Let me explain my excitement. First, I haven’t seen a real (4 walls and a ceiling) grocery store since I have left Ohio, and today I got to go to my first Lebanese store in Conakry. Lebanese stores are kind of a God send to American in a third world country. They had the most random stuff I’ve ever seen but it was AWESOME.
This morning we got up early and went and withdrew our money from the bank. Who knew, I moved to Guinea and became a millionaire!! Yep, I withdrew millions of (Guinean) dollars. I’m rich!!! Ok so converted into American dollars it’s under $1,200 for three months and moving in but here… good lord that’s a lot.
After our bank experience some one years (PCV’s that have been in country for a year) take us to the leb stores. I walk inside those double wide doors and the ark angels from the heavens are singing the songs of joy! They had Dove shampoo, deodorant, CHEESE, soy sauce, pickles, snickers, Franks Red Hot sauce, air freshener, cereal, hummus, you name it. It was like a little America, with a Lebanese accent. Really, it was like walking into any American dollar store but here it was a gift from god. For the first time in Guinea, I almost forgot where I was but then I had to walk back outside into the hussle and bussle and heat and I remembered where I was.
Oh today, I also got ICE CREAM!!!!!!!!!! I know all of you are back home freezing your butts off, but here its hot! It’s really really really hot. And today was the first thing of ice cream I have had in a long time. But when I ordered it I thought it was cookies and cream and when I asked, the guy responded in some thing I could not understand. So I just nodded and said ok. Sat down and expected one thing and got a mouth full of something else. It was pistachio, odd I know right. But it was delicious none the less!
I just want to give a quick shout-out to all of the other partents out there who i know are reading these blogs. All of your kids are great, we really have turned into our own little family network here.
Danielle, believe it or not another Wright State grad, in GUINEA none the less.
The group of us who now call the "Fouta" home sweet home. These next two years should be interesting... ;)
"Southern Guinea" Represent! (The few of us who live in the southern part of Guinea)
Our group. Aren't we so colorful
Most of our group on "fairwell Foricairah" day
The bathroom my family used
The kitchen where my rice and sauce was prepared everyday
My little next door neighbor boy... so cute!!!
Doing laundry, well not me of course...
watching the presidentail inaugeration from a video club we rented out. and by club i mean shack 
a HUGE hit. I had gotten a calendar of the US National Parks, a few beanie babies, a few matchbox cars, a few base ball caps from my dad’s work, and a photo album. They acted like it was Christmas day, they were so excited! *DAD- your AMP hats were a HUAGE hit. They haven’t taken them off. Once the excitement of the gifts had worn off a bit, it was photo time. You have not seen anything until you see Guinean children have a change to have their photos taken. It is like feeding time at the zoo! Kids come out of the wood work that I have never even seen to get their photos taken.
ied to sing in French. OK so my African outfit… well it turned out to be a crazy mess. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but it is crazy. OK so imagine me, in a dress, which looks like you crewed 4 yellow skittles, 2 orange skittles and 1 red skittle in your mouth and spit it into a napkin, and then make an entire fabric out of it. Yes I was the loudest one dressed in the room. My outfit demanded attention, but really when don’t I? But the Guineans loved it, so I am “bien integre” (well integrated in French)
get me wronge, I’m just ready to be on my own here. 
eams and had to brain storm this brilliant idea on how to make a profit in Guinea, one of the worlds poorest countries. Sounds easy, piece of cake. My partner and I thought to ourselves, what do we have that Guineans want? AKON! If you haven’t heard of him, don’t be ashamed, I hadn’t either until I got to Africa. (He is a singer, that I think was born somewhere in Africa that now lives in the states). So we scrounged up some music and burned them onto CD’s and called it a day, fully thinking that this would be the cats meow. Well on project day we hooked up our ipod to our speakers and put our sign up right in the center of town and sat waiting for the flocks of teenagers to come and buy up our American made CD’s. Well the crowds did come, but we forgot to take into account that people don’t have a way to play our CD’s here in Guinea. So we only sold three but we had another Guinean dance party with the locals all day! Oh silly Americans with their fancy technology.
