For those of you who are unfamiliar with Guinea, I've compiled a few quick facts to give you a better idea of the country I'll be calling home for the next 27 months...

Location: West Africa (see map below)

Bordering countries: Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Cote d'Ivoire

Capital: Conakry

Official language: French

Population: 10.9 million
Religions: Islam (85%), Christianity (8%), Indigenous (7%)

Here are some fun facts:

This week's weather in Conakry

Internet users: 95,000 (that's about 1% of the population)
Paved roadways: 4342 km (The US has 4,374,784 km of paved roads to put that in perspective)
Median age: 18.6 years (36.9 in the US)
2011 government expenditures: $1.2 Billion (Walmart's revenue in 2011: $15.7 Billion)
Yearly electricity consumption: 855,600,000 KWH or 78.5 KWH/person/year (My apartment used 649 KWH last month)

For more info:
CIA World Factbook
Wikipedia
Peace Corps in Guinea
Volunteer Blogs
Peace Corps Wiki

Just for fun:
African Countries Quiz

Needless to say, these numbers are a good indicator that my life is going to be changing a lot in the months to come. I am a bit nervous about this but I am looking forward to learning how to do more with less.

Hello and thank you for visiting my blog! I will be using this blog as a primary means of sharing my Peace Corps experience in Guinea. To start, here is a timeline of significant Peace Corps related events from the last year of my life:

October 1, 2011 - Sent in Peace Corps application
November 9, 2011 - Interviewed by recruiter
December 2, 2011 - Nominated for Math Teaching in Africa
January 6, 2012 - Received medical evaluation packet
January 25, 2012 - Medically cleared
February 28, 2012 -  Dentally cleared
May 9, 2012 - Received official invitation to serve in Guinea!
May 14, 2012 - Accepted invitation

It was quite a ride. Waiting for my invitation to come was especially suspenseful. The fact that they called me and told me it was coming didn't help. For about four days I was checking the mail five times per day. I wanted to hug the UPS man when he finally brought it but I was able to refrain. Below is a picture of the beautiful blue invitation packet. It contains a lot of lovely paperwork (some of which I am still completing). Now that I'm finished with finals I can concentrate on buying and packing all the stuff that I need. More on that later...