Dispatches from 9900 Miles Away: Lock Down

So that last update was actually written on April 3. Since that time, I have sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV), moved to my permanent site and lost my grandpa. The roller coaster continues.

The next three months are a complicated one in the life of a PCV. We are on “lock down” – officially known as the “integration phase” of our training. We are expected to remain in our sites and not travel further than our shopping towns which is an approximately 50km radius for me. We are also not implementing projects, getting to know our orgs and communities.

In my experience the overriding feeling of service thus far is one of insecurity. I don’t really know what I should be doing at work or how I should be acting at home, and they don’t really know what they should be doing with me. We are figuring it out as we go, and I like to think we are making progress. Thus far a day in the life goes like this:

6:00 – Wake up/fight waking up

6:30 – Breakfast

7:00 – Run

8:00 – Bathe

9:00 – Make the 3 minute journey to my org.

10:00 – Tea–time which lasts a few hours

1:30 – Lunch prepared by the Drop-in Center

2:30 – Children arrive and eat

3:00 – Play with the children

4:00 – Go home

8:30 – Go to bed (I wish I could say that an 8:30 bedtime is a new thing for me, but I would be lying)

Sometimes this schedule varies, like when I go to out on visits with the Home Based Caregivers, or meet with teachers at a local school. This past week I met with a school and they wanted me to teach physical science, math, health, cure the children’s ringworm and find out if it’s safe for them to be living amongst cows and goats as one teacher had heard that they cause skin rashes. I explained that I am not a medical doctor (something I have to tell people everyday), and told them about that time I got ringworm in Ghana. We compromised by agreeing that I will come back to observe the life-skills classes and implement clubs “at the appropriate time.”