10 hour days in 90 degree heat: more information on Pre-Service Training

Eight more days of Pre-Service Training. Eight more days. Eight more days???

Time is an interesting thing here in Indonesia. One moment, it feels like I’ve been here for years. Other times, it’s like I got here this morning. PST, Pre-Service Training, has been full of high and lows, and without a doubt has been the hardest, most rewarding, humbling and challenging period of my life. This couldn’t be clearer on Thanksgiving last Thursday. Rather than PC giving us the afternoon off, they jammed our schedules even more, coming from Javanese class at 7am, to biking 3km to the training venue for lunch with the Ambassador (cool times), to biking to another training session at a local school, to teaching for 90 minutes. 10 hours of training. But with the pure exhaustion, the biking, and the copious amount of sweat, there was time with the host family while making mashed potatoes, there was laughter with new American friends, and there was joy, like pure joy, like the kind of joy when you realize you’re living a goal you’ve had for years, right now, in the moment. I’ve been wrought with a 103 fever, I crashed my bike last week (another story for another day), I’ve been thrown into a place where I don’t speak the language, but those hard times cannot compare to the unbridled joy I have when I really think about it. Pre-Service Training is tough, please don’t get me wrong, so hopefully the information I share in this post can help paint a better picture of my time here so far.

What even is PST?

Every employer requires some kind of training before officially starting the job. Sometimes it’s just an online seminar, other times its weeks of technical training. This is the time for trial and error, new experiences, and working on yourself so you can be a better employee… the Peace Corps is no exception. Undoubtedly, there’s a lot to know before becoming a teacher in a foreign country. I’m not considered a PCV, or Peace Corps Volunteer, until I am sworn in. Right now, I’m a PCT, or a Peace Corps Trainee. The major components of training include technical training, language training, intercultural competence, diversity and inclusion training, health training, and safety and security training. Training is for ten weeks and I’ve been here for a total of eight weeks. Swear-in is December 10th.

In case you haven’t caught on, PST is intense! Think boot camp for trainees. For various factors, including the hardships of PST, three trainees from my cohort, ID12, have already returned home, or ET’d. ET means Early Termination. In past cohorts, more have returned home before swear-in. Each PCT’s experience during training is unique, and although you’re always with others, it's oftentimes deeply personal, and the decision to ET is just that.

What do you do?

The first five weeks of training in Kediri included Bahasa Indonesia from 7am to 11:30am. After a lunch break, we would meet with another desa, Wonorejo, at a community center not far from my house. During those three hours, we would have two sessions on training topics— usually about TEFL, or about safety and security. Those are called “Link Days”. On Fridays we meet at a local university campus for “Hub Days”, where we meet with with all the other villages for a full day of training sessions. When I say training sessions, I mean a presentation with two or more facilitators, usually one from PC staff and another current volunteer, for one to one and a half hours. Saturdays include more language training and then cultural discussion in the afternoon. Then we have have nothing on Sunday. The day of rest. Our one day off during PST. A sacred day. But wait, when just when you want to go out and explore Kediri city, try new things and do cool stuff, you will end up probably sleeping for most of the day. I have been to church, the beach, the movies, and the two malls many times though. I’m thankful for Sundays.

This was our norm for the first five weeks of PST. After Site Visit during week six, link days ended, and model school started, where we finally started using all the information we were giving in classroom, which I will go into in my next post.

Who are you with?

All 56 trainees are located among seven villages in Kediri, East Java. My village, as mentioned in prior posts, is Manisrenggo, and includes seven other volunteers. This includes Cody, who lives next to and is my host-cousin (?), Nora and Jess, who live on my street, Bones, Kieran, Gina and Elisa. These people went from being complete strangers in LA to close friends in a very short time. They come from from all over the U.S— Alaska, Montana, Arizona, Mississippi, Colorado, Louisiana, and DC, and learning more about the United States while living in Indonesia has been interested and refreshing.

We also have the Peace Corps staff that are based in Surabaya. Other than the three American nationals in PC leadership, all the staff are from Indonesia. There are regional managers, who manage volunteers in each region (uh, duh), as well as other training staff. Then there are LFs, or Language Facilitators, who we met almost every day. Finally, there are our lovely CLs, or Cultural Liaisons. Hima, originally from Nganjuk (my site!) is a ray of sunshine. She is kind, sweet and funny. CLs assist each village with integration, facilitating cultural discussions, but are also there to answer any questions about Indonesian culture. Of course there are our host families, too.

Making batik during class

Where are you?

Kediri is over a thousand years old, and has Hindu roots dating back to the 11th century. Located in East Java, its about 65 miles from Surabaya. It’s also a major center for the sugar and tobacco industry and home to about 300,000 people. A common misconception I’ve experienced while here is that people think I am deep in rural Indonesia. I am in one of the most densely populated places on Earth. There’s a lot of people. Kediri has two malls, a movie theater, and reliable transportation infrastructure (I know that because I live next door to the railroad!)

Kediri, I love you

I have the pleasure of calling the village of Manisrenggo home. It’s about four kilometers from central Kediri. I have never been welcomed in a place so enthusiastically. Going from not understanding anything people would try to communicate with me, so stopping to chat with neighbors on my bike ride home, the people of Manisrenggo have made this experience substantially better. I am grateful to have had such a phenomenal experience with those in my community. This wasn’t clearer during our second week, when we, thoroughly embarrassed, were asked to come on stage at a birthday party that happened on my street. Here are some other highlights from a few of my fellow PCT’s,

“My favorite PST memory was when we came back from site visits and met up at Coffee Co. We were only away from each other for 3 days but we greeted each other like it had been weeks and it was just really sweet because it showed how close we got during training.” -Gina

"My favorite part of PST is my host family" -Nora

Many can describe PST as traumatizing. I’ve had some interesting experiences, that stretched me and pulled me so deeply out of my comfort zone, and learning how to respond to that level of discomfort has probably been the most valuable thing I have learned during the past eight weeks. I’ve had pure exhaustion, I’ve been asked my religion and my marital status, and dealt with indirectness. Those are things I’ve had to learn to accept. Other things, like toilet paper and independence, are things I’ve had to let go. Despite this discomfort, which I don’t think will go away any time soon, I am thankful for the laughs in Indonesian class, for the moments of joy when biking through the fields at dusk, and for building new relationships with Americans and Indonesians. Although I am ready to end the tiring days, I’m not ready to say goodbye to my new friends in Kediri. Good thing I only live an hour away for the next two years!

To end this post on a much lighter note, here’s a dance we learned the first week of PST that has swept the Indonesian nation. My only wish for Christmas is that everyone do the dance and send me a video. Happy December!