Despedidas

Well it's official! I finished my training (AND met the language requirement!!) and I'm officially a Peace Corps Volunteer! YAY NICA 54!! Tons has happened since the last time I blogged, so I'll try to wrap it all up here, but let's just say the last week or two have been the best yet!

Last Monday, we had a closing ceremony with all the youth group members from the different training towns and it was so much fun! Each training town got to bring 5 of their kids to the city and we all presented our recycled materials projects. Our kids were absolutely amazing! They were the first ones to volunteer to answer questions about the projects, and they did such a great job presenting! It was just really fun to get to bring them all into the city on the Peace Corps bus and to get to see how proud they were of their work. I was so proud of them! Then we decided to bring them out for pizza which was even more fun. It was nice getting to just chill with them and not have to worry about meeting Peace Corps objectives for once.

Since we couldn't bring all 25 of our youth group kids to the ceremony, we had our own goodbye party, or “despedida,” with all of them later on in the week. We had one of our kids set up his music system, and we had a dance party on Katie's front porch. We hit pretty much every party game, from limbo to pinata to musical chairs, and then we all just danced and got to hang out. We bought them a cake, only to find out that they bought one for us too! After we thanked them for all their hard work these past three months, a few of them told us how much we meant to them and how much they were going to miss us. They said that even though they have trainees in their town at least once a year, none of them ever clicked with them they way they did with us. A few tears were shed, and we had to say our goodbyes. Luckily, my site is close by, so I'll be able to go back and visit them from time to time. =)

Leaving my training family was so unbelievably hard, and I don't know how I would have been able to do it if I didn't know that I was going back to visit for Christmas. The night before our Swearing-In Ceremony with Peace Corps, we decided to cook for our training families at Jessi's house. The four of us made a huge pot of spaghetti with meatsauce and garlic bread and invited our families over to thank them for making us feel so at home in their homes these past three months. I wish we could have really made them understand what it meant to us that they were willing to spend every second of everyday teaching us everything about life here: from language, to washing clothes by hand, to cooking Nica food, to how to take the bus...I could go on and on. I tried to give a little thank you speech, but of course I started to cry. I think they got the picture though.

This past Monday, we had our Peace Corps Swearing-In Ceremony and became official volunteers. The best part of this? Two members of each family were invited to attend! This meant my host sister, Claudia (26), and my host nephew, Alvaro (17), got to head into Managua to watch me “graduate.” It was so awesome to have them there and to get to see everyone else with their Nica families. After the ceremony, which included some amazingly inspiring words from the US Ambassador, we decided to take our families to get some food in the mall. It was my host sister's and nephew's first time there, and being from the “campo,” or rural part of Nicaragua, it was also their first time on an escalator! It was so much fun getting to be there for that! Of course Alvaro pretended it was no big deal, but Claudia made me hold her hand, and it was the best thing ever! We had such a great time, and I can't wait to head back to visit them in December. I already miss having them around to hang out with all day. That night, all of us volunteers were invited to the director´s house for early Thanksgiving dinner and it was DELICIOUS!

Well, if you're not tired of hearing about my goodbyes yet, I'll continue by saying that my last night in my house was better than anything I could have asked for. My ENTIRE family came over to take pictures and just hang out before I left. That day was also the one year anniversary of my would-be host mom's death, so we all went to the church for a Mass in her memory, and we had over a hundred people pass through the house afterwards to pay their respects. After helping to clean up the church and the house, we all had the evening to just relax and talk and laugh. I gave them a gift bag of little goodies to thank them for all the silly things I needed their help with (ie. soap to represent my failed first attempt at laundry etc), and they gave me a set of bed sheets so I can be comfortable in my new home in Nicaragua! We all cried, even some of my host brothers, but it was a perfect night. I can't wait to go back for Christmas!

Now I'm here in my new site in Rivas, and I'm slowly realizing this is really it. Hoping to integrate as quickly and successfully as possible, and hoping more than ever that I'll eventually feel as at home here as I did in Guisquiliapa.