Swearing-In Ceremony
Afternoon!
This past week as been full of relaxing, eating food that does not resemble sand, checking out sites, and the sort.
The Kombo volunteers were put up at the Stage for the week (pronounced “Stodge”). Whenever volunteers from up-country come into town they stay at the Stage, if they want to. It costs D30/night for volunteers, but us six were put up at Peace Corps expense since our houses weren’t ready. The Stage is two stories tall with room for over 40 people to sleep. Each room has two bunk-beds and a few have three; so up to six people in a room. Downstairs is a kitchen, some rooms, living room with stereo, and med. room in case your sick. Upstairs is the rest of the bedrooms and also a TV with VCR. Movies have been donated to volunteers throughout the years and so there is over 200 movies to chose from. That got boring after a while.
Us six (Bear, Melanie, Greta, Kate, John, and I) all cooked together and split the cost for each dinner. Ended up being only D30/dinner for Mac&Cheese one night, Cheeseburger’s another, and other American foods we missed and were able to make.
The second day we were there we had to go around and “shop” for houses. The first house we saw Kate picked. It was shaped like an ‘L’ with the living room at the intersection. The bedroom and bathroom are one part of the L while the kitchen and dinning room were the other parts. You have to walk outside to get to the kitchen. She is located two blocks away from the Peace Corps office and close to the University.
The second house we saw was the first floor of a two story building. It’s located two blocks away from the Ocean. Had it’s own porch, living room, two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, and storage room. I was shocked that by default it became mine, as the other three people wanted the next place. About two blocks up the road was what the volunteers call the “Fishbowl”. It’s an apartment with four rooms, living room, bathroom, and kitchen. Bear, Greta, and Melanie are staying there. John is still up in the air of where to live.
By Tuesday everybody had been at their Site for a week or more and the drivers were picking everybody up again for the swearing-in ceremonies. All of us were put up in a three-star hotel (technically a resort) for the week. The hotel is called “The SeneGambia” and is right on the beach. To get an idea of how big it is it took five and a half minutes to walk from the entrance of the hotel all the way back to the ocean and chairs they had out. By American standards it’s quite cheap, only $23/night, but it is astronomically expensive for Gambians. We saw other tourists, even though it’s not tourist season, and even Olympic hopefuls were staying there. The Moroccan Football (soccer) players were in town to play the Gambian Scorpions for the spot in the Olympic. Some of us took a taxi and watched the game, 3-1 Gambian wins.
The rooms in the hotel had not only a fan, which is a prized possession, but air conditioning! My roommate and I had the air conditioning on so cold that the water was overflowing and coming inside our room. We just put our laundry underneath it and went to bed. The next day hung up the wet clothes and they’re dry by lunchtime. The room was a cool 17C, 62F.
The day after was full of seminars, processing site visit, talk about finance and expectations, and also swearing in ceremony. The following day we had our final language test. You have to pass in order to swear in on time. If you don’t pass you are given two weeks of one-on-one intensive language and if you pass then you swear in. Anybody who knows me knows I have a terrible time with language and was actually quite worried about the test. The test is not only testing whether you can speak the language, but equally important if you can just get the point across. One sentence I was asked to translate was “In America there are many cars. ” I knew the words for “America” and “Cars [moto]” but had no idea how to say “In” let alone “there are many. ” I thought for a while and said “bidiw bidiw bidiw bidiw bidiw. America, moto moto moto moto moto. ” The tester just laughed and said “You got the point across!” What I said, in English, was “star star star star star. America car car car car car” implying there’s as many cars in America as there are stars in the sky. I passed by one percentage point.
The next day was September 11. In the morning we had a all trainee meeting with the security person fro Peace Corps along with the security person from the American Embassy. Being the second anniversary, and also being in a 90% Muslim country, called for some security advice; most were common sense.
