It is official I have sworn and signed on the dotted line, yours truly is a Peace Corps Volunter (PCV, yes we love acronyms), and no longer a measly trainee. Today in a ceremony that was suprisingly poignet all 28 of us were sworn in and starting very early tommorow morning we are being shipped off to site, an exercise in slightly-organized-chaos. I will be going with my friend and Fellow PCV Jeanette and our dear Language teacher, Peta, to Tamatave were we will buy stuff and visit lots of people before going to our respective villages.
I am looking forward and dreading going to site at the same time. The things i am looking forward to include; learning about my community, having some independence, cooking my own food, improving my Malagasy, and learning tons of cool stuff. The things I am not looking forward to are; being ALL alone, not understanding what people say to me, having to find a new place to live, not knowing what is expected of me, not getting my mail, cooking my own food, and being ALL ALONE.
Updates
A couple of updates on things i Have posted about in the past on here. The housing situation is still a little unsetteled and frusterating. When I arrive at site I will be living with the mayor, though the plan is for this to be temporary. I will be working with the community and my counterparts to find me my own house. I greatly appreciate the mayor's willigness to have me living in his home for two years, but i feel i will be a much more effective volunteer if I can more fully integrate into the community and if I have some of my own space to get away from it all when necessary.
My eyelid is doing ok, I have been back to the Docters multiple times since I last posted about the most terrifying eyelid surgery, things are still not perfect but I am doing ok. I have an entire barrage of meds and the docters tell me i really don't need to be worried about it. So i am going to trust them on this one.
What's Next
Like I have said we are headed to site in the next couple of days. Because of the number of people and the million other things that are going on in the Peace Corps at the moment we are being installed in groups. Jeanette will be installed first and I will probably be in my site by Monday at the earliest. Installation will probably involve a lot of waiting and a lot of visiting officials, oh and the shopping, I am looking forward to that. They give us something like 700,000 Ary to spend. Not actually that much money but when you hold it in your hands it makes you feel filthy rich.
I have set some goals for myself for the 1st three months, before we all get back togeather again for In-Service Training (IST), they include simple and slightly dumb things like leaving my house (rather room) every day, and using two entire bottles of sunscree. Other goals include finding my own place to live, and increasing my Malagasy compentancy by at least one level. I also need to work with my counterparts to figure out exactly what I should be doing, and then getting to work on whatever that may be.
Well it is time to go out with my fellow PCVs and celebrate making it through training.
FYI: Posted a new address