Guess who's a new PCV... this guy!

I AM NO LONGER A TRAINEE, BUT A BRAND SPANKING NEW PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER. The very, some-what excruciatingly long 2 month training period is over. Yesterday we were sworn in as PCVs at the US Embassy by the PC Mali Director and the US Ambassador. The ceremony is usually held outside, but that morning the heavens decided to dump out all of its contents onto the city of Bamako. It was seriously a torrential down pour, and the dirt roads turned into brown rivers. The worst part about it was that we were all dressed up in Malian outfits (mine was all yellow with gold embroidery) and we got soaked in them. Unfortunately for me, the cloth my outfit is made out of is incredibley see-through when wet. Thank goodness I was wearing a jacket because I was able to use it to cover up my bright blue underwear that was showing through my skirt. So I spent the entire ceremony with my jacket wrapped around my waist. Besides being miserable from being wet, the ceremony was really nice. The Ambassador gave a really touching speech, and even shed some tears! We all said an oath, and then afterwards 5 of my fellow PCVs gave thank-you speeches in the languages they had been studying (Fulfude, Bomu, Tomokan, French and Bambara). After the ceremony we all took a bajillion pictures in our outfits. We were then shuttled to the American Club where they had a big buffet for us with delicious AMERICAN FOOD (cheeseburgers, pasta salad, fruit salad, potato salad, quesadillas, and french fries). The American Club has a pool, so I spent most of my time poolside trying to fix this awful tan that I've acquired from wearing only shirts with sleeves and skirts that go past my knees. Swear-in Night is always a big party that is planned by the current volunteers for the new volunteers, so after the American Club, the current volunteers (I may also refer to them as 2nd year volunteers now that I am a volunteer too) organized it so that we would spend the night in a hotel and go out to 2 different clubs in Bamako. The hotel that we stayed at was pretty nice (air conditioning, bathroom, tv) and it was basically across the street from the first club. Both clubs were awesome!! I had soooo much fun dancing and celebrating being a new PCV (the clubs were suprisingly similar to American clubs, they even played mostly American music). After clubbing we didn't get home until almost 5 am, and my hair now reeks of old cigarettes.

Tomorrow morning begins my 3 month lockdown at my site (well technically a lockdown besides the 2 times we're allowed to go to our regional capitol, Thanksgiving, and our week long regional language session). My bus leaves tomorrow at 7 am, and from Tubaniso I have about a 6 hour ride to Sikasso where I will spend 3 days buying stuff for my house. I'm super excited to buy a bunch of new things but also kind of annoyed that I will have to move all of these new things into a house that I will only be living in for a few months as I wait for my actual house to be built. Oh well.

So I don't know if you could tell this earlier, but I'm super excited to be a volunteer and be done with training!!