Leaving to the Training Village

So I am leaving for the village, about 2 hours away from the capital where I will train for the next 11 weeks. This will go from basic technical langauge all the way through more advanced langauge and cultural stuff and ending with practice school where for the last 2 weeks I will teach a group of random students gathered together for us to practice on (This will also be during Ramadan which means they will be hungry and grumpy), I sort of feel bad for them, but it will be an invaluable help to be able to teach under supervision from our trainers.

So there are 4 chemistry education volunteers, and there was already one here who will be leaving when we finish training. The math teachers have tons of resources from previous volunteers and the physics teachers have some amount of materials as well. Chemistry is a new program that got started right before everyone was evacuated, and we are literally going in blind, with no previous Peace Corps resources to guide us except our trainer who is a chemistry teacher in Guinea. They are hoping that one or all of us will take it upon ourselves to organize some sort of class notes and lesson plans for future volunteers. So basically, we are the pioneers of Peace Corps Guinea Chemistry Education, which is both intimidating, and really awesome.

Anyway, I will be off the grid (literally) for the next 3 months and won't have access to internet with the exception of one or two short trips in to Conakry. This means this blog will slow down, but I hope to post updates eventually.

So basically, stay tuned....and wish me luck!

Language Lessons, Safety Lessons, Cross Cultural Lessons, and Little Kids

Ok, so today was another busy day. Everytime I sit to update this it seems like more than just one day has passed since my previous post.

First thing this morning we had Language training orientation (after breakfast, which here at the Peace Corps house has been baguette-style local bread with jam and butter, and hard boiled eggs). At this orientation we were told more about the langauge program and its standards. The proficiency levels are Novice, Intermediate, Advanced and Superior. All of these levels except superior is sub-divided into low, mid and high. In order to be a TEFL (teaching english as a foreign language) teacher, you need to be Intermediate mid. to "pass" training. In order to teach math or science you need Intermediate high.

I tested into Intermediate mid to start with, whcih is just a sub-level below what I need in 11 weeks to "pass" but I hope to make it to the upper levels of advanced by then (our native french speaker volunteer made advanced high, and the assortment of french majors mostly made advanced low or intermediate high). Considering I haven't had French in several years, I feel pretty proud about my placement.

This relatively higher placement meant that I had my "survival language" training today in Soussou. That is, the instructor taught us Soussou in French. It was sort of a head-trip because I was learning a completely new foreign langauge through a foreign langauge that I am still a bit shaky on, but it was such a great experience, and of my group of 4, I think I did pretty well (almost on par with the native speaker) at understanding everything our trainer said. Soussou is such a cool language from a linguistic point of view. Infinitive verbs all end with -fe, and to make the verb future tense you change it to -me, most present tenses cut off the -fe, and you don't need to conjugate with respect to the speaker. The pronouns are N, I and A, which correspond to I, you and him/her, respectively. I am only learning basic Soussou for now because this is the language that they speak in the village where I will be training for the next 11 weeks. Once I know where my site is, I will begin to really learn Soussou, Malinke or Pular, but that won't be for at least 3 weeks.

We had some US embassy representatives come talk to us about Guinean politics, economics, and safety issues. This meeting was useful, but probably wouldn't interest most people who read this (e-mail me if I'm wrong).

The best part of my day, my week, and possibly this whole month was going out to the beach next to the Peace Corps house after training and bringing my frisbee along. I, along with 5 or so other volunteers started tossing the frisbee back and forth, then a football back and forth. Soon some of the (many) local kids came up and made teeth-sucking noises at us (which in this culture means "hey, look at me" or something like that) and we soon got them involved with the game. After some time (not much time, at that) we had like 50 kids of various ages running around with a frisbee, playing volleyball with a soccer ball, playing with a football, and chasing us and each other around.

I managed to chat with a couple of them in French and get some names, as well as told them who I was. We were all having a fantastic time. There was one little boy of about 5 or 6 who was the smaller of the group, and he was very shy and kept standing close to me, and looking at me. He barely spoke, even to his peers, but seemed just generally amused to be playing with us.

