#peacecorpsguinea

[oftenpyr]

The full Paludisfemme comic for Peace Corps Guinea's malaria committee #peacecorps #peacecorpsguinea #howiseepc #watercolor #paludisfemme https://www.instagram.com/p/BulpK2ZBanh/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=6lkbqkcjvge3

[oftenpyr]

First panel of a one page comic I'm making for the Guinea malaria committee about a malaria-focused superheroine: Paludisfemme! #peacecorps #peacecorpsguinea #howiseepc #watercolor #paludisfemme https://www.instagram.com/p/BuVrFTXh8my/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ooov03hhc6xw

[whataravashingthought]

One thing I've learned this year: Peace Corps is a place where you start to question everything you've ever known about yourself and your reality. You feel the world you've known come crashing down around you, and all that is left is confusion and chaos. But by the end of the chaos, you start to rebuild, little by little. You become a mentally, physically and emotionally better version of your former self. You become the person you never realized you needed to be. And today, I finally started to see myself in a different light. And I couldn't be happier. __________ Same location, same date, same person- different year, different body, different outlook. #howiseepc #peacecorpsguinea #peacecorps #giveyourselftheworld #beyourownhero (at Dubréka Prefecture) https://www.instagram.com/p/BrsuFEBHXXT/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1eusbz042ctn2

[yesimgoingtopeacecorps]

Becoming Naked to Become Comfortable

There was a loud methodical beat made by the slap of clothes hitting the rocks, while suds-covered hands tossed and scrubbed away the dirt embedded in the fabric. The voices rose and fell as the words spoken mixed in with the high-pitched squeals of children arguing, a baby crying, and the flow of the water.

If you were making you way to the river, you'd already to be to tell by the symphony of noise that you were about to cross paths with a group of Guinean woman and children doing their weekly laundry ritual. Some women would just be getting started with foaming up their brightly colored fabrics to soak in plastic buckets, while other are in the end stage of the process- half naked and covered in peanut soap, ready to take advantage of the moving water of the rainy season. Such a typical scene at almost every Guinean river, creek, and stream this time of year.

In fact, after seeing this ritual enough in your life, you would probably have walked passed these people and on towards your destination, never giving these women and their naked chests and clean clothes a second thought. The only reason you would stop and take a second look would be if there was something completely out of the ordinary happening.

Something like, say, a white-skinned blonde girl, half-naked herself, sitting among these women.

I look around at Hawa and Miriama and a few of the younger girls sitting next to me, many of them topless, their beautiful bodies reflecting the jewels of water in the sun. Almost finished with my laundry, I look down at my own legs and arms, covered in dirty and mud after working in my yard all morning before I decided to come down to wash my clothes. I paused for a moment.

"Screw it." 

In one sweep, I peel off my damp shirt and sports bra and close my eyes and wait for the exclamations or surprise of the fact that the Porto had decided to get nude with them.

I have become so accustomed to the stares, the conversation directed towards me and the yelps and laughs when I do something unusual, even if it is something so usual for a Guinean. Even walking down a pathway with a backpack to the health center or asking for bread in local language makes me feel like I'm constantly a part of a television show or being studied like a specimen in a lab. Because of this, I now brace myself constantly for the reactions of any move I make. 

Exposing my breast to sunlight for the first time in over a year, in front of strictly Peul Muslim women, seemed like something that would get that sort of reaction.

Ten seconds pass, then a minute. No reaction. Not even really a stare in my direction.

Hawa and Miriama glance up towards me, laugh to themselves, and then continue to wash their feet and bodies. Finally, two of the little girls take notice, but not to stare or yell out and collapse into giggles. Instead, they come over and start touching my tattoos and begin trying to scrub them off, whispering to themselves and touching the thin lines that make up the compass of permanent on the side of my body.

Their mother, Aishatou, notices them and begins scolding them in rapid Pular, telling them to get back to washing the clothes and to leave me alone. She looks at me and smiles and touches her chest, soaking her t-shirt in the process.

"Mon corps" she says and points to me

"Ton corps"

Throwing her hands in the air with a laugh, she states "Meme chose, pas une différence" and goes back to her washing.

