Officially a PCV

The newest group of PCV's in Uganda...

So i will fill everyone in on the rest of training another time but want to get up to now and what i am currently doing...

Training in finally over and I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer...

We moved out of our homestay families houses Tuesday morning (630 am but ended up being more like 730 since some people thought that was the time we were supposed to meet) we headed to the US embassy where we listened to people talk about various things that are happening in Uganda and how the US aids Uganda. We then proceeded to the Peace Corps office all starving since we had left early and could not get breakfast (i did get the most amazing brownie at the embassy it tasted like heaven). We proceeded to listen to various people talk and sign way to many forms (i think i may have signed my life away to the peace corps). We got a tour of the office (yay we got to see some offices...once you see one you have seen them all. Lunch was the highlight of the day a sub sandwich with ham cheese and mayo. They also told me i have a package at the post office and would go get it and deliever it to our hotel (they never did that now i am still without my packages). We also lost a volunteer and became 45 while at the peace corps office, i wish our group was still intact and we had the full 46. We went to our hotel and rested for a bit (by rested i mean drank) until it was time to meet our supervisiors. Mine did not come the first night since she was not staying at the hotel like the others. That night we all sat around talking, drinking and drinking. The next day we sat thru boring sessions that we had already heard before wth our counterparts...mine actually fell asleep during one of the sessions. The counterparts/supervisors were dumfounded to find out we were not allowed to ride bodas (motorcycles) and faught in every way possible for us to ride them...they failed we still cant ride them...they tried their hardest tho...we also had a session on sexual assult and what it means to sexually assult someone...one of the supervisors did not like this and asked what he should do if he was assulted by the volunteer (i dont think he has anything to worry about since his volunteer is a male and is also married). That night Bryan and i began playing beer pong while waiting for the others we decided it was a good idea to play 1 on 1...3 games later i won 2-1...then others finally came to play as well...8 games later i had only lost the one game...yes i am that sweet at beer pong. The next mornign was rough as i had called every american that is in america and in my phone the night before. The next day was rough to say the least and we sat thru more sessions all waiting for the time to get ready and head to our swearing in ceremony. At the ceremony we had the deputy embassitor, shirley our wonderful training manager, the program manager and country dirctor as well as 3 pct's make speeches. We swore in and officially became volunteers. (hard to believe i made it thru 8 weeks and no longer think anything of going to the bathroom in a hole, batheing in a bucket or seeing a cockroach, as long as its not on my face i am fine...that story will come with the part 2 of training post). The night after swearing in we all recieved awards (i will describe mine in next post) and all broke out of our shells (i think i have been out oif mine way longer than others) and had a blast, many of us even swimming fully clothed...the next morning it was on to site where 6 of us will be in the same district so we rented a costa bus (yes this seems like a very large bus for 6 people but we couldnt have dont it any other way, we had the bus full of our things who knew we would have accumulated so many things over the 10 weeks.) and it was official i am now at site and living in ssanje officially on my own in africa and ready to get to work.

oh i almost forgot...i received a certificate for failing my language test...i received a score lower than what i needed to pass so now i will get a tutor work on the language some more and hopefully pass in 3 months (i will say i had a very bad day that day and messed up on things i actually know but i wouldnt have passed me either with the things i messed up on....so...only in uganda will you still receive a certificate for failing something with your failing level printed on the certificate...looks like i will frame it and hang it next to my door...