Christmas in Guinea

Hey all - so its been a while since I updated - and since I last updated, I managed to escape Guinea and travel to Spain and France with my mom...oh, it was amazing. I mean....ice cream...fois gras...arepa e'huevo...duck...tapas...oh man...it was great. Yes, I know...i'm obsessing about food again. But my six unexpected days in Europe reminded just how great food can be...haha...plus of course, it was great to see family right before christmas! Nino dios even came the day before I left, and brought me a soccer ball, books, a DS, shirts, and all sorts of other godies! A little escape in mid december made christmas in Guinea that much more enjoyable - and made present buying a little more convenient, as I didn't have to argue for 10 minutes about prices on each item.

But being in Europe was also a little strange after being in Guinea for 5 months...let me count the ways:
1. Everything is organized and clean. Traffic ran smoothly(what?!?), public transportation was convenient (wow!), roads were paved (gasp!), there were garbage cans (damn!!).
2. It was strange to buy, say, a game boy game, and think...wow, this is literally nearly twice as much as a teacher makes in Guinea...and he has to feed about 7 people with it.
3. Not greeting people 6 times was a little odd...I actually kind of like the whole, "Ca va, comment ca va? Et la famille? Et le travail? Et la sante?" haha...i always got the urge to ask the ice cream lady about her family, or the guy at virgin records about how work was going, or our hotel clerk if his health was good. But I figured they'd look at me weird if I did....so i restrained my Guinean impulses to conduct 5 minute greetings.
4. Towns about, say, the size of Boke, in Europe seemed dead! I mean, there was no crazy street marche (market), no motos buzzing about, no broken down taxis flying by, no cries of "Bisop, Gingam!!!", no little kids screaming "Fote! Fote! Fote!", no fruit ladies greeting me or cookie ladies asking, "Ca va mon patron?" Life in smaller towns in Europe is certainly a lot calmer...but I started to miss the chaos on the streets that is Guinea. (At least in Boke - I still hate chaos on the streets in Conakry)

Yeah - so it was a little odd to be in Europe - but pretty great too. So now, I'm back in Conakry, its Christmas day, the Steelers are out of the playoffs, and I got christmas presents from Jen last night!! Woo hooo - these included a can of Heineken, Twix, a "manicure" kit (my horrible fingernail picking habit has caused me three nasty toe infections since arriving), a yo-yo, lots of white chocolate, and a little notebook (where I can sign my name 400 times!).

We did get an awesome meal at Steve's last night, and tonght, Reid is spearheading an exquisite Ribs or Stuffed Pork Chops meal - damn I can't wait.

So, yeah, that's all the news - we're headed to Sierra Leone (hopefully!) in a few days, G13 is arriving in Guinea in a few weeks, and I need to grab some lunch! So I'm off - hopefully I'll be updating more frequently again! I was a slacker for a good amount of time with the whole blog thing. Oh, and new pictures will be coming! Eventually...

Some days I love Guinea, but other days...

Well - this has been one crazy couple of weeks. I'm in Conakry at the moment, (hopefully) leaving for Paris in about 10 hours (or I was, when I started to write this...now that I'm posting it, it's christmas day) - which was not at all what I thought I'd be doing 5 days ago - but hey, that's life in Guinea. A teacher's strike had been going on at my site for about 4 weeks now. This meant I had been doing barely any teaching, with barely any students present in my classes. In my 12 Science Sociale classes, I taught 4 students two weeks ago. Four!! Well, the greve (strike) wasn't more of a nuisance than anything else, seeing as how I wasn't reaching all of my students and would result in a setback of my teaching schedule for the year, but at least I was doing SOME teaching at my site. Then my compound decided to run out of water. Unfortunately, though I do have the luxury of running water, I also have no backup water supply should my water run out. There is no well nearby or another pump by my house. So out of water meant really out of water, unless I gave bidons to my students and had them bring me water on motorcycles from their houses. Thus, I took off for Mamou to visit Jen, thinking I could stay there for a few days before my mom arrived in Conakry on Thursday.

The stay in Mamou was fun enough, with Jen cooking exquisite meals (I even got to eat pesto once!) on a nightly basis. It was fun anyway, until my last night there, when, to satisfy my midday hunger, we went out to eat. I ordered (surprise, surprise) rice and peanut sauce. Now, in the Fouta, cows are everywhere, unlike the Bass Cote, where goats seem to be the domesticated animal of choice. Thus, excited about the availability of beef, I ordered a side plate of meat with my rice and sauce. Oh, what a bad idea that was. Within a few hours, I was laying on the floor in Jen's apartment, writhing with pain, or passed out trying to make it go away. For about 14 hours I layed there, unable to get up for more than 3 minutes, trying to make myself throw up...haha....didnt work. But don't you worry - I eventually felt better. I probably have amoebas or something....but we'll see...let's give it a couple weeks to see if they come back. But let me tell you....rice with peanut sauce and meat I now officially hate.