Saturday, March 13, 2010

Almost halfway through training (Long overdue post!!)



It's saturday afternoon, it's raining and it's Paraguay. This can only mean one thing: that nothing at all is happening. I've already read my book, played my guitar, and watch the torrential rain turn the red dirt road in front of my house into a muddy red river. I'll take full advantage of this rare moment of quiet to let you, my few, know what I've been doing for the last month. (Sorry for the lateness of this post, I know that it's way overdue!)

I am not yet a Peace Corps Volunteer (hereafter PCV). I am a Peace Corps Trainee (hereafter PCT). The training process is mostly likely the most intense period of the entire 27 month experience. These 11 weeks are packed with back-to-back classes, activities, workshops, field trips and projects, every day. Let's start at the beginning.

Our training actually takes place in two major locations: the CECP and the Centro'i.I've forgotten what CECP stands for... Centro something Cuerpo de Paz. The Peace Corps really love acronyms, but rarely bother explaining what they mean.

The CECP is the main training headquarters, located in the city of Guarambaré, about 2 hours outside of Asunción by bus. All 49 PCT's in the G-32 Training Group meet here once or twice a week for large group presentations about health, safety and what it means to be a PCV, as well as receiving a new vaccination or two every week and receiving our meager living allowance every other week.

I stated above that there are 49 of us in Training Group G-32. We are divided into four groups, training in 3 technical areas: Urban Youth Development (UYD), Early Elementary Education (EEE, my group), and Rural Health and Sanitation (RHS), which is split into two groups because of their numbers. Each group lives in a "satellite community" outside of Guarambaré. Each local community has a Centro'i (a "Guarañol" word meaning "little center") in which most of the day-to-day training takes place. My Centro'i is about a 10 or 15 minute walk from my front door down a winding red dirt road, pictured below.


Each day is divided into two sections: We have Language training each morning from 7:45-11:30 am, Monday through Saturday. We all go home to our host families for a hearty Paraguayan lunch, the most important meal of the day. We return to the Centro'i at 1 pm for Technical training, which usually lasts until around 5 pm.

Besides our normal Language and Technical training, and visits to the CECP, we have a variety of other ongoing projects. As an Education trainee, I work in one of the 3 local elementary schools, doing talks and workshops using activities and didactic materials to promote participatory learning in the classroom. On weekends I have a "Club de Lectura" for local kids to come learn the joys of reading.

Two weeks ago I went to stay with a current PCV about 4 hours northwest of here in the Department (state) of San Pedro. Since it was a weekend, and Monday was a holiday (Día de los Héroes), I only got to actually visit his school for a few rushed hours on Tuesday morning before hopping on the bus back home. It was really interesting, though, to see how Volunteers actually live, and to hear their stories and opinions about living and working in Paraguayan communities and schools. It is much more relaxed than training, which is a relief, though certainly not without its own challenges.

This past Thursday we invited all the elementary school teachers in our village to come participate in a workshop, in which we made all kinds of learning materials that the schools lacked. It took all day, but in the end we had made enough sets of Alphabet-tablets, Numeral-tablets, and 100's charts for all the local classrooms! (Examples below.) Now our project for the rest of training is making sure teachers use them, or even know how. All that work was really only about 10% of the job. The workshops will begin next week.



Besides my host family and the other PCT's, I have made three new friends. :)



My PC experience so far has been crazy, exhausting, busy, chaotic and challenging, but I have loved (almost) every moment of it us far, and I think I am adjusting well to the way things work here. I even bought my own "termo." :) I miss you all!