An American in Dubreka

So I’ve written many a wonderful thing about Guinea, but I haven’t shown you much. 

Allow me to give you a tour…

  

         This is Dubreka on a sunny day à

This picture was taken near the rice patties, which are located on the outskirts of town.

There are lots of palm trees, lots of palm oil, palm wine (I’ve been instructed to avoid that), and coconuts. 

I’nit nice??

 

  

Now, this is Dubreka during a monsoon à

Wind blew down our chicken coop last night.

The Rooster couldn’t care less, he’s still cock-a-doodling

at 4am like always, but Mama Hen is ticked.



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This is the port à

It smells a lot like Ruston Way.

People can snag flapping fish out of mid-air with their bare hands.

Thankfully, there are no militant Canadian Goose families to dodge around here.

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You are now entering Chez Kelsey…

Yes, that is a Chubbs the Squirrel figurine. 

Judge me.

Here is a somewhat skewed view of my room (panorama pictures don’t work so great in small spaces, but you get the gist)...

There are labels on various items in my room to help me with French.  My favorite words so far are fenetre (window) and gobelet (cup/goblet).

Also, in case you were wondering, YES, that IS a mosquito net!  Here's a close-up!

Yours truly is lulled to sleep each night by the soothing sounds of whining mosquitos, tragically unable to reach their target.

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Now for the “adventuring just outside of Dubreka” portion of our tour…

Welcome to Les Cascades of Sumba.

There’s a natural water-slide at the base of the waterfall, so you climb behind the curtain-o-water, skootch forward until it's pounding on your shoulders, and then the pressure shoots you down a smooth rock-slide and into the river, where you have to frantically swim to the side to avoid being swept waaaaay to far down stream by the current.  I’d say this gives Wild Waves a run for its money.

Just this past Saturday, a group of us decided to take a bike trip out towards this mountain called “Le chien qui fume” (the smoking dog).  Hours of jungle-biking, many scrapes, river-fjording, and one embarrassing tumble (while stationary) into a gargantuan puddle later - here’s what we found…

 

Some early-risers dedicated an entire day to hiking up this mountain.  They got some AMAZING views of the village.

(I told them to act happy.)

... this one was unsolicited.

. 

Julie's just always ready for her close-up.

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Mmm-buh-dee-buh-dee, mmm-buh-dee-buh-dee – Duuh,

That's all, folks!



O

The following post is brought to you by the letter "O"

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OHMYHOLYGOODNESS
KELSEYISAPEACECORPSVOLUNTEER!!

Soooo... that's really exciting.  We had our swearing-in ceremony yesterday and there are already pictures up on Facebook.  I am working on the picture situation with my computer, and I promise to upload them before I leave for site (that's this Tuesday!).

Much love to all, I think about you guys every single day I am here and it brings a world of joy to my heart.  More posts coming soon. 

In the meantime, did you know you can TEXT me??  My friend, Richard will tell you how:

"Text Kelsey for FREE from Gmail! 1. make a gmail account 2. go into SETTINGS (the flower/gear shaped thing in right corner), 3. then LABS 4. then enable SMS TEXTS 5. add Kelsey to your contacts, including her Guinean phone number +224 68 71 57 04 TO SEND A FREE MESSAGE TO HER PHONE: at the bottom left of your screen says CHAT and SMS. Type in Kelsey's name in the search area, it will bring up her ...

info and you can scroll across and select "Send SMS" This will open up a chat screen and just type away! Keep the messages short, otherwise they will not go through correctly. They are free for Kelsey to receive, but cost 100 GNF for her to reply. So start sending her messages! (I am sitting next to her now. She is healthy and super happy to receive all of your love! And if you send her a package, including something yummy [that she can share with me]).

Love,
Richard"