5/15/13
Manahoana daholo!
I am back again to tell you all about my 2 weeks training
the new volunteers back at the training center in Mantasoa. Although looking at the “views” on my blog
since the beginning, looks like I am writing for a very select audience now
haha.
So anyway, I was a little nervous training the new
volunteers because they are all under the new agriculture framework; there are
no more community economic development volunteers like me, they were folded in
with environment. So the trainees spent
the first 5 weeks pretty much only talking about improved farming techniques
and small animal husbandry. They Dan and
I come in to teach bookkeeping, recordkeeping, costing and pricing, and
assigning an agri-business feasibility project.
All of which was pretty much in the classroom, when prior they had been
spending a lot of time outside. I know
that I would have been snoozing by the end of the week.
But to their credit (and I guess to mine and Dan’s) they were
still pretty engaged by the end of the week, asking great questions. All of the sessions seemed to go pretty well,
even though we were flying by the seat of our pants some of the time. I have said it before and I will say it
again, communication is not Peace Corps’ strong suit. But we survived and I think the trainees
learned a lot. The best was the project,
where they got to apply business concepts how they would in the field,
literally. They each had to talk to a
host family and find out about their income generating activities and give
advice based on questions they asked in Malagasy. Overall I think it was a success, even after
PC cut one of the sessions.
But enough about the actual training, on to the fun
stuff! The real reason I wanted to be a
trainer haha :P just kidding. So the
first week I was training with Dan, a fellow CED volunteer, and Corey, Tisa,
and Raf, all health volunteers, which was the sector of the other half of the
trainees. Each sector has 18 this
round. So even though we had to spend a
lot of time preparing sessions and evaluating how sessions went, we still had
time to play hilarious games revolving around Jurassic Park (which resulted in
a “how many dinosaurs can you name?” poster board, as well as a “did you know…”
board), introduce the new vols to “cards against humanity,” a hilarious
politically incorrect version of apples to apples, and write mahay-kus (haikus)
about training and beyond to share at the talent show put on by the trainees. Complete and total hit.
World Malaria Day also fell during my training weeks, and
Raf, the Malaria Coordinator, helped the trainees put on a great festival for
Mantasoa Village. This included a
mosquito piñata, which was absolutely terrifying to watch with the several
hundred kids in attendance. Corey, Tisa,
and I also gave the trainees their stage name—Bougie Stage. This comes from the word bourgeoisie, because
this stage was getting fancy. They had a
milk frother for tea and coffee, drank wine, which I didn’t even know Mantasoa
had, and (though not their fault really) were the first stage with access
wi-fi. They were pretty pleased with their
new name, and have really taken it to heart.
The second week, I trained with Meghan (health) and Dan
(environment). That week saw the
introduction of an epic blanket fort created by the trainees for movie watching
and Nintendo simulator playing, a great capture the flag game, the very
stressful language test for trainees, preparation for final presentations,
expired jell-o found in the games cupboard (still tasted good), a giant bowl of
popcorn to celebrate the end of the test, a bonfire and s’mores, presidents and
assholes card game, and a few decent dance parties.
Overall, I had a great time really getting to know the new
volunteers. If I hadn’t been a trainer,
I might never have met some of the ones who live far away. Now I have “zandry” (younger siblings) who
can be great friends for the next year and beyond. Excited to really welcome the 5 new highlands
regioners at the next VAC in June!
Love,
-Sarah
No comments:
Post a Comment