There are certain defining moments of realization in this Peace Corps journey, where all the small things start to finally add up and you can see them all in a much larger picture as you look back on them. The extraordinary starts becoming ordinary and the unfamiliar, familiar. I never realized this sentiment may start to go both ways for not just myself, but how I am perceived by those I have become closest to here in Guinea. I no longer am referred to as Porto but instead lovingly by the name Aicha or Aichatou Bah. People wave at me as I walk down the street and then continue with their business. They ask me where I've been when I leave, and then ask me about my work at the health center. I was in the taxi on my way home the other day and the driver kept asking me "Ko honto iwudaa?"- where are you from? And those traveling in the taxi with me kept insisting that I was from Donghol-Touma and that I was, in fact, a Guinean. When I got home, one of my host Moms takes one look at me with a massive bag on my back and asks me what I'm doing with all that stuff "You look like a tourist", she tells me in Pular, inadvertantly making the point that I'm not. This sort of belonging and feeling of acceptance into a new culture and new place, one so completely different than my American one, finally makes me feel a little less foreign and a lot more like I'm becoming part of this place.

And as I sat in the river, letting the cold water wash over my skin, my breasts soaking up the heat of the sun, I felt a feeling I hadn't felt in a long time.

I felt like I was home.

[yesimgoingtopeacecorps]

A Birth Month and Month of Rebirth

August marks my 9th month in country and it also marks a month of re-grounding and finding my focus again.

This isn’t exactly the most well-written or page turning blog post I’ve ever shared but it does give a good idea of what I’ve actually been doing here the last month and why it has been such a big one for me. 

Changes have never been an easy part of life for me. I've realized looking back that while I have been here in Guinea a lot has happened for me personally. Tiny amounts of growth that I wasn't able to notice as they were in the process, but now I've been able to find time to look back and be surprised at how much is really beginning to take shape for me.

I attended a nutrition and agriculture training in Dubreka with many of my fellow volunteers in my staging group and our counterparts. Not only was it a great time to reconnect with other people I haven't seen in a long time, but it was a beginning catalyst to a return and revival of my motivation here to get work done. My counterpart that attended the training with me, Mamadou Bah, has a background in Agriculture and runs an NGO at my site. His NGO, Organisation de Volontaires pour Le Gestion de Ressources Naturelles (OVGRN or in English, Organization of Volunteers for the Management of Natural Resources) focuses on how to create sustainable resource management in Guinea and this training also helped him see how we can tie in nutrition and nutritional training into his programs. Mamadou is easily one of the most motivated people I've ever met and this training ignited a spark in him for us to work on different project ideas we have together. Starting next week we will begin the process of our community trash clean up initiative, while using some of the recycled materials we find to create the beginnings of a community nutrition garden.

Adding to that, myself and a few other volunteers are beginning the process of organizing a week long "Test and Treat campaign" for malaria, one of the worst problems that faces Guinea and much of the developing world. We're going to go to each others villages and work with our counterparts to go out into the community and test those showing the signs of malaria and give out medication to those who have it, all while sensibilising the communities on prevention of malaria and the use of mosquito nets.

I've also taken on new responsibilities. I've become the house manager for our regional house in Labe, I worked with another volunteer to create and give a diversity and inclusion presentation to the new group of volunteers (G32), and I've been asked to help our 'Let Girls Learn' committee come up with a program for gender empowerment through soccer (or other sports). Between all of these things and the starting up of my own projects at site, I'm about to (finally) be a very busy person. 

Personally, this has been a month of self reflection. I got to celebrate my birthday- once in Conakry with my best friend Jaimie, and then at site with Megan before she left site for good to close her service. I made a list of things on my birthday that I want to accomplish in the next year of 25, including both personally goals and Peace Corps related goals. One being that I want to try to get into a real routine schedule for my life of waking up early(ish), working out, and reading more. I want to spend more time writing and reflecting on who I am and what I'm doing here. Additionally, another huge thing on my list, is confronting challenges in my life that I've been avoiding- specifically with language and learning French and Pular. It helps that my support network of people in country continues to grow and I keep finding myself meeting individuals that inspire me, make me happy, and make me want to become a better person. 

