Disclaimer: The contents of this page, and all links appearing on this page, do not represent the positions, views or intents of the U.S. Government, United States Peace Corps or Peace Corps Guinea. Kindly do not republish anything found on these pages without explicit permission of the author. I wake up at 7:30. I rush out of bed. I have to meet someone at 8. I quickly get dressed and run up to the roof of the Peace Corps office. I begin praying the morning service of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. The guard tells me later it's the [View Full Entry]

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Looks like I will be here another night because my VISA for Mali won't be done until the afternoon. I guess that is ok, it might be worth it to walk around the city a bit feeling healthy for the first time. It poured rain last night, like, really really hard rain. The most rain I have ever heard or seen before. I had a really delicious meal of fish and pasta for dinner before wandering around the streets aimlessly looking for something to do. I found nothing which I guess shouldn't be too surprising. The only thing to do here [View Full Entry]

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The rainy season is finally here! There's no more school, so all the college and high school students come back to the village for the vacation. No more ridiculously hot weather. And my favorite, no more relying on a well 15 minutes away for all my water. Now it's delivered to me, straight off my roof. :) Far from being a vacation time, everyone is working more than usual. Practically everyone is in the fields most if not all of the day planting corn, rice, peanuts, cassava, sweet potatoes, and okra. All of this is done by hand, the only assistance [View Full Entry]

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Ok kids, here's the deal. I'm still hanging out in Guinea (18 months down, 8 to go). A year ago I started fundraising through Peace Corps to renovate the elementary school in my village. This thing was built by the French, back in the day when colonization was still in style. In the 50+ years since then, no repairs have been made. So basically, it looks like a bomb hit it. If it were in the US, it would be demolished as a public health risk. But this is Guinea. So the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders have class there. Cool, [View Full Entry]

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Gute Fahrt und viel Glueck - das war das Motto vorgestern auf der Fahrt von Kankan nach Conakry, einmal quer durch Guinea. In den meisten anderen Laendern bekommt man nur eine gute Fahrt gewuenscht - hier in Guinea reicht das wohl offensichtlich nicht. Zu bewaeltigen waren ca. 600km, angepeilte 10-13 Stunden im'taxi-brousse' (Buschtaxi), meistens ca. 20-25 Jahre alte Renaults oder Citroens mit drei Reihen, die voll sind wenn 10 Leute drinsitzen, sodass die Bewegungsfreiheit sehr stark eingeschraenkt ist. Losgehen sollte die Fahrt eigentlich zwischen sechs und sieben uhr morgens, aber da die Ta [View Full Entry]

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I’m going to try to be as respectful as possible while writing this; however I’m sure that at some point I’ll fail. For this I apologize to whomever I offend. A year and half ago, if you asked me, I would have told you that hardline feminists annoy the hell out of me. They still do, most anyway. (That is to say women who said the only reason they wanted Clinton for president was because she had a vagina; women who only apply their “principles” to white upper or middle class women therefore excluding the majority of their supposed constituency.) However, [View Full Entry]

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AFRICA I am having difficulty paring down my emotions, thoughts and experiences from Guinea into a single blog entry, which may undoubtedly become more of a novel than a light read on an experience of only 4 weeks… Therefore, I’ve decided to start at the end of the trip and remember that less is more…I hope this short read does justice to the intensity of this journey… For Photos, Please see the following links until I have time to upload them here: [url=http://www.facebook.com [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday 23 December 2008 - The death of General Lansana Conté, the President of Guinea for the past 24 years, is announced on the radio. Wednesday 24 December 2008 - The military takes over Guinea. They celebrate by shooting into the air throughout the night. We were scheduled to go to Conakry for Christmas, but for safety reasons we stayed in Forecariah. We had a Christmas Eve party at the office. Most of the trainees were planning on spending the night there. This was good because around 9 PM gunfire was going off throughout the town. The military is celebrating tha [View Full Entry]

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Apparently a year has passed since I left the US. I’m marking the anniversary by spending three weeks where I got started in Guinea: Forecariah. I’m helping train a new group of volunteers that got here at the beginning of the month. For all there friends and family that may be reading, they’re doing really well and I know I can speak for the other volunteers and say that all their energy and enthusiasm is inspiring and it’s rubbing off on the rest of us. I didn’t think I had changed much since I’ve been here, maybe just learned to deal [View Full Entry]

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I just heard someone mention off hand on the radio that Senator Obama won Indiana. As with the entire election, this is nothing short of a miracle. The impossible can happen. I know everyone's tired of hearing about the election, but please indulge me a little because this story needs to be told. On November 4th at 10 PM about 20 men and myself gathered in my mayor's living room. I must emphasize that I live in the middle of nowhere, if this was happening in my tiny village it was doubtlessly similiar in villages throughtout West Africa. A $3 liter [View Full Entry]

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