Joyeux Noël!

Alright, I'm running out of languages to wish you guys Merry Christmas in (I don't know if there's a Susu version, I sorta doubt it). Luckily I think this is my final Christmas related post for this year.

So yesterday, Christmas dinner was very nice. I got a call from my Dad right before heading over to the Country Director's house, and it was fun to talk to my little sisters for the first time in several months (I think for the first time, one of my little sisters switched into english for the majority of the conversation). Dinner was a very interesting mix of dishes pot-luck style (turkey, guacamole, fried plantains, baked plantains with cheese, cole slaw, fruit salad, fried rice, potatoes o'brien (leftover from Christmas brunch), brownies, maple fudge and cookies. It was mostly Peace Corps (our director and his family, our small enterprise development director, our doctor, and us 19 volunteers) plus 3 volunteers from IFISH, a USAID worker, and a Fullbright scholar doing some sort of research here.

After dinner we headed back to the house and continued the party for a while, but since I hadn't really slept more than 5 hours total the past 2 days I called it an early night around 1am. I'm still kinda exhausted.

Today was mostly spent sitting around watching movies or chatting with people, as before. I'm definitely ready to get out of Conakry, though I'm hoping I won't have to spend New Years by myself in my village (it's looking that way, though my near neighbors and I are hoping to spend it in Boké together). We've been doing the standard Peace Corps Guinea lockdown routine - watching lots and lots of movies. They've been going in themes: The day I got here and the military coup was annoucned "Blood Diamond", "The Last King of Scotland" and some other movie involving an African country having .... problems. On Christmas day it was: "Home Alone", "A Christmas Story", "Elf", and "It's a Wonderful Life".

A really memorable moment was during one of the last scenes of "Elf" when everybody in New York is singing Christmas carols to get Santa's Sleigh going again. All of us broke into song as well ("Santa Claus is Coming to Town", I believe). I had a hard time singing along because I was fighting back tears (anyone who knows me well will tell you I get a little teary eyed in movies, but throw in the emotional roller coaster of a Christmas Coup without the family and resistance becomes futile). I took a quick look to make sure nobody had noticed and realized that almost everybody in the room was just as teary eyed as me. Someone commented on this and we all started laughing.

Coup-wise, things continue to be calm, Lansana Conté was buried earlier today in his home village and people continue to seem happy with the new government. Today we were allowed to go within walking distance of the compound, but since it was the funeral day most of the market was shut down. I went out anyway just to get out of the house. I walked around a bit, walked well past the market and discovered a soft-serve ice cream guy about a 15 minute walk from the compound (they tend to exist wherever there's semi-consistent electricity, though are hard to find usually). I stopped and got 5,000 GNF worth (a lot! about 150 mL?), and sat and ate it on the little bench the guy had in front of his shack because it was shady (I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt with flip flops, but still sweating by the way....no Portland or Iowa snowstorms here). The guy sat with me and we listened to the radio while I watched people go by (it was about 1:30pm on Friday (, so everyone was going to the mosque in their nice outfits). I got a couple of avocados (they're coming back into season!) and walked back to the compound.