Arrived and feeling great

I’m HERE!!!!!!!!

I sit in our training center in Dubreka, Guinea. So much has happened in the past week, I don’t even know where to start! Initial impressions: RAIN! BABIES! And so much Susu!

The first few days as a Peace Corps Trainee (PCT) went very smoothly. Staging day in Philadelphia was actually a whole lot of fun as mentioned in my previous post. Everyone in my group is getting along really well and is coming from different places and backgrounds. It’s nice to be out of the Macalester bubble (as much as I loved it) and to meet people that went to different schools and some that have had real person jobs for some time. Compared other Peace Corps countries, our training class is really young (all under 30 and at least one third of us just graduated from college). We’ve been told that’s because Guinea has really poor medical care and so older people with health conditions can’t really make it here. (Also Guinea is apparently number 1 in Peace Corps countries for volunteer diarrhea. Sorry if that was too much info.)

Anyway, traveling with all 27 volunteers was a bit crazy but we managed it without any major hiccups.  When we landed in Conakry, some volunteers, staff, and the country director were there with a big sign saying “Welcome to GUINEA!” It was all very exciting despite the sleep deprivation. They drove us to the PC house and we got our first glimpses of Conakry. First impressions: DARKNESS. I’m trying not to compare Guinea to Mali too much, but Conakry is markedly darker than Bamako – very little electricity.  Also, tons of people walking around in the streets. It was scary – it really felt like were going to run them over!

We spent three nights in the volunteer house in Conakry. We had air conditioning, running water, and nice meals. However, we also really lacked privacy. I shared a room with 7 other volunteers, bunk bed style. It was fun, but exhausting. We also had lots of sessions on intros to Peace Corps Guinea, “survival” language sessions (for our homestay family – I learned some Susu), and interviews for our French language placement.

Now I am in Dubreka, staying with a homestay family and going to training school. I have SO much to say about my homestay family but my time is really running low on the internet and it is very SLOW so I need to post this. I will definitely add more as soon as I can.  Also I’ll try to put up pictures. There is just way too much to say right now! But I am happy despite being really sweaty all the time!

OH! P.s. I have a Guinean name: Mariam Sylla. That is the only name I will be responding to now.