Mid Service (plus ou moins)

Time flies...

I've been in Guinea for almost a year now and can't beleive how fast it's come and gone. I've felt like I've been productive and done a lot, yet the one year I have left seems so short a time to finish everything I want.

As part of our midway point in service, and to talk about secondary projects we'll be doing during the summer vacation, the education volunteers had a meeting in Mamou. We each brought someone from our village with whom we want to work with during the summer. I brought the women who is in charge of the women's groupement. We're planning to work on reading, writing and basic calculations for the women of the groupement.

At this meeting I also learned about Moringa trees, which I already knew a little bit about from my experience in water sanitation in Uganda. However, I did not realize how all-around incredible this plant is - every single part of the tree can be useful for something (good nutrition, medicine, extracting oil, water clarification, and more). Moringa trees grow fast, can handle drought, like poor soil, and like lots of sun (in other words perfect for most of Africa). Not amazed yet? They are also nitrogen-fixing which means they enrich the soil around them for other plants. I got some seeds and I'm going to try to plant them around my house and my neighbrohood. Read more about them here: Trees for Life

In a few weeks I'll be leaving site for a month which makes me really sad. However, I'm leaving because I'll be in Dubreka to help with the stage of the new education volunteers which will be arriving in July (which makes me happy). And if any of you G-22ers are reading this, I can't wait to meet you!

Madame N'dao and me in Mamou

Me and my Peace Corps Guinea besties, Mary and Juliette

Going for a walk through Mamou villages

Mamou is in "Middle Guinea" but I like to think of it as Middle Earth

Fin d'année

The last day of school was May 28th, though it wasn't really the end, students just sputtered out until there weren't any left. The school year has flown by and I have learned such a great deal about myself and teaching. Not only that, but my students have taught me a lot and I can honestly say that I am proud of them and proud to have taught them. As I reflect on my first year teaching I'm thinking about some of my favorite moments or things that I did:

-Looking at plasmodium (malarial parasite) under the microscope at the centre de santé with 12^th grade biology

-Being called monsieur instead  of madame right up until the last class

-Doing student presentations (exposé) in biology

-Making students take observations about the speed of falling objects (how does the fall of a rock compare to that of a sheet of paper? Would it be the same in a vacuum? And also what is a vacuum?)

-My students coming to my house to get extra help on homework or to read books (yay for initiative)

-A student in 10^th grade (not even my student) came up to me the other day after school to say no more than hi and “Vous etes de bon coeur,” you are kind hearted.

-Our school was chosen to host a sensibilization for world malaria day (April 25). A group from Conkary/Boke came to our cultural center to talk to the students about preventing malaria. There was a skit, poetry, and dance. At the ends students were quizzed about malaria and won prizes.

-My entire 12^th grade class coming to my house to wish me well when I was sick and didn’t go to school

-A Happy New Year’s card written in English from an 11^th grader

-The 8^th grade comedians, they’ve been going strong all year long

-Seeing a few high school students perform a play that they wrote about the importance of education

-Playing English and physics jeopardy when we had revision for tests

-After the last class of this year my 12^th grade students all came to my house in the morning to hang out, say thanks, drink tea, and say  Oooh-ooh (goodbye)

  My principal sitting in the principals office (aka a table on the proch) and vice-principal with mangoes. My principal ringing the bell (yes, that giant metal circulaire thing is the bell). Elementary school girls who came to say hi to me

12th grade exposé on amebic dysentary 

Teacher's  lounge

11th graders

 

Some of my soccer players at school

12th grade girls

Radio CBG

Word has spread.

Our girls soccer team has made it big. And by big I mean on local radio. A journalist from one of the 2 radio stations in our region came to my village to talk with me and learn about our team. He invited me and the other coaches to come to Kamsar to speak live on the radio (Radio CBG).

We arrived in the stuio just before going on air, no thanks to a giant storm that delayed us en route. I was nervous to be a) talking on the radio and b) speaking in French in a very public medium (I would guess there are thousands of listeners to this radio). There was also a significant lead up to the "special gust interview with Madame Liz," which didn't help. I was first asked to greet all the listeners in French, Susu, Pulaar and English. Then we talked about what I'm doing in Guinea, what Peace Corps is all about, how I started the team, how the team is evolving, and what I had to say to the jeunes filles of Guinea to encourage them. Soyez courageuse, soyez determinée, soyez persistante... The radio host complimented me on my French and I said it was thanks to my students who love to tell me every time I make a mistake (ex. "Madame, excuse me, it's LA loi de Galilée not LE loi de Galilée"). Afterwards they talked with the other coach that's been helping me about soccer strategy and future plans.

