Peace Corps Teleconference

1st Week:

-Training in Belmopan with entire group(43 people) of new volunteers

-We will have access to our entire luggage then

-Stay in a hotel in the capital and train in the Peace Corps Headquarters

Next 5 Weeks:

-Repack with one small bag and a ‘day’ bag

-Stay with host family outside of Belmopan

-Find out which language we will be trained in(either Kriol or Tetchi which is a Mayan language), our host family will speak this language

-We will be together with our host family, Greg and I in the same house

-Every Friday we will receive ‘core’ training where we meet back at the PC headquarters with ALL the volunteers (Dress is business casual)

-Specific training (split up by project, so both of us will be in the education group)

-Training will include: lectures by guest speakers, field trips, working with teachers in the training community, panel discussion with current peace corps volunteers, and hands on

-Then we’ll get our final site assignment and also live with another host family there for 1 month to expedite assimilation.

Packing:

-Bring 3 month supply of prescriptions (not covered by PC)

-Business casual men: collared polo shirts or button down, nice pants or kakis, closed toed business casual shoes, a few nicer shirts for conferences for meetings

-Business casual females jeans nice and neat, no tank tops or flip flops, closed toed shoes for Fridays in office no tivas-\sleeveless are okay . Some get the uniform that the teachers wear, comfortable closed toe shoes for walking

Cash:

-There are ATMS that take US bank cards, don’t travel with cash

-Basic living allowance is started during training (to practice living off of), no safe for extra cash

Laptops:

-Can bring two, more than likely working in two different schools

-Plenty of internet access for cheap

Phones:

-Families can call you on cell phone, incoming calls on cell phone are free

-Buy cell phone with settling in allowance, (used for bike, phone, furniture, don’t bring cell phone with you)

Host Family:

-She’ll tell host family we’re vegetarian

-More than likely they’ll be children there

-Bring something American or framed pictures of family to share

-When introduced to your site of assignment they will take everyone, one by one and introduce youthe person that you’ll be taking over for, future counterparts, and the host family

So that's the just of it! We are so excited and feel a lot better after our conference. We also get assigned PC pen pals in our project field to correspond with and get a better picture of what we will actually be doing in our final site! I can't wait to start packing when we get home! Hope this helps settle some qualms anyone might have had. YAY PEACE CORPS!