A Farewell to Training

I become an official Peace Corps Volunteer tomorrow morning and it's pretty crazy. I can't believe how fast the time has flown, but I also feel like I've lived here forever. It's weird.

Update on my site:

I loved it so far. First of all it’s gorgeous. The beach is just awesome. It has a 10k path along the water for walking or biking so I definitely plan on utilizing that. I was actually able to go on an hour bike ride with my new host sister, Leti, and it was awesome to have some real physical activity. Speaking of which, my new host family is fabulous. They are so welcoming and I feel really comfortable in their home. They speaking pretty much only Spanish, which is lucky for me. They are also part Ukrainian so that’s super interesting.

The health post in my community is a Centro de Salud and it is really guapa (aka hardworking), and I hope that I will have the opportunity to work there as my main place. My host mom is the directora so she took me around and held a meeting with most of the staff to introduce me and it was really nice because she explained to them exactly what I was there for. She explained that I was there to work with them and not for them, and also that they should be patient with me because I’m still learning language and culture. I’ll also get the chance when I return to meet the directora of the school and the health teacher.

I got to visit Encarnacion, the large city nearby. It seems to have basically everything I would ever need which is really convenient. I also got to meet my VAC, a group of volunteers that all live in the same departamento as me, Itapúa. They seem like really cool people so I’m excited to get to know them.

In other sad news one of my closest friends here, Candace, decided to return home to the U.S. I won’t go into the details but she has good reasons and we’re all very proud of her for being able to make a decision and stick by it and we’re also very supportive because we know how hard this decision was for her to make. She enjoyed Paraguay but this just isn’t the time for her, which is understandable. This is a crazy, stressful commitment that you want to be 100% sure about before spending 2 years of your life here. I already miss her immensely and I can only hope that she’ll visit (as she says she will haha). We’re losing a sassy, fantastic person in our G, but I am absolutely sure that she will be a very successful woman. The positive thing I realized from all of this is that it’s amazing how much we’ve come to care for our other G-mates because the fact that I’ve only known her for approximately 10 weeks but still feel this way about her leaving really goes to show that these people will be lifelong friends.

Either way, I'm so excited to see all of the wonderful things that my G-mates will be doing in their sites. There is such a variety that it will be really interesting to see what people decide to pursue!

I’ll keep you all updated on how my move to site goes.
Hasta luego,

Ambyr