Saturday, September 26, 2009

Dylan is a New Volunteer

Saturday, September 26, 2009

It has been almost a month since I last posted and well, as usual, lots of changes have occurred in my life. Let’s start things off with the most major and important of changes.

Dylan is no longer a Stagiere, or Trainee. Official job title now toute la monde: Volunteer. If you ask me, it’s rather hilarious to think of Volunteer being an official job position. 6 months ago that concept was bizarre. 3 months ago (when I first landed here) all I wanted to be was a Volunteer. Now, as of Friday the 25th, I have achieved just that. A Volunteer, for all of you non Peace Corps folks, is actually a very prestigious position, especially here in Guinea. We are well respected in many parts of the world because of the nature of what we do.

I am education Volunteer in Guinea. Teachers in Guinea, before all the corruption became rampant, used to be one of the few positions highly respected in village. Teachers now do not get paid very much, so they must live off of bribes from students. I do not blame them in the least, I mean people have to eat right? But the problem is that students now do not have the same respect anymore for teachers. Volunteer teachers, are an exception. We don’t accept bribes, beat children, or take part in any activity that endanger our roles here as Peace Corps Volunteers. We simply bring our American values of education and free-thought, and must mix it into a Guinean education system adopted from the French. A difficult task, but one that is extremely rewarding.

The Swearing-In Ceremony was a lovely ceremony, complete with the best food I have had in country. We were proudly sworn in by the Chef d’Affairs in Guinea (currently the USA does not have an ambassador in country so the man who acts as such was in charge of swearing us in). His speech was very moving, and you could tell by the power of his words that he truly believed in the spirit of the Peace Corps and what we all represent. It was very funny though, being surrounded by officials wearing standard business attire, while we all word colorful boubous made for the occasion. One of these days I will have photos up of the event when the internet is actually working.

The last month was practice school. Practice school was really our first real interaction with teaching in the Guinean system, or for someone like me, teaching at all. We had to work our asses off, and teaching in French makes it only that much harder. To all the teachers in the world, I have a newfound respect for your job. You guys are some of the hardest working people I know. Hell I only teach for 12 hours a week (but in French), I can’t imagine having to do 5-6 classes a day for 8 hours.

It was a very challenging experience, but it was great to really begin using my French in a more academic setting. I still talk like a 6 year old which the kids all make fun of, but at least I know my math, which gives me some respect in the class. I also grew out a nice beard, and I told kids I was in between the age of 35 and 67. Beards help with that a whole lot.

But time to end the Forecharia chapter, and begin my life in Tormelin. Training is over. Tomorrow I will depart to Boke to take care of some general moving in shopping (yeah we got a fat brick of cash to buy stuff) and then it’s off to my house. I have not seen anything yet. Being at site is what the Peace Corps is all about. I will be alone for the first time, living in a house in the jungle, speaking French and Susu only. There are a couple of volunteers within 30km of me, so I will have that English option, but generally it will be me struggling for awhile until I have a good grasp of the language.

From what I hear, the first 3 months at site are the toughest, most grueling months of your entire service. Training is difficult because of all the cultural changes, diet changes, and getting used to pooping in a latrine. Site is a different change, where for the first time you must learn to live on your own. We no longer have a schedule, there is nobody telling us what to do, nobody to speak English with. It requires a lot of self-motivation to get through, a lot of humility, and a whole lot of determination. But everyone says, that after those first 3 months, you will be very rewarded and fall in love with your site. So here’s hoping for just that.

A little about my future:

I get one trip every month to my regional capital. As of now I am not sure if it will be Boke or Conakry, but I’m willing to bet that I will be splitting time between the two since I am between both. I have perfect cell phone service at my site, so anybody can call me anytime. My mail runs are now going to be the first Friday of every month, so if you send something to me in the middle of October for example, expect that I won’t get it until the first Friday in December (assuming it takes 2 weeks to get here).

Anyway I am off to celebrate the last night with many of my folks whom I won’t see til Christmas. Wish me well on the beginning of my new journey!