Mid-Service Training

The old theory of signing up for the Peace Corps, getting accepted and then being dropped off in some remote land where the people don't speak your language and the bugs are constant isn't quite as true anymore. In the new age Peace Corps, the bosses don't let you out of their sight and make sure you are exactly where you should be. Hints....Mid-Service Training!!!

Palm Haven Hotel

MST is a week long training held about a year into your service. The point of the week long imprisonment is to reconnect with each other, reflect on your accomplishment and chart the way forward for the coming year. What really happens is we sit in a classroom (with a/c), hungover from the all night partying the previous day and listen to people lecture us about grant writing and business management. Ok, Ok, maybe I'm being a little harsh but it went something like that.

Our Country Director Kevin Carley and his wife Ellen

One highlight of the week was hearing the projects other volunteers are working on. St. Lucia, Dominica and Grenada were the islands represented, all of which have vastly different work cultures, so hearing another perspective on the "Peace Corps Experience" was really nice. Peace Corps has enough goals and objectives to stretch the radius of the world, often times causing volunteers to focus more on quantity rather than quality. MST let us refocus and see that sometimes our secondary projects have more of an impact than our primary work sites. It was reassuring to hear that building relationships and letting your own talents shine through makes for a just as successful service as number crunching and mountain moving.

Don't worry, they aren't taking notes, just doodling.

It was awesome to be able to reconnect with volunteers from the other island and see just how much everyone has changed. The biggest topic of conversation was who looked different and who had lost the most weight. I thought I would be in the race for most weight lost, but some older volunteers in St. Lucia put me to shame. Oh well. The evening times consisted of finding some form of good food other than macaroni pie and stew fish, which turned out successful when we found Thai food. YUM! We were also lucky enough to be situated right on the marina where we made friends with the owner of a super nice bar called H2O. After many rounds of Kings Cup, pool and shots, I think my liver hates me. Thank God for good coffee and air conditioning.

Thai food, YUM!!!!

MST turned out to be productive in the end and I feel refreshed and motivated for the coming year. Although sitting in a classroom all day proved to be painful, the nights with good friends and cheap beer chalked up the week as successful!

St. Lucia beer!