It was definitely a special day today – I got to be a part of the new group's training schedule! Woohoo! Basically what that means is that I got to go to Group 77's village to do one of the many sessions that are done during the PST (Pre-Service Training). I was really jazzed about it, but worried at the same time. Why was I worried – it had nothing to do with the training. Today was also one of the few days where I wouldn't be in school all day long (it's only happened before for two days this year) which meant I had to leave others in charge of running the labs and keeping the computers going. Since I have no direct counterpart that could correctly watch the labs and make sure the students don't mess with anything – there was a tiny bit of stress on my part. But then I realized, it's almost the end of school so there's no need to get really stressed out about the comps failing now. So I went into the training session focused on the session and not school. One of the many lessons learned during my time here.
Group 77's training village is called Ma'asina which is located next to Fagaloa Bay, which is close to my training village of Falevao . If you're looking at a map of Samoa, go along the northern side of the island until you see a deep curve into the island – that's the Bay – and the training village is located on the right side of that bay. While it doesn't look so bad on a map, there's a lot of curving roads that lead to their village so it was definitely an experience. It's a beautiful village though (I'll post pics soon of it) and the view while you're entering into the bay area is one of the best I've seen in Samoa. Kevin, our Life/Work Coordinator, pointed out that the villages in this area are probably more isolated then some of the villages on the west side of Savaii simply because people need to make a conscious effort to come to this bay area – it's not somewhere you would just drive by for the day just for the heck of it. It's definitely out there, but it was nice to see a village like this get an opportunity to host PC volunteers.
So it was Kevin, Beth (Group 73) and I doing a session on diversity for the trainees. It wasn't about diversity in the Samoan culture, but diversity within the group and within the larger volunteer community. This same session was done during my PST and it was just so strange to be doing this again, only from the other side of the fence (get the title now?). One year later, here I was standing as a volunteer coming to impart some wisdom onto the trainees, just as Nela (Group 72) and Beth had done for us last year. Amazing how much you grow in that short amount of time to be asked to do such a thing. I led the first session of the day which was making a diversity map about you. What is a diversity map you ask? It's a new feature on Google Maps! Kidding – a diversity map is where you draw a circle and you state on it the things that are important to you or help define you as a person and a future volunteer. It's a way for people to share things about themselves that would not normally come up in regular conversation and even though they have been together for about 3 weeks now, there's still things they didn't know about each other and this was a good activity to bring those things out of them. So I'll post my diversity map when I upload some more pics – but it generated some very good conversation and they were actively involved in the entire process. Made me feel really good because they were doing most of the talking and if there's one thing I've learned from this past year of teaching, it's that when the students are talking and generating the conversation that's definitely a good thing. No need for the facilitator to guide everyone – just go in with a quick jab, step out and watch what people do. Overall, I would say my session went really well – even though I was a little bit nervous about how everything would work out, since this was my first time but it was good.
The second session was led by Beth and it was about stereotypes and how that affects peoples perceptions and the community around them. As you may think, that generated a lot of conversation and different ideas from people – which again was good. Overall, both sessions went very well and hopefully we've made all the prior volunteers who did this session proud. After the diversity session was over, there was some conversation time before we (Beth and I) left to return to Apia. And one of the new trainees asked me how I survived my first 3 months here – which in my opinion are the roughest (especially around this time of year). It was a good question and one I hadn't thought about since I 'graduated' to volunteer status and now that I stand on the other side – I think it applies even more. When you're a trainee – it's easy to get caught up in the whole structured nature of everything and think 'I can't survive 2 years of this'. Especially once the honeymoon period is over (usually after about the first month) this feeling starts to kick in – that perspective is what sends trainees home early. But my mechanism for dealing with that was 'This is only temporary. My 2 years will be nothing like this' and while it was hard to keep that perspective at the time, it was good. And guess what – I was right, my volunteer service has been nothing like my training period. While there is structure in my life now (after one year!), at any time I can say 'Nope, don't want to do that today' and there's no one to force me to do it. At the same time, I can add things to my day which may not have been originally planned – there's definitely flexibility once you get past the rigid nature of the PST period. I once asked a volunteer (during my PST) what the best part of being a volunteer was and he told me 'the freedom you have'. At the time, I was like 'Come on, how could it get much better then having food made for you, not really having to work that much and just relaxing the day away' but you know what – he was right. I have so much freedom now compared to where I was as a trainee, that I would trade my current status for that one at any point. That feeling was only confirmed as I got into the car to come back to Apia while the trainees stayed in the village – the freedom to come and go, its great folks! But the point here is this – I've now been on both sides of the PC fence as a trainee and as volunteer and let me tell you this, surviving the fire of trainee has only made me a stronger volunteer. I always think back to being in Falevao and all the trouble we had there and how we all survived it – not some, all 14 of us – and it definitely helps me keep perspective on any of my current troubles. I say to myself 'I survived training and Falevao, I can get over this' or 'This isn't that big of a deal'. Heck, this lesson could be applied to anywhere – things are almost never as bad as they seem, you just have to keep a proper perspective and your eyes on the prize.
Tomorrow, one of the volunteers will be coming to my school to do a classroom observation. Should be fun and I'll let you know how it goes. L8r!
No comments:
Post a Comment