Ok, to say that this past week was one of the craziest of my life would be an understatement. I got back to Lusaka, Monday night after a pretty uneventful and very sleep filled couple of plane rides. I slept in the Peace Corps. bunk house that night and then back to the training center, where I have been staying for the past two months where I got to reunite with my fellow trainees. It was absolutely incredible to see everyone again. I missed them so much. I've been apart of some pretty incredible groups of people in my life (college, study abroad, etc) but this one may just be the best. They are some of the most supportive, funniest, nicest, and all around amazing people that I have ever met. I went back to my homestay family that night and it was good to see them again. I had felt so bad that I left without saying goodbye the last time because I was on site visit. They were very relieved that I was bac even though I was only going to be staying with them for two more nights. On Wednesday we had a cultural day for our homestay families where they came to our training center to eat a variety of American foods that we prepared for them and to listen to speeches in the local language by the fellow trainees. It was a pretty big production and I am really glad I came back in time to be a part of it.
Thursday morning we moved all of our things out of our homestay families homes and to another hostel type place in Lusaka province in order to get ready for swear in. We had meetings all day Thursday at Peace Corps Headquarters and got ready for our official swear-in ceremony on Friday. We got to go to the ambassadors residence for it that was pretty sweet. Everyone had local clothes made and looked very Zambian and clean. 46 of our original 49 swore in as official volunteers. After our swear-in ceremony collected our Peace Corps. moving in allowance and headed out to Lusaka to do some shopping for our sites, although I didnt really do any shopping because I'm headed back to the training center for a week to make up the language lessons I missed (but I am still an official volunteer!). We then got to actually go out in Lusaka which was really fun and definitely needed before we said goodbye the next morning. I think we got home around 3 am and everyone had to be up at 5:30 in order to load their cruisers and to head out to their respective provinces. It was really sad to say goodbye to everyone. I think everyone else was ready to get to their site and start their real Peace Corps. experience, but I was bummed because I just got back and had to say goodbye again. Such is life in Peace Corps. though. Now we wont see each other for three months, until our in-service training conference. But hopefully it will be fine I'm sure it will be. Now I've got a pretty low-key week of make-up stuff before I head back to Eastern province to move-in to my site!
