End of Training or "The Deep Nothing"

Hello friends and family! I know I've been slacking on writing actual posts. It's been a crazy few weeks, and I've been mega busy. The most important things that happened during this time was site announcement and visit and swear in.

For the next 2 years, I will be living in a small community outside of Cotui. I will be working to construct an aqueduct for two small communities - La Javilla and La Hondonada. The title of my blog is actually the translation of my community - La Hondonada literally translates to "The Deep Nothing!" It's a very remote community - you have to cross 4 rivers without bridges to get to my house. It's a bit of an adventure to get to my site with that, but I really like it so far. I went for a visit for about 4 days, and my family is wonderful and it's beautiful. Also, it is an area known for fruit - during my visit I was served pineapple, apples, bananas, oranges and more! I am really going to love all the fresh fruit in my diet.

I had an interesting miscommunication during my visit to my community. One day, we went into Cotui to see where the bus stop was, the presa, and good supermarkets. During that time, I decided to buy a machete. My project partner kept telling me that my host family had machetes, but I wanted to buy my own. Once I got home, proudly displaying my machete, I realized that what my project partner was trying to say was that my host family SELLS machetes! They thought it was really funny, but I was super embarrassed.

Other than that, we had our finals tests, including my Spanish exam, which I qualified for service with a 5.5. Then we had swear in. It's amazing, all 40 volunteers that we started with swore in, including one of our volunteers that had a torn ACL and had to return to the states for 5 weeks! We have such an amazing a dedication group, and I feel so lucky to be part of it. The ceremony was really nice - we were sworn in by the US Ambassador, and there were some really nice speeches. Afterwards we had snacks and punch and some cake. It was a great last hoorah at the Pantoja. We've been relaxing for a bit in the capital, and soon we will head to our sites for the next 2 years. It's crazy that I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer, but I am so excited to start my work here. Thanks for all your support, and I'll try to update as much as I can once I'm in site!