i kena,
That was good morning in Susu. My current vocabulary can also handle salutations, basic questions about work and living arragements, and how to ask whether or not a woman is married. Which, translated, means 'have you ever sat in the house of a man?'. However, if my conversation partner deviates from the script by one word, i am doneski. Today is our last day in the PC compound. TOmorrow we load up and drive south 45 k to Forecariah for the rest of our training. More importantly, tomorrow we get 'adopted' by our host famlies with whom we will live for the next three months. Oh boy. We have had a lot of cross-cultural training sessions to prepare us for the host-family expereince, but according to the other volunteers it is a trying, if essential understaking. All the host famlies must meet certain requirements and go through specific training in how to handle whack americans. These are the requirements as laid down by the Guinean host-family training staff; logistically, the host famlies must feed us breakfast and dinner everyday and there meals a day on the weekends, they must give us our own room with a door that locks, they must make a special meal (something other than rice and sauce) 2x a week, feed us meat 2x a week, and eggs 3x a week. Socially, they undergo some pretty intense training. This includes how to preapre some American food (spaghetti......on top of rice and sauce), how to use potable water for cooking and cleaning, how Americans like to be comforted, and some of the whacky things that Americans do that the host family should ignore or just laugh about behind closed doors. For example-- alone time. They don't get it. In Guinean culture everyoe hangs out toghether all day every day. If someone is stressed or depressed, than all the more reason for toghetherness. The trainers say that a common host family expereince includes a stressed and frustrated volunteer retiring to his/her room to decompress, not speak susu, or continually entertain a army of Guinean children, and the host mom recognizing the volunteers stress level. In order to cheer up her host son/daughter, the host mom organises and band of local children /family members and charges into the volunteers room to comfort them. This of course usally leads to the volunteer breaking down and balling on the spot and the host mother calling the PC trainer to say that Americans are crazy and she thinks she offended her volunteer.
Monsiuer Bari, one of my favorite trainers, is responsible for our cross-culture sessions. He is a forceful looking older Guinean man who seems to command serious respect from the other trainers. As a youngster, he got a scholarship to Study in Britain and stayed in a home-stay for several months. He remembers coming up to the front door and ringing the door bell, waiting for a few minutes, and then being greeted by the nuclear family. To him-- this was bizzare/impolite/quiet/scary. In Guinea, visitors are greeted by the community. Neighbors and extrended family members are always on hand to welcome visitors and each person tries to talk over the next.
On that note, I have to say a few things about our Guinean trainers. They are the best. In the beginning, a combination of the language barrier and ingrained strereotypes about Africa (the trainers and trainees are encouraged to speak only in French of a local lang) kept me from realizing what an extraordinary group of people work for the Peace Corps. Amoung the Guineans who we work with, two studied in the U.S. on Fullbrights, almost all the senior trainers have undergrad degrees from good African Universities and Masters degrees from the U.S., and one or two have PHD's. At first, when surrounded by people from another culture it is difficult to notice anything about them except that they are from that culture. After that newness wore off it was easy to see that our training staff is highly intelligent and motivated, and has likely overcome serious hurdles to get where they are.
Umm, thats all I have time for at the moment, but be preapred for hilarity when I let you know how adoption goes. Mom and Dad, don't worry, there merely surrogates.
l
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
the real world; Peace Corps Guinea
I am writing from a plush office inside the Peace Corps compund in Conakry, Guinea. At the moment, I am very thankful and proud of our Government. The compound is extremely well organized, staffed by talented, multi-lingual Guineans, complete with western Medical facilities, a general Medicine MD, and a tropical disease Specialist.
I arrived in-country yesterday after a long and uncomfortable, but very tolerable flight from JFK to Dakar, Senegal, and a short and far less comfortable flight from Dakar to Conakry, Guinea. The other P.C. volunteers (PCV's) that happened to be in the Capital showed us around, and took us out for a beer at a bar on he beach near the compound. Truly-- it was great. If yesterday was indicative of Peace Corps service, I would advise every able bodied man and women in the U.S. to sign up immiedietly. However, as you might guess, they followed our lovely excursion with some less lovely details concerning medical problems, saftey problems, and personal hygene.
*note...we have been given a very stern warning by the PC staff to be careful in our blogs not to say anything that would appear to denegrate the local culture, or that might color Americans perceptions of Guinea in a negative light. This policy makes sense; when reading this blog, please, to the extent possible, control for your American cultural assumptions and values in order to consider Guienan culture and lifestyle as an entity unto itself, rather than something to be compared to America or evaluted in an American context.
