Day 1:
We started off MST by meeting at the Peace Corps (PC) office for a couple of activities in the new Information Resource Center (IRC…there are a lot of acronyms in PC). This was built by and collaborated with our Language Coordinator. It has resources on topics ranging from microenterprise to sustainable health. It only lasted about 10 min, and the time allotted was 4 hours long, so most of us just spent much of our time relaxing in the PCV lounge/library/computer center.
We had lunch served at a different location, the Pre-School Teacher Training Center (PSTTC), for both the K3 and K4 groups. We watched the uncut footage of the PC/Cambodia 50th Anniversary video that was going to be shown at the embassy. It featured six volunteers, their 50th Anniversary projects and them speaking about it in Khmer; the embassy version only featured three of them. After the viewing, we had a PC quiz followed by some ground rules and logistics (including goals and Close of Service (COS) objectives) to go over to begin the sessions of MST. The first actual session was a health slideshow presentation by our Peace Corps Medical Officer (PCMO), Joanne about dangerous snakes. It featured some pretty gnarly pictures of snake bites! After that we all went back to the hotel, changed, and went straight to the U.S. Embassy for the 50th Anniversary party, where they served delicious h’or d’erves (SP!!!) and had many speeches by some ministry people and Jon Darrah (PC/Cambodia Country Director (CD)). It also began to some American National Anthem and Khmer National Anthem singing. Both groups did extraordinarily well, and we look forward to singing again at the 4th of July celebration also at the embassy!
Day 2:
The second day started off with a session that another PCV, Kurt and I facilitated entitled “How to Work with Your Counterparts”. This was actually not a very accurate title, as none of us could possibly be authorities on that subject, considering how diligently we’re all working on figuring out just how to do that! It’s a long process, but it seems like it’s coming along. We decided to curtail our discussion towards what we could recommend to the new K5 Community Health Education (CHE) PCVs coming in July. Following Kurt and I was Population Services International (PSI) who talked about their mobile video units that come into poor villages and do day long projects about specific health topics. One PCV has already been in contact with them and had them come to their site and said it was a success. We all enjoyed the presentation, and I think most of us will be contacting them in the near future. After that session, we talked about monitoring and evaluation (always a thrill), then braked before coming back to learn about teaching large-level classrooms/classroom management with the Senior English Language Fellow (SELF), Joel Wiskin. This is a position that is supported through the embassy but comes from Georgetown (correct me if I’ve got the wrong university). He was very astute and taught us in a very encouraging and entertaining way. Lunch followed, then a session on what the Small Project Assistance (SPA…I told you; there are a lot!) committee is looking for. The SPA grant ranges anywhere from $50-$2000 for projects during our service. Basically, if it’s related to grade-school level students or teaching microenterprise and the community can come up with 25% of the needed funds (including in-kind donations), the SPA committee (funded by US AID) will review it and consider it for approval. After that we had a guest speaker from RACHA (Reproductive and Child Health Association) come and talk about what we already knew from their organization and then learned a bit from another PCV, Helen about working with Village Health Volunteers (VHVs) and the Village Health Support Group (VHSG). Following this we learned about basic first aid from our resident nurse and PCV, Taylor. Taylor’s blunt and sarcastic, so it made for a very entertaining session about basic first aid. i.e. “Okay. So, it’s pretty easy: if they’re breathing, that’s good, right?! Good. Glad we got that. If they’re not? Okay. You probably want to do something about that.”
Day 3:
This was probably the most useful day (I think the others would agree). We started off the session by discussion potential secondary projects we are in the process of executing now or are planning to do in the future. It was a useful bit of time in that we learned about what others were doing at their sites/in their provinces, and it inspired us to consider projects we had not thought about before. Following that, we split up into groups to discuss the many aspects of Pre-Service Training (PST), i.e. what was successful, what wasn’t, and suggestions for the incoming group of trainees. I facilitated the group focusing on cross cultural training. I thought it was very productive, and I look forward to working with PC in implementing those changes we found necessary. It was especially useful as I’ll be the new Safety and Security & Cross Cultural (SSCC) Training Assistant for the K5 PST (I’ll get to that in my next post). After lunch, I left for an hour to do my mid-service Language P???? I??? (LPI…basically a language test to see how far we’ve come since the end of PST). I’m not sure how I did, as I haven’t heard back from our Language Coordinator and Cross Cultural Trainer (LCCC) yet. After that we had five sessions to choose from that ran simultaneously and repeated three times: Chances for Cambodia (an NGO that supports poor young Cambodian girls to further their studies), GIZ Toolkit (a German volunteer organization), SharePoint Information (a Microsoft program we use to share documents and information updates between the staff and PCVs), Volunteerism, and a session on the PC Fellows Program/Applying to Graduate School which was run by our very own PCV, who was the head of all graduate admissions at a very big university back in the states. That was probably the most helpful and interesting. After that, we all filled out our MST evaluation forms, then celebrated before heading back home.
So, let’s see if you were following along:
At the beginning of MST we had an open house for our new IRC before hanging out in the PC lounge. We all went to the PSTTC to begin a general Q&A session about MST and to review our goals and objectives for COS. Afterwards, our PCMO held a session followed by a SS information session. The next day we had two sessions, one of which about working with your counterparts lead by two CHE PCVs before another session by an NGO, PSI. We then learned about classroom management form the SELF from the US. When that session ended, we learned about SPA grants from a group of PCVs. We split up again, and the CHE PCVs learned very interesting information from both RACHA and another PCV on working with VHVs and the VHSG before learning about CPR from our RN PCV. Finally, on the third day, we discussed SSCC during our PST for the K5s PST before they become PCVs. After that, I had my LPI before going to learn about a specific set of skills from GIZ. We then filled out our MST evaluations before going back to the PC lounge at the PC office to relax before going back to our hotel to change and celebrate.
How did you do?
Hope all is well, and I’ll
Talk to you soon,
Garrett
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