Swearing In...take 2

I just wrote a whole post and then lost it....sad.


A brief description of swearing in - I am now officially a Peace Corp Volunteer, as of December 5th. We had the ceremony at the US Embassy in Asuncion and like all of the US Embassies I have seen it was manicured to perfection - also has a pool that as a Volunteer I can use! The ambassador could not attend due to a meeting in DC apparently but we had a replacement - I am not actually sure of his title. He and our country director spoke both of which were bland and forgettable but a message of, 'this is a great oppurtunity and a great place to be.' Both of which are true but not going to keep us awake in the summer heat. We also had voted for one of the other volunteers to speak, who did keep us awake and amused (Steve is a farmer boy from Ohio with a booming voice.) Then we were let free, not really because we had to get bank cards and phones for PC as well as other errands - but this weekend was the first oppurtunity to really get to know Asuncion. My phone number...country code 595 and then my domestic number 0982600006 - I dont know if you leave the first 0 or take it off when calling but once I find out Ill be sure to tell you...skype you can call me for about 6 cents a minute. 01159598260006 - correct number 0- that is what you need to dial...


We had an article in the local Asuncion paper as well - http://www.abc.com.py/2008-12-06/articulos/476047/nuevos-voluntarios-en-el-cuerp- and make sure to check out the related articles b/c they interviewed two of the beekeepers (yes all in spanish, sorry)


Here is also a picture of the bees - bottom left to right - Lara, Nina, Adam, Mitra and I - top l to r - Justin and our trainer, Jonathan.



I leave for site tomorrow so I am excited for that and ready to get to work or get to start trying to ackwardly socialize and drink terere with hundreds of people.



Merry Christmas - Marcy