I just wanted to take a moment to say Thank You to Edufire. I used Edufire between June 2008 and this past July to study French before moving to Guinea, West Africa on August 4th. I loved the community here and really missed it once in Guinea. Adapting to the language and culture would have been much much harder if I hadn’t had a jump start on my language study by using Edufire. Arriving with a good foundation made a world of difference. My internet speed in Guinea was less than half of dialup speed so obviously I haven’t been around much. Because of recent unrest in Guinea we had to come back for a few months. We plan on going back in February assuming things have calmed down over there. In the mean time I’m going to enjoy the high speed internet and use Edufire!

Thanks Again to the community of Edufire!

Welcome back. Enjoy it while you’re here!

Hi Norm! It is great to see you back here and it is so good to hear how eduFire helped in your move :) Please do tell us more about your time in Guinea, if you don’t mind that is!

Yes! Please tell us about your experiences in Guinea! Curiosity is killing me! Glad to have you back!

We lived in a poor neighbourhood to help immerse ourselves with Guinean French and culture we were paired with a Guinean host family who showed us how to live in Guinea. We had no contact at all with any other expats (other foreigners) during the first month and very little afterward. We ate with them, cooked with them, did everything together. It was hard but rewarding, we can’t wait to get back in February. Hopefully everything cools down there.

Here are a couple of photo albums:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/norm_debra/sets/72157621997840468/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/norm_debra/sets/72157622502687860/

Thanks so much Norm. It must have been an amazing adventure with more to come. The pics are really great! Thank you so much for sharing :)
Oh… Umm.. The spider pic was very scary to me!

WOW! what a treat…. I feel like I just took a trip…. Thank you!! are you a missionary? Is that why you were there or were you just wanting a different experience?

yes, I am a missionary. We’ve moved everything we have over there, it’s our home! Sorry about the spider Debbie! :) Those things are EVERYWHERE, we don’t even bother killing them anymore

I’m loving Yada… He is so CUTE!! is he a village or family pet?

@Norm I wouldn’t kill the spider either… Just run really fast :)

Welcome back amongst us Norm:-)

I am looking forward to meeting you in class!

Cheers,
Katia

Recommendation, Debbie: Use Norm’s case as a testimonial for promoting the entire site. I’m sure he’s willing, and what better example can you provide? And the site’s evolved further since then. This is exactly the sort of human interest story needed, and we should promote the heck out of it.

You make an excellent suggestion Jeremiah!