It's official

Yup, I'm officially a volunteer!

Our swearing in ceremony was at the US ambassador's house in Quito, which was really nice--the house and the ceremony. They had real coffee and BAGELS afterwards, which was amazing. Apparently the bagel place was started by a former volunteer who was sick of not being able to find bagels. Then we had a barbeque at the Peace Corps Country Director's house, which is also really nice, and then we all left for our sites Sunday morning.

I managed to get all my stuff here on the bus, including the foot-high stack of books the Peace Corps gave me, and am in the process of setting up my house. I have a bed and a stove (but no oven), a desk, a couch-like thing and a chair loaned to me by my counterpart, Maria Elena, and just today I got some things like a wooden spoon and a pot and so forth. So I'm starting to get set up. My house is beautiful and it'll be amazing once I build myself some bookshelves and a table--right now I have a lot of semi-strategic piles going.

We're coming up with a bunch of ideas for projects and there's a meeting with the irrigation users group this Sunday, so that's good. I've also got a big space for a garden, so I'm going to start on that pretty soon.

OK, that's about it. If you want to mail me something, email me and I'll give you my new address, and I'll get photos up soon!