Realities

It has come to my attention that I maybe I have not been giving accurate descriptions of my life in Guinea as I have tended to focus on the funny parts of my adventure and gloss over the tough ones.

My first month at site was challenging to say the least. My language skills are not strong enough to really be effective in French yet and I know very little Pular. Guinea does not have the sense of privacy that the US does and people are always coming to my house asking if I will teach them English. Kids are screaming Porto “white person” but now they call me “Andrena” which I guess that is good enough. My closest volunteer is 56k away over and through a bunch of mountains.

My normal day consists of waking up at 7AM sweeping the cement house…all of it cause it is dirty, going to the well to get water for bathing and dishes (hoping to beat the other family there because it will be dry if I don’t), going to the pump to get “drinking water” that has to be filtered and bleached, making breakfast on my two burner gas tank stove, taking a bucket bath and now I am ready to start my day.

I go visit friends or they come by to see me or if I just need company I go sit in the café which results in interesting conversation at the least, however, always with men because the women are at home working and most of them don’t speak French either. I may go visit a groupment, study French, go for a bike ride, teach a little English or read a book during the day. I am still trying to get to know people so I have been advised not to start any big projects. However, I have constructed a solar dryer to dry all the mangos that are falls off the 4 trees in my concession. It became very obvious that I could not eat all of them before they spoil the time I ate 7in one day and really did not feel well.

Next week I will be planting a special tree called Marangia that is very nutritious which is so needed for the children in the village. Mom will have to grind the leaves into a power and then sprinkle it on the food to provide vitamins. Also, hunger season is coming up so I hope this thing grows fast. The evening consists of cooking dinner or eating with one of a few families. By the time I finish it is usually dark, 7:30PM, I hang out at my house for a bit and then go to bed fairly early as there is no electricity.

Hopefully this more accurately portrays my life here.

Okay now just one quick funny story. I was walking around the one church in town trying to figure out what time mass was on Sunday when I ran into a guy that told me the time and asked if I was Christian. His very next question was "do you drink because I sell beer at my house". 90 percent of my village is Muslim so of course there are no bars and of course I said no I don't drink and no I don't want to have a beer with you at your house at 12 on a random Tuesday.