making an air hole using a stick...

smoothing out the platform where the wood will rest...

and the walls go up up up...

then, when the walls are a little built up, you put the pot on the rocks like usual, to build the walls up around the pot to really insulate the fire/heat well...

after the rocks themselves are insulated, we begin to add mud "bricks" (balls of mud) to form the walls...

that yellow can there is to hold up the hole which will be where the wood is inserted...

First i put down the three stones and began to insulate them with my "mud" mixture: cow poop, powdered termite nest, straw and water...

mud stove demonstration

i recently gave a demonstration to the presidents of four women's groups in my area on how to build a fuel efficient mud stove. here are some pix from it...

this one is the traditional way women cook here. see the three stones? they balance the pot on there and put the fire underneath. a lot of heat and smoke escapes.

the office, where we did our work in the training village

at the local cafe in the training village where you can get egg sandwiches and nescafe...btw, it is about 110 degrees in the shade and there is about a 98 percent humidity level there.

celebrating my friend caleb's bday in conakry

Happy Turkey Day!

hey yall. so happy THANKSGIVING!!! more than every before in my life i realize how much i have to be thankful for. i love my family, and my friends all over the world. i love america. i love airconditioning. i love cheese. i love pie and turkey. yesteraday, i had more than lately of those things on that list. a really interesting thought i had yesterday as i sat around eating and laughing with my fellow pc volunteers and some of my best friends, is that although my family and friends from home are far away, and i have had very little contact for the past year, i still really felt a sense of home and comfort. what a far way i have come from a year ago, when i was absolutely scared to death if what awaited me here and how i would deal with a life away from america for 27 months. hmmm, well enough self reflection. one year down, one year to go:)

in other news, i just got back from the training village because G-17, a new group of trainees (my class was G-15, and G-16 arrived in july) will be arriving on December 4th and i am one of the volunteer trainers who will be helping with their "stage" (training). most volunteers who wanted to were able to sign up for a two week block during G-17's 9 week training, and we will be helping with technical training as well as emotional support and cultural integration. it was exciting to be back in the village where i spent my first few weeks in guinea. during our 3 days there, we met the new technical, language and cross cultural trainers who would be helping with the stage, and participated in sessions to design and schedule the training program. we did this by sector, so i was with all the other agroforestry volunteers, which was also awesome because we had a chance to share all our first year experiences and hear what did and did not work for who, and what we think was really important for the training and what no one has used and we think should maybe be eliminated or at least have less emphasis.

Now that im back in conakry im going to look up some information on some projects im doing, most notably bush rat breeding- like what they eat and how to take care of them etc. i also have to type up proposals for two projects im trying to get funding for. ill update you on those depending on their sucess.

anyway, i love yall and hope everyone has a happy holiday season!!! here is a little article i thought you might find interesting, i did.

sarah!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7647962.stm

Jess and I pointing to our hometowns on our completed World Map project

me in front of our un finished world map project (my friend jess and i painted it on the side of an elementary school)

more "wildlife of Africa"

my friends and i ready to go visit some bee hives

me getting in my gear to visit the bee hives

Halloween 2008 in Labe (regional capital of the Fouta region)...

from left: Brittany Spears, Sarah Palin (me), Cher, 80's Mafia Guy, Bush Fire, Black Eyed Pea, Magi Cube (like a bullion cube everyone eats here in their sauce), MSG (everyone eats packages of that too in their sauce here), Guinean School girl (that is what their uniforms look like here), another 80's Mafia man

again, another from my "wildlife of Africa" series

the taxi "gare" where i wait patiently (from 8am-2:30 pm two days ago) to get a bush taxi to fill up with enough passengers to leave (at least 3x the amt of seatbelts in the car)

more from my "wildlife of Africa" series...btw, this is a fly hanging off a piece of straw from my thatch roof

me with my friend Madame Sow's new baby Hashiatu

*i know im so sweaty it looks like i just gave birth haha but it was about 900 degrees in that room and people kept walking in and out making it hotter!*

at my friend Madame Sow's new baby's babtism

gone baby gone

Brittany, thank you sooo much for the cd's and letters! i feel like i actually know what is going on in your life now haha! you'll have to keep me updated after the move. ohhh, btw i LOVED the postcard too! im actually listening to the "thinking" cd right now. very chill. you know how much i miss jax! (and all my friends too! :) i hope you are there when i get back in 16 months!~i love you dude!

Pops: Thank you for begining to write me letters again! i got the one today you sent on sept 22. i love the article on the farriers. i know how hard on your back it is just picking the hooves of multiple horses in one day, let alone be doing all that shaving and hammering! i cant imagine the wear and tear over a lifetime! i love you and miss you! sorry my phone cut you off the other day. i havent made it into town to buy a phone card yet.

