Welcome new volunteers!

PS, I made the welcome sign. Hopefully it was at the airport to welcome you in my stead?

Welcome to all the new volunteers that showed up in the airport today in Colombia! I hope things are going well so far! Just thinking about you guys all hanging out in the hotel with air conditioning and hot showers makes me long for the days of being a freshly arrived trainee. Actually, not really. I’m pretty glad to have been here for awhile. At least I speak Spanish now, can use the buses in Barranquilla and Cartagena with confidence, and have some Colombian friends. But there is something to be said for the excitement of starting a new adventure. I’m a little sad that I wasn’t there to meet you guys at the airport, but I’ve got classes and things. You know.

It’s going to be an interesting few months here. Ten months ago, there were twenty-something volunteers in our group, and being the only volunteers, with the exception of some response volunteers and ex-volunteer-lingerers, has made us a pretty close-knit little familiy. I can’t imagine what it’s like to serve in a Peace Corps country with hundreds of volunteers. It’s just not like that here. With the arrival of the new volunteers, we’re going to go from twenty-something to fifty-something. More than double. It’s going to be interesting, certainly.

Welcome to the family, ya’ll.

PS, I’ll see you sometime during training, okay? I hear there’s going to be a session on cutting and pasting, and you know how I like cutting and pasting.