Doing great, 2 weeks left of training. Visited my site this week. Wonderful. If you want to know where exactly ask my Dad, Nina, or Claudia. More random exerts: Sunday January 20 A Day in the Life 8:37 AM - Leave Counterpart Workshop in Bush Taxi with two other trainees and two of our Guinean Counterparts 8:45 AM - Lost my counterpart 8:50 AM - Stopped by driver's house, not saluated, not offered any rice. We're all offended. 9:04 AM - Stopped to get tires. 9:13 AM - Counterpart shows back up. 9:20 AM - Nick & Neil randomly find us. [View Full Entry]

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Random exerts from my journal over the past two weeks: December 8: Tonights my first night with the new family. There are supposedly about 15 people living in my house. I don't know if I've met them or not. My sister, Oumou, is in charge of me. She takes really good care of me. I have my own huge bedroom and bathroom. I'm so spoiled. Not to mention that it's dark it's dark and the electricity just kicked in. I have electricity! I'm so fortunate for everything here. My sister has been so patient with me. She holds my hand in [View Full Entry]

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So the illness set in a little sooner than expected, but that's life. I'm doing better already, running at about 80%. Not to shabby at all. I'm hoping for 100, because in the morning we're moving in with our homestay families. For our first and last days in Conakry we've just been meeting all of the staff and getting the basic overview of all that we'll be doing for the next three months. There are currently volunteers going through Training will us, so that has been extremely helpful. They've been answering our endless questions that range from "How do I get [View Full Entry]

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After months of multiple applications, blood samples, and random jobs I arrived in Guinea last night. I'm with a group of 36 other volunteers-to-be and we all sort of freaked out when we were waiting in Philadelphia for three days at our staging. The moment we landed in Conakry though it was like coming home. All the stress and anxiety immediately disappeared. I knew right away that I'd made the right choice. The streets in the capital are crazy and crowded. People are everyone at all times of the night. Driving is hectic to saw the least. I'm extremely grateful that [View Full Entry]

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So after surviving the longest roadtrip ever, Barry (my car) called it quits on what was suppose to be a short trip to Columbus. So here I sit, in [url=http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?searchtype=address&country=US&addtohistory=&searchtab=home&formtype=address&popflag=0&latitude=&longitude=&name=&phone=&level=&cat=&address=&city=bowling+green&state=oh&zipcode=]Bowling Green, Ohio waiting for a new fuel pump. I had to stay overnight waiting for the part to come in, luckily my mechanic, Julian, was a really nice guy and dropped me off at a motel yesterday. I was feeling really g [View Full Entry]

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The title can only mean one thing: I'm in Bexley, Ohio. For those of you who are not familiar with this 2.5 square mile suburb inside of Columbus, it's where I spent my better days in high school hanging out with friends from BBYO. Bexley is its own unique little bubble world with perfect roads, lined by perfect houses, and lit up with perfect street lamps. Signs caution drivers to, "Slow down, let our children grow up." Honestly, it's a little frightening. Luckily, I'm fortunate enough to know some of the people inside the houses, [View Full Entry]

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After a wonderful breakfast with Mas, I headed North for a last minute detour to Baltimore. Baltimore is home to the great and amazing Adam G. I hadn't seen or spoken to Adam in almost four years. Before that though, we use to write long letters to each other, talking about life, our significant others, and how incredible the other person was :) Baltimore turned out to be the highlight of my entire trip. I wish I could've stayed for weeks, but unfortunately I was scheduled to be in Pittsburgh for the night so I only got to stay for a [View Full Entry]

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I ended up sleeping lots at Lauren's. I barely left before she got back from work. I walked around Arlington for a bit and then tried my hand at DC highways, where it's always 5 PM. I was headed to Julie K.'s in Shepherd Park, in the North of the NW quadrant. So of course I took the most convoluted route there. I ended up taking the Outer Loop, which was significantly out of my way, but I got to see more of the area so it all worked out. Julie's spending the next year working at a Latino public health [View Full Entry]

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I woke up in bed with Claudia today which is always a good way to start the day. However it was at 6 AM. Not so great. We said our goodbyes and headed in opposite directions as she went north to Boston and I started my journey south. By 10 AM I'd been in four different states. I finally made it into DC around 1 PM today. I met up with David R., a kid I use to work with back at Brandeis. He graduated in 2005 and has spent the last two years on the the island of Barbuda in [View Full Entry]

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