The DO’s & DON’T’s of being a Peace Corps Trainer
DO: Accept that you will be given little to no time to prepare for a training. DON’T: Be surprised; this is Peace Corps. DO: Make 5 million poster charts and use 10,000 markers for visual aids. DON’T: Cry over a sore wrist; you just had to show that you had good handwriting during pre-service training. DO: Expect to have a ‘brain melt’ because more often than not, you are both receiving and giving the training simultaneously. DON’T: Have a meltdown in front of the trainees; that discourages them. DO: Expect to be completely exhausted at the end of the day. DON’T: Complain about it; real jobs actually have an 8-5 schedule.
Over the weekend of April 22nd-24th, a fellow PCV and I were asked by our Program Manager, Daniel Okubit, to help lead the Project Design Management (PDM) training for the new group of Education Volunteers in Debre Brehan. Since we were given only 2 days notice to prepare our sessions, we were up to the wee hours of the morning of each day of training getting together the materials and notes we would need for the next day. Each of the Ed Volunteers were able to bring a Counterpart where together, they came up with a project that they could then implement in their towns through the end of the PCV’s service and onward. At the end of the second day of training, the PCVs and counterparts participated in “Bajaj Pitches,” which is Ethiopia’s version of an “Elevator Pitch.” Either the PCV or CP would pitch their project idea to the other as they are acting as a school director or town official while riding in one of Ethiopia’s form of public transportation, the Bajaj.