The best part of the whole thing was when some of them had to go and called out "Fote!" to me (FOE-tay, which is Soussou for white person) to get my attention. When I turned around a group of like 10 Guinean children fist-bumped me (like Barak and Michelle Obama did that one time) and said something which I'm pretty sure had the words for "thank you" in soussou mixed in there somewhere. It was so incredible. Also, whenever the frisbee got caught up a tree, went into the ocean, went into the neighboring bar, etc like 10 kids would run after it, climb trees, throw soccer balls or do something to get it back. I think short of some little kid running off with the thing, it is very unlikely I will ever lose it.

Conakry is a very interesting city, it is more developed than I had expected, but still has some issues with garbage on the beach due to the sheer number of people who use it. I've heard that the rest of Guinea is very different from Conakry because it is not a big city, and it doesn't have all the associated pollution and noise. Apparently, volunteers who are in the far east of Guinea in Haute Guinea have drum circles in their villages on a very regular basis that are just for the villager's enterntainment. The different parts of Guinea have different representations of the local ethnic groups, and the culture in each of these reflects that.

On Monday I will be going to my training village about 2 hours away from the Capital. There I will live with a local family who will host me for the 3 months of training. I will periodically visit Conakry (every 2-4 weeks or so), but other than those visits I don't think I'll get much access to internet, so the blog may slow down for a while. I will be keeping up with my paper journal which has about 16 densely written pages already, and hopefully I will be able to post summaries of the intervening weeks.

Also, I am thinking of starting a mailing list of people for more sensitive topics that I don't feel comfortable posting for all to see online (such as names, locations, opinions, etc) so if you'd like to be on that list e-mail my gmail address with "Mailing List Request" as the subject line. If I won't recognize your e-mail address then let me know who you are in the e-mail.

Flights, Arriving in Conakry, and Langauge Interview

So I write this from the PC house in Guinea. On Wednesday morning the volunteers took a bus over to JFK from Philadelphia where we waited 5 hours for our flight. We all thought we were going to be bored out of our minds getting to the airport so early, but between checking in, making calls home, getting lunch and buying our last American things (I got two baseball caps to give my to my host family who I will live with for 3 months), and playing Apples to Apples at the gate, the time flew by.

The flight from New York to Senegal was only about 7 hours, and the meal we got was the best airplane food I've ever had. I also got 2 Heinekens as part of the beverage service free of charge. I didn't sleep at all on the plane, partly because I never do, and partly because I was really excited. Luckily the plane had the idividual movie screens so I watched a couple of movies along the way "I am Legend" and "Juno".

After we landed in Senegal, we had to go through immigration to get to the part of the airport where we checked in to our connecting flight, then we had to go through immigration to get to our gate. This was a bit time consuming and frustrating because most of us were tired (this was at 4am east coast time, 8 am local time), and we were dealing with African French for the first time (different accent and pronounciation) not that regular French would have been much better.

We made it to our connecting filght which was only about an hour and then the Peace Corps staff from Country Director down to Janitors were there to meet us, help us with our bags, and welcome us. They took care of customs and immigration for us before we even got there so we were out of the airport as soon as we had all our bags. A short van trip later and we were in the Peace Corps compound which contains the transit house - a place for trainees and volunteers to sleep, shower, watch movies, etc while traveling through the capital, the Country Director's house, and the office building which has all the support staff offices (medical, program directors, housing people, etc).

We were all sleep deprived to some degree or another, but we arrived around 10am, and after lunch at noon, we had two orientation meetings to introduce us to the staff, and get general PC Guinea facts and figures told to us. We also filled out some administrative stuff to get our bank accounts, etc. After this we had dinner, and some of the volutneers went to a bar and tried Guinean beer, it was called Guiluxe. It is a pale beer sort of like PBR, other volunteers said it was "skunky" but I thought it tasted as good as Pabst (interpret that however you want). The other type of local beer is called Skol. The bar also sold Heineken, but it was almost twice as expensive (though even Heineken is only $2). I went to bed almost immediately after going to the bar.

