A recap of my first days

Now that you know just a little about me here is an update on my experience in Mexico thus far.  The journey began in Washington D.C. where my fellow volunteers and I met for the first time.  There are 26 people in my group and we all hail from different areas of the country, our ages vary from 22-60+, and we all have taken different paths to become Volunteers. We spent a few days in D.C. as we completed our ‘staging’ which is Peace Corps lingo for preparing to depart for our assignments.  Nothing terribly exciting happens at staging. You get lectured about Peace Corps policies, learn a little about what to expect during your service, visit the Mexican consulate to get your VISAs and new government passports, meet your fellow volunteers, and have your last American food for awhile (Personally, mine was Panera- I love that place).

After a few days in DC it was off to the airport.  A thankfully uneventful travel day had us at the Mexico City airport where we met some of the Peace Corps staff in Mexico for the first time.  We then gathered our luggage…it takes quite awhile to do this with 26 people… and got on the bus and began our 3 hour drive to Queretaro, where Peace Corps headquarters in Mexico is located and where we will be living for the next 10 weeks during training. 

Our first few days in Mexico were spent at a hotel retreat outside of the city.  Here we were able to acclimate to our new surroundings in relative serenity. We got brief overviews of the Peace Corps policies in Mexico and general view of what we will be doing during our training period.  This was a nice few days as we were able to get to know each other a little more and ease ourselves into this new life outside the states.

Once our 2 days at the retreat were over we headed to the Peace Corps office in Queretaro for the first time.  This was an overwhelming experience as we were all tired, it was late in the day and turns out essentially were walking into a party.  Each of our Peace Corps host families, who we will be living with for the duration of training, were there to meet us for the first time as we all got to know each other, ate a lot of food, and some of us who do not know Spanish particularly well (me included) endured some awkward silences as we attempted to speak in Spanish, often with mixed results. Some of the people in our group are staying with large families complete with kids and dogs while others only have a ‘host mom’ they are living with.  As for me, I am in a comfortable home living with a married couple, Ricardo and Cecilia.  They are really nice and very patient with me as I attempt to speak Spanish with them….this is one of the main reasons Peace Corps has us live with host families is so we can be immersed in the language and culture of the area.  For now, I speak in short phrases with them as I work on my Spanish…each day there is a little improvement and I’m pretty confident that I’ll be able to communicate easily in Spanish after 10 weeks in Queretaro. 

So we ‘moved in’ with our families on a Friday night and had the weekend free to spend time with them.   I enjoyed just sitting around the kitchen table and talking with them.  It is an interesting experience to just be told to go live with someone you don’t know and doesn’t speak the same language as you but I am enjoying it all the same.  On Saturday night they took me to downtown Queretaro to show me around which was very nice of them.  The downtown of Queretaro is very historical, with churches everywhere, many plazas complete with fountains and free wifi, many restaurants and a few museums.  It is just a fun place to be and there are a ton of people there at any given time, but especially at night.  On Sunday I was able to explore more of the downtown with a fellow Peace Corps trainee.  We spent the entire afternoon just casually walking around and seeing the sites, most of those sites are churches…so many churches here.  We also got some ice cream and enjoyed a lunch downtown, and later on in the day we met up with some more trainees as we celebrated one our members’ birthdays at a local restaurant.  All in all it was a great weekend and I can’t wait to explore more of Queretaro while I am here.

This completes the end of my first week with the Peace Corps, I know this may not have been the most exciting blog post as I was just trying to recap everything that has happened thus far.  In future posts I won't just recap what I’ve been up to but write about specific topics so it is more interesting (ie Queretaro’s downtown, what Mexico is like, how the food is, etc.)  and of course add some pictures. So stay tuned for those more exciting posts in the future. 

That’s all for now, thanks for reading!