Thinking back to a year ago is a little wild.  I was saying goodbye to family and friends and packing in a daze; I couldn’t even begin to imagine the new life I was about to begin in Guinea.  I’m in Conakry now, working with other PC trainers to prepare for the arrival of the new trainees this week.  We’re developing new training materials and planning sessions, and I feel a little special having all of this volunteer knowledge to share.  Hitting the year mark is a nice landmark- knowing I’ve started to get the hang of things here, knowing I still have a year to do even better. 

I thought I’d make a list of skills, lessons, and other fancy things I’ve learned over the past year; some of them useful, some of them… not so much.

How TO:

- Carry water on my head

- Wash all my laundry by hand – and get oil stains out

- Lesson plan by hand

- Write legibly on a chalkboard

- Cook Guinean sauces (peanut, leaf)

- Walk in a pagne

- Patch a flat tire

- Prepare Guinean tea

- Refuse a marriage proposal in Pular

- Make the right sound to chase goats from my house

- Tell a baby goat cry from a baby sheep cry

- Eat rice and yogurt with my hands

- Avoid angry cows

- Choose the best mangos

- Talk down market prices in Pular

- Plant cassava

- Properly greet important people

- Sit patiently for hours while waiting for a taxi, or waiting for the broken down taxi to be fixed

- Help little girls take braids out of their hair

- Get to nearby villages via bike

- Explain the carbon cycle in Pular

- Not cry when eating too much hot pepper

- Keep mice out of my food

- Get a chemistry class of 68 kids to pay attention for 2 hours

- Stomach the local yogurt

- Sit through Guinean faculty meetings without pulling my hair out

- Take showers with a bucket

- Identify certain bush fruits

- Explain molecular structures with limes and paperclips

- Use any kind of toilet- or no toilet at all, without making a mess

- Be religious about my mosquito net

- Light a house with candles

- Hammer things with rocks

- Get water from a well or a pump

- Wash floors – Guinea style

- Peel with a knife, and then drink (not eat) oranges

- Buy fabric, get my own clothes made, then altered, then altered…

- Play “jacks” with rocks

- Keep some of the dust out of my house

- Be an honored guest at every big event (weddings, rallies, ceremonies)

- Love the Fouta