First Day of Peace Corps

September 10th, 2014 by Rachel | Tags: Peace Corps | 1 Comment »

As soon as I arrived in Philadelphia yesterday and met with other Peace Corps invitees, I immediately felt like I was at home. I was surrounded by people who share similar goals and aspirations. Everyone has desires to face challenges, learn about different cultures and make a difference. Every volunteer came from all parts of the US including one from Alaska and all walks of life. While the majority are young adults who are in their 20’s we do have a couple older volunteers including one who is in his 60’s.

We’re not called Peace Corps Volunteers until we’re inducted into the Peace Corps at the end of training in 10 weeks. Prior to registering today, we were called Peace Corps Invitees. Once we registered, we became Peace Corps Trainees.

The staging which is known as orientation or information session, went very well. We did a lot of hands on activities that led us to discuss a lot about both anxieties and aspirations. When it came to taking about anxieties, everyone shared very similar thoughts which included getting sick, security, and successfully completing the assignments. The staff who are Returned Peace Corps Volunteers did a very good job explaining how security is their number one priority and what we can do to ensure we are safe and get help if necessary. They gave us tips for how we can complete our assignments successfully. They emphasized greatly that we need to focus on three important keys: integration, mitigation and response. This means that we need to integrate ourselves into the community by getting to know the locals and allowing the locals to get to know us. Then we need to take steps on daily basis to ensure we stay safe and healthy such as using water filter at all times and not walking around in the public with a smartphone. Then we need to know how to respond if we encounter an uncomfortable or frustrating situation. They also explained that we will have a great healthcare as we have our own doctors. During training in the next ten weeks, we’ll definitely get more education on safety and health.

I got a wonderful surprise at the staging. Thanks to National Peace Corps Association, a non-profit organization that provides support to current and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, they applied for a grant from Google. As a result, they received 1000 Android tablets to give out to new Peace Corps volunteers. I was certainly very excited to receive one!

I am now on my way to JFK airport in NYC from Philadelphia via bus with about 48 Peace Corps Trainees who are heading to Cameroon together. About half are working in Health like me and the other half are doing agribusiness.