Training Outside Manila

Originally written 8/27/09:

We’ve now finished our first week of training, known as initial orientation, at a resort outside metro Manila. It’s been a great week – we’ve met lots of cool people (there are 69 in our training batch, including 6 couples!) and learned a bit about Peace Corps Philippines in general and Coastal Resource Management (CRM) work in particular.


We spent the first few days adjusting to the jet lag with day-long sessions at the resort. Then we had two days off-site, with a trip to the PC office in Manila and a day of water safety training in Cavite. Not much to say about Manila – there was a stop at the Mall of Asia to buy cell phones and the worst traffic on earth.


They’ve been spoiling us here at the hotel – our room has airconditioning, a shower, and toilet with paper – luxury! The PC Philippines staff is great, and we are very impressed with the orientation program. It’s clear they’ve done this many times before and know exactly how much information and activity we can process at one time.


Today we finally learned our training site location: we’ll be living and training in Leyte for the next three months! The language we’ll be learning is Waray-Waray, translated in English as “nothing-nothing.” The jokes about this are endless.


Tomorrow we fly out for Leyte with 10 other CRM workers and a group of education volunteers. This time tomorrow, we’ll be staying with our host family and preparing for our first night in the mosquito net without toilet paper. We’re looking forward to it all and just feel so lucky to be here.