Tales of the 2 Boyfriends---ie my host brothers

Yesterday 36 people descended upon the bank in Conakry. We were given our simple living allowance, modest settling in allowance and transportation money to get to our site. While this is a very small amount in actual dollars most of us walked out of the bank with a bag full of money. Yes, the largest currency in Guinea is 5,000GF which is equivalent to $1USD. Without actually robbing a bank, I received the high that I image so many bank robbers dream about...Emerging from a dark bank into the daylight with your hands full of actual usable cash money.

I will try not to dwell too much on my Forecariah visit but many of you might find my final evening with my family quite hilarious. The day before my 18 year old brother Bouba kept asking me to go get a picture taken with him from the village photographer. I insisted that I had a camera and would send him some photos once I begged someone to print them from the states..that is where many of you came into my plan. You will be happy to know that this will not be necessary but came at a cost to me. So I thought I had successfully avoided the situation with my response. BUT the next day, Bouba said to me we were taking a picture tonight. Just so you know, I have a million pictures of the family which include him so I am thinking this is totally unnecessary. I tell him my camera does not work well in the dark. They don't own cameras so they don't know this may not be the absolute truth.

Well, he got the last laugh. Just as I finished eating my 1st bite of oily greasy rice and sauce with fish heads..might I add with my right hand which allowed me to smear it all over my face and look like Bozo the clown...the photographer showed up to take "family photos". In my efforts to avoid this situation, I declared that I just started eating. Well, since time is not an issue the photographer sat down and waited for me to finish eating, wash my face and hands and brush my teeth. After about 30 minutes I realized he was not leaving so I gave in.

The photo shoot was ready to begin. My first photo was taken with Bouba. Just as the photographer took the shoot he threw his left arm around me and grabbed me like I was his girlfriend. WHHEEEE...at least that was over. I proceeded to take pictures with the women in the family, just the "kids", some of the "kids", the men in the family, a complete family photo with me sitting next to my mom, a complete family photo with me sitting next to my dad. Finally, I am sure this is done.....nope, my other brother, Ibraham, age 21, decided that Bouba cannot get the only boyfriend photo so he wants to take a picture where we are staring into each others eyes. NICE! Now, I am sure we are finished BUT NO Bouba cannot let Ibreham have the last photo with me so Bouba and I have 2 more "engagement type" pictures taken. Finally, I declare I am done...FINISHED!!!

Yes, I love my brothers and sure I will take pictures with them BUT my friend Sara who is staying with my host dad's brother had the same experience a few days earlier. Hers resulted in her dad declaring that she would marry her host brother and take him back to the states. I think my dad does not know which one he wants to marry me off to so I was able to avoid this situation. When asked by him who I wanted to dance with at my going away party I mentioned my mom and sister which would be the safest choices. This resulted in a comment that "girls dance with boys".

Gotta get going to swear in as a public servant and take the president's oath...well the same oath that the presidents take. Don't worry I won't let all this new power go to my head :)

Almost a real PCV

A few amazing events have unfolded in the last week. The largest one being that I passed my language interview and am now "proficient enough" to function in my village. Yes, tomorrow as of 11: Guinea time I will officially be a Peace Corps Volunteer. There is a huge ceremony in Conakry not only for our affectation but also to celebrate the 45th anniversary of PC and the 20th anniversary of PC continuously in Guinea. The ambassador and many high ranking officials will be in attendance.

As excited as I was to leave Forecariah and make my way towards my site, it was also very sad to leave my family. Over the last 4-6 weeks I have become very close to my mom as I have learned how to joke with a crazy mom in Guinea. I have always liked my brothers and sisters so this was extremely hard. As a final send off 6 of our families threw a joint party on the same night. It was quite an event. They served us a really good rice dish that we all ate with our hands in normal Guinea fashion. Once we were all full another big plate rolled out of spaghetti, salad, fried bananas and bread with guac. What a treat. We all tore this up eating with our right hand off the same huge plate of course. We looked like 2 year olds just eating solid food for the 1st time. All this was of course followed by dancing. It is not an event in guinea until there is dancing. My family loves it when I dance for them because I actually do different dances than the slow Guinea shuffle. Oh Guinea!

