Training Ends, Service Begins

The People I Worked With

Pre-Service training was far from an individual experience. Everyone had cluster maters who they trained, studied, and became close to for the entire two-and-a-half months. So, here’s my tip of the hat to my four cluster mates.

Kelsey 

Free spirited and adventurous, Kelsey is going to the mountain province. Her favorite hobby is the hoola hoop, and during PST she fulfilled a long lived dream of getting dreadlocks for her hair. It was a process that was long, and grueling, but I think it was well worth it to her. I will have to show some pics once her hair grows into them and turns into the final product. Of the group, she was the artist, and was also the first one to take a bold step into the unknown.

Sam

She was all sunshine and smiles. The joy of the group and the one to turn frowns upside down, she was a well rounded person who complemented all of us. During PST she was the team heart, the one who could put a smile on the rest of our faces. Her favorite lines to me were ‘You’re out of control!’ and ‘What am I going to do with you Matt?’, yet her nickname for me was ‘Papa Bear’. Maybe one time I’ll get her laugh on recording and post it on this blog, all the better for you readers to get a better idea of the group’s ‘fabulous’ member.   

Ebonee

We once played an activity called essence words, an essence word being one word to describe who you are, to sum up your character. Ebonee’s chosen word was ‘Queen’, and I have to agree. Dignity and charm with everything she did, even when off day (we all had our share of them), she still managed to keep a collected grace about her. I’ll have to try to work on that myself.

Alex

The man with the tat. The New York scoundrel. The big… I dunno, put something cool sounding. Alex was the other guy in the group, and reminded me a lot of myself. He was the most punctual and task oriented of all of us, and helped keep us all on track. He was the one who I shared confidence in with the daily troubles of the day, and I’d like to think I was the same for him. Oh, and he actually does have a tat(oo), an amazing one of a oceanic scene.

Wrapping Up My Thoughts on PST

Life has had an incredible amount of depth these past two-and-a-half months. What I mean by this is that there have been so many, so enlightening moments that one of the challenges I faced was being able to internalize it all. From street immersion, to learning a new language, to shifting between roles of enabler, facilitator, mentor, etc each with their own subtle difference that made all the difference, I have been stretching myself a lot (I have also been stretching a lot).

Funny enough, the way I handled it all was to do even more. Reading, writing, exercising, socializing, and exploring all helped me deal with the stress, and make myself keep going. Simply sitting at my host family’s house doing nothing was a quick ticket to getting overwhelmed, I know from experience.

Here’s the trick though. I’ve had a few comments by friends and family back home of how wonderful and how great of a thing I’m doing, but it’s more than possible to do many of the same things in America. Maybe some of the cultural quirks won’t be there, but there are plenty of volunteer and learning opportunities out there. I have the fortune to have a job that demands me to grow and experience many new challenges, but that doesn’t mean you the reader can’t do some of the same things as a hobby.

Only got tears out of me once during PST, and that was our final technical session, after reading the most wonderful compliments ever told to me by my four cluster mates, and then stanind in a circle locking arms giving our final two cents. I’ve been working on being more and more concise with my words (though chances are my blog posts won’t get too much shorter), and the thing that came to mind was ‘The best time of my life’.    

Swearing In

I did well during PST and was chosen as the representative of my language group to speak the Ilokano portion of a volunteer-created speech. Three other volunteers from the group that came in this year (Batch 270) and I wrote up a speech, has our respective parts translated, and spoke it to everyone. Next blog I will have the English translation of my part of the speech, and hopefully a video of the event.

After my speech, I went into the back, changed into a G String (in the Philippines a G String is a traditional loincloth) and with nothing else on did a cultural dance pointing my almost exposed butt at everyone in the audience, people watching the livestream online, and while the local news stations were getting clips for the news. I got killed during the war dance section (which is absolute crap cause I was wearing the colors of the warrior-cultured Bontoks, and my opponent was wearing the colors of the farmer-cultured Benguets).

We celebrated into the night, and when the morning came we all split up. I leave for my permanent site in the town of Dupax del Norte in the province of Nueva Viskaya tomorrow (as I type this, I may not post this until after I am there). However, as I spoke in front of the audience in a language I never knew existed until this last July, and as I danced freely feeling every draft, and as I made deep connections with some truly caring and talented people, I kept thinking of what I could do to top it.

Where to Now?

Now I start the actual work. Now I will work directly with my host agency, with the Peace Corps mainly a resource now. Cross my fingers and all that.