Friday, February 24, 2006

My Site

This week I spent visiting my site, the village where I'll be living for my two years of service. Timbi Madina is a good site and I'm excited to be moving there after I finish training in another month. The village is large enough that it has a few restuarants and I can get a good variety of foods and supplies. I spend my time in the village with Ricky, the PCV who has been living in Timbi for the past two years. He introducted me to people all over town and showed me where I could find everything that I'll need. The center of town is depressingly dirty since garbage removal isn't a concept that's hit africa yet. But, as soon as you start to head off the main roads the landscape is beautiful. I'll live in a little 3 room house. It's nicely constructed of concrete, tin roof, latrine outside and I have a decent sized yard (hopefully where I can construct a garden). I have furnishings already, thanks to ricky, so I'll probably concentrate on some house upkeep. I plan to paint each of the rooms, buy a new end table, have shelves commisioned in my kitchen, and have a fence commissioned for my yard, to keep livestock out of my garden. This should keep me busy for my first few months at site!

We're not supposed to start any major projects our first 3 months at site, so i'll have time to explore and get to know the city. I visited the high school when i was in town last week and have agreed to teach a few English classes a week. The school just got it's first English teacher about a month ago, Madame Bah, from sierra leone. She happens to live right behind me in timbi and speaks decent english (english teachers here are rarely proficient themselves). I'm excited to start working with HS students because myself and another business volunteer in a neighboring village have some intersts in trying to start a youth business club. We are thinking that if there's interest we can spend the summer months preparing some cirriculum and start up in the fall.

I also met my counterpart, a really motivated, really nice guy, (sometimes not the case with counterparts - so i've been told). We visited the agriculture research center where he's employed and he had a second desk in his office for me. Nice! It's about a 20 min bike ride from my house, so i'll be getting in shape around here. We also went out and met with one of the groupments (co-op type agriculture groups) that I'll be working with. My role, as far as I can tell will be to help with the marketing, commercialization of their products. More details as I work more with them in the future.

Well, time is about up here. It's back to Forecariah for another month of training and learning the language of Pulaar. Hope all is well at home...keep the updates coming!

P.S. Mom, Dad, Amy...it was great talking with you all the other night!

Love you & miss you,
amy

Friday, February 17, 2006

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photos

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*this is part two of the message uploaded today ... so it works best to read the msg below first :)

I'm really excited about visiting my site next week and staying with Ricky, the current PCV there. Most people don't have the opportunity to ask questions directly to someone with first-hand experience of PC work at their site. More details after the visit!

I've been in good health during my time here and have been enjoying my time with my host family. It's unfortunate taht I'm only able to communicate in French with the 'dad', 'older sister' and 'older brothers'. The 1st mother in the family speaks Pulaar, the language of the Fouta region, so as I begin to learn that language I am excited to be able to communicate more with her. Dispite the communication difficulties we have, we still take trips to the market together and then cook every sunday afternoon. We also have some unique experiences, such as last week when she decided that I should go the the mosque with her. We went along with a few other women and practiced the ritual prayers. As women we wrapped in headscarfs and traditional clothing, which is worn, without the headscarf, by most women here everyday. We used teh prayer mats just outside the entrance to the mosque (the inside area is reserved for the men). It was an interesting experience, but I hope they weren't sincere when they said they wanted me to go with them everyday!

That sums up what I've been busy with here. I hope all is well at home!

Site information

This week I'm in Mamou, attending the counterpart workshop. My counterpart is the person in my village that I'll have the most contact with. I found out today that my counterpart won't be here this weekend, but I'll be meeting him when I visit my site at Timbi Madina on Sunday. I don't have a lot of details about my site yet, but I'll include what I do know: it's a city of about 100, 000 people , so medium sized, although it's hard to tell exactly because the cities here, their structure and the businesses they support differs so greatly from cities in the States.

I also know that my site is in the Fouta region of the country, which is the Plateau/Mountainous region. The temp. there is cooler and it rains less. There are apparetnly great hiking/biking trails (I was issued a PC mountain bike last week). I've heard that it's only about 5 km to the closest waterfalls.

Here in Mamou I have met a current PCV, Christine who is dating another PCV, Ricky, who has been assigned to my site for the last two years. She had a lot of good things to say about my city, there is electricity at some period of almost everyday and there is also a water faucet just outside my house. My house is like a duplex and I have a bedroom, living room, and kitchen to myself. I also have a latrine just outside of my house. The city has a few restaurants and you can get yougart and ultra-pasturized milk (the kind sold Europe as well that doesn't need to be refrigerated). There is also a big market daily in the town and a regional market on Sundays. There is a telecenter (phone) in town, and Ricky had madefriends with the owner, so hopefuly I can get the number and continue to receive incoming calls for free (mom & dad I'll keep you posted on this). I also know that my 3 closest neighbors are 15km, 20km, and 30km ways (and two of them i'd conside myself to know well).

I'll find out more about my work when I actually visit my site, but as of now I know that I'll be working with a groupment that is responsible for the collection & distribution of potatoes from all the regions potato growers (I guess that's the main crop around my site). One of my business trainers has a lot of experience working in my town and is confident that I'll be busy with projects during my time there.

I'm going to try to upload some photos now....if it doesn't take too long I'll update about my family as well.

miss you and love you,
Amy

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Ok, this is round 2 since my computer just deleted the entire message i had typed...frustrating.

It's been nearly a month in country, and the daily experience of simply living with an African family and taking daily trips to the market have become part of my routine. It is strange to be living in a place, a city of about 100,000 and to have yet to see a single land line telephone. It's rare to pass a morning without encountrering expample of how foreign Guinea really is compared to my experience of life at home. The people here are so generoud, it's hard not to feel guilty when my family insists that I eat firest, and the best at every meal.

The othere day I was given my African name, by my family,Fatim Bangoura, I'll keep this name for my entire stay in Guinea, even after I leave my host fmaily and move into my site. It's a Susu name and the language of my family. Anytime that I see someone, even if I just saw them a few minutes ago, I"m expected to greet them again. With all this practice I've mastered local greetings, but can't say much more. My focus is still on French, in african dialect. Next week i'll be receiving my site, the location where I'll be living for the next 2 years beginning in April. As soon as I receive my site I'll begin learning the local language of that region. French is the language of institution in school, so the level of french communication directly correlates to the level of education.

There is a great group of Americans that are here with me, and that helps to make things 'fun'. We go out for cold sodas and beers, ice cream - when the electricity is on, and have informal dinner parties to break from our traditional diet of rice and sauce.

The training part of my experience is good. Learning about business in the context of a collectivest society with an inflation rate around 30 percent...interesting! But i've been good and healthy since my arrival in forecariah...and that has been great. I'm in the capitol city of conakry today, and not sure when I'll exactly make it back to check my email again. I did receive my first letter from the states today - thanks becky! And, thank you for all the email updates!

I miss you and love you all! ~amy