End of PST! Swearing In!

The final week of PST has been pretty relaxed, with only the final language interviews, medical / security exams, and performance reviews taking place. My language skills have improved somewhat from zero, which is good news. I would absolutely love to become more fluent, but a lot of that will depend on how disciplined I can be at speaking and practicing Spanish.

Wednesday we had the 1st annual PC México Talent Show (our group is setting a lot of expectations for the following groups!). The skits and acts were all great, and I wound up singing I Did It My Way in Spanish with a couple of other trainees, plus acting in a skit about cultural integration based on Getting To Know You from The King And I. This is from our version of Sinatra.



Today (Friday) was Swearing In, when all of us trainees became official volunteers. We had a speaker from the US Embassy, as well as higher-up representatives from the two Méxican organizations that we work with--CONACYT and SEMARNAT. Last week I ¨won¨ a vote to give 1 of 2 trainee / volunteer speeches in Spanish during the ceremony, and one of our great language instructors helped me come up with a pretty funny speech. We followed the 80-20 rule--he wrote about about 80%, and I wrote about 20%! The speech went over pretty well, but I´m glad it is over. Here is a picture of us saying the official oath that changed us from Trainees to Volunteers.



Tomorrow I go to my site with my two companions. Somehow we´ve all accumulated a ton of additional luggage, mostly through training materials and the medical kit. Hopefully we will manage it all...