From Alligators to Crocodiles

Basketball has come to Siguiri! The tournament was not the NBA, but we had our version of Shaq and Kobe. The tournament overall was a success and my friends at CECOJE were very happy.  As the first day of the tournament arrived, we had at least 3 meetings in a span of 5 days. My tiny room held 8 boxes of health material and condoms from PSI, an international health organization, that were moved to the basketball court before the first game was to start. Multiple trips were made to the neighboring SAG compound to try to gain some type of sponsorship from them.  My CECOJE counterpart ordered the banner and t-shirts to display and wear during the tournament and the PC friends from Kan Kan and Dabola finally arrived.  The first day of the tournament was pretty low-key. It was basically a test run for the main event, which was on Saturday.  The tournament had 4 teams from different high schools in Siguiri. The “basketball committee” (myself, Chris and 3 other people) decided that over the course of 4 days, 2 matches would be played each day with the final on the last day.  The big day was Saturday when 5 of our fellow PCVs where kind enough to come support the tournament. The music started blaring; the banner was put up, the players started to warm up and the chairs and tables were placed around the court.  It was show time. I was rooting for the team from Nelson Mandela, the high school that I teach my English club at. Unfortunately, they did not win. But, I think everyone involved had a lot of fun. The players were really excited that basketball was given the spotlight for a weekend since soccer is the most played sport about here. CECOJE was excited to promote safe sex and HIV/AIDS awareness and have an event that was different than usual. My CECOJE counterpart said that they plan to do the tournament again next year because they liked the event so much.  Overall, it seems to have been a success for everyone involved and got people interested in basketball.  I am most excited about the possibility that this tournament can continue on beyond my stay in Siguiri. It would be great if they could replicate and improve the tournament every year.  Check out the photos below to see the tournament in action!

In “is Carolina melting from the heat?” news, I have been able to cope more or less with the heat that persists in Siguiri. I was not kidding when I said that I would be better equipped this year to deal with it. Thanks to my wonderful parents, I have 2 great fans and, I bought another one here to make the total 3. I have planned out how to keep my fans working throughout the night through electricity or rechargeable batteries, so I don’t sweat throughout the night. I also think that for the most part, the heat isn’t as bad as it was last year. It could be that I have gotten better used to it, but I don’t know….I don’t think that is it. I can tell by the mangos. Right now, we are in mango season (which, for the record, is really delicious), and this time last year, there were mangos everywhere…really big mangos. Every week there are more and more mangos, but just not like last year. If I am right, I am just thankful that the heat is milder than last year.

So, is my volunteer fatigue cured? Not quite. During reconnect, we talked about volunteer fatigue and feeling burnt out. I think my boss Kristine put it best. She said that after a year in Peace Corps, all those little things that seemed excited, that day-to-day routine, you just don’t want to do anymore. That is exactly right. I just don’t want to greet everyone a thousand times a day; I just don’t want to have pointless conversations about getting visas to America. I don’t want to be hit on all the time. It is just a lot of don’ts. It is a low point right now, but I am sure it will get better in the next few months, especially when rainy season comes.

I think my mood will get much better once I am vacationing in SPAIN!! Yup. Tickets are bought. 3 of my PCV friends and I are heading to Spain through Morocco to meet up with my best friend from home. I am so excited!! I am counting down the days. We will be landing in Casablanca and traveling up through Malaga and Granada in southern Spain and then heading north to Barcelona and Madrid.  We are leaving at the end of May. It is only a month away!! It will be a good vacation to reset myself and then come back to Guinea feeling refreshed. I just want to eat some tapas, enjoy the beach in Malaga and Barcelona and hang out with my friends. It should be good times. I will be sure to upload some pictures of the trip once I am back in Conakry.

Dreaming of paella,

Carolina

Action shot! ; Amara showing off his bath time attire

PCVs and the basketball players; The banner we got made for the tournament

The upper haute crew at Adrian’s site for a river day

Life is funny. As human beings we are always looking to adjust to changes and our environment, no matter how different or unusual it may be. That sense of home, as I have come to find out, is essential to living. Otherwise, we feel lost .When I was growing up, home was where my parents lived; in college, it was my college town and here in Guinea, it’s Siguiri. With an official PC year under my belt (15 months) that sense of home has begun to establish itself. But like with anything in life, the moment we feel settled and more-or-less content, is when we start to question ourselves. The thrill and excitement of being in Africa and living this new life has started to fade as I come to realize that this is just my life now.

