It''s Official

So swear in was last Friday, May 6th which means so long Trainee and hello Volunteer status. These past few weeks have been super busy the end of training. First we had a language proficiency test that we had to to pass in order to be posted. All of our intake passed. And now that I think about it I believe we are the first intake to have not had anyone go home during training. After the language test we then had a technical test and made a trip to the immigration office to get our work permits. I'm officially a resident of Zambia. Then, we had cultural day on Wednesday the 27th where we made a bunch of American style food-like burgers, guacamole, salsa, mashed potatoes, pasta salad, fruit salad, jello, dirt pudding, etc- for out host families. We all got dressed up in our chitenge dresses and shirts, had a few speeches in local language, did some singing and dancing, and received gifts from our host parents. It all went really smoothly. Afterward we were bused to Lusaka for a few nights for Swear In. The ceremony took place at the American Ambassadors house-it had a pool. There we had a bunch more speeches made by guests, some more local language speeches, more singing and dancing, and took the oath to become an United States Peace Corps Volunteer. It was a great day followed by a great night of boxed wine and more dancing. It was fun to celebrate all of us together for one last time because the next day we all loaded up separate cruisers and went to our Provinces. There are 7 of us that went to Central Province, where we stayed at the Provincial House for a couple nights. Well the other 6 did, I'm still at the house until Thursday. I'm the only Serenje volunteer and with all of them being Mukushi protocol is to just get as many people out of the house and in their village as fast as possible. So, I'm just hanging around basking in the glory of electricity and internet until they are all posted. I'm so ready to get to my village but it was nice to be able to just go shopping for me rather than 6 other people too. Another PCV took me today to the market and helped me buy everything I would need. Or at least what we could think of. I actually ran out of money. But I bought a lot knowing this will be the only time I have a cruiser as transport to my site. So why not stock up. I have also stocked up on a bunch of books from the house's library. I have three months of community entry where I am not allowed to leave my district or my village all that much, nor am I allowed to do any serious work so that means a bunch of reading will be going down. Honestly, I'm ready for some down time to just work on my garden and my hut and Relax!