From Aspirante to Volunteer: Peace Corps Swear In Ceremony

     On Wednesday May 30, 2014, my group G74 took their oaths and swore in as official PCVs!  The ceremony was held at the US ambassadors house in Panama City.  After 10 long weeks of cultural, language, and technical training, the day had finally come to bridge the gap from Aspirante to Peace Corps volunteer.  Below is a group picture of G74 before the swear in ceremony:

     And another picture of the other Teaching English volunteers in my group:

     All of the teachers, trainers, and PC staff were present at the ceremony along with other volunteers.  It was nerve wracking because we had to go around and present ourselves in Spanish, which is a very easy thing to do but is daunting when you have 100+ people watching you!  Afterwards, our Country Director, Pete Larousse, made an opening statement thanking everyone who had helped to get us to this day.  

      After his speech, the US Ambassador to Panama Jonathan Farrar talked about the important impact that Peace Corps Volunteers have on Panamanian society and thanked us for embarking on this mission.  I was lucky enough to get to talk to Mr. Farrar afterwards, he is a really wonderful and interesting person. 

     Before officially swearing in, both the TE and CEC group needed to give a speech, and the representatives from our group were two of my friends Nick and Sam.  They did a great job giving a funny and accurate representation of the cultural lessons we had learned so far while living in Panama. 

     After all of the speeches were concluded, it was finally time to take our oaths.  We all stood up, raised our right hand, and pledged the following oath: 

     "I, (insert name), do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the          United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the    same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I  will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.  So help me  God." 

     And just like that, I was officially a Peace Corps Volunteer!  It was a very grounding experience, and for the first time since I got to Panama it really hit me that I was in the Peace Corps.  Afterwards we had a reception and spent time talking and taking pictures.  My group loves taking funny pictures, they're always so much better than serious ones: 

  Here is a photo of all of the new PCV's in the Azuero region with me:  

     This is the Breakfast Club!  Every morning during training, this group of ladies would come to my house for breakfast.  It was a wonderful way to start my day, they always had so much energy and I learned a lot from them!  I will truly miss them.

     I had to get a picture of the two UVM'ers in our group.  This is me and my friend Sydney.  She graduated from UVM with me but we never crossed paths back in college.  Now we're serving together in Panama!  It's a small world.

     This is a picture of me and my friend Christina, a volunteer from the CEC group.  It's probably my favorite picture of the day!  She is really awesome and will be serving in Bocas in an indigenous community, I will definitely be going to visit her within the next two years.

     After the ceremony, we all went to TGI Fridays.  It was great to have "American" food for the first time since coming to Panama.  It was also Happy Hour all night, so we stayed there for a few hours and celebrated our new achievement.  To end this great day, we went out to some other bars and experienced the nightlife of Panama City!