A funny thing happened on the way to the luumo...

10 months in Guinea, and a number of funny changes have occurred.

1 _ While I may have arrived in Guinea with the intention of drastically developing race relations for the better and spreading oodles of knowledge about the United States of America, I've found myself gawking at pale-skinned people passing  through my village along with the rest of my community.  The other day, I stared at a pair of American-looking folk (the fanny-packs and croakies tipped me off) who were sitting at a booth in our weekly market (luumo).  When I realized what I was doing, I snapped myself out of it, strolled on over and very tactfully initiated conversation with...

"Hi.  What are you doing here?"

So much for manners, Kelsey.  (Sorry Moma and Gramma, you taught me much better than that.)  I gracefully recovered with...

"I mean, um, well... It's just that I don't see many white people out here.  Hi.  My name is Kelsey."

Smoooooth.

Thank goodness my new-found friends were gracious conversation partners.  They smiled, nodded, and explained that they were Christian missionaries who'd been working in Guinea for over 18 years.  We chatted a bit, but on account of the sun beating down on my poor, un-sunscreened scalp, I bought an English-French-Pular phrase book from them and retreated home.

I'm beginning to understand how strange it is to be a part of such a visibly apparent minority.

2 _ Remember how I used to joke that it would be really cool for my freckles to fuse together?  Haha-well it doesn’t seem to be as much of an impossibility anymore.

Folks, it’s HOT here.

I’ve been taking care to hydrate and lather on the sunscreen, but poor Flo is having a rough time of it.  I took her out for a bike ride (sadly, no, she can’t reach the pedals so she has to run alongside me) that lasted about 20 minutes.  By the end of it, she was running from spot of shade to spot of shade, flopping on the ground, and then lugging herself back up to catch me once I’d gotten far ahead.

When we arrived back home, I left her on the porch and went inside momentarily to get her some water.  When I came back out, I found her passed out with her muzzle still in her water bowl.

So you get the picture.  Luckily, this heat will only stick around for another month or so.  For Spring Break, I plan on going to a waterfall-filled valley in the Fouta with a couple other volunteers.  Swimming will be a welcome luxury.



3 _ In my former life, I must have been a carpenter.


        Yours truly built this rickety shelf...

...and just last weekend, converted a busted table into this lovely clothing shelf.

All this accomplished with sandpaper, a piece of re-bar (no crowbar available), hammer, nails, and a Swiss Army knife saw.


  IKEA, 
          eat 
                  your  

             out.

You might think I'm bragging (ok, maybe a little bit), but what I really want to call attention to is that I still have a good amount of time on my hands.  I've finally put forth the grant proposal for our computer center project, so all there is to do now is wait.

4 _ My students continue to delight, amuse and frustrate me every day.  Absences, tardiness, and general teenage-hormone-induced surliness makes me want to douse them all with a cold bucket of water sometimes.  Truly, I'm amazed at my high school teachers - you all must have had more patience than Mother Theresa.

Despite the frustrations, my spirits are frequently lifted by their enthusiasm, earnestness, and unwittingly absurd (and often poetic) statements like these:

"I burned my journal before she read it."

"She left me before I hated her."

"I ate my father last night."

"Ronaldo was angry because you slept with Roberta."

"If I go home, I will cook my wife."

"I dream to earn a lot of money, to fly a plane to Jamaica, and to promote full racial equality for whites and blacks in America."  (We'd talked about Martin Luther King the previous week.)

And, when I caught a student cheating on a test and took away half of his total...

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT DO THIS." 

They're a good-hearted bunch, and they can sure make you smile :)

That's all for now.  To sum it all up, I'm doing well, staying healthy, and trying to come up with a plan of action for this summer.  It will most likely include many art projects (MURALS!!!), working out the details on my computer project, and beginning a waste-removal and recycling initiative in Ditinn. 

I'll keep ya posted.

<3

Yo

Sup ginge-followers?!

I don't have much time, but wanted to let you know that I updated the "Projects Underway" section.

