Peace Corps Descend on Kombo!

Last week we had a whole slew of Peace Corps activities in Kombo (the urban area around the capital for those of you who don’t know), including an all-volunteer Conference, more meetings than I can count, a swear-in ceremony and party for the latest group of trainees (it's hard to believe it's been a year since it was us standing up there!), a couples dinner at our country director’s house, an open mic nite, and much much more. While I couldn’t capture all of this on camera, I did get some pictures. Enjoy!


Matt, Rachelle and Rachelle’s friend Lani (sp?) who was visiting, out to dinner at a deeelicious indian restuarant for Rachelle’s birthday

Me with the birthday girl

The whole table

Sunny, Casey and Lucia at swear-in. Lucia’s hat was amaaazing!

Gibril, the Peace Corps health program manager, and the lovely Haddy, a Peace Corps language and culture trainer, the staff advisor for the gender and development committee, and an awesome person.

Our new Ambassador, Pamela White

Cornish, our country director

Scott, one of the newbies, giving the swear-in speech in Pulaar. Bravo!

All the newbies in their asobis (matching outfits), now official PCVs

Trainers in the training asobi (we were in Tanzania when they bought the fabric, so we didn’t get them even though we helped with training, but we’ll live)

Adam, Ida and Haddy, three of my favorite language and culture trainers, with Katie, the PCV leader for our sector

Kim making peanut noodles for the swear-in dinner in a Tupperware and mixing it with her hands. And no, no one saw any problem with this. That’s how we roll around here.

Wells manning the burger and kebab table at the swear-in dinner

Danielle manning (womanning?) the indian and thai food table

Couples dinner at Cornish’s house (the blue checked fabric was the western region asobi for all-vol). Huge thanks to Luke for making an amazing thai meal despite a busted-up knee!