the beginning has come...

So its been quite a couple of days in Asuncion!

Our swearing-in ceremony was Friday morning and pretty quick. Since its the 40th anniversary of PC PY, the national director came down from Washington. He gave a nice little speach, our PY country director spoke, the embassador swore us in all at the same time, and we were out of there! They had a GREAT cake at the reception, and knowing me I'll probably remember that over the years over the actual ceremony!

The rest of our nights here were left to being out on the town. Its hard to remember that I'm in a third wold country/the Peace Corps when I can go to a movie theater and see Transformers in English TWO DAYS IN ROW! I mean, if you haven't seen that movie... its totally worth it. Best $2 movie EVER! Call me Jarrod Curry, but it was spectacular! We also ate at a fantastic Mexican place on Friday night and a charasceria last night. Basically, its a giant buffet where guys just walk around with swords of different kinds of meat. Its sooo delicious too!! We all broke a cardinal rule though. We ate sushi and steak tar tar in a land locked country. I'm still standing though!

EARLY Monday morning was the 40th anniversary celebration. Not extremely exciting either, but my group makes everything fun. Today is the first day that I leave to live in Guayaivi permanently, and its going to be so hard to stay away from my friends. We've had some unbelieveable moments in training and this past weekend in Asuncion gave us a few more classic memories. As I've said, there are 16 of us but there is a group of about 8-10 people that continually entertain one another. I've already had to say goodbye to a few, and although we're in the same country and we'll see each other once every two months or so... its still tough to know that life is changing SO drastically.

As for communication, I know have a cell phone and my area has great service so PLEASE call... speaking English will become very rare starting tonight. Also, I spoke with a volunteer that lives near me and she was giving me the low down on the computer situation. Turns out I'll have to take the 5:30am bus to a town that's about 30 minutes away. Then I'll have to wait around until a ciber opens and get everything done and back into town by noon. Good times! So the moral of the story? Emails are going to be less frequent, but please call!!

Well, my 30 minutes on the PC library computer is up. I hope you're all doing well and enjoying life as much as I am!