Pre-Service Training (Part 1)

Over the past 4 months I have traveled 5 times to and from Thies, Senegal. Why? To prepare for and carry out a merged Senegal/The Gambia Pre-Service Training for new health/environment volunteers. Let me give the background to this. Toward the end of last year, Peace Corps Washington informed us that we were going to enter into an "experiment" that had the desired outcome of saving money. According to Washington, it makes sense that since The Gambia is completely surrounded by Senegal, and share similar cultures, we should be able to save money by merging. When this decision was shared with our Peace Corps posts, we had several concerns: 1) Our countries were colonized by different countries, 2) We have two different governments...which don't necessarily see eye-to-eye, and 3) It takes 10-12 hours just to travel one-way to the Thies Training Center. Despite our concerns, we were told we had no choice but to carry out the "experiment". So in December of last year we began meeting with Senegal staff to work out the logistics for our first combined training. We decided that in order to allow Gambian trainees to have as much cultural preparation as possible, we'd have the first half of the training take place in Senegal and the 2nd half take place in each post's respective countries.

The Senegal and The Gambia trainees arrived in Dakar, Senegal March 7th and proceeded to the PC/Senegal Training Center in Thies where they began their Pre-Service Training. The following is a welcome video, showing the trainees' arrival and first impressions of their Peace Corps experience.

My role in the Pre-Service Training (PST) has been to 1) Provide support to the trainees (answer questions, provide encouragement, if not feeling well I check up on him/her, and overall just be a positive role-model for the group), 2) Help with logistics...meaning I attended lots of meetings...to ensure facilitators were prepared and sessions effective, and 3) Facilitate sessions.

Throughout this first half of the PST, that took place in Senegal, I've been blessed to work with exceptional volunteers, both from Senegal and The Gambia. Without them, we would not have been able to make this training as effective as it has been. In addition, being in Senegal allowed for delicious dessert eating!




These banana splits were LIFE SAVERS!!! YUM!!!

Oh, I went to an Easter service! They even had drums played with some of the songs. This was done between the liturgical segments. Although I didn't understand any of the words spoken, it was a good experience.


Catholic Church in Thies

The last day that we were in Thies was when we revealed trainees' permanent sites, where they will be living for the next 2 years. The method of revealing this information to trainees was blindfolding them and leading them to stand on their country's map, where their village is located. We handed them information of their sites while they stood there...waiting.

Maps of The Gambia and Senegal, the venue for Site Announcements

 

Trainees wait, blindfolded, for their site announcement

Trainees wait, with site announcement in hand...

Then the following day we left for The Gambia!!! All of them have been saying, "Why didn't you guys tell us how much better The Gambia is than Senegal?!" "The air is so much cleaner here!" "The ocean is so close to the transit house!" "Our transit house is beautiful and homey!" ...They all seem very happy with their placement here; in fact, one said, "Yup, I was meant to be in The Gambia."

Now the trainees are in their training villages. I'm going to take this opportunity to go to my village for 2 days...yeah, that's all the time I have. Sad, I know. But it's okay. I am thoroughly enjoying my job and the work I'm able to carry out with this amazing group of trainees. God is good!