Hotel del Niger Conakry

... e desp**ate and a little pushy ... I had to walk past them to get to my room, so running the gauntlet sev**al times a day was an int**esting exp**ience. The coup was int**esting, although it didn't really have a direct impact on us ... the army set up road blocks to extort money outside of Conakry, but that was about it. The day that the death of the president was announce we w**e due to head out to Sangbarala (Famoudou's home ...

... alors que la date d'entrée dans mon cachet c'est 98. J'avais les boules et j'ai demandé littéralement s'ils se foutaient de ma gueule. Ils étaient un peu vénères, mais c'était une claire démarche extorsioniste, je connais ça très bien, j'en suis même vacciné. Ils demandent alors de fouiller mon sac. Je vais le chercher, je le pose devant eux et je m'assois. C'est là qu'ils ont compris et ils m'ont laissé partir. Mon mâchoire inférieur c'est alourdi et s'est détaché de ...

... with 12 people in a 7 person bush taxi or having children and adults yelling "white person" at me as I walk down the street. That's not normal! People don't do that in America. Loneliness and boredom crept up on me as well. Then I went to Labe, the regional capital for a neighboring region, for Halloween. After an 11 hour taxi ride we arrived in an amazing Guinean city. We stayed in a hotel with hot running water and a restaurant with good pizza. My region has ...

... were taking glamour shots together so it wasn't long. We've been through a lot together and though Leah isn't the best about staying in contact, when we do see each other it's like we were never apart. She thinks we're such good friends because our friendship takes little to no maintenance. I think we're such good friends because we're completely honest with each other. I can say anything to her. She met her husband in high school but they didn't start ...

... prissy girl but whatever of that there was in me I believe it is now gone. Wearing the same thing 3 days in a row doesn't phase me; I prefer using a squat latrine (it's more natural); I eat food off the floor if I know it's been swept in the last 24 hours or off my lap if not; the concept of personal space is no longer important; privacy is a thing of the past. I have to apologize if at any point while I'm in America I ...

... She was always up for anything and absolutely hilarious. New Year's Eve- won't go into details, but Mel you know. Going to the river and having a mud fight. Her nickname from home is Ass. I don't know why but it stuck here too. We were placed in the same region; not only that but the same sub-region, Lower Haute- the oxymorons. When she would come to Kissi we would go shopping. She's so random and loves goofy t-shirts so she was always ...

... side of me. The trip was going quite well and except for the occasional breakdown we were making good time. Well, 60 km my stomach started to hurt and I had to pee but I could hold it. 45 km away it's hurting pretty bad; I start biting my fingers to take my mind off the pain and urgent need to stop the car and squat on the side of the road. 30 km I'm about to scream but we're so close I can't make all these people stop. Why isn't the ...

... was Thursday which was the worst day I've had in country by far and it has nothing to do with sickness, amazing. The mail run came Thursday morning. I was really excited because I had invited Sarah and Melissa to come visit and I needed company after the previous three days. But when the car pulled up Zach was the only one in the back and he was going to Kankan. My eyes immediately teared up. I knew it was possible that they wouldn't come and I had been ...

... and when Katie, who was sitting next to me stood, her camera fell out of her lap. She cries, "Oh ****, there goes my camera!" to dead silence. You could have heard the crickets chirping except for me trying to suppress my giggles and failing miserably. As we sat down both of us leaned in and knocked heads which prompted another bout of laughter from us, all the while everyone else is silent. We decided not to think of it as a bad omen ...

... to the market to buy supplies. Candee and I were team mashed potatos so we bought 2 kilos of potatos, a can of milk, green onions and garlic and made the most awesome mashed potatos ever. We also had pieces of steak, cole slaw, salad, and cake. It was good! There were only 4 ninjas, at first, and the rest were pirates. One of the volunteer, Bob and a trainee, Neil made a group called PANTS, "People Against Ninjas, They Suck" which pirates were allowed ...