So in my last few days with my host family, I had the recurring thought that the only good rooster is one cooked for dinner. Contrary to popular belief, rooster's do not wake up with the sunrise, go cock-a-doodle-doo and than go about their day. They actually repeat the cock-a-doodle-doo for at least a good half hour to make sure you get up than random outbursts to make sure you stayed awake. Great alarm clock if it wasn't so early.
So I started reading a few other G17er's blogs and realized I've left out some important details. How am I enjoying life Guinea, what am I going to do for my first three months at site and just general details about my life in general. As for the first question, I enjoy life in Guinea. Its day by day and about to get very different but when I told a lot of you I was going to do Peace Corps, you said it fit me and it does. The big problem is I'm not sure if by the end of my service if it will have cured my travel bug or if it will just leave me itching for more. As for what I'm going to do in my next three months, officially, its nothing. Seriously.
As you can well imagine, life is very different here (I bet you don't get woken up by roosters at 5am) yet in many ways, I find it relaxing. It could be the pace, its perfectly okay to pass a day just making and drinking tea, which isn't my favorite beverage but making the tea sure is fun. But for me, it gives me a lot of time to think and reflect. Granted I'm missing out on a lot of information on what’s going on in the world but at least I can reflect on my immediate world, which still has a lot going on, especially since its so new. And each day poses challenges for me to get what I want/desire or for me to adapt to basic life. I love cheese but it’s very expensive and also I lack a means of refrigeration. Yet, now I know how to make cheese out of powdered milk which is readily available. Problem solving skills and adaptability at its best. And I enjoy this. But for everything that is relaxing, their is something that is more difficult, such as gathering water, washing clothes, cooking; all of which involve more labor and more time. For example, washing clothes involves at three buckets of water, one with soap and two to rinse. I've already shared the adventure from my well to my house at site, up a small mountain, over a fence, through some gates and since I can only carry one smaller bucket, I'd need to fetch four just to wash one week’s worth of clothes. But life in this manner does take on a certain rhythm, all of which must be completed before midday because after that it's to hot to do anything other than rest, preferably in the shade of a mango tree.
But, life here is also day by day. It is very easy to have a great day followed by a day in which every thing frustrates you. I'm really not bi-polar, I'm just a PCV in West Africa. And life is a challenge. Especially when I am in a climate which despite having adjusted somewhat, I still find uncomfortably hot most of the time and I use a language where I still can't read a book designed for 6 year olds. Overall, I am happy and say things are great but there are the days when I miss the conveniences or ease of every day items from home (which I now consider luxuries) and most importantly, the people I rely on. So yes, some days are easier than others and not having a rooster wake you up earlier than when you really want to get up certainly makes a day easier. But there are things which I have no control over. I don't even remember all of these things because they just need to be laughed at and shrugged off, otherwise they make days harder. To quote a fellow G17er, "if we didn't laugh, we'd cry." Laughter is an amazing tool that helps alleviate anxieties and disbelief of what’s actually happening and allows you to not think about something until it’s over when it is actually really funny. Like bush taxi rides are hysterically funny for no reason other than to prevent us from thinking about riding in a 15-20 year old Peugeot that has no original parts and whose door may or may not swing open so it has to be held shut with little more than a rubber band. I say they're really not that awful but it is very possible ten years from now I'll look back on them and ask myself, you did what!?!?
Being finished with training I do believe will make things easier. 7 hours of classes in 90 degree heat is exhausting, leaving little personal time to enjoy things such as reading, observing and writing. I will also have my own personal space which is important to me but fellow G17ers helped make training fun and understand the triumphs and tribulations of every passing hour and day in PC Guinea. So when I say I believe it will be easier, it is said for some reservation as I really have no clue as to what comes next.
As for what I am doing in my first three months at site, when I say nothing I mean it but it’s actually a lot harder than it sounds. Because doing nothing still involves learning about my community, its culture, needs and resources all while practicing French so at the end of three months I can begin my real work. The first three months is really about integration. Find a family who will feed me when I want to eat, find petites who are so excited that they get to be the one fetching water for the porto, learn my way around town, meet people, make friends who have endless patience with me and who want to be friends with me, not friends just with the American. I also have to work on explaining why I actually want to come from America to live in their town when there are a lot of people who would much rather go to America. So while I'm not allowed to do work, learning is work and right now, is the most important work I could do.
Peace Corps is an opportunity I cherish, even on the hardest days. I've always been driven by curiosity, even from a young age when I took anything and everything apart. It drove my parents nuts, not because I was curious but because my curiosity left a mess in it's wake. For a long time, I thought of things, especially school, as a means to an end. Something I needed to do so I could do what I wanted to do. And I never defined what I wanted so I never new exactly where I was going. And now I am here. Constantly learning and exploring, I am challenged mentally, intellectually and physically and for the first time, I feel like what I am doing is not a means to an end and it certainly is not the end. So although I can explain the work I am here to do and the adventures I live each day, I am at a loss to explain what I am doing.
