I have some more information to share about my first three months of training in Vanuatu. First, after a day of orientation in Los Angeles, my group of volunteers will fly from LAX on the morning of September 10 and arrive in Aukland at 5:25am on September 12 after flying over the international date line. Two hours later, we board an Air Vanuatu plane for a three hour flight to Port Vila, arriving at 9:25am local time. A letter from the Peace Corps gave me some some sense of what will happen next:
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"After we have loaded all your bags, you will be driven to your orientation accommodation approximately one half hour from the airport. We will drive through Port Vila for a short tour and then on to your first home away from home. Once we arrive, there will be a short briefing and lunch will be served. After lunch we will have a short “toktok” and a bit of “walk-around” money will be given. Once you have a bit of money in your pocket a representative of the Digicel Mobile Phone Company will be there to sell you Nokia phones at a special discounted rate. You don‟t have to buy one, but you will have the option. A brief talk on phone usage during PST will be given as well. After the phone talk we will hand out your basic Peace issue gear like mosquito net, foam pad, and bush lighting apparatus. The next morning your first real pre-service training session starts at 8:00 am. Your orientation accommodation is “no frills” and the food will be island style, so keep the expectations in check and be prepared to try some new foods. There will be plenty of local vegetables and tropical fruits available and you can‟t go wrong with that cuisine. You will be sharing a room with another trainee or a same sex dorm."
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Our orientation center will be at Pango, about 20 minutes away from Port Vila. There will no e-mail access at the orientation site or at the training village so I will be unable to provide updates except during some very brief stints in Port Vila. Snail Mail arrives at the training site once per week. My new mailing address is:
Daniel Gerszewski, PCV
Peace Corps
Private Mail Bag 9097
Port Vila, Vanuatu
Ph.# (678) 26-160
On September 17, I will move to one of five training sites on the coast of the island of Efate with about 6-10 trainees at each village. We will live with host families for the next six weeks. Again, the letter from the Peace Corps explains it better:
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"There will be formal language sessions, but a significant amount of your training will be with your village host family and as you “live” in the village. We will be promoting self-directed learning (SDL) in your PST, confident in you as adults, and given the opportunity, you will figure things out. You will be gathering with your small cluster group for language training each day and on occasion some small group activity work. There will be two training staff living in each of the villages. Again, we believe that the best learning comes from being allowed to figure things out in a safe and supportive environment. After a few weeks in the village, you will have a chance to visit a Volunteer at his or her site. This will give you an opportunity to see how a particular Volunteer has adjusted to life in a rural Vanuatu community.
Your training group is officially known as Group 23. You will be officially referred to as Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs), pending successful completion of your pre-service training. Your official swearing-in ceremony marks the status change from PCT to PCV. When you finish your service here in Vanuatu you will become an RPCV, retaining that title virtually forever."
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The training program schedule for the next two years looks like this:
Pre-Service Training (PST)
September 12 through November 4
Arrival Orientation (September 12-17)
Community-based Training plus Host Volunteer Visit (September 18-November 4)
Official Swearing-in Ceremony (November 4)
PST Phase II
January –March 2011
You will join the members of your class that are in the same project for two weeks of technical training.
Early Mid-Service In-Service Training (EMSIST)
July-August 2011
Like the Phase II training you will gather with your project comrades for technical training.
Year 2 Self-Directed In-Service Training (SeDIST)
January-March 2012
An opportunity to design and implement project and assignment specific in-service training.
Close of Service Conference (COS)
August/September 2012
A chance to assess your service and begin preparations for departure (unless you decide to extend and even then, this is your COS Conference.
- - Daniel
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