Swearing In

The last couple of weeks have been very, very busy. On Tuesday, we met our counterparts. My counterpart is a very friendly lady and I know we are going to get along really well. She told me more about my job and it sounds extremely exciting. I will be working closely with about five different conservancies, and three of them are surrounding the well-known Etosha National Park. Hopefully, I’ll get to see a lot of African Wildlife! I will be working on some income generating activities as well as conducting some business training sessions. It seems like I will be doing A LOT of traveling around the Ovambo region, so I will have lots of time to get to know my counterpart. I can’t wait to get started!

 

Also, I found out that I’ll only be living with a host family for about 6 weeks in Ongwediva, starting today. I’m a bit nervous about meeting my new family today, but it should be great! However, after 6 weeks with the family, I will then apparently be moving into a different house where I will be living by myself for almost two years. If this is true, I’m definitely happy about that because it will be nice to have some personal space, although I have enjoyed living with a host family so far.

Yesterday, I officially became a Peace Corps Volunteer! After 9 long weeks of Peace Corps Training, we swore in to make the start of our Peace Corps service official. I also had to give a speech in Oshindonga in front of all the volunteers, trainers, staff, families and our counterparts and supervisors. I think I did all right and my counterpart, language trainers and host mom said they were really proud of me and that I sounded like a true Ovambo man :)

After the swearing in ceremony, we all decided to hang out one last time and got a drink together. It was a good sending off and I’m definitely going to miss all the volunteers in my group. They’ve nothing but the best!

Now, I am waiting for my counterpart to pick me up so we can embark on our 7 hour journey northbound! I'll be traveling with another volunteer, Kaitlyn, to O-land and I think we may be the last volunteers to leave Okahandja. I've got no idea what these next few days have in store for me but I'm stoked to begin this next part of my journey!

Oshindonga. Represent!