Finally, I think it helps that I have a lot of things to look forward to. All of these projects are Peace Corps related work are a huge one and I've started trying to plan out my days and weeks ahead of time. I’ll be taking the Foreign Service Office Test (FSOT) in October and have began studying for that.  Vacation wise, my Dad is coming in November and then in January I get to see my two best friends and my Mom in Europe. Some days when I'm having a really bad day, the knowledge that I get to see the four of the most important people in my life between three and six months from now really keeps me going.

I'll end with one of my favorite quotes from writer Ned Hepburn:

 "Life wasn’t meant to be taken in large movements. The next day will inevitably arrive, you’ll sleep, and the moment will have passed. But when you have a hundred thousand small moments, you can step back and appreciate the picture a lot more than metaphorically blowing your load on some grand moment that, in all honesty, look, you’re not Bruce Fucking Springsteen, you’re not going to be able to blow everyone’s mind every single night. You’re not Romeo and/or Juliet. There’s no reason to drink the poison together in some flame-out gesture. So that leaves us with the small stuff. It’s all about the detail."

[yesimgoingtopeacecorps]

What a Time to Be Alive at Twenty-Five.

As of now, I have been on this earth for twenty-five years and let me tell you, being a quarter century old a weird age to be. 

Half the people I know are getting married, having children, and are settling down. They have their careers and their "9 to 5" jobs and five year plans. Meanwhile, the other half is still trying to figure out if this is the life they ordered and how to balance a budget or separate their laundry correctly.

I am definitely a part of the second half- especially considering I haven't used a washing machine in over 8 months and I'm currently doing all my laundry by hand. Which, by the way, I still don't do correctly according to most Guinean women.

However, I'm damn sure I wouldn't have this life any other way.

In twenty-five years I have managed to survive things I shouldn't have, avoid ruining my life as a teenager, make a hell of a lot of mistakes, play the sport that I love, throw caution into the wind, and live life to the fullest. I've visited nineteen countries, I've lived in New York city, I've worked jobs I've loved and jobs I've hated, I've made friends that will move mountains for me, I've fallen in love and had my heart broken, I've fulfilled items on my bucket list, I've worked overseas, and finally, I'm living the dream I've had since I was fifteen- I'm a Peace Corps volunteer working in West Africa.

People talk about this idea of a "quarter-life crisis" as a period of time in your twenties where you realize you have absolutely no clue what you're doing.

I did have that; I left college and within 24 hours of graduation I decided to move to New York City and live with my two best guy friends from high school, and after a few months started a job for a non-profit I had worked with in college overseas.

I thought "Wow, I'm adulting, this is it."

But two months into the job as basically a glorified assistant, and six months into failed attempts at the dating scene and affording a New York lifestyle, I had had enough. I wasn't ready for New York and I sure as hell wasn't ready to sit behind a desk. Metaphorical tail between my legs and feeling lonelier than I ever had, I made the move home, where I stayed for almost two years.

Between 22 and 24 had my run through some jobs and short-term opportunities overseas, as well as a failed Peace Corps acceptance to Ukraine when I didn't pass my medical review. I worked at three different places during the next year and a half and eventually fell in love with the restaurant life, when I was hired on the staff to open up a new place called Junction. As my experience in waitressing grew, so did my confidence in who I was and what I wanted out of life.

Finally, after officially getting accepted again to Peace Corps, this time to Guinea, I got on a plane and did a solo-backpack trip through Asia for two and a half months where I got to play with elephants, meet people from all over the world, and I learned how to love being on my own and who I was. I came back to the United States as someone who felt ready again to take on the world. I arrived back in Charlottesville last August, a few weeks before my 24th birthday, where I spent the last few months in the place I call home, doing things I love with the people I love. Then, on November 30th, I left for Peace Corps. And here I am, in Guinea.

So, was that a quarter-life crisis? I guess it's possible.

