Whoa......

So, I'm in Guinea. It's real. Not exactly what The Lion King shows but I'll deal. It's so funny that even when I was in the middle of 36 hours of travel I still had no clue what I was headed for. For the first few days we have been in Conakry which is the capital. We are staying in the Peace Corps house so think gross European hostile which by Guinea standards is rolling like a big shot. Running water, check it. The night we arrived it was raining and apparently we didn't get enough cuz it happens everyday. Last nights storm was massive but cool to watch from the covered roof.

Fourth of July was hilarious for me. We went to someone close to an Ambassador's house for a picnic.....but it was raining. We stood under tents while Guineans cooked hamburgers, played good ol' blues music, kids swimming in pools, and loaded up on potato salad. I was shocked to see that this house that looked like it belongs in Rochester Hills was in the middle of Guinea. The streets flood and garbage is everywhere but if you're in an American's house you can get damn good gin and tonic. Seemed a bit terrible to me but then I remembered I'm the one here to do humanitarian work, they are here to be diplomatic. Pretty different.

Most of our time in Conakry is spent doing orientation stuff. Lots of classes and new information. They gave us notebooks and I made some trades to switch from a "Sean Paul/Rihanna" note book to one with Formula 1 on the cover. I know someone back home is proud of me (who is Mark Webber?). Later today we're heading to Dubreka where I will be going through an adoption ceremony for my host family. Kinda pumped to have an African name/family but as you can guess there is a lot of problems I'm predicting.

I'll have decent access to internet so feel free to email/facebook me. It helps. Checking facebook today was a huge morale boost. I can't thank you enough for the support. When I hear people say things like "you're the type of person who can do this" helps me feel that way as I constantly doubt my endurance for this trip.


****Sidenote: not sure if the video blog idea will work but stay tuned. ****