In Service Training

Thinking back to pre service training they gave us a calendar and told us about all the trainings and opportunities we would have for professional development throughout our service. But back then it didn’t seem to matter much because it was so far away. It was hard to imagine a time when we knew where we would be living for the two years, let alone thinking of a time when we had already been serving there for 3 months. For my training group this time has come in the blink of an eye. We have completed our community diagnostics, our visions, our goals, we’ve started networking, many of us are moving into new homes and its come time to flap our little alas out of the nest and get to work… but first a little more training in some super interesting stuff! Nineteen of us – environmental development volunteers of the first class of 2008 – crawled out of campos in every part of country, strapped on our helmets, hopped onto motos and rode packed guaguas for hours to see each other again. We met for a week in the mountains to learn about agro forestry, native birds, youth movements, grants and more in addition to catching up on what everyone has been up to for the last 3 months.

Our trainer has done an absolutely fabulous job creating opportunities for us to learn from the people who are doing the work that we aspire to do here in the DR. So on Friday half of us hopped in the back of the truck headed for the coffee plantations. We spent the morning with two Class A organic coffee growers learning how to germinate, plant, care for and prune coffee and fruit trees. Following an amazing lunch filled with – gasp – vegetables! we were taken to the little coffee tasting room overlooking gorgeous misty mountain scenery to learn all about the classes, aromas, flavors and regions of the world’s second largest traded commodity.

This experience yet again reinforced that although we live in country where we don’t know the language, we share small spaces with crazy host families, eat the exact same thing every day and shower out of buckets of cold water we are the luckiest people in the world.

On Sunday we took the opportunity to support the area’s local ecotourism with some white water rafting. We lost a couple people to the river but not one person in our class of 36 has quit the Peace Corps so we figured we had a couple to spare.