Or am having a quarter-life crisis at this very moment by choosing to work and live in a village, in a country that’s on a continent thousands of miles from home, where nobody speaks the same language as me and I don't have the same comforts of American life? Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe instead, this is all a part of becoming a better human being and engaging in the world around me.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't to say I don’t have moments of doubt in my life here. I have mornings I wake up in Peace Corps and want to scream my lungs out or just turn over and go back sleep for a week. Or moments where nobody understands me or I want to just break down and cry. And for every terrible moment, there always seems to be a equalizing moment of overwhelming happiness and fulfillment. Honestly, sometimes my day is full of so many extreme highs and lows that I feel like I have bipolar disorder.

But would I trade any of this emotional turmoil rollercoaster for something different? Absolutely not. I am learning more about myself and the way the rest of the humanity works beyond my own American point of view.

…and I can promise you being here sure as hell beats your desk job.

My point is this: Fuck the idea of a quarter-life crisis. Being scared shitless about your future and questioning what you're doing with your life between the ages of 20 to 30 should be embraced not as a crisis, but as a sign of someone who isn't satisfied with a sedentary life. There is nothing wrong with wanting to chase dreams, or quit a job you hate, or move back home, or move someplace you've never been, or buy a plane ticket and see the world, or go back to school, or join Peace Corps, or make any other drastic change to your life.

But then again, what do I know?

I'm just a twenty-five year old, who's "quarter-life crisis" has led her to living out a life that includes following her dreams that is building her up for a successful and satisfying career, with no real regrets, and no desire to look at my decisions and say "what if I had done this differently?"

[yesimgoingtopeacecorps]

Her Name Is Miriama

It’s Wednesday.

Wednesdays in Donghol-Touma mean market day, where many of the sous-prefecture’s 26,000 residents descend on Donghol-Touma center and buy their produce and food for the week. Taxis arrive, and Guinean women climb out of the cars, zipped up from head-to-toe in their best outfits to socialize and sell their wares.

Wednesdays are also the busiest days for the health center, where those who have ignored their intestinal issues, toothaches, and fever for the past week decide to make the trip on the only day of the week where it’s easy to catch a ride in a run-down Peugot from 1998 to the Centre de Sante.

It’s also the “official” day for pregnant women and new mothers to come in for their prenatal consultations and vaccinations for their newborns.

Most of these days, I spend the morning shopping for my weekly groceries and try to avoid the numerous questions of “Himo mari moodi?” to which I respond, exhausted and defiantly, “Oui, mido mari moodi. Mi falaaka moodi Guinee” Yes, for the love of God, I have a husband, and no, I don’t want a Guinean husband.

After 11:00am, I arrive at the health center and assist with everything from the consultations, to giving sensibilisations on birth control behind closed doors, to holding the hands of a child wincing in pain over the stitches being administered to her smashed finger. These afternoons are a blur and usually I wouldn’t be able to tell you the names of anyone who I helped with, let alone recognize their faces.

Except Miriama.

I opened the door to the “lab” room to see a bored looking woman getting ready to get a shot and when she turned to me I stopped. There was Miriama. As she turned and saw me, her belly large but well hidden by her beautiful outfit, she spoke. “Bonjour Aicha”.

Two weeks ago, I went around with my counterparts and conducted sensibilisation on the importance of prenatal consultations and regular checkups during pregnancy. I had met Miriama and at the time, meek and shy, she seemed unconvinced. She had gotten pregnant for the first time at fourteen, right after she had gotten married to her husband. She had two children and was carrying her third, cradled quietly in her belly. She was twenty-two. She had only attended school until she was eight-years old.  When we tried to show her the pictures on the chart I had brought of the different things that go into a prenatal consultation, she couldn’t explain it. I realized at this point that being able to interpret a photo and explain it is something that is taught at a young age, and she never had done this sort of thing.

I wasn’t sure how to go forward. After a long talk with her and her friend and an explanation from my counterpart on the importance of prenatal consultations, I left this confused and overwhelmed girl with small words: “If you come in for a prenatal consultation, I will be there and I will sit with you and help you with it.”

She absentmindedly nodded, her mind seeming to have already forgotten my words, and went back to shelling her peanuts.

