Hotel Camayene - Guinea Conakry

Well I'd been wanting to go to Guinea for a long time ... I'd spoken with people who had gone, seen pictures and read about it ... but nothing really prepares you for it. The area that I stayed in is extremely poor, didn't have sealed roads and the rainy season eats concret, so things are pretty tough for the people who live th**e (many of who don't have enough to eat ev**y day). The guys who came round to sell statues and masks ...

Entrée de Conakry, au km 36, les berets rouges veulent nous faire chier pensant qu'ils peuvent nous faire peur pour prendre un petit pourboire. Je n'aime pas leur attitude et j'en ai strictement rien à foutre. Voyant que l'on était tous munis de nos passeports, ils nous demandent le carnet de vaccinations ( !). C'est pas un bande d'enculés ça ? Je les sors le dit papier et je montre que je suis prêt à attendre le temps qu'il faut pour qu'ils vérifient tout. Ils me ...

Back in Guinea and in full swing. I've now been back a month but it seems like a lot longer. So much has happened. The return has been difficult emotionally. When I left I was adjusted to the craziness that is Guinea. Then back in the states, after the first shower and night in a real bed, it was like I'd never left. But then coming back, all of the little annoying things were glaring me in the face, like having to bribe my luggage out of the airport or spending 9 hours ...

Back in Guinea. I didn't have enough euros to write a good blog in Paris. I go back up country tomorrow so I thought I'd take a stab at writing today before I leave Conakry. My whole purpose in going back to America was to be in the wedding of my childhood friend Leah. We met when I moved to Indiana from California when I was 10 at the church my family started attending. She is the pastor's daughter. We weren't immediate friends but by the time we were 11 ...

Only two days left until I leave for the US of A. I'm not sure if I'm still in denial or just taking it better than I expected. For the past two weeks if I think about it for too long I start to have little panic attacks where my heart starts beating faster and my breathing gets shallow. So I can't think about it a lot. It's mostly excitement but there is definitely some anxiousness mixed in. Not that I was ever a really ...

... connection to the human aspect and therefore cannot understand the grave mistake it has made in sending Melissa and Katie home. This blog is dedicated to them. The first thing I remember about Mel is that she played euchre and loves it as much as me. That was our founding bond. A lot of Mid-Westerners have a strange obsession with the game of euchre and that was true for the both of us. During stage I learned to love her for other ...

... the poop hand, and water. Many volunteers adopt this method as it saves money on toilet paper which is a luxury and quite hard to come by. I am not one of these volunteers. As a precursor to my story, I have been relatively sick for a month now. So I was on my way to Kankan from Kissidougou in a bush taxi. It was a 9 passenger cab but of course we had managed to fit 13 people into it. I was in the very back middle seat with 2 people on ...

... Health Center. So I've kind of been avoiding the Health Center which means I've been staying in the hut more and more and isolating myself which I know is not helping the situation. I recently got a kitten which was the only reason I was remaining sane. Her name was Vixen. She sat on my shoulder when I read, slept with me, followed me around like a dog. She was so much fun to play with and such a comfort those bad days. But the culmination of my bad ...

... when I first arrived in country and thought I was living it rough the first few days here (see blog number 1). In reality this is as good as it gets. On February 8th at 11:00 AM, 35 trainees became 35 volunteers. The ceremony had an interesting start. I don't know if you didn't realize it, but we're pretty important. The Minister of Health, a woman, came and spoke to us along with the Ambassador of the USA. As they were walking in we all ...

... awesome! It was so amazing to see the other trainees and vent about what happened at site. Just to speak English was amazing. Everyone had some pretty wild experiences, which I'm sure they'll all right about on their blogs. I'm going to try to post a few more of those websites so you can check out what they have to say. But anyway, the second night we were there we decided to have a theme party: Pirate v. Ninja. We split into teams to prepare dinner and ...