Mid-Service Training (MST) happens after Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) have been at site for one year. SA 14 (the 14th group of PCVs in South Africa, of which I am a member) education volunteers all arrived at our sites on 13 October 2005, and on 23 October 2006 we had our MST. It was great to see my fellow PCVs; many of us had not seen each other in many months, and some of us had not seen each other since IST in early March.
MST served, for us, as a recap after one year at site. We were able to hear each others' stories, successes, and frustrations. We got tips and helpful ideas to take back to our sites.
For me, though, the best part of any training is always the chance to reconnect with my friends, and MST was great. It was held in Rustenberg, at a nice resort called the Oasis. It had 18 holes of mini-golf, squash and racquetball courts, a trampoline, tennis courts, and a pool with a waterslide. Needless to say, we all enjoyed ourselves! And the food was amazing as well.
Since MST happened to (nearly) coincide with Halloween, we all held a Halloween party during the last night of MST. I organized it with my friend Tom, and it was a success! There were a lot of very interesting costumes. For my own costume, I decided to go as "white trash." I was thinking of portraying a Southern redneck, so I had my friend Cort cut off my hair (which I'd been growing for 11 months into a very impressive 'fro---I was very sad to see the hair go) and shave off my beard into a moustache. My hair was cut into the most ridiculous mullet we could think of. I put on a WWE t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and some very short denim shorts, aviator sunglasses, fake tattoos...and voila! I was "Billy Ray." Although once the transformation was complete, I was told that I looked like an Italian from New Jersey. Ah well.......
0 comments:
Post a Comment