We are posting a bit out of order, but this one wasn't ready and the vacation post was!
We hope this little overview of the two months of pre-service training will help explain why we were missing in action for blog posting. Once the trainees arrived on August 20th we dove head first into seven-day work weeks until the class swore in on October 22. What little downtime we did have, we spent away from the office so could not update the blog as we do not have other internet access.
Training was a lot of fun! Ginnie served as the technical trainer for the education group and set up sessions and training activities to help them become acquainted with Belizean education and working in Belizean primary school settings. The trainees conducted two very successful training sessions: one on classroom management at the school in Georgeville (where our trainees learning Kriol lived for training) and one on diagnostic reading assessment at my old stomping grounds at Trinity (it was a lot of fun to bring my two groups together for a great workshop!).
Our training program consists of one week spent in Belmopan during which the trainees participate in core sessions and we also went out to Benque Viejo Town for a Maya & Mestizo culture day and then to Xunantunich for a trip to the ruins site. Then all trainees are sent off to community-based training where they live with a host family and in a community similar to where they will eventually serve and where they immerse more directly in the primary language of their site. For education, we trained in Maya Mopan, a K'ekchi village just within the limits of Belmopan, and Georgeville, a Kriol village on the Western Highway between Belmopan and San Ignacio. This meant a lot of driving time for Ginnie, but she loved being back behind the wheel, and definitely had a LOT of time to improve her skills in the manual-shift Prados! During this time, every trainee came together on Fridays for more core sessions that we all on staff worked together to facilitate.
Throughout training, we took a few field trips. Our biggest was the overnight trip to tour the future sites. We headed to Stann Creek and Toledo to see the different schools where the trainees would eventually serve. Our final trip for the sites in Belize City was done toward the end of training when we had the workshop and had a delicious meal catered by our very own Belize Mom - Miss Udeen! It was so great to be back with her - it always feels like home - and to share her delicious cooking with the trainees. Bringing the trainees to Trinity was also one of my favorite experiences since I got to combine both groups of people I'd been working with here in Belize. It also was my first trip back to the school since June, so I was really excited to see the teachers and students again. I got a lot of hugs as we came in and felt right at home.
After community-based training ended, for the first time here in Belize, we sent the trainees out for two weeks on a future-site visit. The experience began with a Counterpart Day in which they met their counterparts and got to know each other and participated in sessions on various Peace Corps topics related to their work together. They then went to their new host families with their counterparts and then spent two weeks learning about their new sites and communities. Anthony joined me on my visits to the trainees to check-in with them and see how they were doing and go over a final evaluation for their progress to approve them to swear in!
They all returned for three days of Bridge to Service training, which consisted of a few administrative matters and a lot of trainee presentations about their training experiences and their project areas. We concluded with a talent show and our training staff really set a high standard for ourselves with a fun spoof movie on Belizeans going off for Peace Corps America. We can't post that here, but are willing to share it if you'd like to laugh a lot! The swearing in ceremony occurred on Octbober 22nd and 40 new volunteers began their service the following day! That night we were invited to our new Ambassador's home for a lovely dinner and reception. We are really excited about Ambassador Thummalapally's enthusiasm for working with Peace Corps in our work here in Belize.
Once the hectic schedule of training concluded, we had one week to get our annual programming report ready for Washington, DC, so all of us in programming and training were working all day compiling volunteer's reports and data to combine it into one master report. I can assure all you volunteers out there that we DO use the information in those semi-annual reports and you ARE doing a lot of great things! Keep up the good work. It was interesting to see all the project work come together and look at the impact volunteers have had on Belize in the past year. Then, we headed out to Mexico for that wonderful week of relaxation. Once we returned, we caught up on some other project work, Anthony headed out to the Toledo district for an HIV/AIDS Outreach event and Ginnie jumped right into site development and had 5 meetings with principals to talk about requesting a volunteer and the work volunteers can do for them. This week, we participated in an intense training on Designing for Behavior Change (which is going to be such a useful method for framing volunteer's work - I wish we'd had this when we started) and now are turning right around to train the volunteers in it for their in-service training this week. We'll conclude training with a Thanksgiving Feast and then some rest on Thursday and right back into the site development and other projects! There's certainly never a dull moment these days :)
Please now, sit back, relax and enjoy the show... :)
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