In Service Training

After our first 3 months at site, Volunteers attend an In-Service Training (IST) session.  This is usually 3 or 4 days at a mediocre hotel and may or may not include Life Skills Training where Volunteers bring a Counterpart for additional training.  Thanks to PEPFAR (google it) my training class could afford a little more style.

At one of the nicest hotels I've ever been in, I spent 10 days at IST.  It was wonderful to see my friends that'd I'd missed for the past 3 months.  We ate at a buffet for every meal and took hot showers every day.  There was a nice swimming pool, a hot tub (that never really got hot but easily held 30 people) and a sauna.  We played volleyball and used the work out facilities, awed over a television set and played games in each other's rooms every night.  A great reunion. 

The first few days of training were awful, “experts” from the Department of Education tried to lecture us about rural schools.  It was painfully obvious that these “experts” had never even set foot in a village, and had no idea what village schools are like. My favorite conversation went something like this:

PCV: My school has kids in grades 3 and 4 in the same classroom, how am I supposed to apply what you are saying to my situation?

Expert: Schools like that don’t exist anymore.

PCV: Come to my village and see that that is how my school works.

Lots of Volunteers walked out of these sessions.  A few took the opportunity to correct theses “experts.”  None of us hid the fact that we were on our phones.  The APCD's apologized to us later and promised never to bring those particular people to a training again. 

Training picked up when our Life Skills Counterparts arrived.  My Counterpart was a Life Skills teacher from the Primary School.  The Trainers now were other Volunteers and 2 British men who travel the world in their work with the CDC to educate people about HIV and AIDS.  We talked openly about sex and STIs, my CP was amazed that Americans actually talk to their parents about these things.  In rural South Africa, no one talks about sex, most families wouldn't even know their daughter is pregnant until she really shows or gives birth.  With the British men, David and Neil, we had fascinating discussions about HIV/AIDS and all kinds of ways to live healthy.  I learned about the importance of zinc and selenium in your diet and how to drink diluted aloe juice to keep parasites out of your stomach.  They gave us a game about HIV to play with kids, similar to Shoots and Ladders, except in this game you slide up the condom and fall down a virus. 

The Counterparts left and our last couple of days were devoted to language, Afrikaans in particular.  I missed most of those sessions, thanks to a trip to the Peace Corps office and a pressing need to watch a movie with another Volunteer.  The very last session was a cultural session.  On the schedule, it was listed as “cleanliness” and we all groaned at the thought of ANOTHER importance-of-the-bucket-bath talk.  Instead it turned into a talk about the supernatural.  My village believes in witches, ghosts and ancestor worship, some other volunteers are dealing with vampires, or a giant “water snake” or other forms of magic. Apparently really “talented” witches can turn themselves into a pig to escape an angry mob, or bewitch a wheelbarrow to transport them around town.   My favorite quote from the moderator of the session “our government does not like us to carry on burning witches anymore” (but it still happens).  So I learned to stop saying “I have magic in my fingers” when I do something impressive on a computer at school. 

Leaving the final morning was a hassle, as everything is in Africa.  When we finally got a taxi full enough of people and luggage to satisfy the driver, my little group headed to the car rental place to start our vacation!