Mauritania is so last week.

Well, I got a call last week from PC telling me that our trip to Mauritania was canceled. I was incredibly unsurprised by this as we had been postponed without a new, solid departure date, our visas were still not coming, and the day before the call an American was shot in Nouakchott, the capitol. By Al Qaeda. Soooo, yeah. I was waiting basically waiting for the trip to be canceled and considering how long everything else has taken I'm glad they didn't wait until August to cancel it.

Anyway, I just got an email today with a new assignment that's in Cameroon and leaves in September. I will read some more about it but I'm pretty sure I'm going to accept it as it's still in the same field (Community Health) and Cameroon is still (partially) a francophone country. I know next to nothing about the country so I was a bit disappointed, mostly because I'd started reading up on some other country possibilities and, for no particular reason, this wasn't one of them. Regardless, though, I plan on reading up about it over the next 10 days and then making my decision.

In the meantime, it looks like I'm going to move to Phoenix in a couple weeks and spend the rest of the summer there. Why? Well, a) I have that big city itch again; b) Joey's there and has a room I can rent for cheap; and c) well...that's about it, those are my reasons.

A Correction for the Record

Yesterday, I was really getting the itch to get out and take care of most of the loose ends I still had before I left next week. I studied on Rosetta Stone for almost three hours, ran all over town buying nearly everything I still needed, and then finally rounded out the day with a nice dinner with my parents. Upon getting home, I swung on over to my computer and then facebook where I saw one girl who I was supposed to go to Mauritania had posted her status as "really, REALLY wasn't supposed to go to Mauritania in june... too bad for the future PCVs!" I assumed that something had happened with her and she canceled. Then I scrolled down on my screen and saw that at least half a dozen other people had similar messages up. Insert me freaking out.

I checked my phone and I had no missed calls. I ran next door to my parents' house and we had no messages. My dad did have a missed call from a DC area code on his cell phone but they hadn't left a message. Franticly, I began scouring the internet for who to call and I must have tried two dozen numbers before somebody on facebook gave me the numbers for our regional desk directors in DC, where I then left messages.

And I just got off the phone with the regional desk director this morning and apparently the RIM government hasn't issued our visas. I guess it's not that they denied our visa requests but that they aren't issuing them now and we can only hope that they will after the elections. It probably has something to do with the elections being postponed until July. I was initially excited when I heard there was an agreement for an end to the political crisis in Mauritania that postponed the elections. Furthermore, I was even more excited to BE there when the elections were happening. Now, however, the delay looks to be the reason we can't get visas. We're hoping on a mid-August departure but at this point, I'm wondering if we'll ever get off the ground.

Bonjour et au revoir.

In less than two weeks I'll be on a plane to Senegal.

I'm still trying to take that in and every time I do, multiple waves of fear, anxiety, dread, excitement, wonderment, and confusion settle over me. I just got off a plane from Seattle, I was in LA three weeks ago, KC a month and a half ago, Tucson a little while back, and New York and Denmark in December/January... it's insane to now think that I'll be in Africa so soon. I am incredibly excited and antsy to finally get to Mauritania and get started on training and volunteering but at the same time my abysmal French skills are causing a large deal of alarm. Anyway, regardless of the anxiety, I've been waiting for this for over a year now and very little can possibly stop me at this point!

As for this blog, I'm hoping to be able to update it whenever I can. Maybe once a week (doubtful) but more likely once every month or two. I'm told that during the first two-three months of training my access to internet will be pretty limited, and once I find out where I'll be stationed I'll know what my more regular internet access will be like. If I get the chance I'll try upload photos and give a few impressions about what I'm seeing and experiencing.


For those who might be interested, here's a little map of the traveling I've done in the last six months, as I alluded to earlier...