Thank You Community Celebration

The Sudesters

ME and my LCF, Angela

D'Gary

Wednesday, 8/27/14

            Today Peace Corps put on a Thank You Community celebration for our host families.  The ceremony was held on the basketball court in the PCTC, where they had set up a stage and tents.  While waiting for the ceremony to start we were able to hangout and talk to our families for what would be one of the last times till our return to PCTC for IST.  For me, my Neny, younger brother, and oldest sister showed up for the celebration.  The ceremony was really nice.  It was started with a speech from Robert, the Training Director, which was followed by a speech from Deanna, a girl from my Stage that we voted to represent us at the ceremony.  After Deanna’s speech a few of the trainees sang a Malagasy song they had prepared for the event and then once again we were all surprised by being asked, without prior knowledge, to sing ‘Bon Voyage,’ a song we had  been preparing for our swearing in ceremony.  After our song, which I have to say went very well, there was a speech given by the representative of the community, followed by a speech from the mayor of Mantasoa, and lastly by Dee, the Country Director.  The whole ceremony was ended with each family being called up, in turn, and presented with a framed ‘Thank You’ certificate and photo graphed with their trainee. 

            After the ceremony had concluded, everyone made there way to the dining hall where PC had prepared snacks and refreshments.  During this time a bunch of the trainees preformed the thriller dance for the families and PC played music for everyone to dance to.  Many people took this time to also converse and to take pictures with their family members.  Many of the trainees also took this time to take group pictures with their LCF’s/classmates and region mates. 

            Once the families had all left we had our very last tech session of PST; Malagasy music and dance.  For this session PC invited D’Gary to come play music for us.  D’Gary is an internationally know guitarist who plays Malagasy Traditional music (for those who have never heard his work you should really look him up).  His guitar playing skills were amazing.  After D’Gary had finished his session we switched to the dancing part of the session.  In this section, PC played music from the different regions of Madagascar and the LCF’s demonstrated the traditional dance to that music and the trainees joined in to dance as well.  After the LCF’s had gone though all of the regions the night just turned into a dance party and we celebrated our last night in PST.