Last Days of PST

Salut! As of around 10:45am Moldova time on August 15th, Peace Corps Moldova has 48 new volunteers! We all participated in our swearing-in ceremony by repeating the oath, dancing traditional dances, singing traditional songs and the national anthem, giving speeches, listening to speeches, and cheering on our fellow volunteers. It was an absolute honor to have been chosen by my fellow English Education volunteers to give a short speech in Romanian alongside two incredibly strong women for whom I have the utmost respect from the Health Education and Community Organizational Development programs. Additionally, I joined the women of the EE program and performed a traditional dance and performed the Star-Spangled Banner with seven other volunteers in my cohort. It was a rewarding and emotionally exhausting day! In addition to being ecstatic about our accomplishments, swearing-in day also means saying goodbye to our host families, training villages, and close friends. 10 weeks almost constantly in each others' presence and being there for each other through the ups and downs of PST made for a tough goodbye. Each one of my fellow trainees in the #vorn squad taught me something along the way and I will be looking forward to be reunited with them at the latest, three months from now at our first in-service training. Anyhow, as a farewell to my cohort, I finished a video that serves as a short summary of our six weeks together! I've posted this to my facebook as well and am toying with the idea of creating a youtube channel; we shall see what the future has in store. For now, I'm spending a few days relaxing with my new host family and getting to know my village a little better before school begins in two weeks!