure to write “AIR MAIL” and “PAR AVION” on the envelope.


PACKAGES:

1. Print the address label from a computer if possible to make it official-looking. I have read that packages with labels printed by hand have not made it to their destination.

2. Insure the package, even if it’s just granola bars. One volunteer kept track of his packages and received 100% of those that were insured and only 56% of uninsured packages. Write “INSURED” and “ASSURANCE” (French) on the outside. Also write “AIR MAIL” and “PAR AVION” on the box.

3. Number and date your packages so I know I am receiving them.

4. If there is something super-important you really want me to get, put it inside an empty tampon box – apparently no one will touch it.

5. Mail is less likely to be tampered with if it’s addressed in red ink.

6. It’s also less likely to be tampered with if you draw crosses and write religious phrases on it (in French) such as “Dieu regardez-vous” or “Dieu merci”.

7. Please tape the box up really, really well after you seal it so no one can easily reach in and steal stuff.

8. If sending food, please wrap and double wrap in plastic bags (ziplocs preferably, since I can reuse them) to avoid rats and other wonderful creatures from sharing in on my treats.

9. You will also be required to fill out customs declaration form PS Form 2976-A. You can complete this form at the post office or online before you ship at https://webapps.usps.com/customsforms/. Indicate all contents as “Used” on the customs form to reduce the risk of theft.

10. On the Customs form, when listing the contents make them lame. For example, tell them you are sending me pencils or education materials and not expensive chocolate or soccer balls. Just downplay everything. If you’re sending books, magazines, DVDs, things like that, you can mark it as “educational materials” (I would say you could even mark that for stuff like soccer balls and stuff for kids), as it is less likely to be tampered with.

11. If what you’re sending is relatively heavy, I suggest sending with the post office’s Priority Mail flat rate international box (same as the domestic box), as the weight restriction is 20 pounds as long as the stuff fits in the box. The rate is $38.95 for the regular box (11" x 8.5" x 5.5") and $49.95 for the larger box (12” x 12” x 6”). This rate is only good for parcels, so DO NOT include a letter inside as you may be charged the letter rate, not package rate, for the whole package. If you want to include a letter, it is suggested that you tape it underneath the address label or to the inside page of a magazine so it is unlikely to be detected. If what you are sending is light, you may be able to pay less than the flat rate. Ask your local post office.

12. If you wish to send money, the larger the bill, the better the exchange rate I will get. To send it most safely, I would put it inside something boring in the empty tampon box or tape it to the inside of a magazine page. But please note that this is risky. A better way to send money is to send to my mom (68 Pomona Ave. Long Beach, CA 90803) to deposit into my bank account, which I will have limited access to. You can make the check out to me, as she will have Power of Attorney to deal with my financial matters.

13. There is no method of disposing of trash or recyclables where I will be going (other than burning or throwing on the ground), so please minimize packaging or put things in containers I can reuse, like Ziploc bags, jars or airtight plastic containers/Tupperware.

Be aware that you can do all of this stuff online at www.usps.com, including ordering free flat rate boxes, printing postage, and scheduling a pickup. In fact, you get a 5% discount on the shipping fee if you do it online.


WHAT TO SEND:

I compiled this list based on things I might enjoy and the advice of current and past volunteers.

-AA & AAA batteries (LOTS! – Consumer Reports lists even Costco’s Kirkland Alkaline
batteries as good ones!)
-Photos (of you with your kids, you with pets, places/vacations, etc…)
-Magazines/Newspapers (People, Time, National Geographic, Newsweek, etc…)
-Secret or Degree Clinical Strength Anti-Perspirant/Deodorant
-Skin Trip body lotion (Susan knows where to get this!)
-Aveeno Positively Radiant Face Wash & Moisturizer
-Phos-Flur Fluoride Mouthwash
-Listerine
-Q-tips
-Crossword puzzles
-Duct tape
-A jump drive with music and podcasts (even TV shows and movies!) on it (if from iTunes,
include your username and password so I can authorize use)
-Movies/TV Shows on DVD (when new LOST seasons come out, it should be your first
purchase!!)
-Music on CD
-Jigsaw Puzzles! (Linda I think I am ready to tackle The Seventies puzzle!)
-Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Soap (Trader Joe’s sells this cheap) or other, fancy soap
-Hair shampoo/conditioner (weak shampoo is available in-country, but conditioner is elusive –
try to make it something natural/herbal, as scents can attract more mosquitoes!)
-Shaving cream (Barbasol is fine)
-Foot care items (my feet will get trashed!)
-Cotton underwear (NOT WHITE, size 7 – hand washing with harsh soap wears them out quick)
-Hair clips/claws/ties
-Stuff kids would like: SOCCER BALLS (I will have a bike pump to inflate it), stickers,
glue, tape, kids safety scissors, colored pencils/pencil sharpener, paper, picture
books, inflatable beach ball world globe, etc…
-Pictures drawn by your kids for me to hang on my hut wall
-Books (good novels will be appreciated)
-Hand sanitizer
-Vegetable/tree/flower seeds (make sure it’s something that does well in Guinea’s climate)
-Indian pouch meals, especially with paneer cheese (International Foods aisle)
-Fantastic Foods Vegetarian Sloppy Joe’s Mix (comes in a red box near the Pasta-Roni, but I feel
like you might only be able to find this someplace like Whole Foods – MOM!)
-Macaroni & cheese (EZ Mac, Velveeta Shells & Cheese, etc…)
-Dried fruit/fruit leather
-Dried veggies (http://www.harmonyhousefoods.com/Dehydrated-Vegetables_c_1.html)
-Dried faux-meat (http://www.harmonyhousefoods.com/TVP-Meat-Substitute_c_6.html)
-Dehydrated vegetable soup (http://www.harmonyhousefoods.com/Vegan-Soup-Blends_c_7.html)
-In fact, just check out www.harmonyhousefoods.com in general!
-Soy protein powder
-BeneFiber or other fiber supplement
-Supplements: Acidophilus, iron, Echinacea, etc…
-Peanut M&M’s and other candies and chocolate
-Sugar-free gum (Orbit Spearmint is my fave)
-Hot cocoa mix
-Nuts/Trail Mix (no peanuts please! there will be lots there)
-Edible Seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, etc…)
-Emergen-C (vitamin section), Crystal Light, or other drink mix (preferably sugar-free)
-Mrs. Renfro’s Salsa (BOB!!!)
-Jiffy Pop popcorn (you know the kind you put on your stove and it pops into this big bubble)
-Granola bars
-Energy/protein bars
-Nutella
-Non-refrigerated cheese (Velveeta, parmesan, Hickory Farms, www.barryfarm.com sells
powdered cheese to make sauces)
-Non-perishable condiment packets (Taco Bell sauces, ketchup, mustard, soy sauce, crushed
red pepper, etc..)
-Spices (garlic salt, cayenne pepper, cumin, taco seasoning, pesto sauce, Ranch powder, etc…)
-Graham cracker and Oreo pie crusts
-'Just add water' cookie mixes
-Green tea (decaf please!)
-Any kind of food that will keep and is easy to prepare (i.e. add water, milk, eggs, oil)

