Swearing-In and Moving On

The week leading to swearing-in day was hectic and full of surprises, the biggest of which came just two days before the big ceremony! That Wednesday, we got terrible news about fellow Tico 23er Heloise. Heloise is a very special part of our group. She is one of the bravest people I know, because she is doing Peace Corps with the help of her seeing eye dog, Annette. That's right, Heloise is blind. If you think PC is tough with all of your senses, just think about how strong of a person Heloise is.

Heloise and Annette 

Anyway, that Wednesday, we found out that her school where she was going to teach English had pulled out at the last minute and decided they no longer wanted to work with her. It was a pretty clear case of discrimination on the part of the school, at least in my eyes. As a result, Heloise had no site to go to (and her site in particular had taken an extra long time to set up, due to her disability). That, in turn, led PC to decide to give her an "interruption of service," which would mean not allowing her to swear-in with our group and sending her back to the US for an undetermined length of time. We were all devastated, especially because we had seen Heloise overcome so much in the last three months. I decided to write a letter asking PC to reconsider their decision and our whole group came together to sign it. Steve, our country director, presented our petition to the PC headquarters in Washington, and they decided to accept it. Heloise was thus allowed to swear-in with us and will be staying in our training community in San Isidro until a suitable site is found! We were obviously thrilled with how everything worked out, as was Heloise!

Friday was the swearing-in ceremony at the US Ambassador's house. A lot of important people spoke, like the ambassador herself, our country director, our boss during training, etc. The most exciting speech came from two of our own, Darien and CJ, who did an awesome job. Finally, we all took the oath to serve for the next two years and received our certificates. We even got a chance to shout out to our families and friends back home, who could watch the ceremony via live stream.

Me on the big day!

After the ceremony with my host family :)

After that, our whole group went out to eat some delicious Lebanese food in San José. After our awesome meal, Riley and Darien had organized a little game where we all shared something we loved about Tico 23 and made a friendship bracelet out of ribbon :)

The next day and a half were spent with my wonderful host family in Heredia. It was so hard to say goodbye to them. I really feel like they became my family here, and I got so attached to them. It was pretty scary and sad to leave behind my safety net here, but I know they will always be there for me and be my best friends here. 

Now, I am on day three at my site and loving it. That having been said, I'm not gonna lie -- days one and two were pretty rough! After a series of sad goodbyes and a really long bus ride, I inadvertently offended my new host mom by offering to cook for myself after she said that she worked all day five days a week. Even after I tried to clarify that I just wanted to be helpful, she still seemed sort of upset. I then found that I actually don't have much of a room at my host family's house. My room, it turns out, is pretty much a family common space, especially for the kids, who know it more fondly as the computer room. In addition, it is connected to the bedrooms of all the little kids, meaning it has no door and the kids have to walk through my room to get to their rooms and the bathroom, and are almost constantly hanging out in it. In other words, ZERO PRIVACY, despite the fact that PC REQUIRES volunteer home stays to have a bedroom door with a lock. I then talked to our project manager for TEFL about the situation, which pretty much ended up with me feeling belittled and not taken seriously. Anyway, despite all that, things are going very well now. It seems that, in spite of me being upset/homesick and not feeling up to reaching out to people, God still looked out for me and I've become fast friends with the house keeper here who takes care of the three kids. I've also gotten to know her son and daughter, who are just a bit younger than me. And today was my first day at two of my schools with my awesome counterpart Isabel. I've also gotten to play a lot with the two daughters here. All in all, it's a good situation. I've also got a variety of projects I'm starting to get organized on outside of my TEFL work, including an outside-of-school recreation program and community English classes.

Well, that's all for now, folks! Thanks for reading and much love! :) 

Rach