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Swear-in, and site transport as planned
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So as originally planned, we gathered our stuff and in the early morning of April 2nd we said good bye to our host training families. We met a coach bus, escorted by Militsia and a Toyota Land Cruiser pick-up to move our luggage. We were first brought to our hotel and then taken to Uzbekistan's new state conservatory. There we assembled on stage as the US Ambassador, Peace Corps Director, our PST host families, and top Uzbek ministry officials from Health, Education, and NGO took their seats in the audience. Security was tight and tensions were very high, especially among some trainees who thought it wasn't such a great idea to transport everyone to the middle of the war torn capitol, place us together with important Uzbek officials, have a police escort in a big yellow bus, and national television coverage.
Despite concerns, everything went as planned. The Ambassador administered the oath and we were officially sworn in. Four trainees from our group gave speeches in the local language (2 in Russian, 2 in Uzbek), and 2 trainees performed local music that they learned during their training. Also one host mother was selected to speak on behalf of Uzbek host mothers and MY host mom was selected to speak on behalf of the Russian mothers. Her speech was great, and really moved me. Though I had only lived there since January, I felt a strong family bond. Maybe it is because I started from not being able to say any more than 'hello' to having regular discussions with them; similar to the growth of a baby to child to man in a normal family. She even told in her speech about how my Babushka is convinced that I am her grandson and expects me to come back every year to work on the farm like her other grandson.
After the ceremony we walked to one of the nicest restaurants in the city, where we were given lunch, our badges, ID cards, passports, certificates, and the US Government signature agency specific lapel pin. After lunch we were given cym for our first month of rent, settling in allowance, walk-around money, and of course enough cash for a one way ticket to site. We were also all given "emergency allowance" in US dollars to get us back to the capitol and evacuated in the event of a national emergency. The money is sequentially printed US 20's. Needless to say I felt pretty wealthy. And after one last night together with our fellow trainees in the hotel, we were all off to our sites, by bus, car, train, and plane.
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