Hello everyone Kim and I have just come to visit Conakry after spending nearly a month at our site (see photos). The people - and our immediate neighbors in particular - are remarkably kind people and we can't imagine a nicer community to be living in for the duration of our Peace Corps service. Our house is on the top of a hill. Through our bedroom window we can see the beautiful Mount Bena and every night we sit on the porch, often with the neighbors dog Milo laying at our feet. For the first 2 weeks we cooked only with charcoal outside on our porch. Our "host mom" would help us out and bring over rice and sauce and, depending on the quantity of fish, it was generally very good. We have been learning how to make various dishes with eggplant or "abergines" au francais ou coba coba in Soussou as that is practically the only vegetable that they sell in the market. Kim and I try to take turns going down to the little market we have and the ladies harangue us in their light-hearted way: either we eat too much bread or we don't eat enough spicey peppers They have apparently been keeping tabs on each purchase we've made since we've arrived. Most mornings we go to the market and or ears are filled with the market ladies giving us their greetings of "Mama Nana Soumah!" (Kim's guinean name) or "Tana mu xri!" Good Morning in Soussou. The market is crowed with people buying and selling. Young girls and boys walk around with huge plates on their heads filled with corn or sweet potatoes or sweet seaseme candies. There is generally many shouts of "Fote' Ca Va?" which is pronounced Sa Ba by cute little Guinean children. This basically means "White person, How are you?" The market is full of so many different colors and smells: piles of dried, smoked fish, colorful "bengbe" or very spicy piedmont pepers, huge bowls of rice, salt, sugar, homemade soaps, beans. Spread all over the ground are displays of manioc, chives, eggplants, potate and manioc leaves, which are used to make sauces, and huge baskets of oranges. Every night we sit out on our porch and watch the lightning or storms that are very common at this time of the year. We tend to go to bed very early every night. Without lights, television, or computers...there's not too much left to do but go to sleep. Kim's finally conseeded that having brought the Ipod was a good decision and that "as much as she may have griped about it, it's nice to be able to have comfort of watching American TV while in a little village in West Africa". Most of the water that we use for washing is from the rain that we collect from the roof. Water for drinking is taken from the well and is treated and filtered. We have to go down to a pump every so often and fill up our bidons. To do this we make a very precarious trip with the heavy containers on our bikes and then push them up our huge hill. Needless to say this is very difficult. However, it is very humbling to see that ANY guinean child is ready and willing to put that heavy thing on their head and carry it up that crazy hill with out a problem. The other day Kim decided to see for herself what is was like. With much laughter, we tried to balance that heavy bidon on her head. She didn't get 50 yards before she was pretty much done with that experiment. This system of getting "petites" to do the heavy lifting is a culturally acceptable form of work for kids and I am fairly certain that we will be paying some children to get our water from now on! School began without too many hitches. Although school was slated to begin on the 15th, it didn't start until the next Monday the 20th. This allowed us to have our closet neighbor PCV come and visit. This in turn allowed for a welcome change of pace and the oportunity to see our community through another persons eyes. In the end, the experience made us particularly grateful for all the little things that have conspired to make our village so 'right for us'. This Thursday we formally gave the school the donations that were collected at our going away party. Everone was very grateful for the supplies. (Thanks everyone for all your help!) Recenetly we recieved a gas tank for the camping stove we bought last month. This has made our life sooo much easier, in that I know longer need to start a charcoal fire using plastic bags and wait an hour or two whenever meal time rolls around. That being said, I think we appreciated the food more when we were forced to wait. We also had some furniture made which turned our really nice. Along with interior decorating, Kim and I have been putting together the beginings of a garden which required us to commision a Guinean man to go out to the woods and cut palm fronds and wood for us to consturct a wall from. Our town is prowling with hungry sheep and goats just waiting to pounce on our unsuspecting seedlings. Since we've been in Conakry we've been able to relax a little, use the internet, watch some movies, watch some news, eat some schwarma, and get some shopping done( and the AC is a bonus). Also, two of our friends are finishing their service and are headed home this weekend so we've been able to spend a little time with them, which has been nice. We're leaving to head back to site in the very near future and don't anticipate another opportunity to post an entry roughly until Thanksgiving. Until then, we hope everyone is doing well, that you enjoy the pictures, and that you know we think of home often and miss you all. Jon and Kim
