Mamou Trainings

Mamou, oh how I adore thee. So I think it’s safe to say that this trip to Mamou has been terrible. The girl’s conference went really well and we had a lot of fun and it was pretty good. The girls seem to really enjoy it. I did a presentation with Brienne on HIV/AIDS with a condom demonstration. It went well but the topic is just too big to try to squeeze into an hour and half long session with young girls. (Meanwhile I’m at a training for HIV/AIDS and it is 4 days long) But anyway it well, the girls enjoy it and had many questions and we did a couple activities and it was good. So about girl’s conference each volunteer brought a young girl from their village to get all this awesome information in hopes they will share it with their friends. Hopefully. But some sessions were hard like planning your futures and making action plans because a lot of the younger girls did not know what they wanted to do yet. I was trying to ask the girl from my village why she wanted to go to college and she in return she asked me why she should go to college. As if there was a wrong answer. I think I need to explore that question with her more when I go back to the village.
Right after the conference we had malaria training and it was not one of the bests. It was poorly organized and very un-engaging. And on top of that I was feeling noxious throughout the past three or four days. Yeah not fun. That and being light headed half the time. So it didn’t pass very well. And the sessions really didn’t leave much room for breaks or naps or anything like that.
Now we are having our HIV/AIDS training. It’s going a bit better, the internet finally got fixed, it wasn’t working when we first got here so that’s exciting. Funny story, I’ve been noxious for days and last night I woke up burping. My roommate was talking in her sleep, something about bushrat. She said “bushrat.” I was like bushrat? And then she said it again like agreeing with me yeah bushrat. Next thing I know I starting throwing up. Yucky feeling but kinda funny. After I got that out of my system I’ve been feeling better since. It just sucked I didn’t make it to the bathroom cause I didn’t think it’d come. Oh well. Anyway. Bushrat is the magic word to make me puke. So anyway back to the conference, I brought my host brother and he seems to be enjoying himself. It’s much better than having my official homologue here. So far, this conference is going much better than malaria, even with me puking the other night.

So things at site are going ok. Before I left my site I started working on my big completion of a health post project and silly me left my flash drive with the proposal on it at site. I’ve officially decided that going to the health center twice a week is more than enough because any and all work can be accomplished by going twice a week. I’m going to start going to Labe once a week, because every other volunteer has neighbors but me and I actually found work for me, a DECENT tutor, and a host family (actually two host families) as well in Labe. So everything is covered. But I just need to run this by the village because they aren’t really using me. Apparently it’s still a hard concept to grasp that I am not going to just give them money. Some get it, but not everyone. So the plan for the rest of August is a short vacation to Boke. Then September is Ramadan. I’m not sure exactly what I’m gonna do. I think I should stock up on more food in my house because I won’t really be able to eat with my family. I really would like to try fasting, but realistically I know I’m gonna end up cheating or not being able to hack it for a whole month. I guess I’ll try it. During the month of Ramadan Muslims do not eat during the daylight hours. Throughout the day they fast and neither eat nor drink. So I wouldn’t even be able to drink up some water. That stinks.Grrr. well I’ll try it and see what happens. I plan to plan my sensiblizations for October during that month, including preparations and scheduling and such. Nothing too big or too small. Then I’ll have more paperwork to do so I’ll be pretty busy. I think we might do a trip to see some waterfalls mid September but I’m not too sure and I’m the one planning that event so I should really know. Huh? I still don’t know what I wanna do for my birthday. Like I want to do something but it doesn’t have to be anything big or anything so I think I just might go out dancing with some friends. And of course November Thanksgiving we are gonna try to do a big dinner. I’m looking forward to stuffing. It’d be nice to have instant stuffing. Hmm. Stuffing.

So it’s really hard to believe I’ve been away from home for so long. It’s been 8 months and on December 2, will be a year since I left home and I think December 5th would be a year since I’ve been in Guinea. And that’s like right around the corner. Can you believe it? Cause I can’t, cause I was so close to not coming. Oh I look back and laugh at that.

My host family is doing well. They always always always ask about my family back in the states and whether or not I’ve talked to my mom recently. Actually every time I see them they ask me if I’ve talked to my mom and how my parents are doing. Then they tell me how they are doing and then ask me how I’m doing for the fortieth time. Its always really good to see them. Oh I don’t remember if I wrote this but my host brother Boubacar is doing better. He’s walking and driving again and feels much better, I think they’ve removed his cast already. I was so happy because it really sucks to have to limp everywhere. Everyone is doing ok the host family in Labe is doing ok too. I went to visit them right before this because I hardly find time to visit them when I go into Labe so I made a special trip for them. They were very happy I came to visit and spent an afternoon with them and then walked to Ila’s office which is a walk. But I went with his sister Sali and we talked and joked and stuff. And I hardly really got a chance to talk to her and it was good to connect. What else? My other host family, I haven’t been to see them in a while but i have called them. I find it difficult to visit my host families if I don’t have a schedule already planned out because they never want you to leave. I’ll be like, ok, I’m going go for a walk to use the internet café. And they’ll be like oh I’m going too but I’m not going for another two hours, wait here and eat this bread and we’ll go later. LOL. Uh, ok.

Um I wanted to do a project for like young girls at my site, but like one thing I realized at girl’s conference was that it takes me a while to connect with girls. Like the girls connected with me because I’m a black American so they automatically felt comfortable around me but it wasn’t the same for me. But after the second day it was a lot easier. I really would like to go over everything the girl from my village did at the conference with her and her friends and just get them interested in staying in school and not becoming “Masion Slaves” (a slave to the house) and just learning how to take advantage of opportunities or just try to figure out what they need more help with in order to become successful for themselves.
What else? Well um if anyone wants to send me a package for my birthday coming up soon, I would love that a lot. I’d like something fun, I honestly can’t think of anything right now. Or even a letter would be cool. Maybe some chocolate. Thatd be awesome cause the chocolate here sucks. Its not real chocolate. Yucky. So good chocolate would be awesome to have. And I’d also like a USB drive for backing up my very very important documents in case my computer becomes broken which is inevitable here.
Oh I’d really like guides or study aids for taking the GRE’s. Anything helpful?

OK, that’s all. I miss you all. I can’t believe federer lost, I’m a little shaken up by it and sad I missed that match, I heard it was awesome. Ok, well I miss you, um I’ll be back at site next week.