There is so much that could improve PST, but no one really seems to care about it except for those training to be volunteers. A couple simple changes would allow volunteers with previous skills to be trained to be better at their site. Unfortunately a lot of people in the position to make a change don't appreciate anything but positive feedback. They seem to have become blind to the possibility of Peace Corps not being 110% perfect, but less on the complaints and more on the positives.
For those who don't know about PST (pre service training) it's roughly three months of training before you go to site. There's a lot of safety/security, language, and health lessons. After about a month everyone takes a written and oral exam to see where their language is. We got our results back and I scored the highest of all the volunteers, which means my Swahili courses paid off. This was really great news, however I was pretty much told I'm too cocky with language classes and that there's room to improve. I can rant about how classes have been a review of my last two years and a waste of my time because PC refuses to acknowledge those who studied before coming to country, but I'll try to avoid it.
I also had my final day of internship teaching, which is bittersweet because I loved my class. We started our last class with a review of everything I've taught so far. I promised that afterwords there would be treats and games which is unheard of in Tanzanian classes. So the students were stoked and a lot of hands were raised that haven't been raised for a lot of classes. It's such a rewarding feeling as a teacher to see students who never participate get into the learning and start answering questions. After the snacks I introduced Frisbee to a lot of students that have never seen one. I was also taught a couple new games by some of them. When there was about five minutes left of class students started asking for my email to stay in touch, but this lead to a lot of requests for Facebook and such. I received notes about coming to America and giving students my phone to keep. I got quizzed on my Swahili. I joked back and forth with students that have a great sense of humor. I called out students who called my foreigner instead of Jared (which got a huge laugh out of the other students). Overall my last day of internship teaching was the best day of peace corps so far.
Today was a huge day too because all of the volunteers found out where they will be spending the next two years of their lives teaching. We can all finally start planning our next two years instead of looking into the void of possibilities. Although I found out I won't be serving in any of the areas I wanted to be in I'm still stoked. My site is in the Mtwara region (aka the dirty south). I'll be the first volunteer to ever be at my site and I'll be teaching biology. I'm not sure what the food situation will be like, but apparently cassava and cashews are popular. I get to visit my site this upcoming week and check out the school, my house, and the surrounding area. I'm ready to establish Peace Corps in my community and meet my new students. Once training is over the real journey starts.
