There is always a lot of build up to site announcements. The trainees want to know because it is their future and the rest of us want to know because we’ve all been taking bets for awhile. It also marks the end of village training and a major hurdle in their time. For me, it marks a change in my primary PCV responsibilities (one of many recently).

Trainees learn about their new sites

We the current volunteers were taking bets on things like who already “knew” their site and was correct or incorrect, who would cry and who would be overly excited. Really, what I wanted to see was who is replacing Jason and I. I am being replaced by a woman named Katelyn. I have faith that she will do well there. She is a different kind of person than me which is exactly what that community needs given their tendency to compare people. I also maxed out what I could do so a new approach and new ideas will be a big step in the right direction. Jason is being replaced by another woman. Just to make things as confusing as possible, her name is Kathrine but she goes by Kat. She will be very good for Melsisi. She prefers younger kids, but there are opportunities for her in the primary school or in the community itself and she is a bit older than the usual fresh-out-of-college which I think will help her cope with the isolation of Melsisi.

A few other highlights from the day:

There is one site which practices polygamy. One of the female health vols has 3 mamas. I don’t think there is a down side to that, honestly. She will always be fed, she will always have someone around to story with and there are over a dozen kids in the family for her to join up with. It seems like a pretty great situation for her.

There are only 2 new volunteers on Efate and 1 in the close by Shepards Islands so we have a minimum of new neighbors. That’s ok, we have a few in G-24 and 6 in the group of extendees.

The training manager gives a smol toktok afterwards.

Most of the health sites from my group got replacements. The trainees who are 2^nd volunteers in their sites are eager to get on facebook and start finding out all the dirt. It is amazing how much more connected we are through facebook than ever before.

There were a lot of emotions in the day. Not everyone was thrilled with their sites but even the people who were a bit upset will probably get over it and do wonderfully in their placements. It is all about the attitude you enter with and most of them have the right attitude.

Cross-posted to our new blog at tegabis.com