Landscapes and Stomachaches

I just got back to Conakry after a few days at the Peace Corps training center, located about an hour (without traffic, so two hours) from the capital. Despite the smoke-belching trucks, ridiculous traffic, and gaping potholes, it was a nice drive out to the training center. The countryside is beautiful - verdantly dense foliage, lots of houses roofed with red sheet metal, little kids everywhere, very tall hills jutting up into the sky, the waterways on the edge of the mangroves reflecting the sky. Just like you picture it when you think of visiting Africa.

Batik wall hanging in the office

I roomed with some (extremely cool & welcoming) Education PCVs who are there preparing for the upcoming arrival of a new group of trainees. I got a few sessions of French practice, a crash course in Maninka, and a session on the history of Guinea and its regions, which was interesting.

All was well until last night, right around midnight, I got sick. Suddenly and intensely sick. Just like you picture it when you think of visiting Africa… Thankfully, whatever it was seems to have passed, and today I’m much better, a little exhausted but no worse for wear, and am very much looking forward to taking a hot shower and sleeping in a cool room. 

Up in the Clouds

At this very moment I am 31,000 feet (9448.8 meters) over Mississippi. So fancy. 

In Denver I went through a relatively uneventful bag drop (some minor redistribution of shoes to keep all my bags under the weight limits) and a double security check (I mistakenly left a pocket knife in my carry-on bag and had to go back to the Post Office to mail it back to California for safe keeping) and boarded my flight to Atlanta. If all goes well I'll continue on through Paris to Guinea's capital city, Conakry, where I'll spend a few days being oriented and prepared before heading out to the region of Kankan, an area which, according to Google Maps and several friends, is verdant and lovely and exceedingly difficult to traverse. 

And now we're about start our descent, so I have to sign off.