http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Guinea/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Africa , Guinea en-us Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:44:04 UTC Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:44:04 UTC 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 emphasi http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Conakry/blog-347012.html Hanging out in Guinea for more than 9 months now. Things are going relatively well I'm still healthy and Ramadan is almost over alhamdulilah Last Saturday I took a taxi directly from my village to the town of Kissidougou. The ride ended up being 19 hours. We broke down a couple times and had to stop to break the fast at sunset. But even then it shouldn't have taken that long. When I ta http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Conakry/blog-325542.html Typically Amazing Travel StoryBecause there are no taxis that go from my Regional capital to my site I thought I'd try taking a taxi to my prefecture capital first and then to my village. I got to the taxi stand at the late hour of 9 AM and became aquainted with 3 girls from the prefecture capital who had just finished Terminale we run on the French education system here which means everyone g http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Conakry/blog-309918.html Sorry for the late entry everyone and it won't be a great one at that ... I have to run and get to the taxi stand. I went down to Conakry for the 4th of July and gorged on lots of American style food but was asked to leave immediately afterwards to show the new Country Director my village. We've have a great staff here in Guinea and the new director and his wife are only adding to it all.S http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Lab-/blog-298304.html 22 April 2008 Random NotesMy boss was here for a day a is was wonderful. I was able to vent all my frustrations and worries. She calmly reassured me that they were all normal and I'd been handling them the best I could. She said she picked me for my village because I was a little more outgoing a little more prepared both of which surprise me. I don't care if she said that about all the vol http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Conakry/blog-278519.html Woke up in the morning and went to Christ Orphanage. The kids didn't have class today so we sang and they played with my hair for a solid three hours which was both wonderful and disgusting at the same time...problem is I know EXACTLY where their hands have been.Some EXCITING news from the orphanage Emily's parents donated money to Christ for her birthday With the money Raymond was able to buy http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/blog-268394.html 24 March 2008Irsquove been having some bad days and getting disspirited. I often feel like my French is getting worse and that Irsquom not learning any Pular. I always feel like Irsquom not doing enough and often that Irsquom doing nothing at all. I was horrified when I realized in one week Irsquod finished reading 3 books compared to the 5 I read in the first two months.But then t http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Lab-/blog-265340.html 24 February 2008Abdelrahmane just told me that heaving breathing outside my window every night was sorcery and that when he hears he runs away. Scared out of my mind I kept asking him questions After about 20 minutes and thanks to the EnglishPular dictionary that some missionaries made I learned that ldquobird of sorceryrdquo means owl in Pular. This revelation made me feel better until http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Lab-/blog-256708.html February 15 2008Another long travel day this one much longer than the others. We left quite early and the total trip took 11 hours. We left Koba early with a quick formal visit to the SouxPrefect. We then continued along the way backtracking to Kindia. From Kindia we headed towards Kouroussa on a paved highway. One of the large centres we went through and stopped at for lunch was Mamou. I http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/blog-247007.html February 14 2008Happy Valentinersquos Day my husband wished me in the morning. Wow couldnrsquot believe it was February 14th already. Valentinersquos day is not a big deal here and did not see anything advertising it. Our lsquoromanticrsquo day was spent traveling around all day looking at Bauxite plateaus. It was a fun day bumping up and down over a portion of the south permit th http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/blog-247004.html February 13 2008Travel day. We left Conakry around 730am to head to Koba to visit our bauxite projects. The trip took us through the major centre of Kindia and through many small villages. We stopped to fuel up at Kindia and joined many others looking for gas. We were lucky and were not stopped there long. We did stop at a store prior to this to pick up propane and snacks. Poll pronounced mor http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/blog-247003.html February 12 2008Another fun day in Conakry. A lot of driving around which is wonderful as I was able to see a lot more of the area. More traffic more markets and lots of people as well as long lineups at the gas stations. Apparently there is a possible shortage of fuel this week due to a delayed shipment in and word has gotten out to everyone so cars were lined up about 20 in a row ofte http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/blog-246904.html February 11 2008A day of meetings It was a fun and interesting day. We were driven around Conakry by Paul the driver. It is quite common to have a driver especially in a rental vehicle. Another interesting aspect of driving around there is a lot of horn honking. Honking usually is used to let people know you are coming so donrsquot cross the street or watch out if they are walking along http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/blog-246902.html February 10thWe are now sitting in the airport at Paris and have been here for about 3.5 hours. The flight overnight went very well. Our next flight should board