Today we had a medical orientation, got our medical kits (containing tons of stuff including vitamins, gauze, scissors, various medications, stool sample collecting kits, malaria blood slide preping kits, insect repellant, etc) and typhoid fever vaccination. I also had a brief medical interview where we talked about snakes for like 5 minutes. Apparently I don't need to worry about anything other than a black mamba, nothing else should be able to kill me. :-)

At my language interview, my interviewer and I chatted for 15 minutes where I did most of the talking. I talked about where I'm from, what I will be doing here, my family, my pets, my hobbies (wow, trying to explain horn playing in French was sort of a challenge), and did a scenario where I was trying to buy an apartment. Here we ran into confusion when I asked how much the apartment cost and he said 1,000,000 GNF. When I was like "whoa that's too much" he was confused, and then I realized that's like $300. Anyway, I think I did ok in my interview, I'll find out later where I placed for language training. I'm hoping to have done well enough in French to being working on Soussou or Pular right away.

Oh yeah, and I will definitely be a chemistry teacher, apparently to younger kids, like the 8th grade equivalent. I still don't know where though, I will find that out in 3 weeks.

Staging: from Philadelphia Arrival to Last Supper

So I got to Philadelphia for staging late Sunday night. I met my hotel roommate, L. who is from the Pac. NW area as well, and is pretty awesome. The following morning, after uneventfully exploring Philly a bit, I started Staging, and met the rest of my 25 member Peace Corps Guinea G16 group. We are all going to be teachers, roughly 7 English teachers, 9 math, 5 physics and 4 chemistry (or so). I still do not know if I will teach physics or chemistry because both of these are lumped under "science" and almost all the science teachers have a stronger chemistry background than they do physics, especially the three or four bio or pre-med/Islamic studies majors. Given the spread, I think my chances of teaching physics is up there, but I might try to weasel my way into chemistry as I'm one of 3 actual chemistry majors (one of which is strongly physics inclined).

So my training group has had several chances to hang out after our training sessions, we all got dinner together last night, and then wandered Chinatown in search of a good bar (which we never really found). Then tonight, after our staging ended about an hour early, we all went out for dinner, splitting between Chili's (a desire for one last American Chain Restaurant meal) and a family style Italian restaurant which was very very good, if a bit expensive. Our waitress was going to be going to Indonesia soon, and when she found out we were heading out for Africa tomorrow, she set us up with a special dessert tray to end our 5-course hearty Italian meal.

After our "last supper", we met up again at an Irish pub, and played trivia games. Our training group split into three teams: Guinea or Bust, Peace Out, and The Guinée Pigs, of which I was a member of the latter. Of the three PC teams, ours got the highest score, but we still didn't make it above 4th place overall.

This staging has been an amazing way for all 25 of us to not only learn each other's names, colleges, majors and PC assignment, but also to get to know each other in a deeply friendly way that only 25 people bound to train and work together for 3 months, then be among the only Americans in a third world country can.

I'm anxious about the fact that in 11 hours I will be on the road, where my final destination about 18 hours later will be Guinea, my home for the next 2 years. I'm anxious about every challenge and adaptation struggle that awaits me, but I am also very excited to meet my host family, train in French, Soussou, Malinke and/or Pular, eat the local foods, and begin to expand my understanding of the local culture. I'm excited to being teacher training, and soon be in front of my own class of élèves who will (with any luck and some skill) learn a bit of science from me. Yeah, mostly I'm excited.

Alright, soon to bed to see if I will have the infamous mefloquine induced crazy dreams.

Leaving for Staging in 10 hours...

So it's 2:30am, the night before I fly to Philadelphia for Staging. I will get there a day early because none of the Monday flights from Tucson would have gotten me there on time for training. I've said goodbye to my 3 sisters, my dad, my stepmom, most of my good friends, T, and pretty soon my mom....generally my entire life as I've known it for the past however many years.

The significance of this, and some of the emotional impact is starting to become very real. Up until now it's been something I was going to do. Even saying goodbye to T and my Portland life was somehow manageable at the time. How many times had I left from Portland to Arizona only to return again a few weeks later. But no, this time I'm leaving for Philadelphia, and then in 3 days time for Conakry, Guinea, West Africa. This is very different.

