Thanksgiving a la Guinee ...

Parent’s visit
As many of you may already know, my parents come to Guinea for a visit during late October through early November. It was great to show them around my new home and I think they were very strongly impressioned by all they saw here. As a means of recording the trip and another view of my time here my dad acted as chief photographer for the week. (the pictures should be online soon and I’ll add a link to them here)

We spent the first week of the trip traveling from the capital city of Conakry, upto my site of Timbi Madina. Along the way we first stopped off to visit a waterfall, ‘the cascades’,
a few hours up the coast just past the city of Dubreka. It was the end of Ramadan festival day, so it happened that the owner was gone. We therefore only made the destination a stopping point and continued to the city of Kindia. Spending a rainy night at a small French-owned hotel, we awoke the next morning to more rain. Once it let up it made for a great viewing of our next waterfall, ‘the bridal vail’. It was just off the main national highway and you could drive up almost to the base of the falls. Water was cascading off and spraying in a maner than made the comparison to a delicate bridal vail easy to see.

That second day was a driving marathon, ending in the tiny village of Doucki just before sunset. A former PC volunteer helped to start a Guinean style bed & breakfast. There were two traditional huts that guests could stay at. Mom and dad shared the ground floor straw matterase and I took the loft above. Typical Guinean meals were provided and the entertainment offered was ones choice of hiking trails through the beautiful countryside. We spend two nights there, after which my parents were very happy to continue on to the house we were staying at in Timbi. Two days without running water, electricity, standard toilets, and the like was plenty of time for my mom to understand that there were some great differences between our lifestyles.

The next four nights were spend in Timbi, seeing where I live and work. We also made it upto the Labe regional PC house, so that my parents had a chance to meet some of the other volunteers in the area. On the way home from Labe, we visited the waterfalls closest to my house, ‘Saala’, one of the most impressive falls my I had ever seen (as also agreed by my parents). We spent some of the time working on starting up my garden. The fence that I had been working on having built for months was finally completed just a week before my parents visit. My dad practiced his skill in landscape architecture to help design where I should put my first plants and flower seeds. Thus far (three weeks in) most are still living and looking healthy!

Another long drive back down to Conakry and we were on our way to Accra, Ghana. I felt like I had left Africa, noting the great difference in the level of development from one country to the other. Paved roads with streetlights, regular electricity, sewage drains, trash bins, real toilets, soap being available in every bathroom. Ok, so it wasn’t like going back to the US, but it the difference between the countries was astonishing. An added bonus was being able to speak in English all week as well. We spent the week with our ‘tour guide’ a friend of mine from back in my lifeguarding at Seminole Pool days, who is currently working with the YMCA Go Global program in Ghana.

Highlights of the visit included visiting an amazing beach just outside of Accra, touring W. Africa’s largest former slave castle, shopping for wooden masks in a town known througout the country for their work, and of course, to keep with the trend we visited another waterfall. One that we could swim at/under. The week there was a nice break from the more difficult life in Guinea and the fact that my parents came all the way here to visit was of course the greatest reward of the trip.

Projects, My Neighbors & My Site Mate
Aside from taking fabulous vacations, I have also put into practice much of the planning work that I’d been doing this summer. My first week back to site, I had three large community meetings. The first, meeting with Tor and I’s peer educator health group to plan our first community event. They’ll be conducting an AIDS information session and information booth at the high school on Dec. 1st – world AIDS day.
Second meeting was to recruit for my business students class. The meeting was originally scheduled for a Wednesday at noon. When I showed up to school, I was told that because most teachers did not come to school that day, only two of the high school classes were still at school. Of course, I forgot to factor in that many of the students come to school each morning then end up essentially turning around and heading home when they realise that once again their teacher is absent. I decided that I’d just come by early the next morning and hold my introductory meeting before everyone had a chance to return home. I had about 40 students who were at the meeting and 25 ended up applying for the club. This past Wednesday we had our first meeting and divided up the 20 students who were present into groups, each assigned to work with a local business.
Third meeting of the week was at the library with elementary local school teachers. The plan is to have a set time every week on Thursday afternoons, when elementary teachers don’t teach, during which the teachers can be available at the library to help read to/with interested kids. There were seven teachers who came to the meeting, and the librarian, all seemed motivated about this simple project that will hopefully motivate kids to use the library more frequently.
My new hobbie of gardening is quickly becoming a favorite activity. It’s the dry season now, so the daily rainstoms has completely ceased. I haven’t actually seen it rain sice my parents left the country, nearing a month. The contrast in seasons couldn’t be greater, and now the muddy pathways have given way to beach-like biking conditions on many of the unpaved roads. The days are still warm, but at night it’s been getting down to the low 60s...and the contrast to the day-time highs of low 90s and it feels so cold! Good thing my parents brought warm clothes!
There is also a recent addition to Timbi. I have a new site-mate Trey. He moved to Timbi at the beginning of the school year and is teaching English at the high school level. He lives about a 15min. walk from my house, on the road towards the school. It’s nice to have another volunteer close by to pass some of the free time that we have here. Cooking is also much more worthwhile when it’s not for just for one, especially since I don’t have a fridge.
My parents also surprised me with a DVD player, along with some new movies and 2nd season of Grey’s anatomy. It worked out perfectly well that I happened to be sick this past weekend, as was my neighbor Ashley, so we had a weekend ‘Grey’s anatomy party’ along with my other neighbor Tor. It was a nice change from the typical soution to being sick, reading all day!

Christmas Packages & Contacting Me

If you were feeling in the Christmas season, and wanted to send a little of this holiday spirit over to a part of the world where the idea of having a non-commercialized and relatively unannounced Christmas is a reality, well...some ideas below. First, I must say that honestly just getting news from home is very exciting in itself. But if your motivation goes beyond this padded envelope packages are cheaper than boxes, and both boxes and packages have been getting through customs well lately (whereas letters nearly are always lost or long delayed).

Ideas...
~DVDs – burned work well (and are cheap)
~Music MP3s/ CDs
~Cassette tapes – ancient technology I know, but recording radio stations ...new music!...spices up life a little around here
~Magazines – The Economist, popular mag.s, or clothing mag.s...you know it’s better to re-use old J.Crew or Anthorology cataloges than to recycle them
~Holiday candy
~Any sort of packaged food
~Surprises welcome!

Address...using a red pen and drawing a few crosses along with the title sister – no I haven’t joined a convent, just like to receive my packages- on the box tends to expidite its delivery...

Sister Amy Porter
Corps de la Paix Americain
BP 1927
Conakry, Guinee

Thanksgiving
This Friday, one day after the ‘real thanksgiving’ we had our celebration at our regional capital in Labe. After a full day of cooking we did a pretty amazing job of creating traditional American dishes...all completely from scratch. The US Embassy also provided us with turkey, since it’s impossible to find here, ...my first taste of turkey in 11 months...so delicious! Only missing was green beans and cranberry sauce, and family. But, my volunteer friends were here, and it was still a nice holiday.
I hope that all of you had a great day of eating and enjoying one another’s company. I imagine that the holiday season is begining to show signs of the coming christmas season. I hope this update wasn’t too long, boring, or late in being posted. I miss you all and hope you’re doing well!
HAPPY TURKEY DAY!
Take care,
amy