April 4th 2011 marked the day I and 10 other fellow Americans took the oath to officially become United States Peace Corps Volunteers. The night before swear in can be best described as the night before the first day of school when you are in middle school or high school or something. You cant sleep because you are so anxious. I couldnt sleep because the day that I have waited for for SO long has finally arrived. The day I have been working so hard during training for has finally arrived.
The Swearing In Ceremony took place at 10am at the Frenches House in Kingstown, SVG in front of Peace Corps SVG Staff, government officials, news crews, host family, current PCVS, colleagues and new friends. Also in attendance were my Host Mom and my IPP who I will be working with at EHSM. It began with the singing of the SVG and US National Anthems, then an opening speech from Mr. Cool, the APCD, followed by a speech given by Kevin Carley the Country Director of PC Eastern Caribbean, then the awarding of certificates to the host families, a keynote speech from one of our Trainers, Debbie Dolrymple, more certificates, a pep talk, The Oath, more speeches. Lastly, we had to sign our lives away for the umpteenth time, thereby officially becoming a United States PCV. Honestly its kind of a blur, but it was very nice.
To celebrate our achievements, we headed to Villa for a day at the beach. Nothing notable happened except for the van ride home. For once, there wasn’t music blasting so loud that I could barely hear myself think, but instead the news was on. After all the typical news there was a bit about 11 Peace Corps Volunteers being sworn in. The news lady discussed the areas we were serving, NGO and Youth Development; where we were working, Mespo, Barrouallie, Kingstown, Owia, among others; what we would be doing, Literacy, HIV/AIDS education, community development, etc. I cant entirely remember everything now, but the segment was a good 3 minutes long. It brought a smile to my face! It was very well done.
The following day, I was on the van headed to Layou to spend the evening celebrating the birthday of a fellow PCV’s colleague, when a man asked me if I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. Obviously, I said yes and he remarked with “Yeah I know, I saw you on the news on TV.” Im famous now!
No comments:
Post a Comment