First Impressions

Bonjour tout le monde!

Where to begin....there's so much to be said, and yet I'm hesitant to put anything down in writing because my thoughts on it all seem to change on a daily basis. I'll start by catching you up on what I've been doing since I arrived last Thursday night.

Friday was my first day of work. With the time difference, the French, the multitude of different French accents, and trying to grasp what the heck this project is about and what my role is, I about died from tiredness by noon. But since we tend to work from about 7:30am till 6pm or so, dying at noon wasn't really an option. I tried my best to stay afloat, especially during the 2.5 hour long meeting in French that I had very little context for, but it was hard not to feel like I was completely faking it. Because I was. /am. I managed to make it through, though, and luckily then it was the weekend!

Saturday I accompanied Justine to an incredibly nice hotel where she was getting a massage and pedicure. The hotel is still rebuilding, but the pool, restaurant, and spa are already open again. I was blown away by the American prices of everything and by just how nice this hotel was. I was further blown away when we went to the grocery store afterwards. I keep wanting to compare this experience to my experience in Guinea, and it becomes clearer and clearer to me every day that this is going to be nothing like Guinea in so many ways. One of the big ways being the amount of stuff you can buy here!!! Things I would have killed children for in Guinea: Kraft mac and cheese, real cheese, chocolate, deli counters, cereal, milk, etc are all available. These are things I couldn't even find in London and here I can just go down to the store and buy them. Everything seems to cost about twice what it would in the States, but it is available. And, what's an even bigger adjustment for me, is that you're expected to buy all of your food at these grocery stores. There's no going to the market or (from what I've seen so far) stopping at the side of the road for fruit or veggies. It's all very strange to me and is definitely taking some time to adjust to.

Being driven around is also an adjustment. I see the tap-taps (taxi-type transport for Haitians) and think that I should be squished in the back there with them and be looking down my nose at those posh ex-pats. But now I am a posh ex-pat and feel pretty guilty about my chauffered car and my expensive American groceries. I dunno, it's all very strange...

Ok, moving along. Saturday night our team of ex-pats (there are 5 of us) went out to dinner at a pizza and ice cream place to say goodbye to the Technical Director, Felix, who had been visiting our site for three weeks. I only knew him a few days, but I really liked him. He spent two years in Guinea as well, from 1986 - 1988, living in the same region as me, so he got a huge kick out of trying to recall his Pular with me. After dinner Justine, Ali and I went to an ex-pat pirate themed party put on by another NGO. That was....interesting, but good to meet some people. I saw a girl I served with in Guinea there, so that was kind of funny. We got home around 4am and woke up at 7:30am on Sunday to go to the beach. We went to Obama beach (yes, it's actually called that) which was really lovely. It was very pretty and the ocean was like bathwater. I swam and napped a lot.

Yesterday was day 2 of work. I'm still trying to learn about all of the activities we're doing/are going to do and all of the different partners we work with and who we need to hire, etc, etc. I finally got set up with an email account and so am slowly being let in on correspondence. I'm in the stage where I feel totally useless, but I think that's pretty inevitable when you start any new job and just aren't fully in the know yet. Especially when that job is in another language.

Last night I was finally able to move into my room. I've been staying in Justine's room with her as there was a bit of room shuffling going on, but now I've got my own. It's about the size of a tissue box, but it's been nice to finally be able to put some things in drawers and not be living out of a suitcase for the first time since July 18th. It's funny to be sleeping under a mosquito net again and be taking malaria pills, but luckily the transmission here is quite low.

This morning I went with two members of our Haitian team to a training they did for another NGO. It was all in Creole, so that was interesting to try and follow along based on my rusty French. It was good to see the team in action, though, and to see them talk about malaria and mosquito nets to youth. Hopefully Thursday I'll actually go to a camp with our Haitian team and observe them distributing nets with the Hatian and Norwegian Red Cross. I've only seen the camps from the car so far and would really like to actually get in one and look around.

So that brings you up to date on my activites. There's already talk of dinner out tomorrow night and NGO parties this weekend. These things become quite necessary when you live and work in the same place. And when you're not allowed to just go out and take a walk. I find myself going stir crazy in the compound pretty quickly. And the regular day to day activities that usually would take up time and would introduce you a bit to how things are done locally don't exist for me. We have a woman who cooks, cleans, and does our laundry for us every day. It's quite bizarre for me and, again, is taking some getting used to. I feel ridiculously sheltered here, but because I am so new it's hard to know if it's actually needed or not. There are definitely security issues, but I do think a little Peace Corps mentality involving integrating with the local culture wouldn't go amiss. Ah well, they didn't hire me for safety and security, that's for sure.

That's about it for now! Do comment so I know you're reading and let me know what you want to hear about. It's hard to know what others will find interesting. Will write more when there's more to say.