Please think of this list as guidelines and suggestions and send anything you think will make it up to 6 weeks en route, as I’m sure whatever you send will be MUCH APPRECIATED! Also, check my blog for any special requests!


EMAIL/INTERNET:

Please send ALL email messages to dorianconnelley@gmail.com. I will probably only have enough internet access to check one box, so make sure whatever you send goes here. You can also read my blog at http://dorianinafrica.blogspot.com.

Please know that I will do my best to answer personal emails, but my internet access will be spotty and limited (most likely, I will only have access to internet when I make it into the capital, Conakry), so my replies will likely be few and far between. Please feel free to share the blog with any other family or friends as well. I will post stories, pictures, package requests, times I will be in phone service, etc…


PHONE:

Sometime in December, I will be getting a cell phone. I believe it will be free for me to receive calls, but expensive to call out. In all likelihood, I will not have service all the time. Watch the blog for dates and times that I will be in a service area.

You can buy phone cards to call or use Skype on your computer, which will allow you to call international cell phones. Go to www.Skype.com and sign up for a free account. You will be using your computer/internet connection to make the call (so you will need a microphone and speakers). It will cost about $.20/min. You put a certain amount of money on there and it will debit from that each time you call.

I look forward to hearing from all of you happily and often! Thanks so much for being such a supportive family!

2 weeks til Guinea...oh god!

I am aware that this makes me a complete loser, but I keep thinking my cat is still in my apartment. Every time I walk in the door I expect her to come running up to greet me. It's almost like I just want to GO already so I can stop thinking I see her out of the corner of my eye! I know she is doing well at my aunt's and will like it there, but I just can't help missing the hell out of her!!!

I have managed to purchase the bulk of the gear I am planning to buy. I still have to purchase my backpack, the Bug Hut, a digital camera and some toiletries. And some clothes. But that's it. My family has been really great about pitching in on the cost of all of it, which takes a load off of me.

I did a casual test pack/weighing and I think I am going to be fine on weight. I thought it would weigh way more than it did, and it let me breathe the first sigh of relief I have had since being invited 4 weeks ago.

Which brings me to another point: Monday marks exactly 2 weeks until I board the plane for Philly. I want to throw up every time I think about it. I really know no French. Or very, very little. I don't think I could answer a question in a complete sentence. I am not sure if this should be a cause for concern or not.

I have planned an African dinner at the African place in LA, and am waffling about scheduling a going-away party.

Writing my will was also super fun :(.

Still have a million things to take care of, but everything major has worked itself out, so I think god is saying to just shut up and stop worrying. But...that's not going to happen! I think until I have gotten all checked in and boarded the plane for Philly, I will still be in a state of complete disarray.

4 Weeks Til Guinea

The morning marks exactly 4 weeks until Day 1 of stage. I am going to be in IL for a week starting Thursday. I am starting to realize how little time I have to get everything squared away. Last night I finally started buying stuff online.

Major stores I need to hit:
-Target
-REI
-Bed, Bath & Beyond
-Petsmart/Petco

I made my final Barry Farm and Harmony House orders, got my Alpasmart, Leatherman, iPod speaker and Macabi Skirts. Now awaiting delivery.

I am waffling over the Bug Hut, but I do really feel like I should bring one. I'm just anticipating all the uses for it and while it seems bulky, I feel like there would be a lot of occasions for use.

I still have to pick out a digital camera and am leaning towards the new Canon PowerShot ELPHs.

Really have to make a decision on a backpack and luggage.

Other things weighing on me are selling both of my computers and purchasing a small iBook. Maybe I'll do some iBook searching tonight...

Tomorrow I am going to go to the African restaurant and make plans for my going-away dinner and have lunch. Also have to drive to Long Beach for a dentist appointment in the morning. And bring all my yard sale stuff.

My last night at home with my cat will be Election Night. Weds we will spend the night at mom's, Thurs we fly to IL and I will spend the night with her at Aunt Sue's and then she will have to start acclimating to that environment. I will miss her so much.

UNDER PRESSURE! Being distracted this last week did not help, either.

C'est la vie.