Just Getting Started

The last two months in The Gambia have been enlightening. I have been faced with many challenges, but I have also yielded many rewards. Now the training is officially over. My group and I had our swearing in ceremony on Friday at the US Ambassador’s residence. There we took the oath to discharge our duties as Peace Corps volunteers. We also listened to a few guest speakers and even gave our own speeches. During training, the group was divided into different groups to learn one of four languages, either Wolof, Pulaar, Mandinka, or Sarahule. Two from each group gave a speech, one to speak in the language and one to translate. My language partner gave the speech in Sarahule, and I gave the English translation. After the ceremony we all went down to the beach and had a nice swim.

Now the adventure really begins! I will be moving to my new village, Baja Kunda, tomorrow. The school I will be working in will start back up soon. I am excited to meet the teachers and students, and to see about any potential projects I can do. I am also excited to get to the village and get settled in. It will be difficult at first, because I will be entirely on my own. When I was living in Madianna, there were eight other volunteers that also lived there. However, I will be the only volunteer living in Baja Kunda. Therefore, I will have to find ways to deals with boredom and isolation. Once I establish a routine then things will run smoothly. It helps that I have a great host family there. They were very helpful when I did my site visit a month ago. So overall I am excited to take this next step in my Peace Corps service.

On a separate note, I have been asked about my mailing address here. If anyone is interested in sending me anything my address is as follows:

Joshua Guerrero, PCV
C/O Peace Corps/ The Gambia
P.O. Box 582
Banjul, The Gambia
West Africa