Swearing In/Installation

Manakory!

Just wanted to post a little update while I have fabulous WiFi at the hotel that I am at in Tamatave! Tamatave is the second largest city in Madagascar(according to a friend, fact for me?) and I am here with one other volunteer and 3 Peace Corps officials! We are getting ready to move to our permanent sites!

Anywho, We left the Peace Corps Training Center on Thursday, August 28th. All 32 of us pack 4 bags each in a big truck and hopped in the vans, ready to become official Peace Corps Volunteers. We pretty much spent all of Thursday night relaxing at the Meva, eating homemade nachos that were delicious! Went to bed pretty early, because we had to be ready at 8am on Friday to swear in. Most of my family and friends know that I am a night owl, so I might have stayed up pretty late catching up on Teen Wolf. I only have 2 episodes to go, but I am going to save them for when I really need a pick me up.

After Friday afternoon, I became an official Peace Corps Volunteer! It was a really nice ceremony, there were speeches and songs, and we were even aired live on Malagasy television! How cool! Once the ceremony was over, there was an awesome set-up of food and drinks, and we got to mingle with some higher ups in the US Embassy and Peace Corps world. All in all, it was a pretty good day!

The night however, left things to be desired. I decided to go out with the rest of the new PCVs, to have some fun and whatnot, and my wallet and phone were stolen! Bummer! I ended up getting my wallet with all of my IDs back, which is the important part. My phone, however, is long gone. Oh well I guess, I just bought a new one here in Tamatave. It's cute and tiny, and works perfectly. (:

Right now I am in Tamatave for installation. My group of 3 PCVs started in Mahanoro on the East coast, and are working our way to my site; Vavatenina. It's been a long week. We left Sunday the 31st, and I will not get to my home until Friday the 5th. It's been fun though. I've gotten to see some of Madagascar, and it is beautiful. And the Indian Ocean is SO warm! It was very unexpected to walk into the waves and not flinch back like I usually do on the coast in Oregon. I have photos of the beach and sunset, but those will have to wait until another time! For now, I am very tired. We leave at 7am tomorrow for another site installation!

Veloma!