Offical

One moment I am a Peace Corps Trainee in the US Embassy, I take an oath with my right hand in the air to defend the constitution of the United States of America from all enemies domestic and foreign, the next I am an official Peace Corps Volunteer. Smiling with 100% of myself as that split second passed transforming me into an official volunteer—I guess that was pride. Next moment I’m covered in sweet and butt is sore and I’m in a half awake trance in the bus to my home for the next two years. Red dust has created a fine film on seat since I got on; I know there’s probably a similar layer of dust in my lungs. My site is the last stop on the bus, every time the bus stops a little town to let people off I anxiously look around to see if everyone’s getting off or there’s more to go. Finally the bus crests a small hill and I can see where the road stops. Clay tile roofs, look pleasantly nestled together in a small fold. There is a large tree on a hill with lots of blue and white painted rocks where older men are sitting. The bus finally gets to the end of the road, I look around to make sure everyone is getting off but they’re not really. I ask what town this is and it is the right one, so I slowly stand up pick up my large bag and I walk off the bus and step into my home for the next two years—looking back it happened in slow motion. I start to ask someone if they know were Nina Pule lives, but I see my counter part as I ask and he shows me the way. As we walk over to her house I spy the view from the side of the mountain—picturesque. A large river meanders through the patchwork farms, and passes through a range of mountains the other side of which is almost all haze but I can make out land. To the west the sun sets enormous and red between two folds of a mountain and just to the South is a volcano. One of those moments that you can feel the gravity of while it’s happening—the first time you met your college roommate, yeah like that.