Blogs of My Predecessors

I have been starting to read, avidly, the blogs of Peace Corps volunteers who are already in Morocco. There are quite a few of these volunteers online, going back several years.

Through one of these blogs, I learned that there is a registry for Peace Corps volunteers who blog. You can add your blog to a "blogroll" which rolls up the latest entries from fellow bloggers and sorts them by country for you. So I will be able to get to know my predecessors, online, before I even get to the country. Is the Internet great, or what? I signed my blog up.

Reading them, I'm picking up a lot of interesting information about the early part of the process. My strategy is to go to the beginning of each blog, and work my way up. I've read through the first months of 4 or 5 volunteers. So far, I've learned where the Staging event takes place (Philadelphia) and that there are two training cycles for the Morocco program. One cycle starts in March, when Environmental and Health Education volunteers are trained, and a second begins in September, when Youth Development and Small Business Development volunteers are trained.

I'm thrilled to know I'll be spending at least some training time with Youth Development volunteers. When I heard about Youth Development, it sounded like so much fun. I've been volunteering with kids here in Venice, California, and really enjoying it. So I would be coveting that assignment, except that I know my strength lies in working with adults. It's always been that way. I've been in post-secondary education for most of my career, starting back in the 70s when I worked for the Minneapolis Area Vocational Technical Institute. Oh, my gosh, I'm really revealing my age, aren't I! But the truth is, as a teacher and a trainer, I relate very well to adults, and feel very comfortable in that role. So, while I'm very satisfied with my assigned progrm, I am happy to know I'll be getting to know the volunteers in the YD program. I hope to make good connections with those assigned in the near vicinity. I love hanging out with kids, and it'd be cool to meet the NEXT generation of small-business owners as well as working with the present generation.

I'm also learning it is not uncommon for volunteers to bring laptops, which makes me feel much more comfortable about bringing my own.