Off to Senou

I am waiting for the bus to pick us up to head to my site. PC gave us money and are dropping us off at the bus station in Bamako... Scary! It is exciting to finally see my actually village I will be living in for the next two years. I'm excited to finally settle in and stop living out of a suitcase! Although that is still a month away.

I am going to a small village of 600 called Senou. Its about 3 hrs SE of Bamako, you cant find it on Google maps but it is 40K south of Dioila. My counterpart is a Midwife named Adam (pronounce the A's as AW) she seems very nice. But she speaks crazy fast and sort of mumbles and since I barely understand the language as it is I definitely foresee some issues! She speaks french... which doesn't help whatsoever, but I have a feeling I am going to be spending a lot of time with my French Dictionary writing out things I need to say to her then having her translate it to Bambara for me. I am going to be working at the CSCOM, which I am very surprised even exists in my tiny village. Most villages this small only have a maternity. Mainly I will be working on pre and post natal consultations and proper infant, child and nursing mother's nutrition. One of my main duties will be to try to get all the mothers to register their babies, and track their growth. I have to encourage and convince mothers that their baby's health is important, and I will be regularly weighing and measuring babies to keep record of their growth.

Part of me is excited to just be done with training and start my service already but the other part of me is freaking out because I feel like I need at least 2 more months of training! Well... I'm off to Bamako now... wish me luck!