Estoy muy emocionada!

Tomorrow is an exciting day for us. Up until this point, we have only been ¨trainees.¨ Our days have been spent lazying away on learning how to be effective ¨volunteers¨for the next two years.

(A bit of background: For the first three months of the volunteer´s service, the trainee attends daily classes with other trainees and lives with a temporary host family so that they learn to integrate into a Peruvian family. Hence, my home and family in Yanacoto are not real; they are only temporary until I move in to my permanent site with my permanent host family for the next two years. This permanent site can be anywhere in Peru, although Peace Corps volunteers generally serve in one of two areas: the sierra or the coast. Some volunteers are placed in the jungle, but this is becoming more rare. Mostly, 2 year site-host families tend to be poorer than training-host families, more isolated (think authentic National Geographic Peruvians), and less exposed to foreigners in general. This should be an interesting two years!)

Up until now and since I first got accepted into the Peace Corps months ago, I have been left wondering what I´ll be doing and where I´ll be doing it. However, that will soon change. Tomorrow we will finally find out about our sites!!! I am hoping that I get placed in a bigger site on the coast, but we´ll see. Either location offers pros and cons in the areas of safety, types of foods served, internet access, etc. And no matter what happens, I´ll be happy that I´m in Peru and will make my new site my home.

The day will be really bittersweet because our Peace Corps experience doesn´t really happen until we´re out of training and in site. But at the same time, we´ll also be forced to leave each other. The other trainees have been my lifeline since I´ve been here and it will be weird to feel ¨alone¨again. :( Anyways, after we find out, we´ll be traveling again. Our graduation from training doesn´t actually occur until Aug. 21, but the week after next, we´ll all be taking a one week visit to our sites. (Get ready for lots of pictures that week!)

I don´t know if I´ll be able to sleep tonight. I am so nervous and excited and twitter-pated and anxious and....

P.S. A word about training... It is long and tedious! But I do enjoy the Spanish classes immensely. When I first arrived in Peru, my Spanish was intermediate-low. Now, I am at the minimum level required by Peace Corps--intermediate medium. This is good news, because it means I won´t be sent home for my lack of knowledge in Spanish (although I can still be sent home for other things...see Peace Corps manual for drinking on the job, drinking tea made from coca leaves, drugging, kidnapping young children/old people for organ trafficking, etc.).