I'm stressed out thinking about whether or not my bags will be slightly over the weight limit, causing me to need to reorganize stuff into my backpack at the ticket counter. Worrying about getting to the hotel in Philadelphia from the airport cheaply and effectively. Worrying about not having appropriate "business casual" clothing at Staging. The list goes on, and continues well into not being adequately prepared with the langauge or techincal training once I'm in Guinea. Or hell, maybe I won't get along with my host family for XYZ reason.

All this on top of the fact that next time I see my little sisters, they will be about a foot taller. My parents will move on with their lives, their careers, etc. My friends will be even more scattered around, and in completely different parts of their lives (well...except the grad students :-p). T as well, while I am very hopeful for the preservation of what we have, the realist in me worries about losing that once the distance and communication barriers start to get to us.

At the same time, holy crap, I'm going to be living in Africa in 4 days. This is the exciting, life-changing, thrilling adventure that I've been planning for over a year. I'm going to have my own classroom where hundreds of young Guinean students will learn physics or chemistry from me in French. I will live in completely different conditions, and eat completely different food than even I with my adventurous nature have experienced. This is freaking awesome.

I haven't even left my hometown and I can already begin to see why the Peace Corps says that you will experience your highest highs and your lowest lows while in service. But this is an emotional roller coaster that I am ready for, and I know that in the long-run, no matter how many times I get intestinal parasites and malaria - or how many kilometers I'll need to bike in the African heat to get to an internet connection or a working phone, I will be a stronger person for my experiences, and the relationships I form or maintain will also be strengthened.

Now if I could only finish packing to my satisfaction, maybe I can get some sleep before the flight.

5 Days to Staging, Packing List (edited with comments 4 months later)

So I have been home in Arizona for a few days now after my road-trip. I have seen friends, family, etc, and generally had a good time. I also have finished the last of my shopping and gathering for my bags. The Peace Corps limits me to 2 checked bags with an 80 lbs total weight limit, with no bag weighing more than 50 lbs. I got a suggested packing list from the PC, and also spent lots of time online browsing other people's lists in blogs, websites and books. I took bits from several lists and sort of came up with my own list of stuff that I thought I could use. This list was modified as time went on but this is a list of the stuff that is actually in the suitcases I'm taking. I'm posting it in case any of my friends care, or if any future volunteers want yet another list to go over.

