Longwinded Return to Blogging

Alright, so since my last blog post (3 months ago!), I've been a busy person, I went to an HIV/AIDS/Malaria/Excision workshop with my best friend from my village Corso, then I spent a week and a half helping get the last details worked out for the new education group's training before their arrival. During this process I wrote a 50 page chemistry experiment guide with appendices explaining where to find chemical materials, and how to build certain apparatuses from market materials (mayo jars, etc).

I then took a WONDERFUL month long vacation that was much needed. I spent two weeks traveling in France with my Mom, sister, aunt, cousin and cousin's daughter. We mostly stuck around Paris, but took a 4 day trip to the Alsace region to see small towns, staying in a "gite" aka a guest-house in the small town of Breucshwickersheim (or something like that...). After this I took a train to Madrid and met Tim there and then traveled around Spain with him, his parents and sister to a farm in the Asturias region of Spain (near Arriondas), then to a wedding in a tiny town (population 9, seriously) near Burgos, finally we spent a few days in San Sebastian (during which Tim and I took a day trip to Bilbao to see the Guggenheim there) before returning to Madrid for a couple of days before I made me re-entrance to Guinea.

I arrived just as the new training group was about to depart for their site visits, and so I arrived in Conakry at night, slept, woke up and got right into a bush taxi headed for Boké to lead the 4 new Basse Côte volunteers on their first visits to the villages they'll live in the for the next two years. It was a fun week, though a bit hectic at first (didn't really get to eat in one of the villages because nobody offered to feed us and we hadn't brough anything with us - we eventually found bread and mayonnaise for dinner, in another village we were stranded for several hours while attempting to leave because there just weren't any cars going anywhere, we eventually found our way out). It was a trial by fire return to Guinea, especially as I was responsible for the happiness of 4 trainees, but it really just reminded me what I had come to realize in my last week of vacation in Europe - I really like Guinea and am completely willing to sacrifice some creature comforts in exchange for the more wild and make-do lifestyle you find here...at least for the next 9 months or so left in my service.

I then spent a week in Conakry starting a translation of my chemistry manual into French to give Guinean teachers at the December Teacher's Conference I'm helping organize before heading down to Forecariah to be a trainer for the last 3.5 weeks of the new groups training. This period is known as "Practice School" and is when they all teach full-sized guinean student classes while being supervised and evaluated by experienced volunteers (comme moi), and their Guinean trainers. The first few days my evaluations were quite long and involved (things like "don't let students talk over you when you're lecturing" and "remember to leave things up on the chalkboard long enough for students to take notes" were just the beginning), but they quickly responded to the criticism, and by the end I spent most of their classes reading my book in the back, while making the occasional note on minor issues. I'm really excited that there are more teachers in Peace Corps besides my group, especially since a few of them are going to be living relatively near me.

During this time I had some tough decisions to make regarding where I'm going with my life after Peace Corps (did I mention I'll be done in 9 months....yikes!). I'd very seriously considered doing a third year in Guinea as a professor at one of the main Universities, after speaking with chemistry professors from the University of Conakry it seemed that even with my undergraduate degree, I could have something to offer their organic chemistry students, and I was excited to teach real chemistry for a change as opposed to reviewing basic math and introducing the idea of atoms, etc to middle school students. The more I thought about this option however, the less and less it appealed to me, especially considering the host of other options available to me.

In short (and I need to be, because attempting to write out everything I'm considering would take about 9 months), I've decided that, as much as I love Guinea and enjoy the fact that I've adapted pretty thoroughly to the culture here - I don't want to stay here for a third year when I have the option to instead spend my time abroad exploring other countries (and hopefully other continents, though I'd also love to explore other regions in Africa). I am very tentatively looking into being a trainer for a new Peace Corps program that will be starting with education volunteers next summer in Sierra Leone (this would mostly likely be June-September of next year, but at this point there isn't enough information to know who or what they'll need for this). I am also very seriously looking into a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teacher position in France for 9 months starting next October (to give me a chance to de-Guinea-ify my French, and live in Europe for a while, which is on my list of things to do before I die), I'm also planning on sending my resumé out to other Peace Corps programs that interest me as a potential third year extension somewhere else (Southeast Asia, and South America both interest me, I would love to get into teacher-trainer positions where my job is to work with local teachers on improving their methods to stimulate critical thinking, etc). Anyway, the list is long, and I've only scratched the surface of what my options are, one thing I AM fairly certain of though, is that I will be out of America for at least the next 2 years, and possibly longer (I'm looking at International Organizations (UNESCO), and NGOs (Academy of International Education Development, etc), and tons of other jobs that might keep me away and abroad for a while.

Wow, that wasn't short at all...

Anyway, this plan makes maintaining personal relationships stateside difficult, and while I know I have the support of my loved ones back home I do worry about not seeing my family enough (especially my little sister who I'm sure are starting to forget what I look like), losing contact even more throroughly with my friends, etc. This decision to remain abroad has already led me to break off one relationship that was/is very important to me, but given the circumstances it seems like the best thing for everyone involved from a long-term POV. ...Enough about that.

Anyway, so I hope this post catches everyone up a bit on what I've been up to the last few months. I will hopefully get another out before I leave Conakry for Bintimodia in a few days, but seeing as how I'll be helping the Trainees(soon to be Volunteers) find and bargain for all the stuff they need for their new houses/huts, I don't know how much time I'll dedicate to blogging.

Don't forget, you can always call me, my phone number is listed in my facebook profile (I changed it, if you have one that starts with (224)65 instead of (224)62, then you need to update it), and I always welcome letters, care packages, etc. Until next time (hopefully before 2010 comes around)...