Here are some highlights from the last 2 weeks:

1. I finally went swimming in the waterfall with a volunteer, her friend, and one of my buddies from Ditinn.  The water was great, the day was hot, there were little-bitty leeches, and it was GLORIOUS. 

2.  Flo has moved on from eating pebbles to chewing on our walls.  I think she must not be getting enough vitamins/salt in her diet.  Any tips?

3.  There are under 40 days of school left.  WHAT?  Where did the time go?  Things are still going smoothly with my class, and I have high hopes for them.

4.  I just bought knock-off Ray-Ban sunglasses.  They have Lil Wayne sketched on the sides.  Jealous?

5.  I'm in Mamou for a peer-support network and diversity committee meeting.  Hope things go well!  In 2 weeks, I'll be going to the islands off the coast of Guinea with a couple of other volunteers.  Then, well, it'll be summer before you know it.  I hope to stay busy with my computer center project and biking adventures.


That's all for now, I promise to stop being lame with the blog posts.  I'll devote myself to writing this next week so that I can give you a thorough and entertaining update.

Love,
K

The Best of January - February

Dearest ones,

Happy V-Day!  My day commenced with a paper heart and a Guinean chocolate at my door.  (Thank you, lovely volunteers.)

The rest of the day I spent in training with 21 other Education Volunteers.  It's our In-Service Training, and it marks the 7.5-month point in our service.

Hard to believe, right?


Most of the group went dancing, but as I was feeling a little sickly, I stayed in bed and read a book about the battle of Thermopylae.


Yep, that's what "300" was inspired by.

Judge me.


I have longer posts to send to you, but lack the time now.  I promise to be more heart-felt in about 2  weeks. 

For now, here are some pictures that I trust will make you wanna say:

a) awwwwww
b) WOW
c) Kelsey-what the f***??


First things first.

SAM - You said it wasn't real until there were pictures.  Well...

Yes. 

    This exists. 

        I don't know who made it. 


                 And I also don't know what this is about...

The ridiculousness makes me want to laugh and cry all at once.











Second:  This is my new house.  It's pretty awesome and currently undergoing many a home-improvement project.

As you can see, I'm still as pale as a frog's underbelly. 

Thanks to my sun-protection regimen, I smell like a Hawaiian resort almost 24/7.  (Instead of hibiscus, however, you must imagine the smell of hay.  It mixes quite nicely with sunscreen.)



Third:  I have a puppy.  Her name is Flo. 

Please feel free to bask in the cuteness for as long as you wish...

 

Fourth: Adrienne came to visit me last weekend.  We walked to the waterfall (About 9.5 miles, roundtrip.  What now, G.I. Jane?)




This is what we saw...
 

 Some ladies walking to market...

 Artsy landscape shot.   

Sorry, couldn't help it.

The countryside looks much different during dry season.

At the falls...

Yes, this was an exclusively ginger excursion. 

 And, of course there was a cow.

Really, you should have guessed it.  You know this is a recurring theme...

 

There were no other cows in sight.  Who know how it got all the way through the forest into the little gulley there.  Hey, at least he was eating well.

Fifth:  I just want to share with you the magic that is my friend, Adam.   

Prepare your eyes for something I can guarantee they've never seen before...

Speechless?

So am I.

UNTIL NEXT TIME!!

<3

Just call me Doolittle

 

Walking, singing and squawking with the animals has become my jam.  And, I’m pleased to report that it’s not just me who communes with mute beasts; some of my neighbors even carry on full conversations with their furry companions. 


I have 4 stories to share with you, which will hopefully illustrate just how close I’ve gotten with the Guinean fauna in the past months…

 

1: Almost every morning, I awake to the sound of billy goats goofing around outside my window.  This sounds, at first, like a nasty scuffle of sorts.  Then, you hear them grunt at each other.  I can find no other comparison except to say that it sounds like a couple of teenage boys got into a helium tank and went berserk.  It’s a lot of “Wooaah.” *scuffle scuffle*  “Woooaaaaaaahhhhh!  WooAAHH!” in comically high-pitched voices. 