Everyone: i leave tomorrow to go back to my hut, so no super fast communication for a while. becky, i read your message that you're sending me snail mail so thanks thanks thanks in advance. i will prob get back to internet around thanksgiving when ill be in my regional capital. pops, sorry i forgot to say thanks sooo much for all the pecans you sent in your last package. im going to make a pecan pie for thanksgiving yay! even though it will be about 95 degrees practically in the sahara desert (literally), with pecan pie, how will it not be just like home:) haha. i love you all and miss you bunches.

banana tree behind raven's hut

the one thing in guinea that matt was really afraid of... it was in raven's hut

matt and i swimming in some waterfalls north of conakry

cooking popcorn in raven's village. we were entertainment for all the women in the cooking hut that day! it is hard to shake the pot to keep the kernals from burning, so matt was trying to do it with his foot, but then the rock slipped and we almost lost the whole thing on the ground. luckily at the last minute one of raven's "moms"jumped in, and with her bare hands picked up the pot off the fire and placed it safely on the ground

hammock time (raven's hut)

matt at the soccer field in my friend Raven's village for the end of Ramadan fete (party)

matt getting water from the well in my friend julie's village in the basse-cote region

an outrageous sunset up on the top of a hill in Boke

*that is a papaya tree in the middle*

the market in my village

me with my best friend in my village

matt with my favorite family in my village

sunrise over the countryside on the way from kankan to conakry

matt and my friend jess taking the peace corps car back from kankan to conakry (all the way across the country). we left at 5 am and watched the sunrise over the countryside

my carrots

some lucaena in my school tree nursury. it is good to plant in a line for live fencing, especially to build pastures for cattle since the leaves are really good for them and high in protein.

me at my reforestation tree nursury. the ones on my right are oil palm trees (which do NOT help the environment, but the group needed some motivation to plant other trees sooo...) the ones on my left are the gmelina that we are using to reforest. next year im going to branch out into some nitrogen fixing trees which improve the soil.

a view from the walk from my hut to the tree nursury i use for my reforestation (the one next to my house is for elementary school education on the different kinds of trees and their uses/importance)

the fence i built to keep out all the wild things that might eat the baby trees in my tree nursury. yup folks, i built that. and it goes all the way around that house on the left (well, not around it, but it starts at the back and wraps around my hut...get matt to explain better)

walking back into town from the night in the hotel (about 4 kilometers)

matt standing in front of our hotel in Faranah. the name of the hotel is Hotel del Niger, but we called it "Africa-land" because it reminds all of us volunteers what disney might use as lodging if they created an africa themed resort. the huts are really cute, and have running water (though not heated) and electricity from 8pm to midnight. matt loved it. there is also a pool and a pair of monkeys that run around the grounds.

scenery on our bush taxi ride across the country from Conakry to my village in the eastern part of the country

bush taxi breakdown

matt's first cross country bush taxi ride...and we only broke down once! (well if you dont include the short jaunt to the hotel, during which we had to stop about 5 times to suck gasoline out of the engine...well, the driver had to, with his mouth i might add)...matt, feel free to elaborate

Now that i have had a couple of days to relax and reflect on Matt's visit I am hoping that he had a good time and if nothing else learned a little about the world in which i live and work. more than a vacation, i think he would agree that it was an experience. i have written him an email trying to get him to send me a little summary of the trip so i can post it up here. in the meantime, i will put up a couple of pictures now...

matt and i at the beach bar the second night of his visit

update

matt is going to do a guest appearance soon to tell you all about his WILD trip so far. good news is we are both still healthy and have safely made it back to conakry. check for it soon, it should be good. in other news, matt has informed me that my blogs have a certain abstract quality to them, and being the engineer he is, has agreed to look into making the whole layout and list making more conducive to be read by people who have "real" jobs and "real" lives back in the first world. thanks matt. (sarcastic smile) i cant wait to see what he comes up with. oh a couple more things (matt is pacing behind me wanting to leave the computer lab), 1-i love comments on my blog, just try not to say anything that might offend the US gov b/c they moniter these. 2- matt went above and beyond any expectations i may have had about food gifts so i should be good for a couple of months (but i have to admit that by saying that im sort of afraid yall will forget about me completely hahaha). 3- to Marian and Holly, i just got a package from each of you and OMG I LOVE LOVE LOVE bacon so THANK YOU SOOO MUCH and also for the extremely useful toothbrush holder (yay no more germy counters/dirt floors haha) and stamps- as well as the goldfish which ive decided are my #1 favorite food of all time (you find these things out in africa once you've been here for a while deprived of a fully stocked grocery store...or ANY grocery store for that matter haha)... 4- i love you all and esp right now KRISTIN and DAD who have loaned me the boy they love for three weeks of excitement (and some unexpected near death experiences haha- much more funny when told in stories at a later date)...ok, really must go now but good luck everyone in surviving the economic meltdown i keep hearing about on bbc and I LOVE YOU ALL!!! peace:)