The road to becoming a Peace Corps is longer than advertised.
While working as an SCA intern at Mt. Rainier National Park
in 2008, the idea of becoming a Peace Corps volunteer was planted in my mind
(in fact, I remember the exact spot in the Fred Meyer parking lot I was sitting
in when my friend told me she wanted to serve in the Peace Corps). A couple years later in my junior year, while
sitting in my tiny dorm room in The Village on the UCSC campus, I made the decision
to serve. It wasn’t until April of 2011
that I actually clicked the submit button of the application. One year and 7 months later, I have sworn in
as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
The audience of our swearing-in ceremony included Ambassador Wayne accompanied by his wife and several embassy security officers, the entire PC/Mexico staff, several
counterparts, including those all the way from Guadualajara (an 8 hour bus
ride), and of course, members of our host families. This swearing in ceremony marked the thirteenth group to swear in and serve in Mexico since the program was established in 2006.
My Oath:
I do hereby solemnly affirm that as a volunteer of the United States Peace Corps that I, Shayna Atwood, will support the constitution and all laws of both the United States of America and the United Mexican States during my volunteer service in México.
I affirm that I will bear faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, and that I will faithfully discharge my duties to the United States and the México during my period of service.
My Oath:
I do hereby solemnly affirm that as a volunteer of the United States Peace Corps that I, Shayna Atwood, will support the constitution and all laws of both the United States of America and the United Mexican States during my volunteer service in México.
I affirm that I will bear faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, and that I will faithfully discharge my duties to the United States and the México during my period of service.
See photos from our ceremony and the rest of the day here.
Good Day Jean!
ReplyDeleteSorry to bother you. My name is Ray Blakney and I am a RPCV from Mexico. I am working on a 3rd goal project with the PC regional offices and the main office in DC to try to create an online archive to keep the language training material made all over the world from getting lost. I have created a sub-section on the website my wife and I run - http://www.livelingua.com - with all the information I have been able to get to date (from over the web and sent to me directly by PC staff and PCV's). I currently have close to 100 languages with ebooks, audios and even some videos.
The next step for this project is that I am trying to get the world out about this resource so that it can not only be used by PCV's or those accepted into the Peace Corps, but also so that when people run across material that is not on the site they can send it to me and I can get it up for everybody to use. I was hoping that you could help getting the word out by putting a link on this on your site at:
http://passagetopeacecorps.blogspot.com/
so that people know it is there. There should be something there for almost everybody. It is all 100% free to use and share. Here is the specific page of the Peace Corps Archive:
http://www.livelingua.com/peace-corps-language-courses.php
Thanks for any help you can provide in making this 3rd goal project a success. And if anybody in your group has some old material they can scan or already have in digital form, and want to add to the archive, please don't hesitate to pass them my email. Thanks and have a great day.
Ray Blakney
blakney.ray@gmail.com