Swearing my life to the United States Government

Swear In
Dakar, Senegal
May 14, 2010

I am an official Peace Corps Volunteer! Early this morning, we drove in to Dakar, Senegal’s capital, to go to the American Ambassador to Senegal’s house for our swearing in ceremony. We had a police escort and dressed in Senegalese clothing – all looking fabulous in our Complet (for girls) and Bubu’s (for boys). The ceremony itself was very nice. Madame Ambassador spoke as well as my new boss, Peace Corps country director Chris Hedrick, and a few others. After the main speeches, we were told to stand and raise our left hand to swear in as volunteers for the United States Peace Corps. We repeated an oath that at one point says, “to serve our country and to protect it against all enemies, foreign and domestic”. This part seemed a little strange; I hope I didn’t just accidentally enlist myself into the army. After the oath, they called us up individually to receive our Peace Corps Volunteer identification cards and other credentials (which I should probably open up and read). And then we went out to the patio and ate bite-sized pizzas, brownies and some sort of botched lemon bar concoction. There were also chicken skewers with peanut sauce. Yummy. After some schmoozing, us new Volunteers headed to the American Club in Dakar and went swimming and drank some well deserved celebratory beers – I even was able to get a cold Corona with a lime! We hung out there for a few hours and then headed back to the Thies Training Center. I will leave in two days to install at my site, my village, Coumba Diouma, and I can’t wait! It feels great to be done with training and all the hard work over the past two months and to finally call myself a real Peace Corps Volunteer!

Happy Birthday, Daddy! I love you!