As of Right Now

...I (jon) am writing my last post before I head back to the village. There's still a bunch of stuff the Kim and I need to catch everyone up on. After the cat incident, surprisingly enough, life went on. We still have the cat by the way and he's doing great. Kim and I are yet to decide on a name but we're thinking very seriously about Houdini (like the illusionist)

or maybe falcor (the luck dragon from 'The Neverending Story').

The Monday morning after we got back from our visit with the hunters, before our classes started at the secondary school, Kim and I went to visit the primary school in our village. Some family and friends back in the States had been sending us school supplies and we went to the school to drop it off. The faculty at the school were really pleased and the students were ecstatic. The experience was incredible. How refreshing it was to be surrounded (thronged really) by a crowd of enthusiastic young children. As we went from class to class the students would sing out greetings together. After that Kim and I would walk around passing out some of the school supplies (mostly pens, pencils, colored pencils, and that sort of thing). When it came time to leave the students sang goodbye and thank you songs. It was so beautiful to be surrounded by so much joy. I can't say enough how full of happiness Kim and I were when we finally left. What a way to start our week.

Well that week came to an end with reviews and test leading up to what at present is a one week spring vacation. Kim and I have spent the majority of our time in Conakry but we were lucky enough to take some time to head out to a small group of islands off the coast. We left the city on a tiny boat with a 15hp engine - passing through a veritable ship graveyard - and found ourselves in sun-drenched paradise about an hour later.

We and a group of our fellow volunteers spent the better part of the day swimming, throwing frisbee, and combing the beach. All in all a great way to pass the time. Kim and I cooked and shared a bunch of hot dogs we had bought at one of the grocery stores that can be found in Conakry. That and the watermelon made the experience almost feel like home. Kim found some beautiful jewelry, we had a nice walk around the island, and came home the the Peace Corps bureau salty, sun burnt, and exhausted. It was great.

Shortly thereafter, Kim left to take some of our Peace Corps friends to visit our village for a hunters ceremony that coincided with the full moon on Wednesday. She told me today that it went great and everyone had wonderful time. Apparently there was a bunch of food and music. If it was anything like the ceremonies I've been to out that way I can attest to just how amazing the surreal the whole experience can be. What happens is a group of hunters will play Coras (guitar/drum things) while another group will pantomime as deer and hunters. This all to the periodic back fire of gunfire as people fire their rifles into the air flourishing them for dramatic affect.
I, on the other hand, stayed in Conakry so that I could go on a little fishing trip. I and good friend headed back out to the Island were we had just visited 4 days earlier. After having met a local fisherman while exploring the island's small village community, he and I had tentatively planned to go on a fishing trip just out past the islands. We got to the islands and after swimming for a little while we headed off to get ahold of the fisherman so we could take off on our trip. We fished well into the night and then got back to his house were we stayed until morning when he brought us back to the mainland. I won't lie, it was a bit scary now and again but we had a great time and there were some big fish. We caught a red snapper and a barracuda both well over 3ft. We got some photos of the smaller fish, but the big ones didn't come out until after the sun went down. We used long spools to catch these things and it was a really neat experience. For the little fish we just lifted them into the boat but for the bigger ones we had to hit them with this long stick that had a spike on the end. Truly a remarkable, albeit harrowing, experience.

That gets us pretty well up to date. Tomorrow I leave Conakry and head home to Kim. The school year is coming to a close in just over a month and we're trying to get ourselves prepared for that. Otherwise, everything's pretty much the same back at site. The people are great. The scenery is wonderful. No complaints here.

jonathan