Friday, January 25th, 2008...6:38 am
First impressions…
So, I’ve been there, I’ve seen it, I’ve even slept a few nights there and I’ve determined that I did in fact successfully have too high expectations for a place that, I’m sure, will be completely wonderful and that I’ll be confused why I ever had a moment’s deflation about it!
Dalaba, the Switzerland of Guinea, THE touristic destination is…a town. It has pine forests around and some small stands in the town itself, which makes for cool, calm oases, but whenever I look at them I can’t help but see an introduced species which can quickly dominate and kill other species limiting the otherwise natural biodiversity. It is hilly, which means there are different spots on the outskirts of town where there are pretty vistas. The roads are Guinean; there’s the main road which passes through on the way to/from larger towns and that is nicely paved, otherwise they are pretty rocky, raviney dirt roads (such that I sometimes had a hard time realizing that this thing in front of me was actually a road!). It’s fairly quiet and I can imagine it might be a really good base for tourists to have a comfortable place to stay while taking trips out to other maybe more beautiful places. 
My house itself is something I should be very grateful for (electricity in the evenings, running, albeit freezing, water). I have two rooms in a family’s compound with my own bathroom attached. They’re a little dark, even with the windows and doors open, but I’m thinking a coat of yellow paint could fix that. It also already has in it some decent furniture (and an even better than decent sofa and chairs), thanks to the previous volunteers who have occupied these rooms. The family is well off and very well educated; they speak wonderful French and are accustomed to having an American around who will sometimes like to hang out with them and who will sometimes like to be on their own. This is the only thing that I really have to adjust my mindset for – an actual host family. There’s something a little less enterprising and liberating about the thought of living in someone else’s space, but there are bound to be a lot of advantages for which I am sure to be grateful!
All remains well; I am just now in a different phase of adapatation and am needing to rely more on myself than my network of fellow volunteers to make these adaptations. Oh, the other thing about Dalaba is that there are already two education volunteers there, which means I do have some volunteers who ca halp me navigate things, but I also have volunteers who can be a crutch when I should be putting myself out there into the community. I’ve known from the beginning that integration was going to be my biggest challenge, and I need to remember that it is something I shoud be actively working on and not just expecting it to happen one day!
Oh, by they way, thanks to everyone who has put offers out there for sending packages! I do LOVE packages! Mainly, I long for chocolate things and salty things! And as a bonus, if you could remove any extraneous packaging that’s not 100% necessary, that would be great!!! There is so much trash here and it all has to be burned, and it just feels so wrong (and is so wrong) to burning plastic, so anything that could maybe come in a ziploc instead of an un-reusable wrapper, would be FANTASTIC!! I know trash is still trash, but there’s more options ofr dealing with trash in the States!
So, I hope at least some of you have received letters from me by now! I try to write at least a couple every week or so… I hope everyone is well!
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