Training to Be a Peace Corps Volunteer

Peace Corps training consist of three subject areas: language classes, project-specific technical training, and Peace Corps service-related information.

The language classes take up half of our eight-hour day. We are divided into groups of no more than four people based on our proficiency level. The levels are Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, and Superior. The first three levels are further divided into low, medium, and high. A plus or a minus is also added to denote where within these sub-levels the person lies. The levels are determined by a five to thirty minute one-on-one interviews with a Spanish teacher. The interviews are recorded so that a second teacher can listen to them before they both come to an agreement. Of the thirty trainees, eighteen were rated as Novice, eight as intermediate, three as advanced, and one as superior. Lynnette received the superior rating (difficult for even native speakers, they said) and I received an Intermediate-High+ (one small step from advanced). Three more such interviews will be held. Over the eleven week training schedule, allowing trainees to have their ratings adjusted. The third and final interview will be held at the end of training to determine whether or not the trainee has achieved the minimum required intermediate level of proficiency. Classes are held entirely in Spanish, even for the Novice-Low trainees. Those at the lower levels focus on new nouns, verbs and phrases, while those in the intermediate levels focus on bettering their narrative skills and polishing their conjugation. The advanced and superior trainees are given the option of not taking Spanish classes, and are given the opportunity to start mini-projects in the local community. Lynnette will talk more about her mini-project in a later posting.

The project-specific training divides us into the business and protected areas management (PAM) groups. The PAM trainees spend much of their time learning about farming in Honduras, and even work on a finca in the training center. The business trainees learn about the Honduran economy, including what types of businesses there are here, Hondurans’ attitudes towards business, and how treaties such as CAFTA affect people here. We take field trips out into the community to see how real-life businesses operate and interview the owners. After our fifth week of training here in Siguatepeque, we will spend four weeks in another part of Honduras for field-based training (FBT), where we will do mini-projects and work with locals in simulation exercises.

The service-related training is interspersed throughout the schedule. It includes subjects such as security, medical, and cultural studies. We also learn about the Peace Corps’ proven methodologies for integrating into a community, determining their needs, and implementing successful projects. They explain in great detail the Peace Corps’ paradigm of sustainable development (a word that is not easily defined) vs. charity. We will be given little if any money to work with in our communities. Our projects must be driven by community interest and involvement. Money and resources must come from within the community, so that the projects can be sustained after we leave. Our goal is to complete our projects, and have them remain active after we leave, without another volunteer having to take over. What those projects are, cannot be determined until we arrive at our site and begin learning about the community and talking to the locals about what they would like to do.

On top of all of this, we get two to four vaccines a week for the first few weeks and every now and then after that – about fifteen shots in all. Add in diarrhea, a stressful home life, and homework from our classes into the mix, and it makes the whole thing very difficult. Volunteers we have met say that training sucks, but once it’s over and we move into our communities, things get a lot better. After a while, they say, things can get really fun.