Well, we’ve done it. Forty-seven of us left JFK airport for Armenia back in May and now forty-four of us have been sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers. I can definitely say it’s a good feeling to finally be done with an eight month application process and a three month training process that at times felt like college exam week times 100. I was excited for the day when I would get to go to site and start putting together ideas for a successful two years of service, but now I’m out of my training site of Solak living with a new family. And I’m in a town by myself and for the next four weeks I’ll have limited opportunities to see other Americans, and I new that my village mates and myself were particularly close, but I had now idea I would miss them this much or my Solak host family to such a degree. I guess because it had become the familiar and now I have to do it all over again it just seems daunting. But this is all a new experience and like the first three months I’ll learn to adopt and I hope that in no time this new community will feel like home. So now to describe my past three months experience. I guess if you’ve been reading my blogs this might seem repetitive but I think its worth recounting. So back in May I left for an orientation in Philadelphia. I met forty seven unique and interesting people. Some of them I can vividly remember meeting and talking to for the first time and it is them who have become my best friends. I guess because we’re all in a unique experience together we bound quicker then you might in other circumstances because some of these people I feel really close to. Anyways, the next day we flew out of New York City for Vienna before catching our last leg into Yerevan. We arrived in Armenia early the next morning a few days later we moved to our host villages were for three months we learned the Armenian language, culture, traditions, and way of life as well as the purpose, fundamentals, and expectations of our particular assignments (remember I’m a CHE so I learned about different health initiatives and education methods). We also learned how to live as a group of Americans abroad and how to rely on each other when times got hard and get hard, which they do but with a good group of friends to fall back on (which I have made) then you can make it through just fine. After all of this we were deemed ready and able for a two year post as Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV’s) by our country director. So last Thursday we got sworn in as the 17th group of PCV’s in Armenia. I guess there isn’t a lot of news worthy things in Armenia because the entire Armenian press corps showed up in mass as well as a lot of high hatted officials and other dignitaries and most interesting the American Ambassador who swore us in as volunteers and when I took the oath I could definitely feel the goose bumps. Then we had a nice celebration with A-16’s. That evening the Solak seven took our sleeping bags and on top of the hill behind my house we enjoyed about three hours of uninterrupted meteor shower a pretty cool way to sum up a hell of a three month bonding experience. The next day we loaded a van with our luggage (which has grown exponentially) and then crammed in next to it and drove down the road watching through the window as our host families waved us off (most of them tearfully). When we got to Cherantsavan, we unloaded our luggage and reloaded into different vans before heading to our new sites all around the country, now that was a sad day! But I think in just a few weeks we will find our way again and be excited about the opportunities and chance we have to make some impact.
