Community Entry Conference!

This coming Tuesday, I leave for a Community Entry Conference where I will meet a counterpart from my community. For a little over one day, there will be information covered ranging from community expectations of the volunteer, volunteer expectations of the community, planning the first three months of service, and planning for the week long adventure. This will be my first opportunity to meet someone from my community!!! Then, on Thursday morning, I will leave for my community with my counterpart, and I will spend about four days in the community learning about it and getting a feel for my next two years. In addition, I have the opportunity to take luggage/supplies (such as a water filter) and leave it there in the community until I return at the end of the month, which will help immensely since I packed way too much and have already acquired an amazing more amount of stuff like books.

What are my expectations from my community? That is a good question. At this point, I just hope for patience as I advance my language proficiency, but this question is also something I need to seriously consider this coming weekend and translate into Spanish. Otherwise, for the one week, I hope to meet as many of the different organizations as possible. Also, I will investigate where I will live for the next three months, whether with one host family or three, and where I will live afterwards. Finally, I will also be able to determine whether there is anything else I need to buy, for example more warm clothes since it is at a significantly higher elevation, but really, I am just hoping to have some questions answered. The closer I get to the end of training, the clearer my next two years begin to look. Soon enough, I will be in my community and can begin the integration and trust building process necessary for my next two years of service!

In addition, tomorrow the CED trainees of Group 66 will present a community analysis done together in the training community that we have been living in since our arrival in Panama. It will entail a seasonal calendar, gender roles analysis, priority needs assessment, and SWOT analysis. It is truly amazing how the Peace Corps can recruit such talented people, and it is even more amazing how these same people are willing to give two years of their life to simply helping other people, especially since the process feels like jumping off a bridge without knowing whether you have a bungee cord attached!

It has been an insanely busy past 7? weeks, and it has also flown by. In the process, I have already experienced so much. I can´t wait for this upcoming week! So many questions will finally be answered!!!!! ( and a few more!!!!!!)