New site!

Alhamdulilahi! Praise be! I got a new site!!I will be installed in Ansongo (Gao region) next Monday or Tuesday, if all logistics go smoothly. Ansongo is 5 hours from the regional capital, Gao, but only 100 km or so. Read: public transit by not-so-great road. A large paved road is currently being constructed from Niamey, Niger, which will make it easier to travel. Ansongo is north of Burkina and Niger, in north-east Mali, on the edge of the desert. It is a river town on the Niger, so lots of fish readily available in the market. There has never been a Health PCV at this site before, but the Chef Medecin is excited to have me. I will most closely work alongside a nurse and obstetrician. The Centre de Santé Référance (CSREF) is one step up from the community health center in which I worked previously, meaning there should be more resources and doctors available. However, electricity has not come to Ansongo as of yet. My work will focus on nutritional education (with NGO "Action Contre la Faim/Action Against Hunger"), as well as vaccination programs and promotion of prenatal care, which focuses on maternal nutrition and vaccination. The doctor also hopes I will use the local radio for awareness. Maybe I'll get a regular health Q&A show going...Another PCV, who was formerly stationed in Goundam with me, will also be placed in Ansongo doing Ag work. I will have to learn Sonrai of Gao now, "Koyraboro senii" (the dialect I know is "Koyraciini") and maybe some Tomachek, the language of the Tuareg. My house of 3 rooms shares a courtyard with a family, so I am really happy about that. I can't wait to get some good home-cooked Sonrai meals again: warm, flat bread (takula) fresh from the ovens with a side of sheep head for breakfast, lunches rice and a sauce so black/green with a smell so pungent it really shouldn't be food but is delicious sustenance at that, and steamed bread (wigila) with sweet fig sauce and meat for dinner! Plus, with the hospitality that has met me thus far, I am bound to meet many more friends, and this time maybe I'll be able to stick around long enough to really get to know them!I am incredibly excited the wait is soon over!! Thanks for everyone's continued support!