Pre-Service Training "PST" - Part I

Howdy!

Well after quite a rather exhausting process I was finally here in Costa Rica! Now came PST, during PC service you will start using many acronyms for everything; maybe for time saving reasons (I think) or just because it sounds cool.

I know most people like myself read the PC website or heard from other people about the three months of training. First and foremost your official title is: PC Trainee; until you swear in, then you are an official PCV. After I arrived at the airport we were taken in a bus accompanied with PC staff to a sort of retreat (I included just three photos, I want future volunteers to experience it for themselves). There we stayed for one week, they talked about many subjects some of them were: PC Costa Rica, safety, guidelines, culture, ethics and they will test your language skills; don't worry if you know very little Spanish, you will learn the language; many volunteers came with little to no Spanish and now they own it. Lastly your whole group will be given a name "Tico 26".

Tico: informal term for Costa Rican.
26: means the PC group.

For example: the group that arrives in March 2014 will be called Tico 27 and the group before us is called Tico 25.

There are three types of groups that serve in Costa Rica:

- CED (Community Economic Development) [My Group]
- YD (Youth Development)
- TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language).

In Tico 26 we were representing only two groups CED and YD, thirty two volunteers in total. Some Tico groups sometimes only have one group for example only TEFL trainees or a mix.

After your language assessment you will be divided in groups according to your language skill (low, medium, high); on the last day of training they will  give you information of the host family you will be living with and community as well (very exciting and sad because you leave your fellow PC Trainees). The next day bright and early you will be dropped off in each community with your new family, scary, emotional, happy, sad, anxious and overwhelming process.

      

At the end of this training one volunteer decided to leave unfortunately, I know many volunteers tried to tell her to stay aboard; but she decided she wanted to go home. Actually our program manager told us forty something volunteers had accepted invitations and a few weeks or days before departing to Costa Rica they declined. Many communities that were expecting them, had to be left out. I mention this because I really want to spread the message to all those future volunteers, when they decide to accept an invitation consider that the invitation is months of work in the making. The communities we go to had to be highly assessed by PC staff and the communities had to go through a long process to get a PC volunteer there. Nothing will happen if you decide not to go after accepting the invitation, but you will let down a good community that would've used your help or another volunteers help.

In my next post I will talk about what happens when your living with your host family and Part II of training while living there. Thanks for reading.

Cheers!