When you join the Peace Corps, you have to have the credentials to be able to perform the job you have applied for but you will also receive in country job specific training. In my case I have a background in Public Health and Workplace Safety and Health. For the Peace Corps I got a position in the WASH and Nutrition program. The job specific training introduced me to the needs and goals specific for Vanuatu. The government of Vanuatu has invited the Peace Corps in to help them achieve certain landmarks in both the Community Health Sector and in English Literacy. The group of volunteers that I’m apart of, or trainees until we are officially sworn in, consisted of folks from all kinds of backgrounds to work as either a Community Health (CH) or Literacy Project (LP) Volunteer.
Traveling to your country of assignment starts with staging at a hotel stateside in the same city that we will be flying out of. Here all of the potential volunteers from across the US assemble for a few sessions on what our journey will consist of, both to get to country and for the next 27 months. We go over flight logistics, the importance of committing to the full 27 months, country specific information is given, and some other activities to get you started on the journey. I believe staging is a little different for each group depending on the country of assignment. But in the main its to give anyone with doubts the chance to decline before leaving the US. In our group we lost one that way. He wrote a post as to why he made that decision here.
Once in country our group spent a week at a seaside hotel in tents going through sessions. (So pretty and so exciting to be there!!) Sessions are classes where everything you need to know for your service over the next two years is covered. On our first day, we went from a 12 hour flight (or more, I don’t remember exactly) to the hotel, were warmly greeted by Peace Corps Staff, and went straight into session. I think we were champs for staying awake and taking notes! The Peace Corps has core sessions that every volunteer, regardless of program or country of service, must be trained on. For those sessions the CH and LPs were together. Since the first week was all core training we were in the hotel instead of at the training village.
After, we separated and went to two different host villages. Now the cultural immersion begins. Once the CH group arrived in our training village we were greeted with a custom dance which was awesome, a video of the dance is here. Then there was the ceremony where each volunteer was presented to their host parents and given a custom name. Mine was Makie. After a potluck meal you go home with your host family.
My host family consisted of Mom and Dad with 6 pikinini (children); 1 boys and 5 girls. Along with grandma and grandpa. I was given my own custom house to live in which was two rooms and is grouped in with the other three buildings that made up the family compound. Also on the family lot was the kitchen with living area and a sleeping room in the back. There was a three room concrete house. And then there was a single room concrete house. In addition there was the toilet and swim house - the swim house is a single small room that you take your bucket baths in. The family house was right alongside the river and there were small stairs that led down to it.
The purpose of placing a trainee with a host family and living in their house in the role as their child is to give you the cultural immersion you need to integrate. Integration is to live and work within the community as though you were born to it, or as close as possible. Your supposed to spend time with your host parents observing, asking questions, and participating in home life to learn all the things you need to know in order to integrate once at site.
The next 9 weeks were spent in the training village going to sessions M-F, 8-5 pm. Sometimes we grouped together with the LPs to do sessions together. We did a couple of field trips to talk to current volunteers and observe. Once we had a break from it all and went to Pele for a day at the beach - that was much needed. But in the main, we stayed in the village nomo.
The stress of training comes from everything that you are learning in session and at home. It’s a lot of information, an emotional roller coaster, and frankly tiring. For me, on top of that was the stress of the toilet situation and being in the role of a child in someone else's house. Also, trying to make friends with other volunteers and not being successful at it was a huge stressor for me.
For technical training I’ll explain a little about the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) and Nutrition program. Water is about ensuring a community has access to safe water in plentiful supply. For the most part rainwater and springs are the main access to fresh water in Vanuatu. Sanitation needs are met by way of well constructed toilets and acceptable waste removal. Hygiene is all about keeping it clean; good handwashing, good personal hygiene, etc. And Nutrition is the last part. Island food or Aelen Kakai is healthy. Imported shelf stable foods are not. More and more the population is moving away from growing and consuming their own crops to consuming the unhealthy shelf stable foods. As a result the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke are on the rise and climbing fast. During training we were trained to present and facilitate programs that the Ministry of Health of Vanuatu wants to be used in order to improve community health in the WASH and Nutrition area.
For cultural training we learned customs, language, working in the garden, and how to prepare food. Things like catching, killing, cleaning, and cooking a chicken. Husking and grating a coconut. Planting manioc. The sort of thing that will enable us to be self sufficient once we get to site. I’ve heard the stories of volunteers who do not learn how to make a cooking fire or how to fend for themselves and end up eating bread & peanut butter. I have every intention of growing my own veggies in a garden and bartering/paying for other foods like fruits. And of course cooking my own meals. Though it is important to take at least one meal a day with other families in the village or with your host family. But even then you bring something with you for the table. The idea of a person living on their own without any kind of family with them is just odd here. So to integrate well you have to make sure to get out of your house and a big part of that is dinners around town.
As for my troubles with the other volunteers, I don’t fit in well with them. While I respect everyone as a competent, caring, and intelligent person willing to make the same commitment as me, in the end, I’m just not the kind of person who is super social and makes friends easily. But that’s alright. When you join the Peace Corps it was on your own. When you go to the site you will be on your own. There will be resources for you; host family, counterpart, Volunteer Support Program, and so one. But ultimately it is on me to do well at my site.
Other stressors for me during training were in the house of the host family, dealing with the toilet. The toilet is a pour flush which means you have western style porcelain commode which you flush by dumping a bucket of water into the bowl. At my house this water is hand carried up from the river. The section of river we are on is strongly affected by the tides and during low tide there is just a mudflat. Also at night, the stairs down to the river are not safe. This is a personal issue, but I don’t like the lack of the level of privacy that I’m used to when using the bathroom. The outhouse is right in the yard where everyone else is working and hanging out and I’m in there with sit sit water. Ugh. I also don’t like the pain in the butt of hauling water to flush the toilet. I think if I had a choice between pit toilet and force flush I would pick the pit latrine. But using a force flush in the home compound was an important experience for me to learn. I have a much better understanding and appreciation for how something simple and necessary can be difficult to meet needs. In Vanuatu,in many places the toilet situation is even worse. Hence the reason for the Sanitation in WASH.
Training also includes a walkabout week where you go to your site of assignment and are escorted by a mentor. You get the chance to meet your counterpart - the person whom will be working with most closely as you try to complete a successful project. Counterparts are a very important part of sustainability. Everything that I do in my role of Peace Corps Volunteer should be a teaching / mentoring moment for my counterpart so that that person can do everything that I can do once I am gone. It’s called ‘working yourself out of a job.’
Finally after a full 10 weeks of training; both technical and cultural, you are ready for swear-in. Not everyone makes it through the full 10 weeks. We did lose one person after walkabout week. At the end you are evaluated to see if you have met all of the necessary landmarks of your training that you have demonstrated competencies in key areas, and that you are still committed to serving for a full two years as a volunteer. If the answer is yes to all of the above you are cleared for swear-in!!!!
Our good-bye party, the Last Kakai, was a lovely ceremony where all of the families hugged goodbye to their volunteer, gifts were exchanged, and speeches were made. The volunteers did a song - I have the video link here. And then you get down to the business of food, dancing, and kava.
After we left the training village the full group of LP and CH went to Port Vila, the capital city, to begin preparing for going to site. More sessions, this time with your counterpart. Interviews with medical and your program manager. And shopping. Every something you need for your site, and you cannot get from local stores once your there, you need to buy and take with you but be very frugal because your settling-in allowance is tiny. The date of the swear-in ceremony for our group was pretty bad-ass - Fourth of July baby. Then it’s on your transport and off you go to site and Good Luck to You!!
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