Tha being said, I shall give you some informative or amusing cultureal tid-bits I have picked up thus far. (most of these come from a few cultual training sesions, seeing as I have only been outside the compund once in the last 36 hrs.
-Guineans love Americans. American humanitarian organizations have made huge strides inside Guinea and many Guineans have been taught by P.C. voluneers or worked with them. Obviously, there are bad apples, but I encountered far fewer hostile people walking around than an average american might encounter on the streets of New York City.
-Toilet paper in the villages is considered an unnessacary expense. The standard method for cleaning up after a toilet break is euphamistically refered to as the water method, which involves one's left hand, and some soap and water.
-People rarely go a full sentence in the same language. In Guinea, the School system runs on French. But french is a second language for almost all of the students. So adults (who on averyage did not attend high school), speak the french they learned in school (a long time ago), combined with the local language(s) they speak with their family. Imgaine a school system taught in a language that is the native tounge of neither the teachers nor the staudents. Though I suppose the alternative is to have a country where every person can only comunicate with the other 20-50 percent of the country that speaks their language.
I have many more already, but other volunteers need to use the computers to tell their famlies they arrived safely.
Truly, Guineans seem like special people. Obviously there is a selection Bias in the Guineans I have meet thus far (educated, French speaking, most work for the U.S.), but from the Man I sat next to on the plane to the Compound Staff to my brief walk around, I have a very favorable impression.
I miss everyone, and
I hope to post again very soon.
best,
Conor
P.S. thank you to all the people who emailed me recentely to wish me good luck or say goodbye. I feel very supported-- truly. For the next 3 months I will have frequent internet accress, though only for a short time each session. So please, email me with questions or just to say hi, and I will do my absolute best to email back.
I arrived in-country yesterday after a long and uncomfortable, but very tolerable flight from JFK to Dakar, Senegal, and a short and far less comfortable flight from Dakar to Conakry, Guinea. The other P.C. volunteers (PCV's) that happened to be in the Capital showed us around, and took us out for a beer at a bar on he beach near the compound. Truly-- it was great. If yesterday was indicative of Peace Corps service, I would advise every able bodied man and women in the U.S. to sign up immiedietly. However, as you might guess, they followed our lovely excursion with some less lovely details concerning medical problems, saftey problems, and personal hygene.
*note...we have been given a very stern warning by the PC staff to be careful in our blogs not to say anything that would appear to denegrate the local culture, or that might color Americans perceptions of Guinea in a negative light. This policy makes sense; when reading this blog, please, to the extent possible, control for your American cultural assumptions and values in order to consider Guienan culture and lifestyle as an entity unto itself, rather than something to be compared to America or evaluted in an American context.
Tha being said, I shall give you some informative or amusing cultureal tid-bits I have picked up thus far. (most of these come from a few cultual training sesions, seeing as I have only been outside the compund once in the last 36 hrs.
-Guineans love Americans. American humanitarian organizations have made huge strides inside Guinea and many Guineans have been taught by P.C. voluneers or worked with them. Obviously, there are bad apples, but I encountered far fewer hostile people walking around than an average american might encounter on the streets of New York City.
-Toilet paper in the villages is considered an unnessacary expense. The standard method for cleaning up after a toilet break is euphamistically refered to as the water method, which involves one's left hand, and some soap and water.
-People rarely go a full sentence in the same language. In Guinea, the School system runs on French. But french is a second language for almost all of the students. So adults (who on averyage did not attend high school), speak the french they learned in school (a long time ago), combined with the local language(s) they speak with their family. Imgaine a school system taught in a language that is the native tounge of neither the teachers nor the staudents. Though I suppose the alternative is to have a country where every person can only comunicate with the other 20-50 percent of the country that speaks their language.
I have many more already, but other volunteers need to use the computers to tell their famlies they arrived safely.
Truly, Guineans seem like special people. Obviously there is a selection Bias in the Guineans I have meet thus far (educated, French speaking, most work for the U.S.), but from the Man I sat next to on the plane to the Compound Staff to my brief walk around, I have a very favorable impression.
