Peace Corps Volunteer!!!

Well... the days of training are long gone... Friday, at about 3:45pm my time, I became an official Peace Corps Volunteer... After spending the day with our counterparts at the training center, we went to the US embassy in Teguz, had a lovely ceremony, and were sworn in as PCVs. From the 57 trainees in our H17 group, all 57 were sworn in! I am so proud of everyone!

It was an emotional day for sure... I am so grateful for all of the love and support from the PC training staff, and everyone in my training group. Ronaldo, our project training specialist (aka training director for youth development) is absolutely fantastic, and it is because of his energy and leadership that I made it this far. Our language facilitators, Jose Luis, Ana Maria, Angelica, and Jota Erre... super-equipo right there. And Youth Development as a whole, thank you so much for everything... even though I am pretty far away from most of you, I came out of training with a whole new support network and I am so glad I met every one of you. COMO ESTAN??????After the ceremony, we went to a restaurant to celebrate/say our goodbyes... Almost everyone was able to come, even Ashely whose appendix exploded the other day and was in the hospital! We got our Youth Development shirts (thanks to all Anna's hard work!!).
It was so nice to get to say hasta luego (not adios) to everyone... it was really hard since we've had each other to lean on for the past three months (and i am more than 8 hours away from some of my favorite people, 12 hours from two of them!), but rest assured, once the next 3 months are up and we're allowed to leave our sites, we will be reunited. It makes me feel better that there are several trainings that will start in January, so as much of a pain as it will be to get myself to Teguz once a month for 5 or 6 months, it's a chance to see some of my favorites and check in!

Yesterday began at 4am when I put the rest of my stuff together, got the bus to Teguz, and met my counterpart and her son (who had come along too) to begin our adventure getting all my stuff (and me) to Gracias, Lempira via public transportation. It was a long day, but we made it here by the afternoon! My counterpart (the one from the Youth Center) was wonderful- she took me on a tour when we got here, and to meet my other counterpart from the infant center, and then she let me stay at her house because my host family wasn't home yet. She made me dinner, and talked to me all day.

I finally made it to my host family's house, which is right down the street from my counterpart's house, and in the same neighborhood as both the youth center and the infant center. They seem nice and tranquilo... my room is set apart in the backyard, and has its own bathroom... there are two dogs, Oso and Blackie, and three kids. I have a 13 year old sister, 15 year old brother, and 23 year old brother whose in Washington DC until December.

I have four site mates! I met three of the four today- they were super nice and welcomed me with open arms, and showed me around a bit. Gracias is a quaint little colonial town (well, big for Honduran standards) with a central park, a mix of cobble stone and dirt roads, with a few mini-super markets, plenty of pulperias, some restaurants, hotels, churches, a castle, and they hot springs are set out of the center a bit, so i haven't seen them yet. Tomorrow I am going to work! Well... I am going to meet my new colleges at both organizations, get an idea of what it is that they do and what they want my support for, and get acquainted with everything. This week will be getting to know everybody and everything, and next week I think we will look ahead and figure out some short term goals for the first three months.

This is all so crazy... I can't believe i'm here! In my site! Where I am a Peace Corps Volunteer... whoa when did that happen??