What a whirlwind these last 5 weeks have been! Our group of 22 from the Education sector traveled an hour to the south to our Community Based Training in a small campo in the Province of Peravia outside of the city of Baní. Now looking back, it feels as if it was all a dream, another life in a distant past.
I lived in a part of our campo that felt as if it was it’s own community. It was one street of probably about 30-40 houses that was created by the government after a big flood of the river about 10 years ago. The history of this community and the image created by the rest of the community up the hill is a little contentious, but a wonderful street nonetheless. I lived with a small family of 3; a young mother Carolina (28) and her two kids, Carolin (8) and Enmanuel (7). The dad has been living and working in New York for about two years, I believe, so it was just the four of us in the house. In addition to my wonderful family I became truly close to a large group of the kids on the block and some of the other PCT’s families. I was one of seven trainees on our street, which made it that much more fun and interesting to live there. Our first night in the community, we were bombarded by all of the kids. We were probably surrounded by about 30 and they all wanted to know about our lives, play with us or show us how they could climb trees or do push-ups. I actually ended up running with a group of about 15-20 kids up our street, which had a decent incline. It was nice to see that not only were boys running with me, but also some girls joined.
Our training was overwhelming at times; our first week was filled with technical training to learn about how to teach literacy in the classrooms here. We had sessions each day from 8am until noon to work on different skills we might need while working in site. We learned about how to teach literacy, techniques to work in a classroom, how to work with the Ministry of Education and much more. In addition to our technical sessions, we began a practicum at a school for the last 4 weeks, twice a week in the mornings. My partner and I were placed in a third grade classroom; we observed the class, completed literacy diagnostics to gauge where the student’s literacy levels were and also modeled teaching a few times in the classroom. One of the most effective strategies we learned in our training was the dinámicas (dynamics). Dinámicas are either a song or some activity to use before you teach a lesson to help the kids think about the subject or if they are younger, to get some energy out before a lesson. If there was one thing we left in our school and community, it was a song called Alele.
Other than our practicum work, my Spanish class was required to do an extra project as an advanced class, so we helped improve a program called Promotores de Lectura (Literature Promoters). The program takes students from the segundo cíclo (Second Cycle), so either 5th or 6th graders, to read to kids in primer cíclo (First Cycle), 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades. The kids learned how to correctly read aloud and also help younger kids gain a better love for reading. In order for the program to remain after we left, we attempted to teach the girls working with us how it works and what needs to be done for each session. The librarian will also hopefully help. This is just one example of a Peace Corps project that we could implement in site with an end game of sustainability once we leave.
We spent countless hours each week in technical trainings, learning how to teach literacy and preparing for any possible work in our two years of service here. We spent only eight days in our school practicum, however by the end it felt like we had been with the kids for months.
It was no different for the people I met in our wonderful community and the friendships I made. I feel like we spent much more than five weeks in such a small community and I will always consider it another home. I cannot wait to visit that beautiful town during my two years of service here.
It was very difficult to leave, even after such a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things here. Even through the sadness, it is reassuring because I know that I can make connections with a community easily now and I should not have much trouble once we are all FINALLY moved into our sites in a short week and a half!
We officially have our site placements and I am so eager to see what my family, school and community have to offer me. We are about to embark on a wonderful new journey and I
could not be more excited.
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