In Labe for the weekend

The new volunteers are here! And Christmas is coming! So many good things are happening.

I solved a problem the other day. My Censeur (asst. principal?) has been wanting me to teach his middle school daughter English. I don't want to, but couldn't come out and say no. You can't really say no in Guinea, unless it's to a sketchy dude inviting themselves over. So I've been telling him that we'd discuss it "next week" since my arrival. Which in Guinea means "no," but for some reason he wasn't letting it go. So I finally got the ball out of my court - I gave him my schedule for the week (including the Health Club I'm restarting twice a week) and told him to find a 3 hour block so that I could teach her 1.5 hours and then he can teach me French the other half of the time. He's a French teacher. But it was totally the right thing to do because he hasn't said a word since. His daughter couldn't care less about learning English, so asking him to make a sacrifice too totally got him off my back. And if I end up doing it I'll also get better in French and I can just suck up having to teach her!

Omg - I got hate crimed! It would have been terrible if it wasn't so funny. Some kids wrote on the wall that surrounds my house, in chalk, "Fock les blanchs." Obviously fock is not what they meant! The only thing that Guinea imports from America is rap. Grrr. But the idiots can't even spell in French, because it should have been "les blancs" or "les blanches." The school system here is dodgy at best. I told my neighbor, Marly, and she was so pissed! The next morning I was asleep at 7:45 when everyone was walking to school and I heard her screaming at all these kids, she's convinced it was some stupid middle schoolers. We erased it before I got a picture, but if it happens again I'll get my camera out...me, hate crimed. Wtf??

Yesterday I rode my bike the 35km from Timbi to Labe. I was moving slowly so as not to kill myself and it took almost 2.5 hours. I went straight to the bank since I was down to my last 2,000 francs. Which is less than 50 cents. Not a good situation. I even have a 1,000 debt from buying bread at a boutique! Camilo is arriving today along with a married couple who are in Dalaba and just got back from the US - they had some dental things to take care of before they could be cleared. It will be fun to hang out - there will be 5 of us, which is virtually a party now that we are so few!

School is going exceptionally well. I've been really enjoying my Terminale classes - they are so eager to learn and so many kids have been showing up for review sessions. They are even getting more creative with their sentences, which may not sound like a big deal to you, but here in Guinea you learn by rote memorization and are not encouraged to think creatively. The fact that they say "I went to the US" or "I went to the river to swim" instead of "I went to the market." actually means a lot! Something that's a little frustrating is that the PC will measure my success on how many students I teach, PC Washington loves numbers. So even though I think I'm doing such a better job this time around I have about 70 total students as opposed to my 350 in Mamou, so according to their standards I'm not making as big of a difference. There are so many frustrations in development bureaucracy, I just have to do the best I can and try and let the other stuff go.

Also, many of you have emailed me about care packages. You are all amazing and so nice to think of me, but please don't worry about me, I have lots of treats here and am really happy. So if you are poor, treat yourself to a nice dinner or a new shirt or something instead of spending so much on shipping! And if you send me something anyway, know that I will truly appreciate it. Bill's mom took me to Sam's Club when I was in the US and I still think of her and smile everytime I eat a fruit snack packet or make mac and cheese!

That's all for now. Hope everyone is getting ready for Christmas and enjoying the season!