Logistics Update

"When the music changes, so does the dance." ~African proverb

And when the country changes, so does the apparel. My packing list for Mali calls for long dresses and/or long skirts ending below the knee...and a quick glance in my closet informed me that I own neither. Well I do have some, but they are not appropriate. I am, of course, excluding anything formal, pencil-shaped, with a halter-back, just at the knee or with majority white print since the red dirt there would probably stain it. Who knew my entire closet would be excluded? Mental note: Buy long casual skirts and dresses in wrinkle-free materials.

Today we received more information about our departure! Apparently we'll be leaving from NYC and flying through Casablanca with a day long layover there. I can't wait to explore Casablanca. I want to walk into a gin joint just to see if I know anyone in there or at least say to someone, "Here's looking at you, kid!" I'll try to catch up with all of you folks in NYC when I come through the city on the way to Mali in the last days of May. We have an orientation in NYC so I expect to be there for at least two days. Hopefully everyone won't be on vacation the week after Memorial Day.

We also got a chance to choose our two most desired assignments based on three profiles. I almost feel as if I can't go wrong:

1) The project with World Education includes traveling to northern Mali and interviewing scholarship recipients, their families and communities (and taking pictures) to document the effect of the program and creating communications around the impact. Sounds like a perfect fit with my background in journalism and I would love to spend time with families and experience the differences between northern and southern Mali.

2) The Projet Jeune assignment involves socio-cultural research and mobilizing youth around contraception and sexually-transmitted disease prevention. (Currently the incidence of HIV is relatively low in Mali at 1.6% of the population and efforts are underway to keep it that way.) Projet Jeune is somehow connected to the Ministry of Health in Mali and they work with the United Nations Population Fund. Sounds perfect with my background in social change communications.

3)And the project with ASDAP, the organization founded by a Malian midwife, is very similar to that of Projet Jeune but it also involves teaching kids.

Since I had to make a choice, I chose World Education first and Projet Jeune second, but really it would be ideal if we could have a chance to do all three assignments.