swearing in

I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. On Friday, September 9th, I was sworn in as a volunteer. It is kind of a crazy process. We were asked to sign a piece of paper before our swearing in that had the pledge we would be taking on it. This paper said something to the effect of…. “I, Casey Maugh, swear to defend the US against all enemies both foreign and domestic. I promise to uphold the constitution. I promise to fight against all evil if it isn’t US evil. I promise not to bomb other countries or my own. I promise to never become an ex-pat……..” Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, BUT not much. We basically are now a part of the US military (or so it feels).

Alright, other than the ridiculous pledge, the ceremony was really nice. The president of the government office in Sao Domingos (basically the town mayor), the Minister of Education, Matthew (our country director), Paulina (our training coordinator), Maraila, and Mike (the last two are fellow trainees) spoke at our ceremony. Most of, well about 85% of the festivities were held in Portuguese or Kriolu, which meant that we understood about 1/5 of what was going on at any given time. BUT, the swearing in, the defense of our countries freedoms and spread of all that is good, was in ENGLISH (thank goodness).

After the ceremony, we had tons of food and some good conversation with our homestay families and new friends. And, about 2 hours later, nearly half of the newly sworn-in volunteers headed to Praia and left for good! It was bittersweet. We had a nice day, but in the end, most of the people I’ve grown to love had to go! Now, the Peace Corps could have worked this out a little bit better. They could have scheduled flights for two or three days later to give us a little time to absorb the fact that we are all about to leave one another for 2 years, but NOOOOOO. It sucked, but it’s over. In fact, most people were glad they left our safe town of Sao Domingos when they did because…….

Tune into my next blog to see what horrible thing occurred.