Peace Corps 2.0: Completing Pre Service Training

There are only 4 main moments during the 10 Week Pre Service Training that you really remember and look forward to the most. The first moment is after the Orientation at the hotel we stayed at for a couple of days and you leave the comfort of the hotel to meet your host family who you will be staying with for the next 10 weeks. This is the first dose of in your face culture you get in the Peace Corps. During this time is when you really think if you made the right choice and the second doubts rise to the surface. It is relentless and an ongoing fishbowl effect. I was quite fortunate with my host family during my first go around in Peace Corps Romania and struck gold again with a wonderful host family in Armenia.

The second moment is Site Announcements. This is such a turning point because this is the first opportunity for us to learn which organization/school we will be assigned to as well as which community we will be living in for the next two years. When I did my service in Romania our Site Announcements were on Week 9 as compared to Week 7 for Armenia.   I can only say there is so much anticipation and excitement for this day to come.

Once a week we leave our small villages and have an administrative day at a centralized location. Since our centralized location was at a local high school we had our site announcements outside on the playground. There happen to be a large map of Armenia painted outside with name of every major region (called marz’s). As they announced the sites for each of us, we walked up and took the information packet on our cities and organizations and stood on the spot of our city. It was quite an exciting time because aside from knowing our site and organizations, we also found out if we would have site mates or Volunteers in a neighboring city/village and how far we would be from the capital.

I got lucky and was one of the rare Volunteers that got a site mate from our group. So the city I was assigned to is Gyumri and it’s the second largest city in Armenia and in the late 80s suffered a devastating earthquake and has been recovering since. I was also assigned to two organizations. The first is the Agate Center for Women with Special Needs and the second is the Armenian Apostolic Church Shirak Diocese Social-Education Center. During my 3-day site visit to Gyumri after our Counterpart Conference I got a chance to see my new city and see the good work my organizations do for their community. I must admit I was quite lucky to get this assignment and location. Although I do miss the small village charm I’m also a big fun of having nice conveniences too!

The third moment is doing our Practicum. This can vary depending on which program you are in but as a Community and Youth Development Volunteer we had to work with the youth from the local school in our village. The Practicum involves finding out the needs of the locals and implementing an activity with local community stakeholders and beneficiaries with the hope that this can be replicated once you are at your work site. It’s also a requirement that needs to be fulfilled in order to complete Pre Service Training. We did various sports activities for the youth in our community and it was such a great time for us as well as the youth involved since many of the games we introduced were brand new to them.

The fouth most important moment in Pre Service Training is the Swearing In Ceremony. The long 10 weeks of ups and downs, hope and frustration, and endless training exercises have finally led up to this moment where we change our status from Peace Corps Trainee to Peace Corps Volunteer. It’s been an awkward road for me because I had some critical obstacles along the way. For some odd reason, I did not have my Legal Clearance approved yet so even though I successfully completed my training I could not Swear In because the policy states you can only Swear In with an approved Legal Clearance.

Instead, I was sent back to the US and placed on Administrative Leave. During this time, I had 60 days for the Peace Corps to complete my background investigation or else I would be terminated and have to reapply again. Needless to say this was quite a challenging and frustrating time for me but after 3 weeks they got it resolved and I was able to swear in and go to my organizations in Gyumri. I did however participate in the Swear In Ceremony with my colleagues but did not swear in with them, I had my own personal Swear In Ceremony of 1 with my Country Director when I returned.