Training Highs and Lows

Last week, a lifelong goal of mine came true, I swore in as an official Peace Corps volunteer!  After 3 months of training which included 6 days of classes per week mostly 8 hour day Spanish classes, I am finally an official volunteer and have moved into my site. I feel very fortunate to have a site that was my first choice and even more spoiled to have a kitchen with gas stove and OVEN!!! No more cooking on the wood stove for me! Btw, I’ve found all essential pie ingredients, however if you would like to send me nutmeg, chocolate, green tea, chai tea, or any kind of tea, please feel free to do so! 

Upon crossing over into volunteer-hood, I feel the need to reminisce on training highs and lows for those of you interested in joining the Peace Corps or just curious about the process. 

Highs:

-Homestay family: really helps with language and learning about local culture

-Spanish classes: absolutely essential for learning Spanish as well as local vocabulary and accent

-Some technical classes (classes about health, development, and Nica society): not all were highs

-Volcano Masaya trip! I suggest you go; you can drive straight up to the crater and take an edgy hike around the brim of the craters

-Practicum week (a week where we observe volunteers in their work): super busy but we went to the BEACH in Corrinto so that made up for all the stress!

-Site Placement: I got the site I wanted so it would be ridiculous not to include this as a major HIGH!

-Site visit: I was beyond excited to see my new home, spent the week with an old friend, and met a lot of counterparts and potential collaborators for work like local NGOs, the casa materna, and health posts in the surrounding communities.

-Hiking up a local Somoto peak with some youth! Got to see a gorgeous semi-ariel view of the city that will be my home away from home for the next 2 years!

-Swearing In weekend in Managua: a few friends and I danced ALL night in a Managua night club, than lazed around by a pool the next day only to have sushi and sangria for dinner the following night… a Posh Corps weekend indeed that will only be repeated on rare occasions seeing as that our salaries are low low low.

Lows:

-Feeling like a child again in your host family because they cook and clean for you and you are a 25 year old with a curfew again

-some technical sessions that were repeated or on just on Saturday mornings lol

-Fishbowl feeling in my tiny training town which will hopefully be alleviated by living in a city now

-Always being around the same people, classes all day with the same group of people gets old 


Thankfully, I have more highs than lows for training and am optimisitc that my service will produce the same results.