It makes me laugh without fail.

 

2:  While in Labe last time, I was walking through the market trying to help Julie find some sunglasses.  A gigantic truck pulled up beside our sunglass hut and promptly began oozing a rather grotesque-looking dark liquid.  I turned away and busied my eyes with admiring the pretty indigo-dyed fabric to my left.  All of a sudden, I heard “Excusez!” and felt a thick, wet, slap against my arm.  I looked at Julie, who was standing stock-still and staring at me with eyes the size of dish plates, her hand covering her mouth.  I decided I’d have to look eventually, so I glanced quickly down and saw some red goop smeared on my forearm.  I wasn’t quite sure what had assaulted me, until I heard another labored “Excusez!” coming from behind me.  A short man, hunched under a humongous slab of meat, hurdled past me and disappeared into the market.

So now I can say I’ve been body-checked by half a cow.  How many people can say that?

3: I’ve taken upon myself the duty of re-organizing our Lycée’s resource room.  There is many a wondrous thing to be found in this room, including:

-          2 books on Spanish

-          A “German in your Pocket” manual

-          A boatload of mismatched English books (YAY!), copyrights dating from 1960 to 1999

-          Colored chalk!

-          Correspondence between past Lycée students in Ditinn and students in France

-          Pictures drawn by some random French students.  They’re cute.

-          A book of Edgar Allen Poe in French

-          2 books on “Getting to Know the Swiss”

-          A new species of rodent

If this is, indeed, an as yet undocumented species, I hereby claim official discoverer rights.  For now, it will be known as the Mouirrel.  Sounds like a mouse, poops (EVERYWHERE) like a mouse, but has the bushy tail of the good-old American Grey Squirrel.

National Geographic, I think you should send out your best photographer asap.

 

 

4: One of my students invited me to visit his village a few weeks ago.  It was a lovely time; we ate, we talked, we cracked peanuts, and we laughed at his infant cousin trying to eat a whole orange in one bite.  As I was preparing to leave, his mother came out of the house with an armfull of oranges, which she stuffed into my messenger bag.  She returned into the house to retrieve a whole bunch of bananas, which she also somehow managed to fit into my bag. 

Then she offered me peanuts.  I took them after a whole lot of :

"Non, non, c'est trop!"  No, no, it's just too much.

"Cadeau!"  Gift!

"Non, vous avais été trop gentille!"  No, you've been far too kind.

"Tiens!!"  Take them!

"Merci, mais, je ne pourrais pas les-apporter."  Thank you, but I can't possibly carry them.

"Mi okii, jiiwo!  Fii Allah, a naboraye ka suudu, nani?!"  I'm giving them to you, woman!  For the love of God, take them home, ya hear?!


So she put them into a bulging plastic sack and tied it to my shoulder strap.

After a profusion of thanks, I got on my bike and rode out of their family compound, thinking I'd finally made my escape.  Not two pushes of the pedal had passed before I heard "WAIT!!"  I stopped my bike and turned around to see my student, Alpha, running towards me with a live chicken in his hand.

I had to seriously fight the urge to flee right then and there. 

But Alpha told me, with a huge smile, this was a great honor to his family and they wanted me to have this chicken as a sign of gratitude.  So he tied the chicken's legs and slung it over my handlebars.

Friends, I rode 3km with a chicken swinging like a pendulum from my handlebars, legitimately glaring beams of hatred up at me with its beady eyes.

Everyone I passed stopped in their tracks and started laughing.  I admit, it must have been quite the spectacle.

I gave the chicken to my family, and am now pleased to report that he lived out the rest of his days roaming our compound and eating rice to his heart's content.

Ze END!

CHRISTMAS CAME TO GUINEA

FRIENDS.

I received SO MANY packages. 

It was like a million shining Christmas Tree candles descended upon Guinea to light up my January.

