What I learned

Peace Corps language training was great for helping me feel comfortable speaking and understanding Spanish, even though my Spanish still needs a lot of work. The technical training helped me learn about the management of natural resources in Ecuador and gave me some good contacts of people working on the coast. But I think that two of the most important things I got out of training were:

Good friends. I became really close with a lot of people in my training group over 2 months. Since we saw each other all the time and went through some crazy experiences together it’s not surprising that we would feel connected so fast. Now that I’m in my site it’s really comforting to know that there are a bunch of people in Ecuador I can call or text whenever I want to talk to someone familiar while everything here still feels so strange. There were times during training when I could have been studying Spanish or doing something else “productive” but I really think that investing time in getting to know the other volunteers is going to help me the most in the next 2 years. We had a training in volunteer resiliency in which we had to think about what we can do to manage the stress of being a PCV and stay in country to complete our service. And my resiliency plan is largely my friends. [And my friends at home too! I would love to get some phone calls in my site. Or come visit starting in August :)]

Accepting never knowing what’s going on. And I don’t mean this sarcastically. I think I learned a level of patience and acceptance during training that is going to be very important in my site. Peace Corps keeps us in an enforced state of uncertainty going back to the application process, not knowing where we’re going or when we’re leaving. Even after getting to Ecuador we didn’t know where our sites were going to be for a month. And on a daily basis during training we felt like we didn’t know what was planned. Many of you know that I’m not exactly a fan of setting plans in advance, but this was a whole other level of uncertainty that actually stressed me out a bit in the beginning. But after some time I learned to just let it go and go along with whatever was happening at the time. As cliché as it sounds, I feel like I was living more in the moment and not worrying about things coming up, because I had no idea what those things were. And now that I’m in my site, at least in the beginning, I’m living in a state of not knowing what I’ll be doing from hour to hour, which is partially due to a lack of understanding things people tell me and partially due to the unstructured nature of just getting to know how things work in my town. Even when I have a place to be at a certain time, as I have most days this week going to the schools, I have little idea of what I’m going to be doing there. I’m not sure in writing this if it sounds stressful or just carefree, but for me it’s a combination of both and for now I’m happy to go along and see what happens.