It's offical... I am a Peace Corps volunteer! There is so much to report that I don't even know where to begin, and I am working on a very frustrating keyboard, so vamos a ver how this goes.
We had our swearing in ceremony on Friday at the US Embassy in Teguz. Everyone was all dressed up, and even though it rained, the event went really well. Our counterparts (work partners from our organizations) came to meet us in the morning, and we spent the day chatting and going through introductory activities. The vice mayor and another employee of my municipality came, and we ate lunch with my sitemate and her health counterpart. The most awkward moment was when we asked them what our site needs the most help with, and they said ¨clean water.¨ (Remember that our training group includes business, health, and water/sanitation volunteers... you can see why this was a conversation killer.)
The ceremony itself included speeches from our country director, the ambassador, and volunteers. I conducted the US national anthem, which we had to sing acapella - and we did a pretty good job if I do say so myself! We took lots of pictures and then stayed for a nice dinner in Teguz before returning to our host families to pack.
Yesterday, my counterparts picked me up in their car (thank goodness they brought a car! some volunteers had to take the bus), and we drove in to my site. It took about 3 hours, and I was exhausted. We immediately went over to the municipality, where I met just about everyone in the world, including the mayor. I'm going over there bright and early tomorrow to meet with them and develop a work plan, and we're also getting some sort of formal welcome from the escuela.
My first impression of my site has been a really good one. My host family is absolutely WONDERFUL... they have been taking me all over the town, and today we went to one of the nearby balnearios (basically a bunch of pools), where I actually got in the water and went down a surprisingly scary water slide. I also went to church with them this morning and spent 2 hours helping an old woman find and read verses in her Bible. (You know you're in Peace Corps when...)
Yesterday they gave me a walking tour of town, and I went back out again today with my sitemate, so I'm starting to feel better oriented. The city itself is large, but not very developed, with only the central roads being paved. The colegio where I'll be working is closeby, and they have a track where I can go running. They are hosting a health fair this Thursday, so we will be hitting the ground running! (no pun intended) We have also learned that the municipality has a band, so I am eager to help out with that.
There are 2 bilingual schools here and a lot of medical brigades and church missions that come through, so the town is really receptive and helpful to foreigners. It's a nice vibe because tourists don't really come through here, so people tend to respect the foreigners that live here without staring at us like we're aliens. We've already met several American and Canadian teachers from the bilingual schools, and there is a volunteer here from the Japanese equivalent of Peace Corps. My first impression is that the presence of other gringos will be an asset, but of course it will be a challenge to balance that time and not spend too much time hanging out and speaking English!
Of course, these are all my impressions after only 2 days here. I'm sure things will change as time goes on. Other good things about my site so far: There are 3 fairly nice parks as well as a supermercado. Also, Intibuca is the only department in Honduras that can grow strawberries, and my host family and I just ate strawberry ice cream with bananas for dinner. Yum!
In other news, the Honduran soccer championship game just ended, and people are screaming and parading through the streets. I also keep getting ¨viva Motagua¨ texts from random numbers. It sort of reminds me of SF when the Giants won the World Series. They do love their soccer around here...
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