Life as a New PCV

Where to begin…

The past few weeks have been quite busy and full of many different experience, including swearing in and moving to my site for the next two years.

The last few weeks of training and in Mvouni (the village we stayed in during training) have been full of many different events and activities. Especially spending time with my family and friends of Mvouni and preparing to move to my new home in Hetsa.

The past few weekends in Mvouni have involved cleaning up the Primary School, painting a world map, and teaching at the Club America in the village. During the weeks I was busy with training and Model School. Upon returning home I would just spend time with my family or some of the other volunteers. Instead of trying to explain all the different events we did leading up to the last few days in PST (Pre-Service Training) I feel pictures best describe each event.

The last few days in Mvouni contained many events, especially a goodbye ceremony and swearing in at Moroni. To celebrate all of us making it through training we held a Karaoke party with both Group 1 and Group 2. It was a good final hoorah with everyone before departing for our designated islands, and to celebrate finishing training. The following day some of volunteers and I attended a picnic, that some of our friends from Mvouni put on for us. Wednesday was a bit nerve racking as we had our language placement test, although I do not know the final score, I think I did pretty good. Wednesday was also a day of celebration in the village. Mvouni (the village we stayed in for 2 months) held a huge event to celebrate having us and to say goodbye. The event consisted of a soccer tournament, a basketball game, traditional Comorian dancing, Taekwondo exposition, and a speech from the mayor of the village. It was a sad event while also happy. It was for sure hard to say goodbye to the village that welcomed us all into their homes. When the ceremony ended one of the volunteer’s host mom held a little dinner for me and another volunteer to thank us and say goodbye. Upon completing dinner, we went to attend a dance party that the village was hosting for us. It ended up being a bit different than what we would consider a dance party. That meaning some of the different dance groups of the village created dances and performed them for us. Also us, Peace Corps Volunteers, made an appearance and did a little dancing too, we ended up doing the electric slide. After a very long night I crashed as we had to be up early for our swearing in.

Swearing in was simple but a nice event. We had a little ceremony and a reception. Both my host family from Mvouni and my new host family in Hetsa attended, which was good to let them both met each other. Upon being sworn in and taking a few pictures I said my goodbyes and headed to site.

So far site life has been treating me well. Of course there has been some difficulties when it comes to finding things to do, as I am use to always being busy and here it is a much more laid back life. Besides that, minor hiccup all has been good. I have been settling in, meeting people in my community, attending soccer matches, and I even attended a Comorian dance party. Within the next few weeks I will be beginning school, continue to get to know my community, and start to get into a routine. Soon I will post an update with more details of what I am doing at site and about the different events I am attending.

Until Then.