News!

Site Announcement

Finally came the day we had all been waiting for: site announcements. We spent the week prior in individual interviews with Dioulde, our Program Manager (a.k.a. my future boss after I swear in as a volunteer in September). During the interviews we were able to give preferences for our sites: how large or small the location, proximity to other volunteers, region, etc. It was odd being asked for a preference because throughout the entire Peace Corps application process you are told to not give any preferences for your country and to be as flexible as possible, yet all of a sudden we actually had a say! It was a novel feeling.

The announcements occurred during the last period of the training day. We all gathered under a small pagoda on the Peace Corps compound, where the trainers had drawn a remarkably detailed map of Guinea on the ground in chalk, with green dots representing the future sites for G22. Needless to say we were all very nervous, and of course the trainers decided to build up the suspense even more by making the announcement into a bit of a guessing game. Dioulde wrote little limericks about each of us; when he read them off we had to guess who it was and when we got that right he would finally reveal the site. It was nerve-wracking to say the least.

So… where am I going to live for the next two years? A village called Cissela, Guinea! Does that mean anything to you? Me neither!

But really… I’ve been able to figure some things out about the site. It’s in the Haute region of Guinea, which is the one closest to Mali. They speak Malinke, a language related to Bambara (Mali’s language), which is really exciting for me since I already know some! The town is right near a major road, which is good news since it means that transportation to the regional capital (Kankan) won’t be too bad. I’ll be teaching middle school – a bit of a surprise because our training has been mostly geared toward teaching high school English, but I’ll make it work. In terms of my living arrangement, I’m not really sure. The paperwork I got seemed to say that I’d be living in a one-room hut (not a problem for me since that’s what I was expecting). One of the biggest perks of my site is that I have two volunteers pretty close to me – one 18 kilometers and one 24 kilometers away – not too bad considering I have a mountain bike! One is in my group and the other in G21, so she’s been here since November. The G21-er, Stacy, is super awesome and sent me a package filled with goodies as a welcome gift!

It’s definitely nice to know where I’ll be living for the next two years but the announcement was also a little bittersweet since it finally dawned on our group how far we will be from each other. Peace Corps is a weird set-up since you spend so much condensed time with your training class and then all of a sudden, eleven weeks in, you’re dispersed throughout the country, really far from some of your closest friends. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. The good news is that I finally get to start local language classes!

Climbing “le Chien qui Fume”

Last weekend a group of us decided once and for all to climb to the top of the mountain overlooking Dubreka, “le Chien qui Fume,” or “the Smoking Dog.” One volunteer had three host brothers who had climbed the mountain before and were willing to guide us to the top, which was really great because there is no way we could have done it without them.

The day began slowly, as things always do in Guinea – we had planned to meet at 7AM to head to the mountain, but in reality it wasn’t until around 8:30 that we piled into the taxi to take us to the base of the mountain. We were eight total who decided to brave the hike, including our three Guinean guides.

Well, little did we know that the hike is typically done in the dry season, not in the height of the rainy season (aka now). The base of the trail was completely blocked by a not-so-small river with quite a current. Needless to say we were all disappointed by the idea that we couldn’t even make it to the trailhead let alone to the top of the mountain, but our guides weren’t going to let that happen. Over the next hour, they found a part of the river that was slightly shallower, and rigged a giant branch across it. With the branch we were able to tug-of-war ourselves across as we waded through. Probably not the safest thing, and a little scary (the water was waist-deep for me), but we all made it unharmed! So, 10:30 rolled around and we were finally at the base of the trail. The hike was incredibly beautiful. It began fairly steep, through some rice fields. Pretty far up we found a family of rice farmers’ encampment. Everything was incredibly green and overgrown; at some points we didn’t even know if we were following the trail except for the occasional litter we could find, like our own Hansel and Gretel. As we reached a certain altitude we were completely in the clouds, which is a really weird feeling when you’re trying to figure out how high you are, much like being in an airplane.

The mountain is shaped a bit like a rectangle, so the summit is long and flat. We reached the top on one side and walked across the summit to the other end since that’s the corner that overlooks the town of Dubreka. When we got there, we sat down to rest and have some snacks (although not our guides, who are fasting for Ramadan, which makes their strength even more unbelievable). We were still in the clouds and couldn’t see the view, which was a bit of a disappointment, but all of a sudden there was a break in the clouds and you could immediately see everything. It was amazing, not to mention a little chilly, which is a rarity here! We stayed at the summit for some time before heading down. The descent went smoothly, as did re-traversing the river. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a taxi at the base of the mountain so we had to walk another thirty minutes to the market, but it wasn’t too bad. Overall it was such a great day!

...Those are all of the updates I have time for now. Training keeps on keeping on. The days are long and exhausting, but practice school starts soon so I get to actually teach some Guinean students, which is both exciting and terrifying. I'll be visiting my site for a week in 10 days as well so I'll have a better idea of what my future home is like! Updates will come after that. A plus tard!

p.s. for those of you that want to text me via gmail... here is how: http://www.google.com/mobile/sms/mail/