Trainee Turned Trainer

The transition from Peace Corps Trainee to Volunteer to Returned Peace Corps Volunteer is an experience with memorable milestones along the way.  Projects get started and some even get completed.  New foods are introduced into ones diet, sometimes with a vengeance.  New friendships are made and old ones are strengthened by the distance.   

Another one of these milestones is the opportunity to get involved with the new groups Pre-Service Training, PST, in the role as a Peace Corps Volunteer Trainer.  I helped assist in the Education group’s training back in December, helping to facilitate a cross-cultural session on homestay living. 

It was not until this most recent group’s PST that I truly felt like a trainer.  Maybe it was the fact when I was asked the question, “How long have you been in country?” and I answered, “One year, two weeks” that I felt like a true PCV.  It might have also helped that at this PST I was training the group on technical core material, including community assessment, monitoring and evaluation, and how life is once training is over and your service has officially begun.

Arriving back at Kulika for this training was like déjà vu.  This is where I spent my Pre-Service Training… Learning how to wash clothes by hand, bucket bathe, and best sensitize the community on malaria.  The new group welcomed us with questions and catching us up on life in the United States, including this new dance called The Wobble. 

Us Volunteers were quite confused.  And intrigued.

The three days spent at the training venue allowed for me to reflect on my service thus far and look forward to the next year left in country.  As I stood at the front of the room giving advice and sharing my story, I remembered all those previous Peace Corps Volunteer Trainer’s who came to my PST to inspire me to become the Volunteer I am today. 

I hope that I was able to be of some inspiration to the Trainees I met.  If I could offer the least bit of insight or advice to the real world that I know as a PCV, then I know I fulfilled my role.  Somehow.