From Home to Frat House

Hey fools!



Okay, a massive thank you to everyone who sent birthday emails/fb msgs/calls/packages/letters etc. Thanks to the Guinean "mail system" I'm sure I'll be celebrating with bday mail for the next 3 months, so if I didn't get your thing, no worries.



My birthday weekend was, by far, the most fun weekend I've had in Africa so far. It started when my best girlfriend volunteer, Sacha, called me on Wednesday to tell me she was going to make the two day voyage to come to my party! I freaked out, I hadn't seen her since February. So on Friday I woke up and went to my friend Aisatou's house (same one I snuck out of) and we took a nice nap in her bed, and then went to the market together to buy stuff for the bday dinner. The plan was to make spaghetti, pesto pasta, garlic bread, bruchetta, a salad and a birthday cake. At 20:00 all my friends were to show up, I was expecting around 15-20 people. At 17:00 Aistaou and my crew of guys starting cooking. There were 8 of us, some were chopping avacados, two were learning how to crack eggs and separate the whites from the yolks, others were cleaning the house ... it was a flipping show. Finally Sacha called and after her taxi kept breaking down/driver kept stopping to say hi to relatives along the way/passengers kept requesting to stop to pray she finally made it! So after running around like a mad-woman trying to finish dinner/clean the house/shower, preparations were finally ready. Ama Sara brought over a giant boombox and hooked it up to his DVD player and the tunes started bumping. People started showing up. It was awesome ... people even brought birthday gifts! I got 3 leather wallets (no lie, they really do think all white people are ballin), my tailor made me a beautiful dress, some jewelry, and this hilarious fake rose with a note that said "I love you" from a new friend. Some new friends came by, some teammates from volleyball came, and even 2 members from the infamous Murder Inc. made their appearance. I gave my camera to my friend Souleymane to be photographer, and let me say. Guineans are HILARIOUS in front of the camera. To begin with, they don't smile. Which didn't matter at first since Souleymane had to be taught how to NOT chop heads out of photos. But once we started photographing the right parts of the body, Sacha and I started a hilarious photo shoot in which we imitated Guineans. Read: looking badass and/or forlorn with no emotion on the face. Slowly they started warming up, and before I knew what was happening both Sacha's and my camera got used to the max in the most ridiculous photo shoot EVER. Action shots, gangster shots, volleyball shots ... there are 100s of photos from this night. I mean, some of you know that I'm ridiculous with photo shoots, but my Guinean friends wayyyy out-did me. I was proud of them. So all in all, the party was a huge success, everyone ate well, and I'd say about 30 people passed through my house!! Peace Corps goal of being well-integrated into the community? I'd say that one is under wraps.



(PS- the cake was a disaster. We tried baking it over a fire. So even if the boys hadn't dropped eggshells into the batter, or over stirred it so much it tasted like rubber, the fire burned it and it was inedible. And if that wasn't enough, we actually burned a hole through the pot. Oops, my B.)



Saturday morning Sacha and I slept in, and woke up to a trashed house. Like, the place was a disaster. We ate a delicious breakfast of mangos and chocolate icing that we'd made for the cake, and were just relaxing when Abdourahamane shows up saying he wants to make a cake for his birthday party tonight ... for which he'd rented out a club. So Sacha and I help him make this cake, but this time Abdourahmane knows of an oven in town where apparently you can pay to bake stuff. Random, I know, but this is Guinea. Afterwards the 2 of us have a delightful picnic in an abandoned factory while jamming to the ipod. This in no way resembles the picnics in the beautiful Champs de Mars beneath the Eiffel Tower, but it's as close as you can get in Mamou. But by the end of the afternoon, we were absolutely exhausted, but being it was a best friend's birthday, we were obligated to go to the club. First of all, how did I join Peace Corps and then all of a sudden become a socialite? I don't get it. But anyways, we got dressed and by the time we stepped out of my bedroom there were 10 boys all hanging out in my family room getting ready to go out. Um, apparently my home has turned into an open frat house? It's okay, I secretly love that they feel comfortable to just show up and start the party.

So as we're walking to the club (the hardcore volleyball players that always scream at me walked an hour to come "pick up" Sacha and I) we're listening to a beautiful Michael Jackson/Akon mash up coming through the cell phone. Once inside, we're dancing and I see the owner of the club who is also on my volleyball team. Sweet, connections. Except I swear he is the one guy who is always like "KIKI!!!!!" in a really mean voice when I screw up at practice. Like, he scares me. But now that we're off the courts, he is all smiles. He is hooking Sacha and I up with free drinks and before I know it we are shamelessly dancing with all the volleyball players who scare the living daylights out of me. Not to mention the constant DJ shout-outs to Kiki and Sacha. It's actually awesome ... after tonight I KNOW they can't help but love me and encourage me when I don't make a good pass at practice. It's the perfect "in" to the team.

So eventually all the "introductions" have to be made by the DJ, and before I can translate what's being said I hear me and Sacha's name and I'm getting pushed from the dark corners of the club (praise the Lord no spotlights this time around) into the center stage area. And then a knife gets placed in my hand. And Abdourahmane's "American Cake" that we made is before me. The whole club is looking at me, the DJs chattering on, and before I know it there's a countdown. A countdown for what?! Everyone's staring, waiting, for something. But what? And then I do some quick mental thinking ... countdown, cake, knife ... I'm cutting the cake. I'M CUTTING THE CAKE?! Ahhh! I don't know how to do this! How the heck are cakes cut in Guinea?!? Slow? Fast? All the way? Just a piece? Do I pick up a piece and shove it in Abdourhmane's face like he was my husband? I freaked out with the 100s of eyes on me, but hopefully it was only my insides that were so spastic and I at least played it off cool. I hope. Anyways, I figured it out. I did not warrant a freak out, it's a flipping cake cutting.

Sunday my house was again trashed and it took some serious scrubbing and cleaning after the weekend's festivities. But it was my favorite weekend so far in Guinea, just being with all my friends and having my house open for everyone. It's always a little scary celebrating a holiday/birthday alone in a new place without friends or family, but so far, everything's been perfect.