Worst/Funny Weekend/Week... and some more

So it dawned on me that I am jumping on this blog thing late in the game. Anyone probably reading these blogs only gets through 140 characters before they get annoyed and leave... either way, I'll keep writing :-P

So, it all started when my friend took a Peace Corps Car (since it happened to be driving through from Kissidougou (southeast of me) to pick me up, and we would both go to Faranah (north west). He needed to use the internet to do a Peace Corps Report, and I knew where to go.

Being the rainy season now, we of course got caught in the rain every time we went outside. Now, when I say we got caught in the rain every time. I literally mean every time. No joke, within 5 minutes of stepping outside for the entire weekend we were poured on. And to add insult to injury, just about every time we went into the house we were staying in, the rain magically stopped.

So we went to the University in Faranah to use the computer. I thought it was open at 7:30 pm, but turns out I remembered it wrong and it only opens at 17:30. So, we had a couple of hours to kill... We figured we would head to dinner. We both heard tha this hotel, about 5 km away had, a couple of years ago, burned down. But we also heard that it was rebuilt and had great food. So we went all the way to this hotel, and as soon as we got there we could clearly see that the hotel was still tortched and they clearly weren't serving any food.

So we went back to the University, ate at a little rice bar on the way and got on the computers. My friend tried to do the report but the computers didn't work well and kept shutting off. Also, there was a virus that erased all of the pictures on his flash drive, every picture since he got here to Guinea.

So, we went back to Layasando (my site) and he was planning on staying there for a night. We then climbed up my cellphone reception hill like I do every sunday. Of course, the wind started whipping, and it started to downpour. Well, not to leave it as me just being wet and cold, but i also broke my phone by letting it get soaked... smart.

The next day my friend left and I was hanging out in my villiage for the rest of the day. That night, I was eating some rice and meat. I bit down, and chipped my tooth on a rock in the rice. For those of you that know, yes, it is the same place I chipped my tooth before and, yes, I again look like a hillbilly.

So, I do my laundry the next day and then call the PC Doctor to find out what I should do. I basically told him that for now it is pretty much cosmetic, but that other times it happened I did have some sensitivity. Of course he told me to go to the Capital to get it looked at. So that night I headed into faranah again where I could get a Taxi in the Morning to Conakry pretty easily. I got a taxi at 8:00 in the morning. Ok, so normally the trip to Conakry takes 9 hours. Keep that in mind.

After 1.5 hours, the car broke down bigtime. Usually the Guineans are good at rigging that stuff and getting on the road again, but this time was ifferent. We waited there for 6 hours in the middle of no where. I eventually had to make a decision about whether to sleep there in the bush of walk to the next villiage 10km away and find a taxi.

If I knew what the situation was when the car died, I would have walked right away, but the driver kept telling us that another taxi was on its way to pick us up and take us. Comming up on hour 6, we got it out of him that they haven't even left Faranah by then! Also, during those 6 hours I gave away a bag of peanuts to a young mother and all of my freaken water because everyone in the car were either kids or old people that needed it way more then me.

So, I walk towards the next villiage, and I find a bus on the way. The buses are in rough shape and go at a snails pace, but I figured it would be my best and cheapest bet. So I got on the bus and it started crawling forward. The young mother was still with me, and I ended up holding her baby for a vasy majority of the trip.

So we finally pull into Conakry at 3:00am the following day without stopping for food once. The bus also broke down at one point, which I found hilarious, but we got back on the road immediately.

So, 3:00 I am sitting there where the buses stop in Conakry just wanting to get to the Peace Corps transit house. Unfortunately there are no taxis running until 6 so I had to wait 3 hours. ouch...

Finally I got on my way. Eventually I got to the PC house and I went to see the doctor. He said I could get an appoointment that same day. That was awesome because people generally go to Dakar, Senegal for dental treatment, and that would have taken forever. So I got showered and felt slightly better, and then left to the dentist. She took one look at my teeth and said that she couldn't do it and that they don't have the stuff to do it in Senegal either.

Fantastic...

So The doctor said that he could either send me to America, to which I refused to use 2,000 + dollars of American taxpayer money for a cosmetic fix, or he could give me a voucher for when i go to India. So the rest of the story is to be determined.

Also, if all of that wasn't bad enough, I got sick here and have these bug bites that are unbearably itchy, and this coming for a person that has endured countless bites in the past 8 months...

But now I am in good spirits and am about to leave Conakry. I am going to try to stick on a couple of pics right now before I take off...