Pre- Service Training

I am about 1 week into what many volunteers describe as the hardest part of the Peace Corps- pre-service training (PST). PST is nine weeks of training in language, culture, safety, technical skills (ex. How to start a Village Savings & Loan Organization), and health all while living with a host family. Here is a typical day:

(6:30am) Wake up because I can no longer ignore the rooster crowing away outside my window.

(7:00am) Get my host brother to draw me water from the well. Every day he asks me if I want to try to do it and I eagerly respond with “Yes! I would like to try” which is really “Oui! Je voudrais essaiyer” and he replies with “No, you answer is always no. White people fall down wells”…

(7:10am) Help the family ‘cook’ breakfast. Cook is in ‘’ because we really just reheat food over wood charcoal (really burnt wood that is heated up). Sometime early this week, someone must have actually cooked a ton of rice and spicy sauce with entire dried fishes in it because we just reheat the same thing every morning and have it for breakfast and dinner. I call it fishy rice and it tastes just like it sounds.

(7:50am) Leave for training with my host brother who goes to school near the training center. As we walk, we great everyone we pass. Sometimes in French, sometimes in Susu. Or we share his headphones and listen to Akon and Rihanna. It depends on the day.

(8-10:30) French class. Outside under a tree with roosters and chickens having some sort of daily battle at our feet. We also happen to be right by the local well so we get visitors in class.

(10:30-12) Technical Language- learning vocabulary with all the community economic volunteers that will help us do our jobs. French classes are broken into small groups based on skill, but we get to be all together for this. There are also volunteers in the agroforestry sector and in community health but we only train with them on Thursdays.

(Noon) Lunch! We walk to the market and usually buy peanut butter and banana

(2-3:30)- More language

(3:30-5)- Technical training (i.e. An Overview of the Guinean Economy)

(5:30-6:30) The hour of power. Literally. They turn on the generator and we get electricity for one hour to go on the internet or charge phones. On days with no electricity we do Yoga or other work outs.

(6:30) Walk home. Without my host brother, all the little kids along the route are not afraid to  shout FOTE! At me. It means white people and we are some of the first white people these kids have ever seen. If you want to tease them, you reply with Foret! (forest in French) but usually I just say “Bonsoir petit, Ca va?” and them come over and shake my hand and run away. This apparently never gets old for them.

(7:00) Dinner. More fishy rice…After dinner, I talk with my host family or they teach me Susu or help me with my homework. Tonight, we talked about micro-credit institutions in the area and then I tried to explain the root of the current economic crisis in French which was exhausting so by 8:30 I head into my room.

(8:30) Bucket bath. It is cold and wonderful and I do not really miss showers.

(9:00) I do homework, write in my journal and read and I am asleep by 11pm

So that’s a typical day. It is so very different from home so I am very surprised at how quickly it has become routine and how comfortable I am. Living life in a tropical country without running water or electricity is not that bad. Maybe in a few weeks I will have changed my mind, but for now its really no big deal. A bientot!