Ramadan Fete!

Sorry I've been off the map for a little while. I spent the last week at Camilo's site and had an amazing time. With hangovers, Camilo, Beth, Ian and I headed up to Cam's site. It was quite a trip, but I won't be doing that again. I've learned my lesson.

Anyway, we had a great time in Boke. Camilo is finally in his house and besides the fact that there's no electricity except once a week it's a great house with a really nice family and it actually gets a breeze, so I think it's way better than his old house. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned it, but in addition to taking some sites (Mamou, Fria, places that have no radios or cell coverage) away, PC also instituted a rule that PCVs can't live in government compounds. Before Cam was in the Prefet's compound (I have no idea what the equivalent in English would be. I don't even know what they do here...), so they had to find him a new house. And it took way longer than necessary, but at least now he's settled.

*As a reminder to why Guinea was ranked equal with Iraq in corruption, someone stole the money that was allocated to his house. And then he found out that they actually stole $2,500-ish. They know who it is, but unfortunately there's no accountability here so nothing will be done about it. Stealing that much money here would be like stealing $500,000 in the US.*

Anyway, we went to Magical Kamsar and used the pool on three separate occasions. I now have a bikini tan instead of the ankles/arms tan I had going before. We made some good food and watched some movies on my amazing portable DVD player and generally had a good time. Also, Cam has a wicker furniture maker that's substantially cheaper than the stuff I can get in Labe, so I ordered some shelves and a coffee table and 2 sofas that will improve the quality of my life at site.

Camilo's students were so excited to see me, it had been almost a year since my last visit. I felt so welcome - they call me Mrs. Camilo, which cracks me up when it's not making my feminist heart break a little. They think we are engaged - good thing communication is so difficult here, because in my sites they think we are married and in Boke we are engaged, but no one would ever figure it out. Clearly we are not engaged, though. No cause for alarm. It sounds more normal here than it does when I write it down in English.

So the month of fasting is finally over and the big fete was on Saturday. Cam and I got up early to make banana bread to give out to the families of the students we were invited to visit. We didn't want to do it, but were so glad we did. It was a huge hit! Cam's regional coordinator, Yama, gave us some amazing soup sauce with delicious meat. Too bad we can't eat that kind of meat every day. Next we headed to his Censeur's house (Assistant Principal?) and dropped off some "please give Cam the teaching schedule he wants" banana bread.

Our third stop was at Thierno's house, one of Cam's students and best friends. I think the kid is annoying, but I'm glad that he and Cam get along. Apparently his hut was broken into and the money for the fete was stolen so the meal was pretty blech. Dried fish with red oil and rice. Cam ate most of it and I did my best. Thierno's dad is really old and blind and only knows how to say "ca va?" in French, so that was interesting too. Recently Thierno fell at his house and I saw that his scab on his elbow was infected, so I took him back to Cam's house to clean it out really well. I felt terrible cause the kid was practically crying, but it needed to be done. The wound was all white and bubbly and disgusting. I told Thierno it was better that I clean it than he ends up losing an arm over it. It reminds me that life here is really precarious and that most people are one health disaster away from death or losing all their money.

Our last stop was my favorite - one of Cam's kids is Puehl, so I got to impress his family with my vast vocabulary of Pulaar words - all 20 of them. The family is clearly poor and had killed 2 chickens for their Ramadan meal, one of which they prepared for us. Ramadan is like Thanksgiving in that it's all about the food, so for a family to be so generous with what little they had was really touching. I ate one piece of chicken and Cam ate 2 before I stopped him to remind him that, even though it was prepared for us, we should not be pigs and should give the family quite a bit of the chicken anyway!

All in all it was a great Ramadan and I'm glad I spent it in Boke. In an hour I'm headed back to Timbi, where I will finally have spend some significant time! My boss, Mohamed, is going with me and is going to try and get me a new house, so we'll see how that goes. Keep your fingers crossed! Even if it doesn't work out to get a new house, I'm ready to get back and have had a great couple weeks in Conakry, Mamou and Boke so I can make it work in Timbi. I just need to suck it up. And get used to peeing in the "shower" i.e. drain in my house instead of using the scary latrine.

Oh, and Cam and I bought our Egypt tickets! From December 28th till January 10th. It's going to be amazing.