I have just finished the first week of homestay and the phrase uttered to me on the bus by a young boy still holds. Life truly is a comedy.
I am staying with a homestay family in Gbereire, a village about 5 km from Dubreka. Agroforestry volunteers were placed here because it is a closer approximation to what our lives will be like at site than Dubreka. I have a thatched hut all to myself about 15 ft. in diameter. It is much better than the cement houses with tin roofs because it doesn’t hold in the heat. Family is a loose term in Guinea and most tend to be very large. All the houses surrounding mine are somehow related and people are always going from one to another. In mine alone, there are 7 children, a couple grandparents, some sisters and the parents. I have been given the name Mahawa Camara after my 23 year old sister.
ach day involves a lot of language class and some technical training. We have begun making our garden and finished fencing it in yesterday. The majority of my day, however, is spent greeting people. Greetings are very important in guinean culture, so I do a lot of them. After I wake, I walk around our house and greet everyone. Then I brush my teeth and greet everyone again. Walking to school or to the garden, I greet every house I pass. I even do it while jogging, which goes a bit like this:
Gaggle of Children: Fote! Fote! (the local name for ‘white person’)
Me (while gasping for breath): Tana *pant* mu xi? (Hello!)
GOC: many screaming responses while grasping my sweaty hands
Me: Ala Tantu (God Bless)
GoC roll on the ground in laughter.
And then, I move on to the next house…
The language in the Basse-Cote region (the Westernmost region) is Susu. Everyone speaks it and for many older women, it is the only language they speak. French is taught in schools, so most people have a basic understanding of it. This means my conversations with my host mother resemble a game of charades, her with a full bucket of water atop her head and me holding 4-7 oranges, both gesturing wildly.
About those oranges: I think my family is trying to fatten me up. Every morning I leave home laden with snacks for the day. Yesterday, I had a grapefruit, 2 oranges, a cucumber, 4 bananas, a peanut butter sandwich, and a mayo, boiled egg, oinion and tomato sandwich. Keep in mind that lunch is included in my stipend. Those are literally just snacks. I also get a ton of food for dinner and since it is rude to refuse food, I eat until I am stuffed. Good thing I’m going for those jogs.
As far as contacting me for the next 8 weeks while I’m in Gberiere, phone calls and letters are most reliable. I have internet for about an hour a week, from 5-6 PM my time on Thursdays (12-1 PM EST). This means I can respond to e-mails, but the internet is so slow I only get through so many.
The phone number I posted before is WRONG!!!! The correct number is (+224) 68 06 11 41.
The best time to call is after 9 PM my time, so if you’re bored on your commute home, give me a ring. I plan on buying a separate SIM card that has cheaper rates to the US, so may be calling you sometime in the future. The above number is still the number to reach me on though.
Sorry that I haven’t posted pictures, but the internet is WAY to slow for that. Hopefully I will find an internet café in the future to upload some.
Won tina! (See you tomorrow in Susu)
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