Iyo, Won Nomma!

Happy Easter! Bon Paque! I know it’sMonday, but everyone here is a bit confused and thinks that because they have off work today, Easter is today. Why this Muslim country has a day off of work and 10 days off of school for Easter is beyond me. My only guess is that it is a vestige of French Colonialism. If you want to know how hard it is to remove work holidays ask any Georgetown student about their reaction to the University cancelling President’s Day during Snowpacolypse.

I’m happy to say that I have not posted in a while because I have been really busy. It feels great to be busy again. In Kindia, I have 2 post-mates. One of them is partnered with the Youth Association and organized a big workshop on how to conduct a professional job hunt. After two days of workshop, the third day was a job fair with representatives from nearly 20 enterprises and NGOs. Day one involved presenting research conducted on the job market in Kindia and how to create a personal action plan. Day two was a full day. One of the facilitators pumped eveyone up by making them say "Yes We Can" in English, French and all the local languages. They love Obama. In Sousou it's "Iyo, Won Nomma".  How to assemble your dossier with sessions on CVs and cover letters followed by a session on how to do a job interview and mock interviews with each participant. During this session I got to play “Salematou Sylla” a too cool for school youth who shows up late for her job interview, thinks she is better than all the other idiots she has worked with, takes a phone call during the interview, and tells the interviewer she frankly doesn’t want to work, but wants a salary. I wore one of my many shirts that mice have chewed holes in as a sort of “what not to wear”. Besides being terrified to be improving French in front of 100 people, it was actually quite fun. The Guinean sense of humor is very different than the American one (see my post “What’s in a Name”) but I somehow made everyone laugh. Maybe it was my French…The third day was the job fair. Guineans are not known for their punctuality, but the majority of participants showed up hours in advance. It was an amazing and exhausting three days. I am so happy that I got to be a part of such a massive undertaking so early in my service and happy with how much we were able to accomplish. The participants actually improved a lot and impressed the organizations by the third day. Someone in the US should do a similar training for youth who do not have the benefit of University Career Services.

Aside for the general madness of 100 youth in a hot room for three days, we had a lot of fun. Volunteers from 3 other regions came in and so after every day we sat around, ate dinner together, spoke English, and played cards. It was so nice to see volunteers who I have not seen since training. We cut my hair. It had been taking way too much water to wash. Now it’s short and a bit uneven, but I am so happy and can make a bucket of water last for three bucket baths! We also went to Kilissi, a local waterfall and swam in wonderfully cool water.