Like, one of the pine trees in Dalaba morphed into the ginormous Christmas tree from The Nutcracker Ballet, and all the mice hidden in my ceiling began prancing around like the Rat King and his minions.

THANK YOU:

Dzmitry and Michelle

Momma and Doug

Dad and Sally

Moma

Gramma G

Your packages were literally bursting with love and kindness!

More to come soon, and much love until then :)

In a land where men have no fire:

 

In case you’re still with us here at Guinea Ginge (us being Kelsey, Arnold the mouse and various monstrous caterpillars lurking around in dark corners), here’s a little update for you!

Last week, my neighbor Dawan, came to Ditinn to pay me a visit.  (He’s only 26km away… that’s child’s play in Guinea!)  It was a wonderful surprise to peep outside my classroom and see a fellow volunteer smiling back at me.  We took a trip to the Ditinn waterfall, which I am happy to report, is nearly tame enough to frolic about in!  Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure…

Everyone, meet Dawan. 

Hi, Dawan!

And we all know this crazy ginger...



There is many a river to be fjorded here,

even in the dry season.

 

And now, here's a video for you...

 

We fancy, huh?

Along our route, Dawan and I discussed many a topic, including but not limited to Guinean history, U.S. vs. Guinean teaching methods, future plans, the natures of romance and marriage, and livestock.  Which brings me to my next point: 

If ever there was created an official scale of stupidity based on animal behavior, the basest insult you could ever sling upon another human being would be to compare them to a sheep.

      I’ve seen goats eat plastic bags. 

         I’ve seen cows stare down oncoming semi-trucks. 

            I’ve seen moths fly straight into open flames repeatedly. 

Let me assure you, sheep take the fattest slice of cake that there is to be had.  (You know, it’s one of those pretty plastic and Velcro kinds of cake that you used to play with as a kid, but at least you knew better than to eat something with a Fisher_Price label on it?)   

A car legitimately ran over a sheep the other day (it was unharmed, I assure you) because the animal plain old didn’t feel the urge to move.  This evening I had my moment of epiphany, however.  As I was cooking dinner (bean, lentil, potato, patate, okra and peanut soup!  Sounds questionable.  Tastes delicious.), I heard a noise in my yard.  Now, as stated before, I had a fence recently erected to keep animals and unruly school kids from traipsing into my house.  As you can imagine, I was a little anxious to see just what in the blazes was making the racket.  I poked my head out the window and saw a sheep there, just… staring off into space.  My gate was shut and there were no gaping holes to speak of in the fence, so, although puzzled, I decided to let the situation develop on its own.  A few hours passed by, and the sheep didn’t budge, except to stick its head through a crack in the fence.  Once night fell, I decided to help it out.  I opened the gate and made some shooing noises, and what did the sheep do?  It looked at me and plunked its head right through the fence again. 

So I chased it away from the hole. 

It ran a couple circles around the fire pit, then headed towards the gate. 

“Yes!”  I thought.  “Victory is at hand.” 

But instead of going through the huge opening directly in front of it, the sheep thought it better to ram its noggin right back into the crack in the fence.  Now, faced with a waggling sheep posterior and a herd of bleating livestock gathering to witness this spectacle, what’s a girl to do but laugh?  This whole process repeated itself for a few minutes, but happily, after a tense stare-off, the sheep turned around and (accidentally, I’m certain) made its way through the doorway to be reunited with its fellow peanut-brained family members.

Speaking of brains…

Mine is practically burstin with Pular.  Aliou has turned out to be a super resourceful tutor, and I’m having a wonderful time employing (read: embarrassing myself in) the language around Ditinn.  Why, the other day, I was walking down the path from school to the center of town, when I found my path blocked by a sheepling (A ewe?  Sheepling sounds better…).  I tried going around it, but saw that it was, well, drooling uncontrollably.  Not a good sign in sheepdom, I gather.  A tantie (older lady) passed by and greeted me in French with a “Bonjour, Aicha! Ca va?”  She then turned to the sheepling and said “Eh!  Mbaali.  A nowni buy!!” which means, “Sh**, you’re one sick sheep!!”  Which I understood!  IN PULAR!

