We are official Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs)!

Ryan and I have made it through almost three months of in-country training and officially taken an oath to the U.S. Peace Corps. We will be leaving for the jungle tomorrow morning bright and early with all of our stuff to set up our new house for the next 2 years. The past few days have been pretty stressful as we've been trying to think of everything we will need, buy it, and haul it either to our hostel or the PC office. We are anticipating doing quite a bit of work once we arrive to site on our small house built by a PC volunteer about 15 years ago, so the next few days and weeks will probably continue to be slightly stressful. On a side note, we will not have internet until we come back into the city. We are not sure when that will be, but probably not for a few months. You can always reach us via cell phone.

Our swearing in ceremony was hosted at the U.S. ambassador to Suriname's home for the first time, which was very gracious of him and his wife. Their house is, of course, BEAUTIFUL and the ceremony was very nice. We are closing the first chapter of our PC adventure and moving into the next with excitement and nervousness! Our language is coming along, but 7 weeks learning a new language doesn't make anyone an expert, so that will be our biggest challenge once we get to site. I pray that we will have patient and kind neighbors to help move it along quickly. We are looking forward to having our own space and cooking for ourselves but are sadly saying goodbye to the running water and flush toilet at our homestay house. Subsequently, we are saying hello to a brand new latrine and outside wash house with a choice to either haul water from a community sink (better than the river!) or our durotanks, which are just huge plastic containers that catch rainwater. Also, Suriname is heading into its 3 month dry season which means no rain to cool of the days. I can not imagine it becoming even hotter than it has been, but apparently it is going to happen. :)

We miss you all very much and look forward to hearing from you. Click Here to look at a few pictures from our swearing in ceremony and following celebration.