The first month in site

Feliz Semana Santa (Happy Easter) to everyone. Thanks again to the Hackett´s for their package. My new host brother holding up Hayley´s fine artwork in my room

Hope all is well in the States, I have been keeping very busy with everything here, they´re throwing me into the fire. One of the reasons this blog has been dormant. Sorry, but here´s the latest run-down:

I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer, we were sworn in on March 27 at the US Ambassador´s House. After the ceremony, we had a well-deserved and long anticipated weekend in Antigua with all 32. It was a great time, and yours truly was tearing up the dance floor. It was more that we were all so excited to finally be official.

Josh and I with our mustaches. No chance I can pull off the Len Festa stache. I mainly did it because as hideous I was bound to look, my redhead buddy would look even worse. Job well done!
There it is - swearing my allegiance to the US government. Thought you´d never see the day ehh?

Me and Rebecca, good friend who I met before leaving the States

The four of us in our training group (me, Kelly, Tony, and Morgan)

My four homeboys in the Eco-Tourism group (Oliver, Jamie, and Tony)

Jamie, me and Tony with our Technical Trainer David. We´re all laughing because instead of saying ¨Queso¨ we said his famous line in bad English ¨OK people¨. You had to be there

After our celebration we went our seperate ways and there´s been plenty going on. Since arriving to my site the volcano´s had an eruption, been having some amazing lava flows which we got up close to on a night hike

and last week started shooting out lava from the crater which I saw from my front porch.

So the theme of my first month has been trying to get better at Spanish, since everyone here speaks so freaking fast. My counterpart is the worst, I tell him daily to pronounce -- I mean I don´t speak your language, so don´t make it harder on me. I have been meeting so many people and it´s tough because they either have the same names (Victor and Juan) or a name that makes no sense (Oseldo and Damaris). The town is awesome, very lively and everyone's been very friendly. They´re putting it together that I´m the new gringo in town who preaches washing hands and recycling. Haha

The central plaza in my town, view from my office. Not too shabby with the Volcano in the distance

Me, Michelle (Doctor volunteering down here), and Carlos (the former volunteer I´m replacing). We´re sitting in the mayor´s truck waiting...waiting...waiting

So a lot of you have been asking what a typical day is like. Luckily, every day changes so that´s a hard question to answer. My next blog post (hopefully in a few weeks) will be explaining my housing situation which is oh-so comical. Just wait until you hear the stories. And I also plan on getting a blog up here actually explaining what I do (as a job).

Until then, continue to enjoy your hot showers. Do think of me when it´s steaming hot, because my previous cold showers with water pressure have become just cold with no water pressure. I´ll explain in the next post. From the land of corn, I´m out