I started feeling sick the morning of the 30th. I started taking Airbourne right away. It was a great day of class, except that I felt really sick at the end of class. It was unfortunate because I was supposed to cook for the families that night. I felt so sick I had to ask them to finish what I had not. I fell asleep until they called me out for dinner. I made spaghetti, garlic bread, and ice cream and it was actually pretty good! I also snagged some garlic bread for some of my friends as a little surprise gift.
I felt so sick the next morning, May 1st, that I
stayed home from training, something I haven’t done in years. It was
unfortunate because it was the last study day before the Language Proficiency
Interview (the final oral language exam) and we had four hours of language. But
I wanted to be better because we were leaving for Windhoek in a few days and I
had really been looking forward to it. I rested, took airbourne, facebooked,
and drank a lot of water. It was a bit discouraging that only two people from
my group texted me to see if I was okay.
I went to class after lunch, feeling much better. I studied
language and then we all went to our end-of-training celebration dinner. I was
very mellow and ended up talking to my best friend the entire time. The food
was good and so was the movie. We had secret buddies that we were supposed to
encourage or buy little gifts throughout training. I wrote notes because I did
not know what my person liked. I did not know the impact these notes had. My
secret buddy cried when she said that the notes meant so much to her because
she was going through a difficult time with issues at home and language
troubles. I was shocked because I had felt so cheap. It just goes to show you
that I never know what small actions can lead to in another person’s life.
The next day, May 2nd, was our shopping trip to
Windhoek. I was feeling better, but the ride wrecked me. We went to Peace Corps
Headquarters until lunch for training. I also visited the doctor. One thing
that our country director said was that he is not a fan of the macho idea that
Peace Corps Volunteers feel they have to stick out the full two years, even if
it sucks. Well, I am one of those people. Even if it is miserable, I believe
God has me here for a reason, and that he wants me to grow.
I hung out with Crystal, Kellie, Kaitlynn, Nicole, and
Cherie for the afternoon while they shopped. Random tangent: chivalry. In this
day and age, chivalry is a hotly contested subject. I did not know how others
in my group would react, but I do it for those who I think will be receptive. I
love carrying my girlfriend’s stuff, out of chivalrous nature, but also because
I just enjoy doing it, even for some of my guy friends or my dad. I open doors
for people. I always walk on the curb-side when with a girlfriend on the
street. I always wait to go last for nearly everything, such as getting food,
even if I’m the guest. Anyways, my girlfriends here tend to be pleasantly
surprised by it, which makes me feel great, but also a little sad that most
guys don’t stuff like that for other girls, or even other guys.
We had lunch at a restaurant in the mall. I wasn’t happy
because they did not have what I had asked for and the replacement meal was not
good. The guy also overcharged me by $30. The peanut butter toffee milkshake
was amazing though! We saw giraffes on the way home from Windhoek. I did not
study language, although the language test was the next day. I just did not
have the motivation or energy. I went to Alicia’s and had dinner and texted one
of my friends. I ended the night in an extremely good mood!
I woke up early on May 3rd to study a little bit.
We had free study before the test, but I really did not feel like studying. I
was in a “I’m gonna do how I’m gonna do” mood, and I also wanted to encourage a
friend about her test, which she was nervous about. I listened to her test and
she did sooooo well! Lol, I felt so proud! I went out while she was testing and
got her and a few of my friends some small gifts as encouragement. They loved
the gifts, which made me really happy! My language test went okay. I did not
think I did that well, but I didn’t care because I was done with training!!
Everyone was in such a good mood! It was one of my best days. We had a
hilarious last session with my Rukwangali group. Our teacher taught one of the
girls how to dance. Later that day, they gave awards for language. To my utter
shock, I scored the 3rd highest out of everyone and 2nd
highest out of the Bantu languages. I was so proud. I went with four of my
closest friends to eat. I just sat back and basked in the sense of freedom, and
the friendship with these girls. I felt that, with training over, I could
finally have normal friendship with them.
I skyped Mom and Dad on the 4th. Today was my
laundry day. I watched movies and smsed my best friend here. We had such a good
time! Other than that, I just packed everything.
I skyped two friends the next morning, May 5th.
The van showed up and hour early to pick me up! I was sad because I did not get
to say goodbye to my host mom in the way I wanted to. Anyways, we went to the
training center and I had a good talk with one of my friends. The ride to
Windhoek was great! I was so excited for some freedom and the four star resort
we were staying at for three days. We had to wait for three hours for our
luggage so show up, which was irritating because we wanted to spend a lot of
time at the pool. However, it finally got here and the pool was awesome! We had
dinner at 630 and it was amazing! One thing I noticed about the overall conference
was that most of my group, Group 37, was not mingling with the other groups.
Only I and few others were mingling. We hung out at the bar for a while, but
then I went to watch a movie with a friend. After the movie we went next door
to the party.
The next morning, the 6th, was the first day of
the conference. I had breakfast. Then, we went to the conference room. I was
nervous about the flash mob, but it went really well! The sessions went fine,
nothing too boring. In the afternoon we had a session on malaria. We had lunch
and then me and two of my friends hung out with some of the other crazy, but
awesome, Peace Corps Volunteers. We ended up in a room with about 17 volunteers
and it was so great just to relax and observe.
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