Making Things Official

November 23, the day after Thanksgiving, Perú 20 was sworn into the Peace Corps at the Ambassador’s house in Lima. I have officially been a volunteer for a week now and I suppose it’s about time I update ya’ll on what it feels like. The final week of training was jam-packed with language interviews, final classes, Thanksgiving feasting, talent show prep and too many goodbyes. Everything was a blur of emotions and I can’t even remember exactly how it all happened but here it goes…

I got back from my site visit at 6:30am on Sunday morning and we went straight to the main office in Lima. Plans for the final week got switched up a bit and we ended up staying at a retreat center all together until our swearing-in ceremony just like we had started our first weekend in Perú. It was like a week-long slumber party. Kind of a crazy switch up but in the end I was so happy to spend the final week even closer together, who knows if everyone else would say the same about me, haha.

On Tuesday, I had my final language interview. I started at Novice-High and moved up to Intermediate-Low after my first interview so I only had one more level to get to in order to complete the minimum requirement. Some people were pretty freaked out about the interviews but I figured, for me, it was better to relax and just think of it as a scheduled conversation. I didn’t feel too great after the interview was over but the next day my language facilitator told me I had advanced TWO levels! Hellooooo Intermediate-High!!

Spanish Class #1

Spanish Class #2
Nos vemos en el nivel de Avanzado-Alto!!

By Wednesday night I found myself with several other volunteers in the kitchen of the training center preparing some classic Thanksgiving dishes. I made a sweet potato casserole with the help of my friend, Nathan. We figured sweet potatoes taste pretty great by themselves and decided to leave recipes behind and go with what tastes good. I think it turned out pretty delicious, too.

Thanksgiving was AMAZING. It was also the last day of training and almost surreal. The day started off with an amazing breakfast that our tech trainer, Veronica (by far my favorite Peruvian), and our language facilitators. We went around the table in true Thanksgiving fashion and said what we were thankful for. For any of you who witnessed my maid-of-honor speech at Jordan and Nick’s wedding, you could probably imagine how things went down once my turn came around and for those of you who weren’t there, there’s a photo posted below.

Weepy McWeeperson

I’ll I could say was that I had two major fears coming into this Peace Corps adventure: that I wouldn’t have any friends and that I wouldn’t be successful in my projects; however, thanks to our amazing WASH 20 group and the rest of our training group I headed out to site with 50 times the friends I thought I’d have and thanks to our amazing training staff I am positive Perú 20 will have an abundance of success. And I’m excited to see it happen.

Small faces FTW

WASH 20
I will never get tired of this photo

We finished our breakfast with a Disney medley that we prepared while cooped up in the retreat center. It included Bear Necessities, Be a Man, Under the Sea and A Whole New World. Needless to say, it was mind-blowing. Veronica and the language facilitators got a kick out of it but when we performed once again for the Host Family Talent Show, the families had no idea what to make of it. I returned to my seat next to my host mom and aunt and they didn’t say a word. Yeeeah.

After breakfast we scrambled to heat up all the dishes we had prepared the night before using the one oven we have in the training center. It was pretty surprising how much food we ended up with and how incredible everything tasted. The Thanksgiving lunch was a special thank you to our whole training center and an excellent cultural exchange (one of the top ten Peace Corps goals, of course). More thank yous were said and more tears were shed, but, more importantly, delicious food was consumed. The only thing that was missing was the football!

In the afternoon we had a celebration for our host families to show them how much we appreciated them opening up their homes to us for the past ten weeks. It was a short celebration of snacks and a talent show. We had some pretty sweet acts as you can see.

Mi prima anfitriona, Valentina

The original host fam

On Friday we had our swearing-in ceremony. We rushed to pack the rest of our things and load them on the buses in our fancy clothes that morning and then were shipped off to Lima. My bus got stuck in traffic and the air conditioning was not functioning. We ended up being late for our own ceremony and were drenched in sweat by the time we got to the Ambassador’s house. One member from each host family was invited to the ceremony; mostly the moms came to join us. Afterwards we said goodbye to them and made our way to the country director’s house for dinner and dancing. There was a dance floor, a hype guy and a DJ and our training staff and language facilitators were getting down to some classic Peruvian tunes. For dinner I finally got to try anticucho, which is basically a kebab of beef heart. It was delicious. Next on my list is cuy (guinea pig, yum). The after-party was of course followed by a night of dancing at the discoteca until 4am. Yeeeee!

This may be my favorite picture of all time.
Sorry Nathan!

Nathan and his 3 de Octubre ladies

Steven and his ladies

WASH amigos

Gentlemen

Lovelies

Throughout the week I was back and forth between dentist and eye doctor appointments to replace my retainers and glasses that were in my backpack. I wasn’t too happy to leave randomly throughout the day (even during the party at our country director’s house after swearing-in) for these appointments and lose some of what little time I had left with my friends but I will say that I am SUPER thankful for Peace Corps medical insurance and the amazing doctors and medical assistants we have on staff. They set up all my appointments and truly took care of everything. I mean, hopefully I won’t get too sick or get my retainers jacked again but at least I know I got some bad ass Peruvians on my side!

Looking back, training seemed to last forever but in the grand scheme of things I still have two more years to go and so many more adventures to be had. Last weekend was filled tearful goodbyes and a mess of emotions. We left for our sites in waves and it was just one goodbye after the next. I thought my goodbyes were over when I passed through the airport security and waved to my family. I never realized I could meet such amazing people and become so close to them in ten short weeks. By the time it was my turn to get in a taxi and head out for my night bus, I was weeping like a baby.

Perú 20, always classy

This first week has been rocky but I try to remind myself how lucky I am. I have a kick ass site mate, Amanda, who has already shown me around and introduced me to a ton of people, an amazing host family and three younger siblings who are always willing to explain things to me and help me however they can and I’ve been heading to the open-air market everyday to get myself a fresh mango (DELICIOUS!!!). I’m setting up my room little by little and I think I’m gonna like this new home of mine.

Hasta la próxima vez!