All in all it went well and I'm really happy that I did it. When I got back to my village that night people were quoting things I said (not sure how I feel about this)

Preparing to go on air

"And in a few minutes we'll be hearing from Madame Liz"

The radio host et moi

The radio host with the other coach

The evolution of a village girls soccer team

After our crushing loss to Kamsar, one of the boys coaches stepped up to permanently help our team (and thank goodness because I have terrible French/Susu coaching skills). We played in a school tournament and beat one school and lost to a second in Boke. After said tournament, we organized another friendly match against Boke, this time on home turf. We invited all of the important people in our community, the students, and 2 other Peace Corps volunteers. People showed up in massive numbers to cheer us on. The game was awesome and we ended up winning 2-1. The next morning the chef of our district came to talk to me (with a Susu interpreter) and tell me how proud he is of the girls and of me. He has never seen young girls of our community so active and involved in something like this and he told us he will support us in whatever way he can.

Apparently word got out about our village soccer team and shortly after the game with Boke we were invited to a tournament in Boffa (a city 2 hrs away) organized by the governor of Conakry (!). It was a tournament with 8 girls teams from around the region including Boke, Kamsar, Fria, Dubreka, Koba, Sobanet and Boffa. Each team was to play 3 games, one every other day. When people in our community found out about this they all rallied behind the girls and encouraged us every day until we left.The tournament organizers dropped off money for our transport and on May 12th, 18 girls, 2 coaches, 1 professor, 1 journalist and I headed to Boffa.

After getting over the initial minor humps (for example: not having a place to sleep, not having anything to eat, and not having potable water), we had a great time. The logistical details were quickly (Guinean quickly, not American quickly) sorted out. The 18 girls and I slept on the floor in the living room of someone who lived behind the soccer stadium, we were delivered sachets of clean water, and we received a sack of rice and money to buy sauce. Nous nous sommes debrouillées.

The week was not without adventure, oh no. Each morning we got up at 6 am to have practice before the sun heated things up too much. During the day we relaxed at our home, making rice and sauce, braiding each other's hair, visiting our sisters from Boke (we became friends after we beat them), going to the market (and me being commissioned to find sanitary pads for the girls at the local pharmacy), doing laundry, having impromptu dance contests, eating mangoes, and playing cards. In the evenings we watched or played games and at night watched TV at a neighbors house who invited us over.

Our first game we lost 6-0 to Boffa who, as you can deduce by the score, destroyed us. In our defense, their team had girls 10+ years older than our girls. Our second game was well played, but we still couldn't match up to Fria and lost 2-0. One of my girls took an elbow to the ribcage and was having trouble breathing so her and I took a trip to Boffa's emergency room, where, thank goodness, we found out that the injury was not at all serious. The following day the girls on our team got in a fight with another team which resulted in girls throwing shoes at each other and hitting each other with sticks. I was really embarrassed and angry at the girls, but we sorted out our differences with the other team, and by the end of the tournament even became friends with some of them. Our last game was by far the best played and the most exciting, however we still lost 1-0 due to a penalty kick.

Despite our losses and misadventures, we were able to grow more as a team, make friends with the girls on other teams (“networking”), meet the officials in charge of sports in Boke and Boffa, and play some awesome soccer!

Cooking rice and sauce

Eating mangoes and getting water at the hand pump

The other soccer coaches and my head after the girls had their way with it

Starting line-up

On the bench

All the girl soccer players from Boke prefecture (Boke, Kamsar and Kolaboui)

Heading home. Ooo Ooo

Mango, Peanut and Rainy Season

After 6 months of dryness, heat, and dust, the rainy season has finally started. It more or less started on May 15th, the day which Guineans correctly predicted it would, which is kind of amazing. I can't even desribe the first rain - the smell of fresh rain and the cool wind that came with it after months of stifling heat was just incredible. Within days after the first rain grass sprouted from everywhere ( I mean everywhere) and the brown landscape completely transformed into a green paradise.

Along with the rainy season also comes the planting season. My family has a peanut farm out in another village, a village appropriately called Kansitah (literal translation: the place of peanuts). At home we've been cracking peanut shells open to get the peanut which is the part that is planted. People take turns sitting on the porch opening thousands and thousands of peanuts.

Cracking open peanuts

We're also deep into mango season. You would be surprised how many ways you can eat a mango. Raw, boiled with sugar, pureed with sweet potato and spices, made into sauce and eaten with rice, mango jam...

How to acquire a mango: Buy one, pick one up off the ground, climb a tree and knock one off, wait for a storm to knock them off, take a giant stick of bamboo and hit the branches of a mango tree, wait for your students to bring you a sack full, etc...

My brother Moussa in a mango tree with a bamboo stick hitting mangoes off and my sister Bobo going around and collecting them

Happy mango season!