First Day of Training

I eventually fell asleep, but kept waking up all night worried that I wouldn’t wake up the next morning, but around 5:30am the roosters started singing (not to mention the strange bird that sounded much like a broken alarm clock). We were out of bed in no time. Training that first day was mainly focused on preparing us to survive that evening in town with our host families. It included basic security, health, and Spanish instruction. Everybody was feeling stressed all day about the evening… specially about how they would communicate with their families. None of the families speak English and many of the volunteers don’t speak much Spanish. I was seeing everything trough different eyes. Spanish is not an issue for me, but there’s always the anxiety of the unexpected. What will our family be like? Will they like us? Will we like them? It’s also been a lot of fun to share the experience with the other volunteers. I find it really entertaining to hear what they’re thinking and how they’re feeling.

Anxiousness didn’t get any better after we spent all afternoon talking about all the security and all the health risks. They told us all the vaccinations we would be taking, a lot of info about dengue fever and malaria, gave us mosquito nets and a small first aid kit (that included our anti-malaria medication, Aralen) to take home with us. There were survival Spanish lessons where we learned basic Spanish stuff like how to say hello, thanks, and good bye. The class was great for me too, because it included a lot of the local slang that I wasn’t aware of and a lot of info about the local communication customs. With the little bit of safety, health, and language tools they sent us to meet our host families.