Training

The last few days have been very interesting. Though the summer camp feel has mostly continued (and started to get to some folks), we are now getting into more technical training regarding what and how we will actually be doing. I still don't know my exact site or projects or anything like that, but we've moved the discussion away from pure reflection. We've started to look at the role of the Peace Corps and the Peace Corps Volunteer in development - generally and here in Suriname. From there, we've evolved into projects, techniques, and practices that have been successful previously and will likely model our experiences over the next 2 years.

For example, we started to look at the type of projects Peace Corps does in Suriname. We have a Community Economic Development program here and a Community Health Education program, but the country and the volunteer pool is so small that everyone ends up doing a bit of everything - it's much more about what naturally evolves with your community. So that's means I'll probably run an HIV awareness campaign even though I'm not a Health volunteer.

I'm all up for that, but I'm particularly excited for the overlap between health and business as it applies to water and energy - two increasing initiatives in Suirname that involve Peace Corps. We work closely with UNICEF to help get clean water to villages and that is often the number one concern for communities. Another top concern - with benefits to health and business - is more (and more reliable) electricity. It's pretty likely I'll be working in my community to help set up small business/non profits to address those issues. What exactly that means, I don't know yet, but I'm excited to find out. I would love to get some experience working with water issues and renewable energy/second market energy solutions.

On the lighter side, I know for sure that be doing Youth Development. That means after school programs - so soccer leagues, maybe some TKD, maybe supplementary Math or English, etc. Very exciting!

Today was a different kind of training, which was also very cool - we went to a small farm a ways outside the city called Ecosystem. They are a sustainable farm based on dense jungle farming, primarily for personal use to produce a varied diet throughout the year with some surplus for sale. So they overlap different complementary plants and trees in a completely organic and natural way. In a couple of acres they squeeze in squash, beans, tomatoes, greens, bananas, cocao, ginger, yams, etc, etc, etc - with tasty results. They made us lunch!

Indigenous populations here are pretty good at farming "crops," but are not traditionally as interested in eating a variety of fruits and vegetables. So modelling a kitchen garden and healthy nutritional practices is an important, underlying part of what Peace Corps does here. The farm was meant to be hands on education about how to plant various things in this climate, but the climate kiiinda defeated us today. It's been raining hard the last few days. Very hard. For hours at a time. So...not a great time for planting. They had a bunch of prepared activities for us that we were simply unable to do, which was a bit disappointing.

But, instead, it just became an engaging conversation about the theory and philosophy behind the farm. The couple that owns and operates it is very interesting and did manage to pass on some practical knowledge despite our rained-out status. For example,I now know a lot more about composting and the value of my urine than I did a few hours ago. Apparently urine, when diluted 1 to 10 with water, is magic fertilizer. We also had a very good discussion about the best ways to produce high quality organize fertilizer/compost without any technology or artificial inputs.

The conversation definitely made me think about the whole idea of eating organic and watching your balance with the land. I'm all for it, though it's never been super high on my priorities, but the day definitely tipped me towards it more. Not going to matter for a while, but I'll definitely think about more actively buying organic/local when I get back to the states (assuming I end up with a job that lets me afford it).

Anyway, it was a good day and now we have the weekend off. Kinda. Lots of language to study and I'm giving a presentation on Youth Leadership Development on Monday to the rest of the group. Language is going well and I'm really not as worried about it now as I was. I've always said I'm bad at learning languages, but I also haven't actually tried to learn a language (as in to actually speak it) ever before. This is a new experience and I'm better at it than I thought, which is a pleasant surprise.

The presentation is a bit different. My class of trainees was broken up into small groups and asked to present a topic that they have competency in based on their experience before Peace Corps. So there have been presentations on Conflict Resolution, HIV/AIDS, etc. Mine is on Youth Leadership and is with 2 of my fellow trainees. I'm certainly not an expert there, but I've taken my share of formal leadership classes and have a lot of experience teaching and developing youth and leadership - so it's not tough from that perspective and I know I have things to say that will be useful to my fellow trainees.

However, it is also part of our evaluation process. I'm not technically a Peace Corps Volunteer just yet - I'm a trainee who is being evaluated and may be allowed to swear in as a Volunteer in a bigdeal ceremony with the US Ambassador and many Surinamese officials in early July. So I want to do a good job, but I'm (hopefully for the best) forcing myself to define a good job a bit more broadly than I would have in the past.

Success in the States was dependent on outcomes. Certainly taking a longer view and focusing on my or other group members' learning and development was also important, but it wasn't what paid the bills or got you a good grade. Here, I feel like that needs to be my primary goal. I'm here to be a Facilitative Leader - someone who helps others do a great job of improving themselves - not to produce great works on and of my own.

The people in my group have a lot of good things to contribute so I'm not too worried, but it's just interesting to realize that I would be taking a noticeably different approach to this project in the States. Hopefully that means I'm learning and, double hopefully, this approach will lead to an even better outcome.