I miss everyone, and
I hope to post again very soon.
best,
Conor
P.S. thank you to all the people who emailed me recentely to wish me good luck or say goodbye. I feel very supported-- truly. For the next 3 months I will have frequent internet accress, though only for a short time each session. So please, email me with questions or just to say hi, and I will do my absolute best to email back.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Last night in Princeton
Family and Friends,
Tomorrow I head to Philadelphia for a brief meet and greet with the other Peace Corps Volunteers, and on Wednesday I am off the Guinea. For those of you who believe Guinea is a colorful pet rodent who defecates an absolutely mind-boggling amount…(as I did pre-June)….check out Google Maps. It’s the Kidney bean shaped country near the center of the W. African Bulge. I have assembled this list of college and high school buddies, teachers, family friends, basketball coaches, family, and others that have helped and cared throughout my life- in the hopes that moving to Africa will be an excuse to keep in touch rather than fall out. While Guinea is richly endowed with natural beauty, wildlife, and flies whose larvae destroy your eye and cause river blindness, it does not boast widely available Internet access or cell phone coverage. How often I email, talk on the phone, or post to my blog (info to follow), will vary depending on whether or not I am posted near a major city (of which there are about, umm one). This however, only excuses me. The unfortunate recipients of this email are charged with keeping me in their thoughts, prayers, letters, and emails, as often as possible. Letters take 4 weeks to get to the capital (Conakry), and that is only if they are not opened and ransacked by an underpaid customs official or waylaid en route to my village. Yet letters will be my lifeline to home and the world I know, please please please send them anyway! Word on the Guinean street is that marking the front of your letter or envelopes with ‘feminine products’ or ‘religious materials’ drastically increases the likelihood of safe delivery. Go figure. Also, if you send me something, I promise I will write you back. Circumstances permitting I will periodically be posting to my blog at http://congod.blogspot.com. If you promise to peruse my posts from time to time, I’ll promise to keep them lively and humorous and chalk full of earthshaking insight into West African life.
This will be a crazy adventure. I even have a floppy brimmed safari dude hat (courtesy of the Lavery's), and you know that crazy things happen when you where those hats. Please share it with me, and also share adventures of your own. Try your best to hold off any major events until I can be there to share them, but if they have to happen, I definitely want to be in the loop. Much love to all, and stay tuned for more news.
Address:
Conor Godfrey, PCT
Corps de la Paix
BP 1927, Conakry
Guinée (West Africa)
P.S. I will post this email as the first entry in my blog at congod.blogspot.com as a reference.
P.P.S This email list is not complete! It is pieced together from old email lists and random facebook searching. If you find out someone is not receiving it, please email me and let me add them.
Tomorrow I head to Philadelphia for a brief meet and greet with the other Peace Corps Volunteers, and on Wednesday I am off the Guinea. For those of you who believe Guinea is a colorful pet rodent who defecates an absolutely mind-boggling amount…(as I did pre-June)….check out Google Maps. It’s the Kidney bean shaped country near the center of the W. African Bulge. I have assembled this list of college and high school buddies, teachers, family friends, basketball coaches, family, and others that have helped and cared throughout my life- in the hopes that moving to Africa will be an excuse to keep in touch rather than fall out. While Guinea is richly endowed with natural beauty, wildlife, and flies whose larvae destroy your eye and cause river blindness, it does not boast widely available Internet access or cell phone coverage. How often I email, talk on the phone, or post to my blog (info to follow), will vary depending on whether or not I am posted near a major city (of which there are about, umm one). This however, only excuses me. The unfortunate recipients of this email are charged with keeping me in their thoughts, prayers, letters, and emails, as often as possible. Letters take 4 weeks to get to the capital (Conakry), and that is only if they are not opened and ransacked by an underpaid customs official or waylaid en route to my village. Yet letters will be my lifeline to home and the world I know, please please please send them anyway! Word on the Guinean street is that marking the front of your letter or envelopes with ‘feminine products’ or ‘religious materials’ drastically increases the likelihood of safe delivery. Go figure. Also, if you send me something, I promise I will write you back. Circumstances permitting I will periodically be posting to my blog at http://congod.blogspot.com. If you promise to peruse my posts from time to time, I’ll promise to keep them lively and humorous and chalk full of earthshaking insight into West African life.
This will be a crazy adventure. I even have a floppy brimmed safari dude hat (courtesy of the Lavery's), and you know that crazy things happen when you where those hats. Please share it with me, and also share adventures of your own. Try your best to hold off any major events until I can be there to share them, but if they have to happen, I definitely want to be in the loop. Much love to all, and stay tuned for more news.
Address:
Conor Godfrey, PCT
Corps de la Paix
BP 1927, Conakry
Guinée (West Africa)
P.S. I will post this email as the first entry in my blog at congod.blogspot.com as a reference.
P.P.S This email list is not complete! It is pieced together from old email lists and random facebook searching. If you find out someone is not receiving it, please email me and let me add them.
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