Bonjour! I am currently in Conakry as part of the week-long site visit that we had this week. Last Wednesday (8/15) we left Dubreka for Mamou which is toward the center of Guinea in the Fouta region. For the first two days we attended a workshop with our supervisiors (the principal of the school in my case). Then on Saturday, I left Mamou with the other trainees who will be teaching in the Basse Cote region. We took a bus to Kindia and then Geoff, Rick, and I took a bush taxi the rest of the way to our sites. The bush taxi ride was crazy. The car had 8 seats but we managed to fit 11 adults inside and one additional person on the roof. The distance between Kindia and Telimele is about 80 miles. In the US this trip would take just over an hour on an interstate but here in Guinea, it took 5 hours. Madness. I was lucky and got to get out at Gougoudje which is about 9 miles before Telimele. Although the ride was rough, the scenery was amazing. I'm looking forward to hiking through the mountains near my site and looking for caves and waterfalls. I spent 4 days at my sit in Gougoudje getting to know the people and my hut (see pic below). Then I left for Telimele to spend the night with Rick and Geoff so we could leave early for Conakry this morning. Telimele is very beautiful (think mountains, mist, and palm trees) and I'll likely be going there a lot to get supplies that I don't have in my village and also to hang out with Rick and Geoff who will be the closest volunteers to me. Our ride back to Conakry from Telimele was equally as crazy. It took 9 hours to get to Conakry and then anouther 2 hours for us to find the Peace Corps house but we made it.  We'll spend one more night in Conakry and then head back to Dubreka for 3 weeks of practice school and after that we'll be swearing in as official volunteers! There are some more crazy stories from site visit but I'll put those in a seperate post tomorrow. That's all for now. A bientot!

My home for the next 2 years