Three of us got a taxi to go to the Peace Corps office to check mail and e-mail. As we were walking down the street we passed the American Embassy. The flag was half-mast. We were told that last year there was a book volunteers could sign in the Embassy. We agreed to try and get inside to see if there was the same this year. Showing our Peace Corps ID we walked in a metal detector, had a bag searched, and dropped off all of our cameras. The guard then walked with us to the front door and had to enter the code in the door to let us in. Inside there were a few Americans getting documents done and a huge TV with CNN on. There was no book to sign so we watched CNN for a few minutes.
The following day was swearing-in day. Current volunteers around the country were coming up for it, along with national dignitaries. Traditionally the ceremony is held at the Ambassador’s house; but he was away on official business in France. As such, we had it had Diana’s house (The Country Director). Caterers were busy getting everything in place when we arrived. After a few speeches the trainees were called one-by-one to go up, shake hands and get your picture taken. After everybody was called we all stood and took the oath to the applause of the audience. Even though a few of us had left, we still held the record of the most time spent in-country before someone decided to go home. Most groups have someone decide to go home within the very first week and sometimes on the first day. Our group lasted nine weeks out of the ten of training. One of the people from the Embassy who gave a speech told that when he was in the Peace Corps in the early 70’s they had only 30% of their original class stay.
The ceremony was concluded by Kate J. and Jessamy giving a speech in Mandinka with English translations and finally all of us standing up and singing a song in Wollof. All this was videotaped to appear on National TV. I personally found it quite interesting that I had to come to West Africa to house shop, buy a cell phone, and appear on national TV; all for the first time.
After celebrating last night we were suppose to (according to the
“official” schedule) go shopping today for our site. We suppose to buy furniture, beds, and the sort. This is good for the people that for the week in site visit were sleeping on the floor since they had no bed. The only bad thing after today was we had no money, they hadn’t paid us. They were suppose to have paid our “settling in allowance” before site visit but the money hadn’t come from Washington DC yet. They told us last week they emergency wired transferred the money.
Today we just received word that the money still has not come and so they are going to keep us at the Hotel until at latest Wednesday and going back to sites then. They are not sending us back to site until we get paid. We were suppose to buy everything today, tomorrow head back to site and Monday start teaching (for the education). We’re now given three more days of precious air conditioning.
All for now,
-MIke
This past week as been full of relaxing, eating food that does not resemble sand, checking out sites, and the sort.
The Kombo volunteers were put up at the Stage for the week (pronounced “Stodge”). Whenever volunteers from up-country come into town they stay at the Stage, if they want to. It costs D30/night for volunteers, but us six were put up at Peace Corps expense since our houses weren’t ready. The Stage is two stories tall with room for over 40 people to sleep. Each room has two bunk-beds and a few have three; so up to six people in a room. Downstairs is a kitchen, some rooms, living room with stereo, and med. room in case your sick. Upstairs is the rest of the bedrooms and also a TV with VCR. Movies have been donated to volunteers throughout the years and so there is over 200 movies to chose from. That got boring after a while.
Us six (Bear, Melanie, Greta, Kate, John, and I) all cooked together and split the cost for each dinner. Ended up being only D30/dinner for Mac&Cheese one night, Cheeseburger’s another, and other American foods we missed and were able to make.
The second day we were there we had to go around and “shop” for houses. The first house we saw Kate picked. It was shaped like an ‘L’ with the living room at the intersection. The bedroom and bathroom are one part of the L while the kitchen and dinning room were the other parts. You have to walk outside to get to the kitchen. She is located two blocks away from the Peace Corps office and close to the University.
The second house we saw was the first floor of a two story building. It’s located two blocks away from the Ocean. Had it’s own porch, living room, two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, and storage room. I was shocked that by default it became mine, as the other three people wanted the next place. About two blocks up the road was what the volunteers call the “Fishbowl”. It’s an apartment with four rooms, living room, bathroom, and kitchen. Bear, Greta, and Melanie are staying there. John is still up in the air of where to live.
