Season Greetings!
Oh! My watch just announced (well, beeped) that it is midnight, so Christmas day has started for me. I got in Conakry about 5 hours ago, about 7pm. The earliest that I have made in here. We left about 9:30 this morning from my village. I found a house full of volunteers much to my dismay, with every single bed taken, but it is expected. I will just have to be content with sleeping on the couch for a couple of days, until people start clearing out of here. Conakry is just like what I remembered, hot and humid, and I am loving being in the air-conditioned house.
I grabbed a quick hot shower, to wash off a layer of red dust that accumulated on me from my trip. Then head out with a few other volunteers to a Christmas party at an embassy worker's house. As it turned out, the wife is the assistant ambassdor and her husband is the country director for USAID in Guinea. We were the last group that showed up at their house, avoided awkward gathering with other embassy workers and expats (a relief to me). The last time I went to a gathering hosted by embassy people, we the PCVs felt like the poor distant relatives to the rich expats. I only decided to go this time for the free food. There were lots of delicious finger foods and I got to eat a good amount of meat (hmm, yum.) I hope they didn't mind us mostly just went there to eat.
The week between Christmas to the 2nd of January is a break for school in Guinea. To be honest, I really didn't want to leave my site. There is a village that is about an hour bike ride away where some of my 8th graders come from. I have been there a couple of times last year, but would really like to go back to see more students' families again this year. There are quite a few smart and hardworking 8th graders from there. Running around for the library project has given me little time this year to just go to a student's house and hang out. This week off could've been a perfect time for me to do some visits to my students near and far. The fete of Tabaski also falls on the 31st of December, also known as the fete of Mouton, the biggest fete for the muslims. I am missing that as well at my site. Granted it is nothing nearly exciting like our Christmas, and we eat nothing nearly sumputous like Thankgiving dinner, but I enjoy saluating families and seeing many happy faces around. Thirdly is that the Germans are coming to stay for three weeks, and I am missing the first two weeks of their stay. So, you might ask what I am doing in Conakry then. Because I thought I probably should do some traveling instead of staying at my site all the time. I guess it is a good thing that I wish I could be at my site right now, and I wish I could celebrate with my friends and families at site for Tabaski. Anyway, I am going with a few PCVs to Freetown from the 28th of Dec. to the 2nd of Jan. then I will be back in Conakry to finish off my application for teaching english in France program. I also have a long shopping list and todo list for Conakry. The carpenters have a deadline of Jan. 7th to finish off the last set of furnitures and hopefully, we can open the library in mid-Jan. Inch Allah!
Merry Chirstmas, Happy New Year, Joyeux Noel, Bonne Annee, Bonne Fete, etc. etc. etc.!!!
posted by Bonster @ 9:19 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I was reading your blog about your discomfort with hanging and greeting with the rich expats. First thought was that I would probably have the opposite difficulty. I would feel more comfortable schmoozing with the bigwigs and less comfortable traveling to a diff town visiting families of my students. That's prob why we choose diff paths to give back to the community. We're both saying "better you than me" and I'm glad somebody is doing it. But, the second thought, is that I don't think you should worry about eating all the food. The hosts knows exactly what they're doing. The financial outlay of the food is one way to feel like they are contributing in some way, helping the cause, decrease their guilt of not having to directly getting their hand too 'dirty', etc., and it is probably all completely tax deductible or reimbusable. So, no worries, eat all the little finger foods you want. You deserve to enjoy yourself too!! Bonne Annee. Winnie (PS I signed up to set up a blog to track my website development, my Blogger display name is Decadente. I guess that's why I have no probs eating it up at an embassy party. My blog is currently www.idee-decadente.blogspot.com
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