Swearing-In

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8/24/08
Wow, the last couple of weeks have been extremely busy and this post is way overdue. Since so much has happened recently I’m going to try and hit the main points and leave out all the small stuff. Before I start, I just wanted to let everyone know that I wasn’t the only person that locked themselves in the bathroom on site visit. Another trainee broke the door handle like I did, but he was by himself so he was stuck in there for 45 minutes until someone came by to check on him. The first meaningful event was my language assessment. In the week leading up to the assessment interview we practiced and had a number of mock interviews with our language trainers. I felt confident that I would pass and really wasn’t nervous at all about the interview. The guy that conducted my assessment interview was really nice and an old Peace Corps language trainer so he was familiar with everything. The interview last 20 minutes and I thought it went great. I scored intermediate-mid in Twi, which is the language requirement to swear-in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. One or two trainees might have had to do the interview twice, but everyone “passed.”
A lot of the next week was spent rehearsing for the swearing-in ceremony. The drumming and dancing routine needed a lot of work considering we still hadn’t learned all the moves we were doing. We also had our second soccer game against the trainers. Luckily for me, my soccer cleats came in the mail the day before the match so I pumped to play. To our surprise, there were only about 5 trainers on the other team and the rest were men’s league players that they picked up. I wasn’t too surprised that the trainers had called in a team of ringers after the way our last game turned out. Either way, we were still determined to win. In the first 5 minutes of the game we lost a player to a knee injury, and I was taken down from behind and rolled my ankle. I played the rest of the game but I couldn’t cut or sprint. I managed to score 2 goals and get 2 assists, but we still lost 5-6. I was frustrated that I hurt my ankle so early in the game, but oh well, this just means we’ll have to have a rubber match. We also had the water sachet Olympics to celebrate the end of training. We broke into teams and competed in 4 different events. I was on team tree hugger (team names were assigned by the PCVRF’s) with other people from the northwest. The first event was the water sachet toss, and my team didn’t do so well. The second event was the water sachet balance race. For this event the contestants had to balance a water sachet on their head and race around the training site without letting the water sachet fall. I won my heat and subsequently won the final to get my team back in contention. The third event was the water sachet chugging relay. My team was in first place going into the last leg, but we fell to finish second. The final event was water sachet dodgeball. My team won all of our preliminary games and going into the final it was mathematically impossible for us to take over first place so we had everyone join in for a free for all. People got drenched and it was a lot of fun.
Before the swearing-in ceremony, we moved out of our home stays and into guest houses for a couple nights. As a thank you gift for my home stay family I got a picture of me with the family printed and I put it in a frame for them. They were totally surprised by the gift, and they loved it. I’m going to miss my home stay family, and I’ll definitely visit them whenever I am in the area. It was at the guest house that the next event took place. After the first night, I woke up with what looked like a small rash on the inside of my arms. I had used a new 2 yard as a sheet the night before so I figured it was probably just a reaction to the dye. The next night I went to bed without the 2 yard, and I woke up after a couple hours and my face was swollen and entire body had broken out in hives. I decided that there was obviously something in the bed that I was allergic to so I went to the training site to sleep in the sick bay. With the help of Benadryl, the hives were much better in the morning. The hives really didn’t itch anywhere except my hands and my feet. They looked a lot worse than they actually were. I never had any trouble breathing and I talked to the PCMO about what to do. I have never had an allergic reaction like that before, and my best guess is that the foam mattress was moldy. It took a couple days for the hives to completely clear but they eventually did.
The big moment was finally here. After 10 weeks of training, I was finally able to swear-in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. The ceremony was really nice, and all sorts of people came to watch it. All the home stay families came as well as the Regional Minister, the Chargé d’ Affaires from the US Embassy, the Minister of Education, and tons of Peace Corps staff. It was such a big deal that the event was televised. The drumming and dancing performance was perfect. I was front and center in the formation and have pictures from other volunteers that I will send home. I had a fever and my allergic reaction wasn’t gone so I stayed in that night instead of celebrating at the spot.
From there I headed to my site. I spent a night at the Kumasi sub office to use internet and relax. When I got to my site I found that little had changed since the last time I had been there. Jason basically grabbed the stuff he wanted to take home and left everything else. There were random items all over and everything was filthy. I wanted to move everything out of the room and clean from the floor to the ceiling but I didn’t have anything to clean with so I had to wait to go into town the next day to pick up supplies. It was really frustrating having a ton of work to do and not being able to do anything. To my surprise, I ran into the school carpenter and he fixed my bed and bathroom door on the first day. I picked up a bunch of odds and ends in Obuasi and spent a couple days cleaning and moving in. With everything unpacked it is really clear how small my room really is. I still have to screen my porch, buy a fridge, and decorate the walls with pictures. I have a gas burner being dropped off next week that I am buying from another PCV. I want something more reliable than an electric burner that trips the circuit if it is turned up too high. I still got lots of work to do, but it is starting to look like home.
The big news you all might want to know is that my mom bought my ticket to fly home for Christmas. I know you’ll all want to see me so write me a message of what times work for you and I’ll start scheduling appointments. Now that I rely on myself for food it is now more important than ever to send snack foods. Thanks for all the messages. I miss everyone, and I’ll see you at Christmas.

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Comments

[Mom]

Congratulations!
Well, it's sound like things are settling down for you. You're finally a real PCV! You'll get better at speaking Twi. It's too bad you didn't feel good enough to celebrate after your graduation. You hadn't told me anything about the hives or swelling - but I'm glad that's all over with. I know how hard it is for you so loose a soccer game- but - there's always next time! Glad that your shoes finally arrived!!! I know that when you got to your site that it was kind of discouraging that the guy before you left it such a mess. Hopefully when you leave that site in 2 years, you will be a little kinder to the next PCV. Well I'll be sending you another care package this Friday! Take care. Everyone says hello! Love, Mom