Knocked into Reality: Swear In and Tree Limbs

PST is over. Omg yes PST is over, thank goodness. Wait PST is over....this is scary. At the end of a strenuous ten weeks of service training, you will find yourself in a whirlwind of emotions. Your mind and body are excited to have more flexible schedule and to finally properly unpack your suitcase. On the other hand, you are starting over on your cultural integration, which includes saying goodbye to your interim community you've built: your host family, classmates, teacher, and friends. You will swear in, officially be a Peace Corps Volunteer, and thus be equally confused and elated as the day you arrived. A little fresh faced, sweating, and hesitant about the future. Overall our swear in ceremony itself was quick but still very nice and a good wrap up of our ten weeks of training. Immediately after the ceremony though, we were rushed off to our respective sites and said "see ya in 5 months" to the people that have become our closest friends the past 10 weeks. And if all of this wasn't enough...well the unexpected happened to me that created a pretty significant bump in my day {and my head}. On our walk from the hotel to the swear-in location, low and behold a huge tree limb fell on my head!! And no, I'm not kidding. I suffered a minor head injury on the day of my swear-in. Was it a sign? Should I turn back? What are the Myanmar superstitions about tree limbs falling on one's head the day of a big event? Why was I so stupid? I know better than to walk under a tree don't I? Such were my irrational thoughts as I immediately clutched my head. All that beside, I didn't get knocked to the ground and that bastard of a tree is lucky or I would have come back and sucker punched it once I got back on my feet. Thankfully other volunteers saw this happen to me and were nothing short of helpful: finding me ice and the PCMO for me, and also taking the hint to drop the subject as tears welled up in my eyes.You should also know there are really only two instances in my life when I cry: when I am incredibly frustrated or when I am injured or sick. But unfortunately the first staff I saw after it happened was my safety manager and country director...two people I wouldn't say it is good form to cry in front of on such a professional day. I think my small talk with the country director went something like this: "Hey Kelly, are you excited for today?" Me: "I'm sorry Maura I can't talk right now, a tree limb just fell on my head." Thankfully, I didn't pass out and didn't have to start my service in a hospital bed in Yangon. Ugh could you imagine?  But I did get a bit of comical grief from the PCMO whom when I asked to check out my head, gave me a look, and said "good news no abrasions but you do have lice."....to which I replied: "Now is not the time for jokes, Joanne." 

The sun in my eyes really hides the fact that I'm crying

Don't mind me, just icing my head!

So all in a matter of 48 hours, I had said goodbye to my host family, dunked buckets of water on fellow PCV trainees and hotel staff in our "Jade Garden Hotel Appreciation/Mini Thingyan" party (more on that later), packed my things and got on a bus to Yangon, reacted to a tree limb falling on my head, semi-cried it out, swore in, ushered into a taxi with my principal, counterpart, and a stranger (who would later become one of my close friends in my town), ate KFC on a pit stop, pulled into my school at 9pm to meet my township education officers, rushed to my house with an influx of people and names that took weeks after to remember, watched someone pick up a dead cockroach out of my sink cause they thought I was scared, was asked do you need us to stay with you? and simultaneously kicked them out.  And as I dozed off in my pink framed twin sized bed and mosquito net with a borrowed blanket, new sheets, my dumbo pillow, and massaging my bruised head I thought... Okay Kelly, here we go.