Two "Olympia" wheeled suitcases: one large, one medium. (handy, especially the wheels, but I wish they were less flashy)
A small duffel bag (absolutely necessary, you will take several short trips, bring some sort of overnight pack)
A backpack (also handy)
"Blowfish" Camelbak Pack (I bike a lot (chances are you will too), this is very very handy)
One light rope (stupid, of course they have rope here, and it's cheaper)
Several carabiners (handy, especially the two climbing grade ones I (will) use for my hammock)
Gel bike seat cover (eh, sorta nice, but I wish I'd brought one of those bike seats designed not to cut off the circulation in your groin, 40km bike rides in the bush sorta suck on a regular bike seat)
Bike rearview mirror (kinda useless, and makes my bike even more flashy)
Camping towel (sorta nice, but molds easily, getting a swatch of cloth here is easier)
Regular full size pillow and case (possibly the best thing I brought, even good pillows here suck - try to bring a mold resistant one though)
Hand-crank flashlight (I gave it to my host family in Forecariah, I never used it)
LED headlamp (Most useful item, I wish I'd brought 2, in case I break or lose the first one)
Keychain LED flashlight (Never really use it, the cell phone I got here (Nokia 1200 RH-99) has a built in flashlight)
Keychain compass (don't really use it, I just ask Guineans for directions)
Solar calculator (handy)
Grundig S350DLB shortwave radio (BIGGEST REGRET, expensive, heavy, flashy - you can get shortwave radios in the markets here really easily and cheaply, they work well enough, and (most importantly) you can carry them around in your village/ask for help finding stations, a lot of people have them - an American radio just sticks out and makes you seem that much wealthier)
Portable ipod speakers (they were broken and I didn't notice this when I brought them - check your electronics before packing them, however I'm perfectly happy listening to music using headphones so I haven't looked to replace them)
60 GB video ipod with 15 GB of music, and as many movies as I can burn before Sunday (useful, I already had the iPod, and I don't know that I would recommend buying one just for Peace Corps, but I'm really glad to have lots of music choices, a decent battery life, and the ability to watch movies in my village)
Battery powered ipod charger (it broke, but the one time it worked, it was nice to have)
AAA and AA rechargable batteries (eh, I never really recharge batteries since I don't have electricity. You can get D-cells and AAs anywhere here, I brought a bunch of regular AAAs from the states, but I think you can get them in Conakry or have them shipped to you later)
Solar powered battery charger (ecotrends) (kidna useless, I sort of wish I'd brought a Solio so I could charge my phone and iPod, I don't really use this charger because it only charges AAA and AA batteries)
AC power battery charger (see previous two)
Cell phone that works on Guinea networks (Motorola Motofone F3) (useless, flashy and broke quickly in country and nobody could fix it. Phones here are way cheap (~$20 for the Nokia Torch, which has an integrated flashlight) and if you have a locally bought phone, you can easily get parts, get it fixed, and nobody will think it's flashy since it's just like all the phones they see everyday)
Travel alarm clock (kinda handy, but my watch has an alarm too, and between mefloquine and the roosters, I never oversleep)
Digital Camera (Canon 7MP digital ELPH) (very handy, I especially like that it's small and easily concealed)
3 2-GB SD memory cards (one would have been fine, It's not full yet, and I've been backing up all my pictures (I'm at almost 500 now) to my flash-drive, if it gets lost/broken/stolen, you can buy a replacement in Conakry)
2 4-GB flash drives (I've only used one so far, but I'm glad I have the second one since I use my flash drive as a secondary storage for photos)
Leatherman Wave multi-tool (gift from my dad) (handy, but too bulky to carry with me)
3" folding pocket knife (was handy until I lost it, you can get sharp pocket knives for cheap in the markets here, and then you won't be sad you lost a $30 knife)
Small swiss-army style tool (VERY USEFUL! It's kinda nasty from being used too much (I used it to cut open batteries to remove the zinc for chemistry demos - so it got kidna gross), I wish I'd brought two)
Razor blade scraping-tool (handy, but so not necessary)
3 kitchen knives (chef, paring and cleaver) (very handy, but I like to cook)
Knife sharpener (very handy, though you can get knives sharpened in the market on a rock....)
Maps (political World, illustrated World, Guinea, NW Africa) (they have tons of maps here, but I'm still kidna glad I brought some)
Arizona license plate and Aztec calender plaque (for decoration) (good to have at site)
Photos (very nice to have to show your host family - bring pictures of buildigns and stuff in your hometown, pictures of your entire family, etc)
2 Moleskine journals (One is almost full, but I write a lot, there's a lot of down time to write at site)
2 day planners (I never use them, but I never used planners in the states either)
Scotch tape, Masking tape, Duct tape (VERY USEFUL!)
Combination padlock, regular padlock (eh, you can get these here, but they're not very secure. I wish I'd brought a big paddlock for my front door, but I did eventually find a good one in the Conakry market)