By Tuesday everybody had been at their Site for a week or more and the drivers were picking everybody up again for the swearing-in ceremonies. All of us were put up in a three-star hotel (technically a resort) for the week. The hotel is called “The SeneGambia” and is right on the beach. To get an idea of how big it is it took five and a half minutes to walk from the entrance of the hotel all the way back to the ocean and chairs they had out. By American standards it’s quite cheap, only $23/night, but it is astronomically expensive for Gambians. We saw other tourists, even though it’s not tourist season, and even Olympic hopefuls were staying there. The Moroccan Football (soccer) players were in town to play the Gambian Scorpions for the spot in the Olympic. Some of us took a taxi and watched the game, 3-1 Gambian wins.
The rooms in the hotel had not only a fan, which is a prized possession, but air conditioning! My roommate and I had the air conditioning on so cold that the water was overflowing and coming inside our room. We just put our laundry underneath it and went to bed. The next day hung up the wet clothes and they’re dry by lunchtime. The room was a cool 17C, 62F.
The day after was full of seminars, processing site visit, talk about finance and expectations, and also swearing in ceremony. The following day we had our final language test. You have to pass in order to swear in on time. If you don’t pass you are given two weeks of one-on-one intensive language and if you pass then you swear in. Anybody who knows me knows I have a terrible time with language and was actually quite worried about the test. The test is not only testing whether you can speak the language, but equally important if you can just get the point across. One sentence I was asked to translate was “In America there are many cars. ” I knew the words for “America” and “Cars [moto]” but had no idea how to say “In” let alone “there are many. ” I thought for a while and said “bidiw bidiw bidiw bidiw bidiw. America, moto moto moto moto moto. ” The tester just laughed and said “You got the point across!” What I said, in English, was “star star star star star. America car car car car car” implying there’s as many cars in America as there are stars in the sky. I passed by one percentage point.
The next day was September 11. In the morning we had a all trainee meeting with the security person fro Peace Corps along with the security person from the American Embassy. Being the second anniversary, and also being in a 90% Muslim country, called for some security advice; most were common sense.
Three of us got a taxi to go to the Peace Corps office to check mail and e-mail. As we were walking down the street we passed the American Embassy. The flag was half-mast. We were told that last year there was a book volunteers could sign in the Embassy. We agreed to try and get inside to see if there was the same this year. Showing our Peace Corps ID we walked in a metal detector, had a bag searched, and dropped off all of our cameras. The guard then walked with us to the front door and had to enter the code in the door to let us in. Inside there were a few Americans getting documents done and a huge TV with CNN on. There was no book to sign so we watched CNN for a few minutes.
The following day was swearing-in day. Current volunteers around the country were coming up for it, along with national dignitaries. Traditionally the ceremony is held at the Ambassador’s house; but he was away on official business in France. As such, we had it had Diana’s house (The Country Director). Caterers were busy getting everything in place when we arrived. After a few speeches the trainees were called one-by-one to go up, shake hands and get your picture taken. After everybody was called we all stood and took the oath to the applause of the audience. Even though a few of us had left, we still held the record of the most time spent in-country before someone decided to go home. Most groups have someone decide to go home within the very first week and sometimes on the first day. Our group lasted nine weeks out of the ten of training. One of the people from the Embassy who gave a speech told that when he was in the Peace Corps in the early 70’s they had only 30% of their original class stay.
The ceremony was concluded by Kate J. and Jessamy giving a speech in Mandinka with English translations and finally all of us standing up and singing a song in Wollof. All this was videotaped to appear on National TV. I personally found it quite interesting that I had to come to West Africa to house shop, buy a cell phone, and appear on national TV; all for the first time.
After celebrating last night we were suppose to (according to the
“official” schedule) go shopping today for our site. We suppose to buy furniture, beds, and the sort. This is good for the people that for the week in site visit were sleeping on the floor since they had no bed. The only bad thing after today was we had no money, they hadn’t paid us. They were suppose to have paid our “settling in allowance” before site visit but the money hadn’t come from Washington DC yet. They told us last week they emergency wired transferred the money.
Today we just received word that the money still has not come and so they are going to keep us at the Hotel until at latest Wednesday and going back to sites then. They are not sending us back to site until we get paid. We were suppose to buy everything today, tomorrow head back to site and Monday start teaching (for the education). We’re now given three more days of precious air conditioning.
All for now,
-MIke
posted by Mike | 6:44 AM
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