December 4, 2012

What a day! I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer :) Today was a pretty hectic day. We woke up really early in Namaacha and got in a rented Chapa. I sat with Ella, Casey, Nick, and Stephen at the front. We were listening to music on Stephen’s phone and then the driver showed him how to plug it into the car. It was so much fun singing and listening to music!

 It had started raining that morning and the roads were a mess. Because of that, we were all late to our ceremony. Some of us were wearing our dresses and some weren’t ready. Peace Corps had planned our ceremony to be outside but it was raining so we were crammed into the ambassador’s house instead. It was done fairly quickly. We sang the Mozambican national anthem, a song we learned in Portuguese, and then we were sworn in as volunteers. Apparently the oath is the same one all government officials use (including the president of the US!). After that, we all swarmed around the food. It took forever and I was so hungry! By the time I finally got food, I was talking to a few volunteers and then we had to leave! I couldn’t believe it. I was eating as I was walking out the door.

Officially swearing in as Peace Corps Volunteers.

Waiting for the ceremony to start. From left to right: Anna, me, Ella, Casey, Stephen, Kevin. 

 Our official photo! We are with the Ambassador (left) and Country Director (right). 

 Hanging out after the ceremony. From left to right: Anna, Cheyenne, Taylor, me. 

We then walked to the Peace Corps office, which was a madhouse! I took out some valuables from my folder, ate ice cream (It was so good! I miss ice cream!), and then we got our bank cards. As soon as things started settling down, we were separated by our regions (North, Central, and South) to go to our hotels. We were stuck inside our bus for another hour or two waiting for everything to be sorted out. We were all pretty tired and grumpy by the time we got to the hotel (the same one I went to when I did site visits). The rest of the day was spent hanging out with friends from the central and south. The next time I can guarantee I’ll see them next is a year from now. Mozambique is so big! It’s about the same length as the west coast of the United States. As I said before, we have such a great group of people and I am going to miss everyone. Nick and I went to dinner that night and the next morning we all went our separate ways. I was definitely feeling a lot of different emotions that day and more negative emotions than positive. It was so weird because I had been looking forward to the day we become official volunteers for so long. The actual swearing in process and ceremony definitely wasn’t what I was expecting but it was still quite a memorable experience nonetheless.