PST Mentoring, Job Shadowing and Technical Sessions

May has been busy, busy, busy for us! A big part of what we have been doing has been helping out with PST for the G11s. (For those of you not yet thoroughly indoctrinated into PC lingo, that's Pre-Service Training for the new group of volunteers in Georgia, the country's 11 such group of volunteers. Sam and I are G10s, because we came with the 10th group of volunteers to Georgia. We just happen to be lucky enough in Georgia to have our arrival years and group numbers match.)

The G11s arrived in Georgia about 12 hours before Sam and I made it back after my sister's wedding. They arrived on the nice, civilized 4pm flight, whereas we got in at 2am. As we were a year before, the new volunteers were greeted at the airport by the Georgian press and the U.S. Ambassador to Georgia, as well as a crew of Peace Corps staff members to help shepherd them through and collect their bags. They had 3 days of orientation and vaccinations in Tbilisi before departing for PST, which is being held in the same region this year as our training was held last year. Now the PCTs (they don't get to be officially called PCVs until they have their swearing-in ceremony in the middle of July; until then, they're still Trainees) are in their "clusters," having daily language classes, technical training, practicum, some additional vaccines, safety and security training, health training and more other types of training than you'd ever like to read about (or go through, most likely).

Last year, during our training, we were pretty much busy and occupied and crazy every second of every day. We didn't have too much time to think about how the wizard made things work, but were amazed at how smoothly everything ran when we did pause to look up. This year, we get to see inside the machine a bit more, and have an even greater appreciation for how much work the PC Georgia staff put in to making PST possible.

G9 and G10 volunteers have been helping out with PST, attending technical sessions or sessions on safety and security or health or one of the other many topics I promised not to list in full detail. We try to give first-hand input that goes beyond what staff can tell trainees, and try to answer questions based on the experiences we have had. I thought it was indescribably valuable to have G9s help us out during our training, so I definitely wanted to help with whatever I could. Sam and I sent in various application forms to Tengo, our PC Training Manager, offering to help in various ways. We were both chosen to present at "technical sessions," me to talk to Trainees about lesson planning and Sam to talk about summer camps and non-formal education opportunities, to supplement the information the Technical Trainers present. I went to Borjomi to hold my lesson planning sessions at the start of May, and Sam's will be at the end of this month and beginning of the next.

Then last week, I got the opportunity to "mentor" Trainees in the village of Tezeri. I watched them all lesson plan and teach a lesson with their counterpart, then gave feedback and talked with them about classroom and planning experiences I've had in Georgia. I stayed with them for about a day and a half and had a great time talking with them, getting to know some of them a bit and sharing my two cents.

This week, Sam and I took part in PST "Job Shadowing," wherein two PCTs came to Akhalkalaki from their training village to live a few days in our shoes. They stayed with us at our host family's house, followed along as we lesson planned with our counterparts, sat in on our lessons and came to our after-school clubs. I loved job shadowing during PST because it gave me such a good picture of what to expect and really encouraged me try to do as many projects as possible and make the most of my time in Peace Corps. (We had an incredible couple to shadow; if you're interested in seeing some of what they've done, you can check out their blog here.) I can't say for certain what our PCTs thought, but hopefully their shadowing experience was as helpful as ours was last year!

It is interesting to be on this year-plus, veteran side of things in our PC service. We try to balance out the positives and the negatives when talking with the new trainees. Sometimes we all worry that we're being too negative and that maybe that just has to do with the long-term culture shock downswing we all hit just around and after the one-year mark (something we learned all about during our training!). I really do appreciate having the new trainees around, though, because it really has helped pick up my mood to hear them talk about how much they love khachapuri or how beautiful the scenery is starting to get or how wonderfully helpful and patient a host parent has been. I can also have a nice weathered-veteran laugh at their problems dealing with squat toilets or infrequent showers or not being able to communicate enough to refuse food. I remember how much the G9s helped us when we first came, but now I'm starting to feel like (hopefully), our arrival helped them out as well. I know the G11s have already helped me take a fresh look around myself with new eyes.

Now we're winding down May and looking forward to the summer. We'll still have some projects and keep ourselves occupied this summer, but it'll be nice to have a little more downtime (and hopefully, more sunshine and warmer temperatures) soon!