Travel Sewing kit (handy, if only for the well organized container, you can get most of these things here from a tailor, or have him/her do all repairs for you (usually for free if it's minor))
Safety pins (handy)
Pushpins (walls here are solid concrete, or mud, pushpins don't work very well)
Lots of ballpoint pens (blue, black and red) (regular ballpoints freeze up here for some reason, I had some Pilot G-2 gel pens sent, they work great)
4 multi-color "med-school" pens (again, regular ballpoints freeze here, I think it's the dust and the humidity of the paper)
Small stapler (don't think I've used it once)
Sharpies (Very useful for flipcharts, but you can get markers here (they're not as good))
Playing cards (SO USEFUL during training when you will probably spend an hour or more a day playing cards with your family, bring 100% plastic cards that can be washed - the paper ones get destroyed by dirt/humidity/use/sauce/who knows what)
UNO cards (eh, not so useful, the most popular card game here is sorta like Crazy 8's, and so Uno is semi-irrelevant)
4 toothbrushes (I'm glad I brought more than one or two)
2 sticks deodorant (same as above)
Neosporin (you will get this in your medical kit on day 2)
Travel toothbrush and soap holder (the toothbrush holder was just a breeding ground for mold, the soap one is useful though)
Burts Bees lipbalm (I don't need it in my region because it's very humid, I'm gifting them to my friends in the dry part of the country)
Band-aids (you will get them in your med kid)
100% DEET insect repellant (very handy!)
Ammonia itch-relief pen (kinda handy, you get hydrocortizone cream in your med kit)
Ziploc bags (VERY USEUL, especially the gallon sized ones)
Tupperware (Also very useful, ones with a good seal keep humidity out of jolly ranchers (which will melt if left out in the normal climate))
Waterproof matches (They have matches here, believe it or not)
Zipties (very useful)
Superglue (you can buy it here really easily)
Frisbee (nice, but got stolen)
Candy (jolly ranchers, caramels, etc) (kept me sane during training)
3 Water bottles (Nalgene, filering, and metal) (I only use my nalgene, I had another one sent)
Lockbox (good to keep money in, remember money here is bulky)
Spices (like 2 lbs) (Wish I'd brought more - you can get them in conakry but they're expensive, and they make cooking for yourself/your family once in a while really nice)
Tea leaves (like 1 lbs) & reusable bags (also nice)
Seeds to grow some veggies and herbs (I'm pretty sure this is ok by customs, right?) (This is ok by customs, but I've been too lazy to get on this, herbs are a good easy bet though)
2 small stuffed animals (one a gift from Tim, another is a stuffed "giant microbe" malaria)
Passport/money belt (never use it)
Lots of boxers (washboards destroy undergarments, and you will probably crap your pants at least once while you're here, it's good to have replacements on hand)
Not so many socks (HA! I wear flip flips every day, haven't worn a sock once so far)
3 long-sleeve button up shirts (way too hot to ever wear these, though having one nice one is a good idea)
4 short-sleeve button up shirts (nice to have, you can always get more here, I usually teach in these)
3 regular t-shirts (rarely wear these since they're kinda warm for humid heat (cotton doesn't dry very fast), and it's sort of innappropriate for me since I'm a teacher)
2 sweat-wicking t-shirts (oh my god so comfortable, wish I'd brought sweat wicking button ups so I could teach in them)
2 "Reed" basketball-type athletic shorts (never wear them outside the house, but they're nice inside the house)
2 pair of shorts (don't wear them in my village, don't take them off outside my village)
4 dress pants (handy, especially lightweight dress pants that hide dirt well)
Swimsuit (DEFINITELY bring one, maybe 2 if you like to swim, sometimes they get caught on a rock...)
1 necktie (Ha! never worn it, when an occasion is important enough to call for "nice" clothes, Guinean nice clothes are usually more culturally "cool", and more comfortable.)
6 bandanas (very useful, though you can also just get a piece of cloth from the market and cut it up yourself into bandana-sized pieces, but I use them all the time)
Dress shoes (never worn them)
Chacos Sandals (wear them a lot)
Leather flip flops (wear them even more)
Plastic flip flops (wear them sometimes, especially around the house, in the "shower")
Casual belt (wear it all the time (guys, expect to lose weight, girls (sorry) expect to gain weight)).
Dressy belt (wear it sometimes)
Books (useful, but I only brough 3, and I quickly read them in Forecariah and then started borrowing from other people, you can even only just bring the book you read on the filght over, then start the borrowing process)

(Bring some US money if you plan on travelling, some airlines are cash only at the ticket office here, and getting money sent from the states via Western Union is expensive, I brought $500, wish I'd brought more since it's just going to sit in the Conakry safe until I go back if I don't need it anyway. I think it's better to have it and not need it, than need it and have to scramble to get it somehow).

Wow, looking at this list....forget what I said in my previous post about packing lightly. This is a pretty huge list.