I just spilled boiling water on my hand. Ouch. I have to work out another way of dumping my pot of water into my thermos. Its not too bad.

First off. I ate frog yesterday. It was deux. tastes a lot like chicken. Maybe even better. I could have eaten ten, except that I got tired of spitting out the tiny bones and I wasn’t that keen on eating their insides either. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised. I was eating with some people from the Forestier, and I don’t think eating frogs is something that many other Guineans really condone.

Anyway, it feels like a lot has been happening in the last few days, which is perhaps a testament tohow little I’ve been doing lately. Monday and Tuesday I went to my office for a while, and Tuesday I got back on the internet and sent out the rest of my posts that had built up while the internet wasn’t working in Faranah for a while. I also watched soccer games Monday and Tuesday. There is a tournament here for female students, with ten teams from the larger cities in Guinea. Its supposed to be promoting women’s rights and generally showing that women can play sports and go to school. Most teams weren’t very good though, and they got laughed at a lot. I guess its important to think that it has to happen in baby steps, but I left the first game thinking that maybe the tournament was doing more harm than good.

The second game was Conakry versus Faranah, which are the two best teams in Guinea, and it was quite good. They tied 0-0 and then Faranah lost 8-6 in the shootout. I watched another game today between Conakry and Kindia that was not at all close, with Conakry winning 5-0.

Yesterday I spent a while with an intern at my organization, which is where I ate frog, and we set up a meeting on Monday to talk about what he wants to do, which is start an ONG. He has written out some stuff and he is getting ready to look for funding. Then I also went to the house of this guy I work with who is pretty cool. It is close to the bureau and we are going to work sometimes at his house. Finally, I also met the president and the … (cabinet member? I forget) of PEG, Promotion de les enfants … (forget again). Basically I think its like a student government with some extra developing work opportunities type stuff. I am going to meet with them next Thursday.

I was supposed to go to Layasando today but turned out the volunteer there had a sudden meeting, and tomorrow I am heading to Mamou for the weekend. The mail run arrives the following Sunday, and then I have Peace Corps staff visitors once each the following two weeks, and then there is only a week left before in-service training starts. Time seems to go really quickly when I look at the past, and very slowly when I think of the future.

Anyway, in terms of my spirits, I’ve been feeling pretty good this week, helped a lot by just being out and doing things, even if it isn’t getting a lot of real work done, it is laying the groundwork. When I’m being productive I’m nine times happier than when I spend the day reading in my house.