Whoot whoot! It is July and the rainy season is well underway. Yes, there are only two seasons here; hot and rainy! Thank god the hot season is over, let me tell you what. It was un-godly hot. We are talking 110 + in the shade at 10 am. I did spend the majority of my time sitting in the shade chugging water and not moving as much as possible but now we are into the rainy season and the temperature has dropped significantly and all is wet in the world of Guinea.

Big news, I switched houses! I had a problem with the old house and so I was moved last week. Its nice, small but very nice. I have big plans to make it my own. I will try to send pictures as soon as I can. Otherwise, I just started my garden. I’m not really sure if anything will take. It is late in the growing season but I figured “Why not at least try” so I did. I sat outside and dug my little holes in the ground all morning and then had to leave town to go to a conference. We will see what happens… C’est la Guinea.

You are probably wondering what I do with all of my free time. Well as a matter of fact my days are jam packed believe it or not. Usually I wake up around 5:30 (morning prayer call) and lay in bed until 7 am when I’m too hungry to wait any longer. So I get up, get ready and leave my house around 7:30 to get a good choice of bread from the bread man, if I leave any later than that I get the crappy burnt piece that I don’t like. Then I have to say “Good morning” to every single person I pass on my walk to the bread man in Pular. We are talking every old person, youngin and child I pass. It takes me about 15 minutes to walk an equivalent of two blocks. I get my bread and then have to make the walk back greeting everyone again.

By the time I get home, make something out of my bread (i.e. sandwich) its time to leave for the hospital (Mondays and Tuesdays) or my English/Business class (Wednesdays or Thursdays) or my meetings (Fridays). I’m usually at one of those activities just until the 1:30 prayer call and then I go home, fix myself something to eat and then sit in my chair and read or play with the kids for a bit then its tea time.

I’ve got two really close set of friends one is older and the other set is younger and I switch up the days but I always go and hang out with them. I know I’m saying hanging out is work. But it is! Let me explain why. First off speaking in French/pular is hard work, but the French is really come a long way since I’ve gotten here. But normally the real work for me is my friends ask me questions about things that they would otherwise never get to talk to someone about. Just the other day someone asked me about HIV/AIDS and I explained to them everything that I knew and how to get some more information about it but on a day to day basis there isn’t someone to talk to about those things here. I think of tea times as conversation facilitating. Lord knows I love to talk so it works out great!

Around 7ish when it starts to get dark I go home, play with the kids (that live in the house next to me), eat dinner with the family next to me and then I have to go and heat my water. Since the weather got so cold I have to heat my bath water so I don’t freeze to death, so I go and boil some water to mix into my bath water. When that’s ready I go to my outdoor shower, and wash off the mud. At first I hated to outdoor shower, its cold, there are bugs but now, I love it. I get to look at the stars (when there are no clouds) and get clean at the same time. Its actually really sweet! And I bet you can’t say you do that every night. Then I crawl in bed around 9, read until I can’t keep my eyes open and wake up the next morning and do it all again.

That my friends is a “typical” day for me. There are of course the variations such as the hour long walk to my cell phone tree where I can make a call, or the days when I have to go into the big city to buy cheese and eggs and what nots, or the time I couldn’t find water in my town because all of the wells went dry. But that’s it..

Otherwise, I’m starting a business club that I will be teaching about marketing, accounting, finance options, management… you get the idea. But the coolest part, I am teaching the class in French to the kids who are home on summer vacation and they as part of the class will hold a similar class in Pular for the women and men of the town to learn as well who don’t speak French. I’m really excited to see how that goes.

I’m also holding English classes during the summer break. I have about 30 students who are really excited to learn English so they can go to America, as they love to tell me. I show them photos of American things (i.e. parks, roads, buildings, kitchens, houses in general) and they love it. It is a cultural exchange as well as an English lesson and they just eat it up.

Like I think I said before I go to the hospital as well to help out on the two busiest days. And then I have been working on doing Action Plans for two groups in my town as well as working on a financial plan for a community run health insurance group, next week I am also going to do another Action Plan for another group. So I’m just doing my thing.

What else, it seems as though that is all the news I have for now but I will be sure to write more later, and when my camera battery is not dead I will upload some photos. Expect a lot of photo updates around end of Aug or beginning of September.


Special thanks to:
Aunt Betty and Uncle Dan, really you guys are too much!!! And the Cheetos and chips were amazing, I hadn’t had a chip since November!

Mamma and Pappa you know you’re the best

Christine and Matt, sorry I missed the wedding, Bonne Mariage as they say here

Grams and Gramps, loved the letter. Thank you so much for writing to me.

And thanks to everyone for keeping me in their thoughts

And don't forget that my b-day is coming up on August 19 so send me a card if you want!

July

Hello everyone!

First off i am on a french keyboard that does not have english spell check. Sorry! So a little bit about what i have been up to. The other night i came back to town after a trip to visit another volunteer and my really good friend in town comes running up to me so excited i am back and is screaming something about meat. So i hear this long story about how a taxi hit a goat and killed it and left it in the middle of the road. So all of my guys stole two legs off the goat and waited for me to come back to cook it. Then at 9 oclock they wanted to start cooking it. You know who guys in the states like to start cooking meat at random times and they get half way and they realize they are missing half the stuff, yeah it was kind of like that, only in Guinea. It was a delicious disaster that took forever. Around 10:30 our fried goat meat was done and then i made them walk me home. But i was surprised to find out that cooking large quantities of meat at random times of the night is an international phenomenon. Sadly i am out of time at the internet lab so more later.

Happy 4th of JULY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the packages:
Mike, Amy and the kids
Aunt Peggy