The last few weeks have been very of busy for us trainees! After six weeks of waiting and worrying, we finally found out our placements for the next two years! Due to all of the nerves we have been experiencing one of the peace corps trainees suggested we find out our islands sorting hat style. So our country director, now known by me as "Dumbledoor," dressed up a party hat she happened to have and called us up to a chair one by one to be "sorted." When my name was called my hands started shaking and I kept repeating "please let me be with a friend, please et me be with a friend" over and over in my head. The sorting hat come down and our country director, shouted "GRENADA!"
I don't think I've ever been more relieved in my life! Grenada has been my top choice for a number of reasons, one of the biggest being the amount of special education work that has been done on the island and increased opportunities to utilize my skills for working with students with special needs as my secondary project. I'm also very happy that I have a great group of volunteers going with me and I won't have to worry about being completely isolated.
We had one final week of training, where we tried our best to spend a lot of time with our friends and host families before saying goodbye. Originally the plan was for us all to depart Saturday morning and to have a half day on Friday so that we could have some last hoorahs with everyone. Well, Tropical Storm Bertha wasn't having any of it. She decided to roll in on Friday, which led to us needing to be consolidated so that it would be easier to get to the airport in the wake of the storm. So instead of having that afternoon to hang out, we all had to rush home, pack, and meet at the consolidation point mid afternoon- leaving behind our host families and the volunteers assigned to St
Lucia in a very teary goodbye.
Aside from being sad about missing out on Friday afternoon, consolidation actually was pretty great. My roommate and I got there really early and ordered a pizza, which made everyone super jealous. Sorry not sorry! We also went swimming in the pool, had a great buffet dinner, and had some quality time with the rest of the trainees. The. It was a 4am wake up call to depart for our respective islands.
Upon arrival in Grenada we were greeted by the current volunteers serving in Grenada, and some of the PC staff. We were given necklaces with different local spices on them since Grenada is called The Spice Isle. I was very thankful for having something to cover up whatever smells my clothes had acquired after a long morning of traveling.
My host mom picked me up from the Peace Corps office in St. George's, and drove me about 45 minutes though the mountains and rainforest to my new home just outside Grenville. Grenville is one of the bigger cities on Grenada, and my school is also very urban. Between a fire and a hurricane the original building was damaged so badly it couldn't be used. Several wooden buildings were put up, I'm told initially as a temporary solution, and are still being used today. Because of the way they were constructs there aren't actual classrooms, rather there are blackboards used to separate the space. I'm told there's lots of kids and I should expect quite a bit of noise. I'll find out for sure in about a month when I start working, but for now I'm just soaking it all in!
I don't think I've ever been more relieved in my life! Grenada has been my top choice for a number of reasons, one of the biggest being the amount of special education work that has been done on the island and increased opportunities to utilize my skills for working with students with special needs as my secondary project. I'm also very happy that I have a great group of volunteers going with me and I won't have to worry about being completely isolated.
We had one final week of training, where we tried our best to spend a lot of time with our friends and host families before saying goodbye. Originally the plan was for us all to depart Saturday morning and to have a half day on Friday so that we could have some last hoorahs with everyone. Well, Tropical Storm Bertha wasn't having any of it. She decided to roll in on Friday, which led to us needing to be consolidated so that it would be easier to get to the airport in the wake of the storm. So instead of having that afternoon to hang out, we all had to rush home, pack, and meet at the consolidation point mid afternoon- leaving behind our host families and the volunteers assigned to St
Lucia in a very teary goodbye.
Aside from being sad about missing out on Friday afternoon, consolidation actually was pretty great. My roommate and I got there really early and ordered a pizza, which made everyone super jealous. Sorry not sorry! We also went swimming in the pool, had a great buffet dinner, and had some quality time with the rest of the trainees. The. It was a 4am wake up call to depart for our respective islands.
Upon arrival in Grenada we were greeted by the current volunteers serving in Grenada, and some of the PC staff. We were given necklaces with different local spices on them since Grenada is called The Spice Isle. I was very thankful for having something to cover up whatever smells my clothes had acquired after a long morning of traveling.
My host mom picked me up from the Peace Corps office in St. George's, and drove me about 45 minutes though the mountains and rainforest to my new home just outside Grenville. Grenville is one of the bigger cities on Grenada, and my school is also very urban. Between a fire and a hurricane the original building was damaged so badly it couldn't be used. Several wooden buildings were put up, I'm told initially as a temporary solution, and are still being used today. Because of the way they were constructs there aren't actual classrooms, rather there are blackboards used to separate the space. I'm told there's lots of kids and I should expect quite a bit of noise. I'll find out for sure in about a month when I start working, but for now I'm just soaking it all in!
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