I can now say that I have successfully completed
Pre-service training for Peace Corps Belize. It has been a very busy last three
months thus why I haven’t written a blog post recently. During these past three
months, I have improved with speaking Spanish while testing to the Intermediate
level. Though I will be continuing my language learning and I will be having a
language coach for the next few months to improve. There were a total of 4
health practicums in which we were responsible to prepare in groups for and be
evaluated by upper level staff. These practicums included: Maternal and
Neonatal Health, Prevention of Childhood Illnesses, Healthy Cooking
Demonstration, and Community Health Fair. We were expected to implement and
demonstrate each of these in our targeted language to the community. I
have got to experience the various different cultures of Belize with having
“Culture Days” in which those involved traveling to four different parts of
this beautiful country with my training group and Peace Corps staff to learn
about their specific language, history, religious belief’s, and cultural norms.
The four main cultures in Belize that I had the opportunity to learn more about
are Mestizo, Kriol, Maya, and Garifuna. I find this as a huge advantage because
recognizing that my site placement is diverse and consists of each of these
different cultures within it, I will be more familiar about the norms for each
of them and how to approach working with each of them. With that being said… It
was revealed to me earlier in August that I will now be living in the village
of St. Matthews until September 2017! I am more than excited to transition into
this new village and call it my temporary home. After finding out my site
placement, the following week a counterpart workshop was scheduled for each of
us trainees and our future village counterparts. Counterparts that were in
attendance to this first workshop were mostly community health workers, school
principals, and nurses from each of the villages. After arriving three hours
late to the workshop due to multiple flat tires on the bus transfer and Peace
Corps staff vehicles, we met each of our counterparts and had the chance to
discuss exactly what our roles will be while working in the community and
schools. That evening, we boarded buses with all trainees and
counterparts, and then departed to our new villages for visit that lasted 4
days. During my visit to St. Matthews I stayed with the Sinturion
Family, which will be my host family for the 2 years of my service. I feel as
it was a fantastic match due to the fact that this family is very outgoing,
loves to joke around and pull pranks on each other. Anybody who knows my family
in the U.S. would agree that it should be a good match. They had no
problem at making me comfortable and feeling like I was part of their family. I
had the opportunity to attend the staff orientation at the St. Matthews
Government School where I will be teaching weekly health lessons. While it was
great to meet all the teachers and staff, it was even better to have their
support and the motivation that they have for me to teach at their school. It
was beneficial to have tours of the village led by my community health workers
and to also assist with home visits to the elderly and the ill. After the four
days were up, then I headed back to the training site for 4 weeks where I
anxiously awaited to finish language and technical trainings. The final
event that our training group was expected to do was to host a health festival
in the village that we had completed our training at. This is something that us
trainees worked together with the Peace Corps training staff to successfully
advertise and carry out. Each of us chose a particular health topic that we
then created ways of interactive learning and activities to make it more
interesting toward children. September
17, 2015 is a day I’ll never forget. Why? Because that is the day that I
officially became a Peace Corps Volunteer for the Belize Health Cohort # 3. All
of the stressful and overwhelming yet beneficial days/weeks with working on community
projects, practicums, co teaching in schools, integrating into a Spanish
speaking family and language/technical sessions are now worth it. I am now
ready to embark on my own and begin my own Peace Corps experience. The next 3
months will mostly consist of observations and developing a plan of action for
my service. I will be doing a communitywide assessment to identify the health
needs and prioritize what needs to be implemented to result in a positive
change.
