Swear in!

On Thursday morning I was sworn in as a member of the Peace Corps! It has been a crazy past couple of days… the swearing in ceremony was more emotional then I thought it would be with almost all of the returning PCVs, our teachers, sector directors, PC country director, and American Ambassador there to watch us take our oath to uphold the US Constitution. All of the trainees were decked out in our best Mauritanian outfits and it seemed surreal to be repeating the oath after the Ambassador along with the 76 people that Ive spent the last 10 weeks training with.

After the swearing in we had a great lunch and then got to have a pretty long q & a with the Ambassador and his chief of security to discuss the current events (the coup, US counter-terrorism efforts in Mauritania, and the recent closure of one of the provinces to PCVs). I was really impressed by the Ambassador… he was very friendly and interested in talking to us and also answered all of our questions very well (plus his wife was hilarious). Me and Julie felt like dorks but still asked if we could take our picture with him :)

After he left we had a few sessions on finances (got our move in allowances and first 3 months pay!) and then spent the rest of the afternoon resting and cooking the great American dinner that we had at our swear in party (make your own taco bar!) Our party was at a hotel right outside the city and all the PCVs were there ready to help to initiate us into PC Mauritania. It was a great/crazy night full of American music, food, dancing and drinks…

Friday we were given all day to recover from Thursday night (which was much needed), had a final session on posting, and packed up the PC SUVs with ALL of our bags to move to our final sites! I just got to Boghe a few hours ago and im starting to settle in a little. The next few weeks will be spent looking around to find a host family to live with and starting to prepare to start to work (school, and my GMC, starts after Ramadan in October). Until then, I will be living at the regional house (where we just got the internet installed!!!) the picture below is of all my new region mates in Brakna South including both the new PCVs and returning second years.