It was truly sad to
leave my training community with the amazing relationships I had formed with
the community. I just told myself that I will be back to see them and soon I
will be forming new relationships within my official site, my new community.
Our swear-in ceremony was
short but sweet, with a few tears between Peace Corps Volunteers and families.
This would be the last time in 3 months that we would see each other unless
there were surprise visits in between then. I think that we were all feeling
pretty torn how we felt leaving our training host families (THF) because they
are our first host family. Most are pretty seasoned THF, where they understand
our weird USA ways and are sensitive to our needs in the beginning of our time
in country. So you have to give it to them, they do such a great job, how can
you not miss them?
I got to speak at the
swear-in ceremony which was pretty awesome. Hopefully I inspired the PCTs (now
PCVs) to go ahead with no worries because they will make a difference in the
world, in their communities.
Now I have been in site
for 3 weeks and love it. Life here is way different from training. There is no
structure here what so ever, while in training we had a pretty defined
schedule, here I make my own. Although I have had no defined things to do I set
goals for myself to keep me busy enough. My day changes from day to day but
usually involves integrating into my community by meeting people, visiting the
schools, going to the health center, attending church, dancing with the youth,
and just saying yes to anything I am invited to.
My community is quite
large in comparison to most PCVs in Community Health (CH) just about 3600
people or 650 families, while other PCVs have around 50-200 family CH sites. I
will be focusing working with the youth on STD/HIV prevention, values and
self-esteem.
Other areas of CH work:
Nutrition
Physical Education/Activity
Hygiene
Parasites prevention
Dental Health
Dengue Prevention
Sexual Health and Prevention
Recycling
Diabetes
High Cholesterol
Hyper Tension
Gardens
I hope to cover most of these areas by talking
within the schools, after church, commissions, clubs, radio shows, by hosting
workshops, and by having summer and winter camps. I kick off my work here by integrating
to gain the communities trust, by getting to know their priorities/concerns,
along with a community wide health survey, this will be my main project for the
next 3-4 months.
I am living with a host family for the first 3
months in site then after that I will be renting a house from one of my host family’s
brothers. I love living with my host family but all privacy is out the window,
so I am looking forward to getting that back at least within my home. Before I
move in I hope to have my garden all planted and ready to go. I have to fully
furnish the house myself with the budget that Peace Corps gives me, but I am
hoping to inherit some stuff from other PCVs that are heading home around the
time I move into my place.
