This Overload...

So training is much harder than I thought! And that is a bit of an understatement. I felt like I was pretty well warned beforehand and I felt like I heeded those warnings fairly well in trying to prepare myself. False. Nothing could prepare me for the brain explosion that is now my life! Peace Corps (or Cuerpo de Paz as I now call my employer) is comprised of many sections. And guess what, they all want a corner of your brain during your “short” 12 months in training. Every day (Monday – Friday) 8-5 we have anywhere from 4-6 classes of all different variations. There’s:

·         Safety and security (you’d be amazed how many topics are involved in security briefings; apparently it’s the end of the world as we know it)

·         Personal health (what to do when you get the inevitable Montezuma’s Revenge, lose a limb, or just generally need a refill on your dehydration salts, athletic tape, and bug spray)

·         Culture (it’s a bit different than ours…who knew (oh yeah, sarcasm doesn’t translate))

·         Tech (for me it’s Community Health (CH), one of only 2 sectors invited this time around; the other is Youth & Family Development (YD))

·         Admin (the fun stuff: money, mail, logistics, etc)

·         General knowledge (our CORE values, all the gazillion acronyms we have (PC has its own language in and of itself), training how to’s, the *long* list of “what not to dos” that will most assuredly get you sent home, computers/IT, etc)

·         And the ever popular: Language (yikes!)

There are presentations, exams, and readings/homework for each…and it’s only the end of week one! My head has far surpassed spinning and is now in an explosive state. And I’m terrified! Eleven more weeks to go! Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming…