Future Days
Everyone who has served in the Peace Corps says : ”It will be unlike whatever you imagine it will be.” They also say, “You have to be flexible and adaptive.” Here is what I think I know:
After a short orientation in Philadelphia, we leave June 2 for Uganda. My class of volunteers will stay in a community together for Pre-Service Training until August. Then we are sworn in at the U.S Embassy and dispersed to our assigned communities.
Pre-service Training is intensive, covering culture, language, safety, and technical details of our jobs. English is spoken throughout Uganda, but I will be taught one of the local languages, depending on the location of my assignment. My own family used to host foreign exchange students arriving in August who were fairly proficient by Christmas. Comparatively, with only two years of high school Latin, my learning synapses might be frayed these days. However, the Peace Corps is pretty confident I can be at low-intermediate proficiency by the end of training.