A Day of Luxurious Excess

So this weekend a good number of volunteers managed to meet up in Boké, and so we took the opportunity to go into Kamsar and enjoy the little luxuries it offers. A few of us also had good reason to be a little more carefree with our spending (it was just my birthday, Jarrad has accumulated a lot of money not spending anything in his village out in the boonies, etc) so we went to the restaurant and had a nice lunch (dinner really, since we didn't eat for the rest of the day). Three of the five of us split a bottle of real French wine (it wasn't amazing quality wine, but it was way better than the "wine" you can get here), Jarrad and I both had steak (with a side of steamed (canned) vegetables and some fries), Jarrad had onion soup on the side, Tiffany got a pasta dish, Mary got the lebanese plate (hummus, kafta, baba ganogj, meat kebab, etc), and Astrid had fish kebabs (good non-bony fish). We also had some cheese that we had bought from the grocery store and so I had some nice French blue cheese with my meal, and had a little of Jarrad's gouda with cumin seeds as well. It was a pretty extravagant meal, but by american standards it was cheap (my meal was $5, the bottle of wine was like $16 split 3 ways, the 100 g chunk of cheese was $4 or so).

We also got some stuff at the grocery store which included my birthday present from Jarrad - a 1 liter bottle of Tanqueray gin, this was expensive (not much cheaper than our entire lunch bill) - and was the best present anyone could have given me - I've been eyeing that bottle every time I go into the store but couldn't come up with a good reason to spend that much on any one item. I bought grapefruit juice and tonic, and we made our way through most of it last night (between 4 or 5 people). I'm planning on returning the favor for his birthday, during which we'll be in Conakry.

I was excited to see that my favorite riz gras lady (Mme. Makanera) was back in business (she'd been sick and not working for months now). I debated getting an order to go for dinner, but I was way too full, something to look forward to next time. Upon our return to Boké, I finally met one of the new volunteers who got here in December - a woman who is south of my village by like 40k, we shared the gin and sat around getting to know each other by candlelight (Boké electricity didn't come on last night). I'm now in Kamsar showing her around since she missed out on going with us, and I was planning on going through Kamsar back to Bintimodia today anyway.

Something funny that I noted earlier this morning when I was chatting with Jarrad about it was that lately both my blog and my journal are less and less about Guinean culture things and more and more about seeing other volunteers and getting nice food/drink things. This isn't because I've given up on being thrifty and integrating with Guineans, but rather because Guinean culture is so a part of my routine now that things like topless women, kids playing by pushing old bike tires with sticks, a car on the road that toppled over because it had too much stuff piled on top of it, mangos ripening on trees, etc just don't surprise or amaze me anymore. For example - in my birthday post I mentioned planting piment with a market lady, but I didn't think to mention that as soon as we got there she whipped her shirt off and had her breasts swinging every which way the whole time. Why would I? I see that sort of thing like 5 times just on my way to get onions from the lady 4 houses down from me. Things like going to a restaurant and drinking something other than bissap (hibiscus tea) are the things that to me seem abnormal and noteworthy, but I suppose they don't make as interesting a read to people who can go to happy hour after work. I'll try to keep this in mind.

Alright, well this time I didn't think to type up the entry before plugging my credit into the computer, so I'm on the clock and am going to now browse facebook for the duration of my alloted time, until next time...