Welcoming The New Recruits

Last week, I helped with the teaching practicum session of PST. For those of you not familiar with Peace Corps lingo and acronyms, two things require explanation in the previous sentence: one is "practicum" and the other is "PST." Teaching practicum is the period during pre-service training (PST) during which the Peace Corps Trainees (PCT's) hone and refine their skills at teaching English. The week lasts from Monday to Saturday, and the time is divided between teaching by themselves and with a Cambodian counterpart. For some, this is a nerve-racking time. Most people who come into this assignment have very little teaching experience, and the idea of standing in front of a classroom of students is rather terrifying. Even those who have teaching experience find that teaching a class of Cambodians is very different from one full of Americans. Nevertheless, everyone gets through practicum in some shape or another.

The training sessions this year were held in Takeo province, which is south of Phnom Penh about a hundred kilometers or so. Much of Cambodia looks very much the same, and the training villages that we saw looked pretty similar to what we had last year in Kampong Chnang.

This year, my role shifted from being at the front of the classroom to the back. As a "resource volunteer of technical training" (I do love the snappy title) my job was to observe the trainees while they taught and give them feedback on how they did. Most of them did okay. A couple really had to work on their lesson plans, and some still had to find their teaching voice. One group I worked with had a very frustrating experience with their Cambodian teacher, and I felt really bad for them. After the session ended, I explained that at site you have more freedom to work with whoever you want. It seemed like they all got through it okay, although they seemed pretty tired.

The most enjoyable parts of the whole week were mostly when I had the chance to talk about life in Cambodia with the trainees. I felt kind of like a sergeant major telling them about the hardships of a rural site, living in a host family, and surviving two hospitalizations. However, I tried to give them the best advice I could. One thing I kept saying to different people is that you can get a rural site like mine and make it work if you are patient. This did not seem to be much a consolation for them, but I hope they do okay.

Otherwise, it was nice to finally meet some new people in the program. I managed to recruit a few to the writing staff of our newsletter, and wished the rest of them good luck in a successful service. We also got to stay in a guesthouse with hot showers and air conditioning for a week. There was also a contingent of US Marines who were stationed nearby. I think they were building a health clinic or two in Kampong Speu province. I got to talking to some of them one night, and they seemed like pretty friendly people. It was a little funny having that conversation of who you work for though.

"So who are you with?"
"The Peace Corps. You?
"Marine Corps."

They did seem impressed that we could stick it out in this country for two years. They were based out of Okinawa, and we traded some stories about life in the tropics. They told me that the only way to cool off on that little island is to go fishing or snorkeling. It did not seem like too bad of a life.

All in all it was a good week.