In-Service Training, Already?!

First, some Peace Corps jargon: In-Service Training (IST) is a meeting that PCVs in every country have roughly 3 months after Pre-Service Training (PST) ends. 

I had been looking forward to IST, because once PST ended we were spread out across the country and I hadn’t seen most of my cohort in months! 

The other fun aspect of IST is that each of us got to bring along a teacher from our school to attend the whole week of workshops with us. We were encouraged to bring our counterpart, which is the teacher that the school assigned to be our main resource at the school, answering all of the random questions that an American thrown into the Ugandan school system is bound to have. Mine, of course, is Rosemary (who I’ve posted about on this blog before). She was delighted to attend with me, especially since the town where we were having the training was across the country—about 9 hours of travel from the Eastern village where we live—and she’d never been there before! She's incredibly dedicated to her pupils as humans, not just as learners or students at school, and I'm learning so much from her. 

Rosemary and I, together in Masaka!

We stayed at a hotel in Masaka and our trainings covered a variety of topics—everything from a session on establishing libraries to two days of sessions on utilizing consequences for misbehavior to use at school that don’t involve corporal punishment. 

The best part of IST was—as I knew it would be—seeing my friends! I am happy to be able to say that I genuinely like everyone in my cohort. Once I had been accepted to Peace Corps, I read absolutely everything I could get my hands on about it. I did my best not to establish any expectations for my own service, and reading as many perspectives as possible helped with this, as each person’s service is so vastly different. But one thing that cropped up relatively consistently was that PST is full of drama. My own cohort had our fair share of interesting (at times, drama-filled) experiences… but to this day, we aren’t what I would describe as cliquey. Everyone has their own natural friend groups, but I really feel like I can sit down next to any member of our cohort and have a genuine, deep conversation. 

During IST, I got book recommendations from Emily, shared clothes with Kristen, and watched She’s The Man (again, haha) with Chantelle. I posed for pictures with Isabelle, took naps with Apey and Kara, borrowed Katherine’s leesu (Ugandan scarf), and was grateful to Ren when she fixed my broken locket. Sheila shared her Sour Patch Kids with everyone, Kenneth showed us pictures of his grandbabies, and I listened to Kevin tell stories about the multitude of countries he’s lived in. Allie led us to a vegetarian restaurant in Masaka, where I discovered that Hannah and I are both nervous about turning 23 soon, and that Randy is observant enough to discern emotions from a brief facial expression. 

To sum it all up, I’m surrounded by a beautiful assortment of the most interesting humans I’ve ever met.