Swearing in

We had our swearing-in ceremony on Friday, July 9 in Borjomi, the small city closest to the villages where all the PC trainees lived during training. It was a very nice ceremony, covered by some of the local press. We were each able to invite one host family member from both our training families and our permanent site families, and all of the teachers and organization representatives with whom we worked during training and will work during our two years of service were invited as well. A representative from the Georgian Ministry of Education came and spoke, as did the U.S. Ambassador to Georgia, John Bass.

We had some nice speeches by the Ambassador and the PC Georgia Country Director, Richard Record, which were translated into Georgian. Two brave trainees also delivered speeches, but did not have the luxury of a translator--they each had to give their speeches in both English and Georgian, and did fantastic jobs. A group of volunteers also faced off with the difficulties of the multiple "k" and throat scraping sounds so integral to the Georgian language in order to sing the Georgian national anthem (we sang the American anthem, too).

As the speeches ended, we got down to the serious business of saying the oath of office to become Peace Corps Volunteers (or PCVs, as it has become much easier to say and type). The oath we took was the same as that taken by government officials on taking office:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

After the formalities were all taken care of, we had a chance to watch a little bit of a cultural program, with some singing and dancing. (This isn't the ensemble we watched, but you'll get the idea from these videos.)

Once the ceremony and cultural performance were done, it was time for a final round of receiving papers (and our test scores-- everyone from our cluster in Kortaneti passed their language exam with flying colors!), then we all had to say goodbye and head off to our permanent sites. Now, thankfully, we shouldn't have to move our loads of luggage and PC materials again for another 2 years.

The new group of PCVs (they call us G10s, since we're the 10th group of volunteers in Georgia), with Ambassador Bass