My first anniversary in Guinea

Well a few days short of. But still. One whole year living in Guinea! Wild.

So with the end of ths school year, there's always the frustrations of wanting to smack some sense into Guinean students whose default learning style is relying on someone sitting nearby to tell them the answer. Very frustrating with the compositions and exams. If only they would realize they're just perpetuating the status of Guinea as poor and underdeveloped by not working to their full potential. There are some good students, but the overwhelming majority falls into this category, unfortunately. A bunch of my fellow G16ers met up for a couple workshops the past couple weeks and swapped stories which is always hilarious and fun. And we all make each other feel better about our passing statistics, because we have VERY low standards. Ha. Anyway, we've had a good time catching up and hanging out almost all together.

Lots of people at site getting sick with "malaria" since the rains started. It's awesome how fast things here turn green with a single rainfall, but coupled with that, the mosquitoes are out and hungry. A lot of Guineans do indeed have malaria, but it's also an easy diagnosis for doctors for anyone with fevers and such. Lots of my good friends were out of commission for a couple days, lying in bed with fevers. But I guess it passes with treatment before it comes back again and they feel tired and feverish.

My cat ate a bat. I ate termites and a large cricket (grilled and salted... not too bad once you get past the fact that you're eating bugs). My favorite seamstress in my town had her baby! A cute and tiny baby boy, whose name I don't know yet because I left town before the baby naming ceremony (a week after birth). Very exciting tho! On a much sadder note, one of my 10th grade girls is married and was pregnant. But two days before my other friend had her baby, my student also gave birth, but the baby didn't make it. Can't imagine a girl that young having to know that kind of sadness. I visited my friend Kim's site and we took a walk through her town with one of the teachers at her school. As we passed the large forested cemetary, he also told us that almost all families have a small lot in their yard for the very small children that don't make it. Also, there was a sign next to the cemetary that said, "Nous étions comme vous. Vous serez comme nous." (We were like you. You will be like us.) The mortality of people is very visible here. I guess much more than it is in my American life, Dieu merci.

So, like I said, had a couple workshops. One on HIV/AIDS where we went over all the facts basically and how to get those facts out to Guineans that we have contact with. Went to visit Kim's village for a couple days after that. Really beautiful place and they live on top of a mountain basically, so the view is wonderful. She also has a goat who had just had a baby, so he is adorable! (I don't know if I've mentioned this, but goats are adorable. Sheep, not so much. But I really love goats.) She has a nice garden too which turned to a jungle almost overnight. The land here is so fertile, and it's certainly getting all the water it needs right now, so it's pretty awesome how fast stuff grows here.

Had another workshop planning for the new education group's training. Helped out there for a few days. Weird to be back in Forecariah (where we were for training for 3 months) without having all those anxieties or stresses of being in training and living with a host family and learning how to be a teacher in Guinea, etc. Kind of cool being back there under different circumstances and working with our trainers as colleagues and not as our trainers.

Now in the capital. Had my mid-service medical exam (aka the works) to see if I have any sort of hiding amoebas or parasites or other things in my body. I'll keep you posted on that one. Celebrated the fourth with almost all of my group (minus 2), and now just working on some things before the new education group gets in! We're all pretty excited for the new group and we're hoping to make their welcoming to Guinea as nice as we remember ours being.

I guess that's about it for now. Heading back to my town in a few days to hopefully start being productive on other projects since I'll be in and out of my town a lot this summer. Mama's coming in a month! Then Stef's coming now too in October! Very excited!

Hope you're all doing well. I spent a lot of yesterday reminiscing about last year's 4th of July with all of you and how wonderful that was. Really love you all and miss you terribly (hope you're not tired of hearing that yet).

Anyway, keep in touch. Love you all.

~rab