within the next hour as long as there are no delays and then on to Conakry. Even though we were still international and didnrsquot leave the terminal we had to go through security again. It was the first time I activated the detector http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/blog-246900.html HiI am back for at least another day. It has been an exciting week flying from Cape Town to Conakry Guinea to the village of Koba about 500 1000 people and yesterday we arrived in Kouroussa a much larger centre.There has been lots of driving through the countryside from the coast at Conakry through the second largest town Kindia then central northeast to Koba. From Koba we returne http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/blog-246895.html 11 February 2008Yesterday for dinner we went to a restaurant and ordered hamburgers. We got hard boiled eggs covered with a thin layer of ground beef swimming in a pool of oil and cold french fries. We opted to make our own dinner tonight and made pancakes with chocolate sauce mexican eggs salsa guacamole and garlic bread. A little random but amazing.12 February 2008Yesterday we went shoppi http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Lab-/blog-246231.html That's right today 35 of us we're sworen in as Peace Corps Volunteers in the beautiful country of Guinea. We've officially started our 24 months of service Crazy stuff. I'm really excited and nervous at the same time to be off literally in the middle of nowhere for a good while.We're chilling for awhile now but I'll be off to my site for good on the 15th. This means a couple of things for http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Conakry/blog-244276.html 31 January 2008I can't believe January is over. Everyone here will agree that December was one of the longest months of our lives but January just disappeared. I'm not ready to leave Forecariah. We only have 5 full days left here. That's crazy I don't want to say goodbye to my family. I'm really gonna miss Oumou. I took for granted having a girl my age to talk to. She's a rare find here a http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/For%C3%A9cariah/blog-243870.html 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 exertsSunday January 20A Day in the Life837 AM Leave Counterpart Workshop in Bush Taxi with two other trainees and two of our Guinean Counterparts845 AM Lost my counterpart850 AM Stopped by driver's house not saluated not offered any http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Lab-/blog-239072.html wow...finally installed my travel blog. i think its important to write thoughts down to remember and share. everything is so exciting and so much trouble before. organisation is really important dont forget anything you need...i cannot concentrate for my exams thats quite awful. http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Kankan/blog-237278.html Random exerts from my journal over the past two weeksDecember 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 electrici http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Conakry/blog-230129.html Mali was rich in its own way. Villagers weren't quite as warm and hospitable in some places but they held to their integrity. In a place where people earn 400 a year I wasn't able to purchase a pup for 100 USD because they follow the traditions of the Bedouin who brought Islam to them. You seem like a very nice man and if you could stay a day or two in the village I'm sure someone would http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/blog-227383.html I remained with the trapper and his posse for a short while longer but the promises of arriving before dawn always went unfulfilled. Africa is on a whenever timeclock but the western world does not sync with that. Back in the the States the May 1st 10th deadline was coming up fast and I still hadn't seen even one of these birds. I had to find out where they had gone to. Then I had t http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/blog-227374.html To this point things have been pretty tense. Remember this wasn't a leisure trip this was a live safari an expedition to find trap and return with 10 falcons. There was a very limited window afforded by having to please 3 separate governments as well as all of the international laws involved and the date to have the birds in Quarantine back in the States was also set and narrow. While it http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/blog-227372.html Where were we at Oh yeah the overpriced airplane trip to Conakry. Dakar is just barely subSaharan and relatively dry. Guinea is at the beginning of the rainforests and the city itself is a finger jutting out into the ocean. I'm sure it keeps a few people cooler that way... 3 or 4 of them if they turn the air conditioning on.I was greeted by an online acquaintance of the team supposedl http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Conakry/blog-227359.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Conakry/blog-225996.html After months of multiple applications blood samples and random jobs I arrived in Guinea last night. I'm with a group of 36 other volunteerstobe 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 t http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/Conakry/blog-225475.html So we are moving to Guinea in 7 days Justin and I are currently in Cairo GA getting ready for the big move. There are really no ways to describe how we feel right now excited anxious happy scared nervous and pretty much every other emotion. But after over a year and a half of waiting we are ready to go http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/blog-222213.html Early September was spent in the village and as summer projects had wrapped up or petered out there wasnrsquot much to keep me busy. The women of my courtyard were making shea butter from the nuts theyrsquod collected in the fields all summer a long laborintensive process. The cat was and is doing well getting kinda chubby from all the critters she eats. She keeps the mice under c http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Guinea/blog-213056.html