In Service Training

In-Service Training

Written on 11/29/2014

A few months after being at site, Peace Corps has a In-Service Training to talk about working on Secondary Projects and writing grants and such. One week is just with the volunteers, the other week each volunteer brings their Malgasy counterpart to talk about the next steps they can do in their community.

A week ago, I finished my IST, and it took me a while to write about it because I couldn't think of anything to write about. We spent most of the time sitting in training sessions, not exactly thrilling writing material. But, I remembered there were a few moments that were interesting and worth sharing!

1 - Making Gumbo

This had nothing at all to do with training. But, it was one of my stage-mates birthdays and he asked for my friend, Lindsey (from Louisiana near New Orleans), to make a Gumbo and I volunteered to help out!

Volunteers aren't often allowed in the kitchen and it was so exciting to be back there. I was amazed by how small the space was and how exhausting it was cooking for 30 something people. And these women do it everyday for 3 meals! I thought I was drained after cooking one meal, I can't imagine how these women feel at the end of the week!

I was a sous-chef, so I ended up mostly just chopping onions and stirring rue - I STIRRED THAT RUE FOR 2 HOURS! But it was still really fun! The cooks were so excited and interested to see what we were doing. The rue was especially confusing, its basically fried flour, something they clearly hadn't seen before because they were looking at us like we were two insane Americans who had know idea what we were doing. They thought maybe we were confused about how to fry poultry.

But when they saw, smelled, and tasted the final product they knew we weren't crazy! It was so much fun to work in the kitchen, and now I know how to make Gumbo! It was so delcious. Handsdown the best meal I've had in a long time.

2 - Counterparts!

It was so cool to share experience with the Malagasy counterparts. One night, we were all singing along to different people jamming on the guitar. Although most of the songs were in Malagasy it was really fun to be a part of that experience.

My favorite part about having the Malgasy counterparts there was when we talked about the different values each culture has.

Deciding what American values were was difficult in its own way, but we decided that the most important value for them to know was that Americans, typically, value individualism and independence. Which is why it was hard for 29 Americans to agree on what the core American values were. We all have our own and thats important to us. And it ended up being much different than the Malgasy value of family and kinship. They stick to their family like glue, and we are half way around the world from our family right now.

We also learned more about the importance of saying hello and visiting friends to show we care about them and don't feel like we are too cool to say hello. It was an important lesson on culture and helped me understand my Malgasy community a little bit more, and hopefully helped my Malgasy counterpart understand all the weird things I do a little bit more.

3 - Permagardening.

We had a training on Permagardening, a type of gardening that although is a lot of work at first, helps create a sustainable and easily maintainable garden. You create berms and holes to slow down and direct water into the plant beds and "double dig" to make sure soil is soft enough for the roots to really be able to grab hold.

The double digging technique also allows more plants to be grown in a small space and can be a really beneficial gardening tactic for a large family so that they can feed the whole family a more nutritious and vegetable filled diet. And even have a little bit more money for meat!

It was a really interesting training and its something worth thinking about doing, at my site and even back in America. And it was fun to get out of the training center rooms and get out of seats and out into the community to do some work.

If you're thinking about creating a garden I would encourage you to look it up. Its worth a peek.