Pre-Service training (PST) is the 10 week period where all the volunteers of a group learn about the language, culture, and information that they will need to know for the next 2 years as a volunteer. This week, I was fully involved with the new education trainees – future volunteer teachers like myself.
In the beginning of this week, we had Host Volunteer Visits (HVV), where the trainees stay with one current volunteer to see what life and teaching in the village is like. One trainee, Martha, was assigned to stay with me. Last Saturday, we met our trainees in our closest camptown. We took them grocery shopping and briefly walked around. Then we brought them to our villages.
On Sunday, me and Zoe (my site mate) had planned to finish the mural we painted and have a tea party afterwards. The mural went pretty quickly, we only had to paint a clear coat on to protect it. Then we could start our tea party – I made cucumber sandwiches and Zoe made carrot cake. Zoe also had salami and pate sent from her grandmother in France, so we felt pretty gourmet.
Monday, I took Martha to school. She went to all my classes with me and and helped out. In some of my classes, I had her measure the heights of my students. Measuring is something students rarely do and they were all excited to see how tall they were.
Tuesday, we left the village to go back to the training villages. But overall, hosting someone for HVV was a good experience. The trainees haven’t started to cook for themselves yet, so it was fun to give her ideas of what we can cook here. It was also nice to have an extra person in class helping out students and making sure they were doing everything correctly. And it was a confidence booster to have an American being impressed with my classes.
 |
| Host Grandma at PST. 92 years old. |
 |
| Host sisters at PST. Ausi Listeuene is 12 years old and speaks English very well. |
Every week, Peace Corps utilizes 2-3 current volunteers to help out and answer questions the trainees may have. For the remaining part of this past week was the week that me and Kristy got to go. We mostly got to hang out with each other but we also met most of the trainees and helped with some of the sessions. We stayed with new host families and got traditional Basotho food. It was a relaxing few days away from site.