So next week this time I will be at my site. I am so very excited but also quite nervous at the same time. Many volunteers say that it is a huge challenge just to leave their houses the first few days at site. It is another big readjustment. I have been a kid in the family for 3 months in Guinea and now I am finally an adult!! Looking forward to the beauty of the Fouta region but so sad to leave my friends that I have become so close to over the past 3 months.

Peace OUT from a PCV ALMOST!!

Je en blagueant

I am joking. Yes sometimes I wonder if this anot just one big joke !! This is ana amzing exprience but just imagine being expected to show up on American time to class in a country that thinks within 2 days is on time, adding a French accent to all the English words you know hoping its close enought to the actual French word that people would understand, being told that you did not wash your clothes well enough and that your 10 year old brother must rewash them on the washing board only to lay them down in the dirt to dry. So these are just a few things that have made me laugh in the past few days.

I received my PC issued mountain bike a month or so ago. I hope to take her miles and miles with me. BUT for now I would like to just pass along a few images of me with her for those you who will not be lucky enough to see this in person. Three weekends ago I got up really early on a Sunday morning to meet up with another PCV, Tor, and ride through the banana plantations as the sun was rising. The views were amazing and we were treated to so much more than I expected. Grogily, we rode along the walking paths for about 20 minutes before we enountered our first challenge. A bridge over a very steep gorge filled with water made of only twigs. Well, what else should one do but pick the bike up and gingerly walk across the bridge praying it will not break and you don’t step on the loose stick. This process happened 3 times and I would love to report that we were both successful on all 3 bridges. The amazing morning was topped off my a brunch of fresh mango, pineapple, oranges, bread and avacodo before we headed back to our families to do Sunday chores which involves washing clothes (see above).

My second African biking adventure with Tor occured the follow weekend. We set off on a path towards the diamond mines. It looked promising for beauty but was well travelled as everyone was heading off to work at about 8 on Sunday AM. We managed to maneurver around the people until we were literally taken to a dead stop in the middle of a small river (thank god its dry season). The river was not so deep so we thought the best approach would be to just bike through it. Appearently not!!! Tors bike got stuck in the mud, then so did her flip-flop, then so did her leg, all told it took about 5 minutes to get her and the bike out of the middle of the muddy river. This was not Tors day as about 10 minutes later when we stopped to rinse off at a larger river she was attached by some biking ants. After the little kids of the nearby village showed us the cool places to go and we were able to wash off and relax. We biked a bit longer but eventually had to turn around and was faced with the challenge of going back through the muddy river. This time we found 2 Guineans heading off to work who just grapped our bikes and literally ran them across the river. I sucessful jumped on a few rocks and managed to stay mostly dry. When I got to the other side I looked up and saw Tor on a random Guinean’s back!!! That was a surprising site!! This concludes our biking adventures with the promise of more as we have another planned for tomorrow.

On the topic of sending and receiving mail. All of Guinea (government offices) were on strike 2 weeks ago. This included the taxis, teachers, post-office, etc. So as you can imagine the PeaceCorps Trainees were the only people doing anything in the city of Forecariah and probably the only ones doing anything in the country. The strike was fueled by the fact that the gas prices went up again and inflation is drastically increasing and the worker’s wages have not increased at all. The demand was that salaries be increased 4times. Due to my poor French, I do not know the result of the strike but have heard that the government promised to double their salary in next months paychecks. Strikes like this have occured before but none have actually lasted this long. Currently, a bag or rice costs 105,000 GF while the teacher’s salary is only 140,000/month. Without much higher math you can see the problem. As not to get political, I will move on and let you know that I have sent letters but they were probably slowed by the strike as has been all incoming mail.

So in 2.5 weeks as of 3/31, if all goes well, I will be a Peace Corps Volunteer and shead my old status as a Trainee. We have a swear in ceremony of the 31st and will be hanging out in Conakry for a few days prior. After swear in I will be in Labe, my regional capital, for a bit. Both of these cities have email and phone. So this is my long way of saying buy your phone cards or send your emails, I will be around to talk and send responses. Also, to let you know I do not have email at my site in Lelouma but will be going into Labe at least once a month to check email and do administrative things. In addition, any mail should still be sent to the Conakry address and will be delivered to my house once a month by PC during the mail run. Finally, I will post some pictures next time I get online.

Thanks so all who have sent letters, packages or just kept me in their thoughts. My thoughts are with all of you.