Pre-Service Training (PST) is organized into 4 or 5 person groups called clusters that are assigned to a village and hold language training together. I’ve have 3 close cluster mates from the first days of orientation and we’ve been through an awful lot together. Lauren (lawyer from
Peace Corps is shuffling the clusters in an attempt to group trainees according to skill level in language acquisition. While I’m sure this makes sense in some ill-conceived, bureaucratic thought process, it’s outrageous to us. We’ve spent the last month building group cohesion and bonding with our cluster mates and now we’re being torn apart because of some arbitrary assessments.
It’s a ridiculous system: there’s no comparing our skill levels. We all have our good days and bad, our good subjects and bad subjects. Lauren has the best pronunciation of the group, Chris is the best at social vocabulary and Casey knows virtually every vocabulary for foods and drinks in Georgian. (I don’t have a specialty per se; I get by on my looks and charm.) Difficult and stressful as language acquisition has been I feel its been the support and friendship of my cluster mates that has pulled me through so far. Whatever the minute benefits of working with people slightly closer to your level and skill set is certainly offset by the upset of cleaving off my family members from my life.
We go through an awful lot here and I’d like to think we’ve been pretty good sports so far. I’ll spare the blog from the gory details but the trainees have to go through some pretty extraordinary circumstances in-country. In my first post, back in Philadelphia, I wrote that I though the best asset we were going to have in Peace Corps is the energy that each volunteer brings and that that was what was going to sustain us. It’s been true so far and this Friday that support system is about to be crippled.
I’m going to miss my friends.
3 comments:
Maybe this arrangement will only serve to make your family larger by putting you in touch with more people?
Wouldn't you think that working with people of different skill levels would allow you to simultaneously learn from those with "higher" skill levels and teach those who don't know what you know? Working at the same level minimizes your ability to progress. But I'm sure your new group will be awesome too! Maybe you can keep both sets close? I can't believe you've been there a month already. I miss you!
I have been following the events in Georgia with great dismay and am glad your blog was not about them, so I hope that means you are unaffected by the conflict. Stay Safe, Joe!!
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