But here she was. I looked at her and had to stop myself from hugging her. I swelled up with love for this woman. Maybe I’m wrong, but something I had said stuck with her that day. She had made the conscious decision to come in for her first prenatal consultation. I dropped everything else I was doing and sat with her through the entire consultation, telling the nurse to explain things very slowly and clearly in Pular and pointing to the spots that she was referring to in the conversation.

It was an average day. The world didn’t stop spinning. Nobody was there to see this happen. At the end of the day she went home, none the wiser that she had made a lasting impact on me.

I walked out of the health center that afternoon feeling different. Yes, I am still frustrated by a lot of things and there are still huge moments of my day where I want to walk away. But as I made the short journey home, the cars leaving a trail of dust that settled on the discarded mangos in the dirt, I finally felt as if I was beginning to make the change I came here to make.

I learned recently in my community assessment reporting that “Donghol” of Donghol-Touma means “on top of the mountain” and at the end of this past market day, this Peace Corps volunteer felt as if she was living on top of the mountain, looking down at the endless possibilities.

[yesimgoingtopeacecorps]

Tu Joue Ballon?

“You’re the first person that has come and told them that it’s not only okay to play, but that it’s good for them to play”

I looked at the faces of the young Guinean girls in front of me. None of them had made fun of my extremely butchered Pular language or my horrific French accent when I asked them the questions. My language teacher, Issa, had come with me, but insisted that before we go, I translate the questions I had into French and then into Pular. So there I was, attempting to ask the question that nobody had ever asked these girls: “As a girl here in Guinea, how has soccer changed your life?”

Currently, I’m in language week in the city of Labe. I was walking back, sweating heavily, from the central market and I looked over at the soccer field near the regional house where volunteers stay when in Labe, and I do a double take: there is a girl walking over to the field and she’s dressed in soccer gear. I yelled at her and she jumps: “Hey!” she turns and looks at me “Tu Joue futbol?” She nodded and gestured over to her teammates, all fifteen of them, sitting in the shade getting ready for practice. My jaw dropped. I spent months before coming to Peace Corps wanting to find a way somehow replicate something similar to my work in Ghana, and right before my eyes, I saw an opportunity.

I walked away with my friends and then stopped.

I had to go back.

I ran over to these girls and their coach and they just stared at me, probably thinking to themselves “what the hell is this sweaty white girl, in her sandals, dirty shirt doing here?”

With a side eye, the coach agreed that I could come to practice the next day.

As so I went.

And I played.

And I felt it: the feeling I had in Ghana, the feeling I had on the field at Randolph Macon, and the feeling I’ve felt every moment I’ve stepped onto a soccer field since I was five years old- freedom.

Today, I went and after interviewing the girls and the coach, I explained to them what I want to do over the next to years. I told them once a month, I’d love to come and see them while I’m here Labe for regional visits and talk to them about gender empowerment, health issues woman face, things that they can do to improve the situation for women in their country, and finally, I want to help them set goals and dreams for themselves. Finally, before we played, I asked the simple question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“Doctor”

“Journalist”

“Lawyer”

“Professional Player”

“Engineer”

“Soldier”

The answers poured out and they said them to me with such meaning in their voices and such intensity behind their eyes, I could tell it was something they had thought about long and hard. I could feel these young individuals, reaching out like flowers at sunrise, just seeking to grow in earnest.

I looked at them and saw myself in their eyes, and saw these girls, girls that had been consistently told that they can’t, or shouldn’t achieve their dreams. That they’re lives are better served in the home. That they need to know their place and accept it, subserviently. And yet, when I asked that question, I saw defiance. I saw the look I needed to see to know that this all wasn’t going to be in vain. That these girls were as serious as me, and yet perhaps never before had they really thought it possible; there was a tangible moment of “this is it-ness.”

“I can’t promise you sports gear, I can’t promise you any finances” I said, no longer looking at Issa, my teacher and translator, but at them, “but I can promise you I am going to do everything in my power to give you advice and empower you to achieve your dreams. And that’s all I can offer.”

After that, we played- and for that moment, I once again felt the freedom of the game. 

Freedom- and motivation.