Martha makes breadfruit cake for cooking class on the last day of training. Happy to be official Peace Corps volunteers after our swearing in ceremony. From top left: Mr Cool (our boss), Brian S., Brian E., Karen, Matt, me, Martha, Megan, Joe, and Tom. Front row from left: Erin, Shauna, P.J., and Amanda.

"Swearing In" 9/9/2002 We had our official swearing in ceremony last Thursday. It took place in Kingstown and was pretty low key. Everything here on this island is low key. Being from Salida, this won't be hard for me to get used to. Some of the volunteers from big cities may have to adapt to things not being expertly done all the time. The Friday after our swearing in ceremony we went to the island of Bequia (pronounced bekway). There is a ferry that makes the trip several times a day. If you're lucky it will be a windy day and there will be really big waves in the channel. Yee-haw. I was surprised to find Bequia's main city, Port Elizbeth, totally empty of people. Tourist season is pretty much over, so everything just closes down. This left us miles of golden sand beaches and turquoise blue waters all to ourselves. I even saw a manta ray cruising around. At first I thought it was shark and about hurt myself getting out of the water. Too bad I didn't have any goggles so that I could have gotten a closer look. We stayed at Julie's guest house for $50EC per person. This was a pretty good deal, but seeing as nobody was around, it probably would have been no problem to just camp out on the beach. To top things off, I managed to avoid getting sunburned, and got to see some dolphins on the ferry ride back. The only downside to the weekend was that I tried some of the St. Vincent's "Very Strong Rum". After only two sips (mixed with soda), I thought I was going to die. It took an hour before I stopped feeling sick. Now I have a good excuse for not trying that stuff ever again. Tomorrow I travel to Kingstown to start figuring out what my job is. I know that I will be teaching community workshops for the National Institute of Technology. What they are, where they are, or when they are still needs to be determined. I hope that my journal entries will be much less vacationlike now that I am officially a volunteer.