They never said it would be easy, but...
...never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that my service as a Peace Corps volunteer would begin in an almost traumatic fashion. But, before I get to ahead of myself, let's do a small capstone of the past ten weeks. For those who are unaware of the Peace Corps structure, all those who want to become volunteers most go through a two to three month training period known as Pre-Service Training (PST). This training consists of orientation, the development of technical skills, the study of language, as well as the time to practice implementation of gained knowledge and skills out in the community. I spent various amounts of time - anywhere from one to four weeks at a given time - in different parts of Uganda - Mukono, Gulu, Soroti, Kampala - to do all of these activities as required by Peace Corps. For example, while in Gulu district, I studied Acholi, the local language of my placement district, for four weeks. During our language training, we are ...