less than a week until I´m a Volunteer!

I swear-in and become an official Peace Corps Volunteer in less than a week! Woot! This also means though that I leave my host family in Santa Clara in only a couple more days (we leave Tuesday morning). And that´s sad, they´ve been an amazing host family. But I´ll be back to visit. Things have been good the last couple of weeks. My site visit went really well, I sent out an email about that. And there are already pictures of my site on here, conveniantly. :) We also visited an iguana farm, hence the picture of Colin holding an iguana. And I got to visit the beach when we were at our counterparts conference before the site visit. It was beautiful, although I didn´t actually get to go swimming. That´ll be next weekend when we have two free nights after the swear-in ceremony so a bunch of us are going to the beach to celebrate. :) Yesterday we went to Panama City to visit the Smithsonian Institute´s aquarium called Punto Culebra and there were, as you can see, SEA TURTLES! I was excited. Of course they were in a tank but still, I got excited. And I got some good pictures. And the aquarium was pretty darn cool in general. Oh! random, but also the other day, back in Santa Clara, I got to see a sloth for the first time. Yea they don´t move much so they´re not too terribly exciting to watch, but they´re cool to see and stare at for awhile. Too high up to get a good picture though. Anyway, after the aquarium, we visited the Smitsonian library, which was awesome. It´s the only Smitsonian library outside of the US, and it was impressive. I like books. :-p But yea, all in all, things are good. Trying to prepare myself for moving to site and being alone. I did buy a cell phone though! Welcome to Peace Corps 2007, where the volunteers have cell phones. What what! But reception here is still pretty bad, so unless I´m in a large city service is a little sketch. I know I can get it in my site if I go furthur up the mountain. Which is still easier than the walk way down to the pay phone so it´s worth it. And I can call and text with people in the US (hint hint). :) I´ll be sad when I have to say buy to my host family and all the friends I´ve made over the last 10 weeks, but it won´t be the last time I see them. Tomorrow is a free day in Santa Clara. Monday morning is the final language test and then the good-buy party. Tuesday morning we leave to go back to Ciudad del Saber, where we started this whole Panamanian adventure. Then random classes and information sessions Tuesday and Wednesday and the ceremony on Thursday. Then Friday we leave Ciudad del Saber to be thrown out into the Panamanian campo and do what volunteers will do. :-p We offically start work in our sites on Monday the 30th so we have to be in our site by Sunday night. So there ya go, then I´ll be in Cabuya Arriba. And I´ll probably have less internet access than I´ve had during this training period, depending on how often I leave town. Yay! :)