A Day in the Life Of a Peace Corps Trainee

So, if you have not figured it out yet, I am not officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. I am actually still only a trainee. In the Peace Corps, there is about a three-month training period, which varies from country to country, in which you learn cultural, language, and technical skills. So, this being my second week in country, I am still in training until mid-August.

I am sure everyone is wondering what exactly it is that I am doing on a daily basis, so I thought I would give everyone a rundown of a typical day in the life of a Peace Corps Ecuador Trainee:

6:00 a.m. – I wake up and have breakfast with my Madre and whomever else in the family is awake since my Madre has to leave for work at 6:30 a.m. and this is the best way to insure I eat breakfast every morning. After breakfast I finish of my laundry if I have any (which I do outside, with a bucket, a little bag of detergent, a bar of soap, a brush, and FREEZING cold water), shower (with lukewarm water which feels amazing at this point) and then get dressed for the day.

7:00 a.m. or 7:30 a.m. - Depending on the day, we (me and the other three volunteers in my town) either get on the bus to go to a small town about an hour away from where we live for our technical sessions or group activities, which I will explain in more detail later. On other days we stay in our small community and have language lessons from 8:00 a.m. until about 12:30 p.m.

12:30 p.m. – We have a break for lunch which we either go to a restaurant (or other people have begun to bring their lunches, but I am personally taking advantage of the fact that there are restaurants during training, my favorite of which being the pizza parlor and the Chinese restaurant) or if we are in our community we eat lunch at two other volunteers’ home where we have our language lessons. Their Madre cooks really well, but I am still adjusting to eating so many vegetables…

1:30 p.m. (or 2:00 p.m. if we are lucky) – We return to our Spanish lessons on some days and other days we have our technical sessions both of which last until 4:30 p.m.

So, basically we are back in high school (as many Peace Corps Volunteers, or PCVS, had already prepared us for), which is not necessarily a bad thing, it is very structured, but I believe it helps our days go by pretty quickly, but we are definitely exhausted after class. There is usually a little time before dark to do a little laundry, run to the Internet Café or the grocery store for a bit, or grab a snack before heading home.

7:30 p.m. – My family has dinner, which is often a bowl of soup with a chicken, rice and potatoes. Other times we rice and some sort of meat like chicken, fish, or beef. Wednesday night we had fried shrimp, salad, and rice… needless to say I was ecstatic! It was almost as good as the shrimp my Grandma makes at home… almost. The shrimp were actually pretty awesome and fresh. *Quick fact: shrimp are actually one of the major exports of Ecuador!

8:30 p.m.- I usually start getting ready for bed. I know, it is insanely early, but I am usually worn out mentally and physically by then and the rest of my family is usually headed to bed as well. I may read for a while, rearrange my ipod playlist, watch las noticias, or the news, study Spanish for a bit, or play a few games of Snood. After this, it is usually lights out and I get ready to do it all over again the next day!

This year volunteers have Saturday and Sunday off which is a nice addition to the schedule in my opinion. For the next few weeks we will be spending the weekends at home, so we will have plenty of free time to hang out and see what it is like to actually have some unscheduled time, which I am definitely excited about.

As far as technical and language training go, they are both pretty self-explanatory, but for the sake of understanding I will explain. Technical training is the training that we receive in our specific area. For example my area is Health, or Salud, so I obviously receive technical training in the areas of child and maternal health, sexual and reproductive health, and environmental health. In addition to learning more about the specific topics, we also learn hands-on skills in which we will be able to teach the people in our sites about these topics through Charlas, or short informative talks, puppets shows, and other techniques of this manner. Our language training consists of typical language training in addition to learning vocabulary and common phrases that are specific to Ecuador and even more specific to the areas in which many of us will be placed for site. Our language facilitators also work with us on vocabulary tailored to our specific areas like Health and Youth and Families, or Jovenes y Familias.

Another frequent question I have encountered is “How is the weather?” Well, it is actually pretty chilly here in the morning and at night. I would hate to through out an exact temperature without being certain but I would say it is in the low sixties at night and in the morning. During the day it can get as warm as 70 degrees or at least to the point that you are warm in a long-sleeve shirt and long pants. I am actually enjoying the break from the 100-degree weather in Mobile, but I do miss the warm at times. The nice part is that there are definitely less insects in the Sierra, and if you know me, then you know just how happy that makes me. J

So, that pretty much covers a day in the life of a Peace Corps Trainee. If you have any more specific questions, feel free to email me! Peace Corps Trainees love email!

All my Love,

Tiffa :D