Site Assignment and more

-Tried to upload pictures and its just not happening. Bummer-

Today, our final day at Tubaniso before back to homesite, was quite a day. In the morning, we had technical training (the health volunteers got to practice the baby weighing process with real live squirming babies) and the afternoon couldn't come soon enough as everyone was anxious about site announcement.

So here is mine! In September, I will be opening up a new post (no previous Peace Corps volunteer has been there) in the town of Dombila. Dombila is a 3,000 person town which is- get this- only 37k outside of Bamako (Mali's capital)! This is really nice because I can easily get into Bamako for shopping, internet, mail, banking, a Christian church, any medical problems, and best of all, to see lots of PCVs who regularly congregate there. This also means that I will be keeping my Bamako mailing address for the whole time (the one you all have already). I still won't have running water or electricity, but I'll have a mountain bike so I can easily get to public transportation. I will be working in a community health center (called a CSCOM) and my counterpart is a matron (like a midwife) by the name of Sangare Irene. (Irene- runs in the family huh?) I will mainly be speaking Bambara but Sangare also speaks French, which will be nice. They have requested a volunteer to work on maternal/child health and nutrition education, hygiene/water sanitation and various other activities in the health center. It sounds absolutely amazing.

The other cool thing about my post is my potential secondary project. I had my personal interview with the country director today who told me that he just got a huge government grant to improve HIV/AIDS training for Peace Corps and for outreach events in Mali. He said he kind of wrote the proposal at the last minute, so currently does not have any specific plans as to what to do with the funding. He was very interested in my experience with HIV/AIDS outreach and suggested that I help him develop and improve HIV programs for Peace Corps Mali. Being so close to Bamako, I would be able to get to the Peace Corps office every once in a while and maybe be a part of that!

With what I know about my site, I'm very excited about it. I'm the only one at a new site but I'm fairly close to a lot of other cool volunteers. In 12 days I will be packing my bags to do a week site visit, where I'll basically shadow my counterpart and do some baseline assessment of community needs. In the meantime, it's back to sleepy old Satinebougu for some more dancing, language training, and oily food.

Side Story: Last night we walked two miles to get to a bar. By bar I mean basically someone's backyard with a refrigerator full of beer running on a generator. But it was freakin hysterical. There were about 40 of us there, dancing the night away in the craziest fashion we knew how- doing the limbo with the Malians and then trying to imitate some of their bizarre yet impressive moves.

Side Note: I didn't read any of the comments you all left me until after I posted my blog and I just want to say how much they mean to me. Not only is it nice to have some cheerleaders, I also love just hearing about your lives. So never hesitate to drop me a little what's going on. That way I won't feel out of touch. And thanks to you, no matter how long it will be until I get internet again, I'll never truly be out of touch.

I love the personal emails, comments and facebook messages and I truly, truly want to reply to all of them. But it might have to wait until I get faster internet. Right now, just pasting this blog and posting it is a major chore so sending and receiving emails is extremely tedious and unreliable at the moment. But it doesn't mean I don't love you all and miss running with you girls, chatting with family, and seeing you all. XOXOX
God Bless-

Emily