du vin, du courage, currant, and princess punch

I have been going over in my head how I could possibly describe the last month in one cohesive blog entry. I am fairly certain that I will be unable to aptly capture what a whirlwind of an experience: both good and bad we have had thus far.

...Je vais essayer...

We have been in training for a bit over a month now in a small village. This is a place where all water that you use has been carried in a bucket on top of someone's head. We sleep every night under mosquito netting to avoid contracting malaria. This is a place where if the electricity comes as it does somestimes, it is either in the middle of the night and you wake up with every light on in the house or on very lucky nights when it comes on at 7pm, the entire village cheers in joy (including ourselves). Living rooms are filled to capacity and tvs are dragged outside so that people can enjoy the luxury of watching badly recorded pirated movies usually in a language that no one understands anyway, crazy Bollywood classics, or most usually locally produced choppy and degraded movies in the local language of Susu.Our toilet is a hole in the floor. Everyday, we try to communicate very complicated things in child-like French and usually fail miserably. We shower everyday using a cup and a bucket. We have a neighbor that loves to speak Susu at us even though she knows that we have no idea what she is saying and it makes me glad that smiles transcend language.

Everyday we go to language classes, Tech classes for our subjects ( TEFL- Teaching English as a foreign language and Physique), Cross cultural sesssions ( to try to better understand Guinean culture), Medical, Safety, and Admin sessions round out the mix and in general, to use a phrase from Colleen, its like trying to drink from a fire hose. Classes are generally punctuated by one or two heavy rainstorms a day, and sometimes the rain is so intense on the tin roof that you can't hear anything and we just play cards or plan lessons or sleep to the sound of the rain. On Tuedays and thursdays we have what are lovingly known as "bureau lunches". These are the days that you look forward to because you know that if nothing else goes right, you will at least have a king-sized feast waiting for you at noon.

We are staying with the Soumah family, a wonderful Susu family that live about a 10 minute walk from "L'ecole 3" where we have our classes each day. Our host mom is named Cadiatou and she is a wonderfully warm and genuine person.Her husband, Cabrahal recently passed away and I can tell it has been difficult for the family. Jonathan and I were both given Guinean names and he was named after this man which is quite an honor. I was given the name of Nana. My family loves this names because when they add AHHH to it as they often do when they are teasing me of if I inevitably do or say something silly, it makes the name for Pineapple in french. They get a big kick out of this and I enjoy it as well.

Hopefully I will take a group picture soon and post it and I will explain who's who in the Soumah clan.

We arrived here during the height of the rainy season which means that we also arrived at the height of mosquito season and despite all my best efforts those suckers find me pretty tastey and I'm covered in bites. But the rain has been so nice to listen to at night. Some of the storms have been amazigly intense. A few nights ago, lightening hit the house of a neighboring fellow volunteer and disintigrated his phone charger that was plugged into the outlet. So there have been many weather-related excitements.

It has deffinitely been the most intense month of my life filled with the most imposible highs and lows. From the lows it seems that one may never resurface and from the highs one wonders what all the fuss was about before. Unfortunately, Jonathan tends to take the brunt of my frustrations but luckily for me he does so gracfully and lovingly for the most part. I can only hope that I can be as supportive to him.

We are currently taking a tour of some volunteer sites in the region and towards the middle of next week will spend a day at the site that will be our home for the next 2 years: Moussayah. We are in email contact with some volunteers that stayed there and we are looking forward to corresponding and getting and idea of the place. We are staying at our Regional Capital in the city of Boke with many of the other volunteers in the area. They have been showing us around to all the hot spots (aka places that sell cheese, icecream, and american snackfoods. Tonight they threw a princess-themed party and much hilarity and dancing ensued. I have pictures to post soon.

I will hopefully be able to post again sometime this week and there is another trip to the capital in the works in a week. Hopefully this small snippit will tide you over untill then....

Love to all and to all a good night!
Be Well,
Kim