I'm proud to announce that I am now an official Peace Corps Volunteer as of about 6 hours ago. We had our swearing-in ceremony this morning at the US Ambassador's house. It was quite the place. Swimming pool, tennis court, lot's of beautiful green grass. It was a beautiful sunny day with cool weather temps. All 31 of us (we had lost two early on) made it through the 11 weeks of training and are all ready to move to our new towns this Sunday. The swearing-in ceremony consisted of singing the national anthems of both CR and the US, a handful of speeches (in Spanish) from the US Ambassador (a RPCV), the PC CR Country Director, two of my fellow trainees and two heads of organizations that we will be working with during our time here. In the end, we took an official oath to defend our country (and no, this is not a military organization) and then we all received our certificates and kissed a lot of people. Many photo shoots followed. Our current host families were invited to the ceremony and I'm happy to say that my mom tica was able to attend. After the other guests left, PC put on a delicious American lunch for us with rotisserie chicken, salad, tortilla chips and tuna dip, chocolate frosted cupcakes and brownies. It was very much appreciated. Tonight, we will all be staying in the capital city together to celebrate our freedom from the Gringo training schedule, transitioning into the Tico lifestyle of Pura Vida.
(Me with Terry, the PC Costa Rica Country Director)
