End of training…Beginning of Service!

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.