 I am settled in, thus begins the fatigue. I should say that fatigue is not necessarily a bad thing in this case. Like I said, it means that I have grown accustomed to my surroundings, which is vital to any PCV. It means that all that first-time experiences of being in Africa are more or less done with and now, I am just living my life. Volunteer fatigue is a real thing, just ask any PCV. It isn’t really about the people, city or country you are in, but more about where you stand in life, at least in my case. Since life moves slower here, fatigue isn’t used in the same sense as in The States. It doesn’t mean I am overwhelmed. It doesn’t mean that I am unhappy. It really means that I am restless. Peace Corps is a temporary job-a temporary situation. Thus, there is always a part of you thinking about the future. I think volunteer fatigue hits volunteers at their official one year mark because they are forced to start thinking about “after Peace Corps “plans, which can be unnerving. Other PCVs around me have already begun to look into their futures, while I am reluctant to do so. Why? Simply put, I have always thought about the future. As an American, you must always have a next step. You must always be thinking about the future. This is the way I have been since I was little, always looking for the future and often sacrificing the enjoyment of the moment. I don’t want to do this with my Peace Corps experience. I refuse to. I often forget to live in the moment, so I want to stop doing that. I am young and take this lesson as one of the most valuable I have learned thus far in Peace Corps. Guineans live in the moment, often because they don’t know what life will bring them tomorrow. Shouldn’t we all think like this from time to time? I hope that, with time, I will learn to embrace my American ways with the Guinean life lessons I have learned. Maybe, I will learn to enjoy the present, while still keeping in mind that the future isn’t too far ahead.

Speaking of the present, after the most lovely vacation in Europe, I have been back in Siguiri for the past two months and been getting back to the grind. I am officially done with my computer training/organizational development project. I have done all I can do right now with that project, so I am on to the next. The final step of my project was to go to the other offices of RAFOC in the cities of KanKan, Mandiana (east of Kan Kan) and Kouroussa (west of Kan Kan) and help install the same changes to their systems. It was a pretty productive trip. I felt like the agents and the office managers got a firm grasp on the material that I was teaching them. The mini work trip took about a week and some traveling Guinean-style, but I am just happy that everyone at my organization is finally on the same page. As the heat once again starts picking up here, I have started to look into my next project, which will be entrepreneurship training with RAFOC. I will be teaching accounting, marketing, management, etc. to the agents of my organization in french and in turn, they will go to the groupements that take out the loans from RAFOC and teach the same material in Malinke. This will present particular challenges as the majority of the people in these groupements cannot read or write. This is going to be another long-term project. I am just now starting to compile information and material. In the shorter term though, I have been working on a basketball tournament in early April for HIV/AIDS awareness with the government organization for youth called CECOJE. We have set up the dates April 6-8, 2013 for the tournament and are working on getting sponsors and creating teams at the local high schools. I am really excited about this event and really hoping that everything works out well. Teams have begun to form and sponsors have begun to respond to our requests, so hopefully all of this good news will continue. I’ll make sure to put up pictures on the blog after the tournament.

 As always, I am in Kan Kan. I am on the way to my very last Peace Corps training with my fellow G-21ers in Mamou. It is really crazy to believe that it may be the last time that we are all together. I still can’t believe that I am 11 months away from being done with Peace Corps. I have a feeling that time is going to fly by this year. I hope everyone is enjoying the cold back in the U.S. Trust me, it could be a lot worse. You could be in a desert…with me. Lol.

Lots of Love from smoldering Siguiri,

Carolina

My brothers (Papa and Amara) and sister (Sanaba)  on my hamock. They are obsessed with it!

On top of one of the many hills of Siguiri

Chris, Kenny and Adrian hanging out at Adrian’s village

I had a fantastic vacation in Europe with the family! I met new family and met up with other family members as well. It was a great first time in Europe. We traveled using planes, boats, trains and cars and these are some of the things I loved/liked/learned.

1) I love dutch cheese…a lot. My dad and I went to a cheese store close to Amsterdam and got a ton of samples of different cheeses. It…was..awesome.

2) Beyond the known Amsterdam “guilty-pleasures”, I really loved the architecture of Amsterdam: tall townhouse-style buildings with a canal running through the middle like a water highway. It was extremely pretty at night.

3) Vincent Van Gogh was a pretty remarkable guy. There was an exhibition of his paintings in a musuem in Amsterdam and it was pretty cool to see the actual famous paintings in person.

4) French fries with mayos, Netherlands-style, is the way to go.

5) My 2 little cousins are the most adorable things. They both look like they need to be in a catalog.  

6) I was impressed by how often and presistently people in Amsterdam use bicyles, no matter the weather. I was impressed by their overall sustainablity practices.

7) I FELL IN LOVE WITH PARIS. It was my favorite city. If you did a 360 in any place, everything was beautiful. Every street was just beautiful.

8) My French was passable! I understood 95% of what I heard.

9) That sterotype about French people being rude was not my experience at all. Everyone in Paris was really nice and hospitable.

10) Rome was like seeing history. It had a different feel than Paris and Amsterdam.

11) Food in Rome is ridiciously good. I love gelato. I ate my weight in gelato.

12) I was amazed by the fact that everyone had a iphone or ipad….everyone.