I am a Peace Corps Volunteer!

March 22, 2012- The last two months have gone by so fast! I feel like just yesterday I arrived in South Africa. Finally the day had come that we were sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers. I no longer have to refer to myself as a trainee. It was a very exciting day and I am so glad to have reached this stage and be done with PST. Many current and past volunteers say that Pre service training (PST) is the hell of Peace Corps service. Since this is all I have done so far I can’t really say if it is the worst, but man I hope that it is the case. PST was not very fun and I am so happy to move on! My sisters made me a neck thing and a bracelet out of beads. You wear these to traditional ceremonies or important gatherings.

I spent my shopping day trying to find a skirt to match it because I really wanted to wear it to swearing in. I was able to find one and it matched pretty dang well I would have to say. Swearing in was a pretty quick ceremony. We have been practicing the South Africa National Anthem and sang that and our National Anthem. The SA one is hard because it uses 4 languages but it is a beautiful song. Anyways, after that we had some speeches by people like the PC Country Director John Jacoby, our training manager Victor Baker, Virginia Palmer (works with the US Embassy) and a few other speeches. Dan a fellow volunteer said a thank you speech in isiZulu and he was amazing! He really put my isiZulu to shame! Then Julie translated it into English and they did a great job with it. After all that we said an oath and that was it, we were now Peace Corps Volunteers.

We took a lot of pictures after and had a very yummy meal. About a half hour after swearing in several people in our group left for their new sites. I was lucky and was not leaving until the next day. I was able to go relax and swim at the river in Bundu. I was really surprised I swam in it because it was pretty nasty. It felt so good to just be free from training and the pressures of PST for a little while.