January 11, 2006 - Genesis... ok...maybe that's going too far
Went to Philly to NYC to Brussels, Belgium to Dakar, Senegal to Conakry, Guinea in a 4 day span. Oh, and I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer or Trainee (if we have to be technical) .... and will be one for 27 months. Why am I doing this? I've been vaccinated for something like 8 billion diseases in a 2 day span ... why? Where is this country Guinea anyway? My head is spinning with all sorts of questions and no sorts of answers... for the moment. At the same time, the lust for adventure is pulling me further and further away from home.
Our first week in Guinea was viscious... we stayed overnight in the Country Peace Corps House, then we were shipped for 3 days to Mamou which is right smack in the middle of the country and a torturous bus ride. The place where we stayed has made 80% of the new peace corps voluteers sick. After our stay in Mamou, we were fluent in French and SouSou (local language)... oh wait ... that comes later... like never... oh yeah, throughout this ordeal, I'm not understanding a single word uttered from a Francophone... or even Anglophone for that matter... I'm more confused than normal... why are there so many black people....

Finally, we end up in Forecarriah... our training site for 3 months. And get this, on our trip into the town... we saw the WuTang sign on the side of a building... talk about twilight zone weird... would have never expected that.
The first day at our training site begins with a ceremony for us; during this ceremony we thank the organizers and the leaders of the community for a good 1 1/2 hours... after that we get assigned to our host family by a naming process.. very extravagant and public. I get assigned to a family of women... yes... its a widow and 2 daughters. We had lunch as part of the ceremony before we left for our new homes... the conversation was silence and I immediately realized a problem that I would face all the time Guinea; people will constantly think or say "What's wrong with this black guy?... he doesn't speak french, he looks guinean, but he doesn't speak any local languages? In this part of the world.. when someone says they're American, they expect the big, white, blond hair, blue eyed english speaker with lots of money.... I'm about to disappoint a whole lot of people.