So, good news: I’m improving little by little. 

Bad news: I have no idea if there’s a vet around these parts.  Poor sheepling.

This not so neatly segues into my next topic: PULAR blunders.

I’ve been trying to acquire some quips to use in the big cities when taxi-moto drivers make crude remarks to us volunteers.  So far I can say “What do you want?” and “You lookin’ at me?”  While useful, they’re not exactly what you’d call zingers.

So I asked my friend, Juliette for some help.  She said she had the hardest time trying to master the phrase “Are you blind??”, meant to be used if someone on a moto/taxi cuts you (or your taxi) off, or runs over your foot, or smooshes your pile of vegetables/fruit/bread/fish/sunglasses/flip flops on the ground.  It translates to “You have no eyes?!”

So for a couple months, Juliette was sassing right back at the motorists, saying “A maraa yiitee?!” where it was deserved.  She was confused by their reaction, which always seemed to involve patting their shirt/pants pockets, then shaking their heads “no!”

Finally someone kindly informed Juliette that the word for eyes is “giitee”, and that “yiitee” means fire.  She’d been unwittingly asking haphazard motorists for a light all this time, yelling  

 

“Have you no fire??”

It’s way too easy to mix these things up.

You better watch out...

 

Ladles ring, are you list’ning?

Against marmites, with sauces glist’ning.

A beautiful sight, we’re happy alright,

Basking in a Fouta Wonderland.

     In the morning, you feel like a snowman,

     With your breath a’whisping through the air.

     Then by noon you think to yourself, “No, ma’am!”

     This Porto’s lost it, it’s hotter than he- (you-know-where)!

Later on,

We’ll perspire,

As we cook

Rice on the fire.

We’ll face unafraid 

The end of the day,

There's tons of candles in this Fouta Wonderland.

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Christmas in Labe!

While it’s strange being away from all of you back home, I want to assure you that Christmas is turning into a bonafide festive time here in Guinea.  My friend, Sarah is visiting from the Basse-Cote, Adrienne has come all the way from Haute Guinea, and a bunch of others have convened in Labé to celebrate together.

Here are some things I’m thankful for this year:

1. My health (*knock on wood*) has been very good since arriving at Ditinn.  I continue to be an adventurous eater, but with more control over my normal intake of food, I’ve had far fewer GI woes to contend with.

* Interesting fact: In Pular, the word for diarrhea literally translates to “the runs.”  Aliou tells me this is because it has you running to the bathroom constantly.  I think he was being polite and wanted to spare me the graphic details…  It’s amazing what things are understood universally, though, isn’t it?

2. Bonding with my students and fellow teachers.  Perhaps at this point they think of me not only as that whacked-out white lady, but as someone they can talk to and laugh with.  For whatever reason, people have been very patient and open with me.  It’s been nice to move past the perfunctory “Hi, how are you?  My name is Aicha, what’s yours?” conversations.

3. I’ve moved from my fortress on the hill to a quieter and more secluded spot near the center of Ditinn.  I’m with a wonderful family who jokes with me, teaches me useful Pular phrases so I can haggle with the market vendors who give me the “Porto Price” (generally quite a bit higher than the local “Ditinnois Price”), and even teach me how to cook from time to time.

It’s heavenly.

4. I’m getting a puppy :)  I will post pictures for you soon.

5. Increased stamina!  I biked to Bodié to visit Stephanie the other week.  It’s 32 km on an unpaved, up and down road, and I did it in 90 minutes exactly!

6. Friends.  Both volunteers, my Guinean neighbors, and you.  I’m not exaggerating when I say that I feel blessed to know the people that I do.  You have made this ginger a better person, and I hope that I can pass along your many kindnesses and pieces of wisdom in the future.

Here’s wishing you many happy thoughts, useful/AWESOME gifts, and an all-around holly-jolly Christmas and Happy New Year!

Much love,

K