A Day in the Life of a Foté

6:08am

Wake up, get out of bed, drag a comb across my head.

6:15am

Take a refreshing bucket bath/rinse to energize all the senses. 

If feeling luxurious: add hot water!

6:45am           

Marvel at my host mother’s bare-fingered adroitness at arranging burning charcoal to make the perfect stove-top on our fourneau.

7:00am

Cook and then consume:

   a) Eggs with onions and bread,

   b) pommes frites with onions and bread,

   c) chicken with bread,

   d) rice with fish boulets and bread,

   e) bread with cheese,

   f) bread

7:30am

Hop on the bike and ride 3mi (5km) to Peace Corps headquarters with the other volunteers in my hood (Pekein).

If riding at a leisurely pace: when children spot you, drop everything, point at you and race towards you flailing their arms and screaming “FOTÉ!!!!!” (English equivalent: “WHITIE!!!!!”), calmly pause your ride.  Teach them how to do an exploding fist-bump and explain that your name is not “Foté”, but “Kelsey” or “Aisha” (host family-given Guinean name).

8:00-12:30 CLASS

-          Health, Safety/Security

-          Cross-Cultural

-          French Language

-          Language Tech (teaching English)

12:30pm Lunchbreak. 

If feeling courageous: head to Kilometre-Cinq (a very large open market about 6mi/10km away) with others.  Order “riz avec le sauce arachide/des feuilles de patat/des poisons.”  Smile awkwardly at strangers sitting directly across the table from you.  Help your vegetarian friend ask “Does this sauce have meat in it?” in Soussou/Pulaar/Malinke/Kissi, a language neither of you have ever spoken before!  Later, wander winding row after winding row of fruit/meat/bread vendors, pagne booths (clothing fabric), and telephone stores.

If feeling average, but desiring to stretch the linguistic legs: head to le marché just down the road.  Negotiate with 8 year olds over the price of bread and avocados.  Splurge on delicious bisop (it’s like cranberry juice infused with honey) to congratulate self for not becoming completely tongue-tied this time.

If feeling inclined to adopt the fetal position due to a) dehydration, b) gut issues, c) general mal a l’aise, or d) a mixture of a,b and c: curl up in hammock and ask a kind friend to bring back some bananas and peanut butter from le marché.

2:00pm CLASS

5:00pm

Hang out with trainees and volunteer trainers for a while.  Go for a bike ride around the rice patties, walk around town and down to the port, or go to a neighbor’s house for drum lessons!

7:00pm

Return home and visit with host family!  Take bucket bath. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

If the electricity is running, watch Spanish soap operas (La Madrastra, or Diablo del Fuego) or West African news in the living room together.

8:30pm

Eat dinner all together by lantern-light.  Dinner is usually rice with fish boulets, rice with fish sauce, les haricout (beans in some delicious ham stew mixture), couscous with lait caillé, pommes/patat frites, salad with avocados, tomatoes, cucumbers and potatoes, or rice with le sauce arachide (Peanut sauce. Heavenly.). 

If feeling adventurous: add “piment” to food portion.  Hold back tears when you bite into a seed and it feels like a million clumsy fire ants have decided to take up fire-breathing after having dribbled kerosene all over your tongue and lips.

9:00pm

Bid host fam “good night” and head to bed.  Do some reading for French class, play guitar, write some blogs.

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You should be happy to know that I am having one heck of an amazing time here in Guinea!  My French has improved dramatically.  I even made you this scale to show my progress (I’m at the middle one right now):

What began as gestures and facial expressions has developed into simple sentences and general mutual-intelligibility.  At the end of next week, we will be given our site placements, and I believe we will begin instruction in our second language (Pulaar, Soussou, Malinke, Kissi, etc) shortly thereafter.  It’s going to be quite interesting.

Let’s see, a few other highlights to give you guys:

1)   I’ve already injured myself by falling on a completely level path.  (In my defense, I was carrying a chair and was distracted by conversation.)  Got a scrape on my knee and had to wear gauze and a bandanna to keep the bandage in place.  I think I got a lot of street-cred with the neighbors for dressing like a late 90s rapper for a couple of days.

2)   I tried sardines for the first time.  Who knew I’d have to fly half way across the globe to figure out that I dig them?

3)   A small group of us are officially starting drum lessons this weekend!  Geoff and I are also working on a song to play at the swearing-in ceremony (Ukele/guitar/djembe jam session? Um, yeah. Sign me up.).

4)   On the “Sun vs. Kelsey Tally”… Sun: 1 burn point, Kelsey: 10,000 new freckle points.

5)   I had an impromptu bike race with some dude in Dubreka.  I lost, but only because my turn-off came up before the race had reached its logical end. 

                       * I probably still would have lost.  Dude was built for speed. *

6)   I swam in/climbed a waterfall and played in a nature-built water slide.  Biked for and hour and 40 minutes over 25 km of mountainous terrain to get there and maaaaan, was it worth every bead of sweat.  Check out the pictures section!!

That’s all for now, my loves.  I’ve been able to send off letters from Dubreka, and seeing as how the internet situation here is not always consistent, I’d love to have y’all’s addresses.  If you would be so kind, would you send me your most up-to-date address?  You can e-mail it to me, or you could always send a letter to the address posted at the bottom of this webpage! 

If you ever feel inspired to send something larger than a letter, please DO NOT use Fed Ex!!  That stuff costs beaucoup d’argent (that translates loosely to: “Kelsey pays out the nose for goodies.”)