On September 17, 2014 at 2:00 pm, 72 Peace Corps Trainees sat in the Charles Parsons Ballroom at the US Embassy in Mania to be sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers. It happened, it was awesome, check out the pictures!
With Roli, my awesome Friend and Language Teacher
Sandra, Me, Erin, and Sarah – The ladies of our Cluster Site (minus Akiko)
Joke lang! I’ll tell you all about it. The ceremony opened with beautiful renditions of the Philippine and American national anthems. We received thoughtful remarks from our amazing Country Director Denny Robertson. I am sad to report that he will be leaving us for Peace Corps Ukraine to assist with re-starting programming there, he will be great but we will miss him greatly. The Charge D’Affaires, Brian Goldbeck gave a good-humored speech as well. Each sector put together a small program; CRM performed a song. We rewrote the lyrics to Under the Sea and put together a montage of CRM trainees eating as a videoke background [Note: Videoke is like karaoke, but there is a music video playing along with the lyrics across the screen. The music video never has anything to do with the song. More on the wonderful world of videoke in a future post] We prepared a choreographed routine for the musical interlude, flush with awesome props of sea life and an oceanscape in front of the stage (which just means there were people shaking a blue sheet in front of the stage). It was a lot of fun to perform and we made everyone laugh, unfortunately I have no pictures of that delightful performance.
Former Country Director, Denny
At the podium
Before the oath was administered, all volunteers were called to the stage and introduced by name, hometown, and permanent site. Once the stage was loaded full of volunteers, the Charge D’Affaires swore us in. Upon completion of the oath, streamers and glitters exploded from the audience (I only saw bursts of glitter and heard the pop of their release as I was standing in the back row of the stage). It was an exciting moment.
CRM Sector at Swearing In
Throughout the ceremony I was filled with excitement, curiosity, and so much emotion. Although it was hard for many volunteers to say good-bye, I was ready to leave and get to my permanent site. I am happy to be here and get started with my work at the Local Government Unit (LGU).
