Day # 65 Becoming an official volunteer

3/27/13

Thursday was an amazing day! It felt so good that all of my hard work in the application proses, and training had finally paid off and that I had earned the tittle of Peace Corps Volunteer. It was one of those moments that was so emotional. We had about 75 people their including trainers, host family’s, and counterparts. We start the ceremony off by singing the Grenada national anthem. All of the people singing was so powerfully beautiful, and then we sang the American national anthem, some of the people knew the words and sang along with us it was a grate was to start are cultural exchange. We then had are APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director) introduce us and all of the people that we had their to make are official change from trainee to volunteer. The country director of the Eastern Caribbean made a speech about how much she knows that we will be of service to are host country Grenada, that each one of us has a unique talents and things that we can share community. We then played the video that we put together of all of us new EC 85, the people loved it. It shows how active that we are already in learning about the local heritage. We even had a picture or are APCD zip lining with us in St. Lucia, which was one of the first times that we had met him. We then had the administration of oath & presentation of certificates by the Charge d’ affaires U.S. embassy. It was nice that we could also identify are home stay families because they have been an important part of are integration proses into Grenada; we passed out certificates to them.  To complete the ceremony some of the current volunteers preformed, one of them sang a song an played the guitar, then we had the local drumming group that contains five of are Peace Corps woman. It was a grate way to finish off, because the drums took us from hipped up emotional place into a calm trance. Then it was time for a lot of pictures and food. There must always be food at an event but it works out because we are always so hungry after the end of are activities. It was a grate welcoming ceremony but the night was not over. We all walked to my soon to be apartment complex to unwind. I got to see my apartment for the first time; it’s so cute and perfect for my fist place all to myself. Anyways when I went up stairs there was drinks, cupcakes, bananas, cookies and melted local chocolate for dipping. We danced, talked and said some of goodbyes. Six of are current volunteers are heading back to the US. It was an amazing night.