National Volunteer Day

On Sunday, we reboarded the bus to head to Conakry for National Volunteer day organized by “French Volontaire”. You would think crowding just under 40 into a 26 person bus would suck, but there is AC so its ok. We went to a market to do a big clean up with the French volunteers and the Croix Rouge De Guinee. Here everyone litters everywhere, so the market was filthy. We had 3 hours to clean up and at least half the time was devoted to people making speeches and impromptu speeches as is the Guinean way. In the time we had, I think we made some progress, but not a ton. The good news is that it is the start of a project that is going to routinely clean the market instead of ever letting it get this dirty. The biggest problem is an area that as served as a dump and children play in it and get sick. Out job was to move more trash into the dump and then trucks came to take all the trash away.

In the afternoon, we played in a soccer tournament with the volunteers from the other organizations and local youth. The stadium is basically a city block walled in with loose dirt ground and two goals (without nets). To one side that are concrete slabs to sit on. When we got there we were just supposed to hang out and play around until the tournament started. I started dancing with some pre-teen girls. Apparently they have never seen anyting as wonderful as my dance moves- obviously taste differs here in dance moves- and immediately there were tons of little kids surrounding me. They wanted ot learn my moves and be my friend. They were fighting over who could hold my hand and I had to give them all at least 3 fist pounds until they would let me free. When the soccer tournament started I have to introduce them to all my friends so we went down a line with them shaking the other PCTs’ (Peace Core Trainees) hands. Then about 10 of them sat on me. Nothing makes you hotter that being covered in children. They sat on my lap and smelled my hair and basically just wanted to make me as hot and dirty as possible. They are lucky that they are so cute. In between 2 of the games we got up to play Frisbee and some of them got it in their mind to tickle me. Then they all started to tickle me. I was tickle mobbed by about 40 kids. They would let me go. I would move away and then all at once they would mob me again. If you know how much I hate being tickled, you know how terrifying this was. Luckly the game restarted and I was safe again and on the way out a few boys ( I think they we 8 years old) decided to be my security so that I would not get tickled and we walked out just like you would see a celebrity walk out- with their arms out keeping a somewhat imaginary crowd back and yelling “Securite”. There were more than 30 other Americans who were being ignored, but somehow my dance moves made me special in a good way…Very bizarre.