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.