Joni in South Africa: July 2011

The Peace Corps was established in 1961 to promote world peace and friendship through the service of American Volunteers abroad.

The Peace Corps Mission, as stated in the Peace Corps Act, has always been and remains:

1. To help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.

2. To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.

3. To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of all Americans.

The above was reinforced during staging and we also went over the core expectations of volunteers and many other things. We ended with an exercise where we had dots of an unknown number and color placed on our backs and we had to organize ourselves in some way by the dots – our choice without talking. Although talking in mime was ok because there was a lot of gesturing and pointing going on. It was comforting to know that you could count on others to help you get to the right place without even asking for help. An interesting point was brought up as to why we organized ourselves the way we did - by color in that particular order and not by some other criteria and/or in some other order. Cooperation and dependency were key to accomplishing this task but I also wonder was it one person who made a choice about how we were to organize and we all followed? What are the implications?

Our group of Peace Corps Trainees (PCT) is relatively large; I believe there are 57 of us beginning in the Education and Health areas of service. We fly to Atlanta July 7, in the afternoon and then have a nonstop flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. It will take us 15 hours and 50 minutes from Atlanta. I plan on listening to my language cds - thanks for the cd player Dad. There are 11 official languages in South Africa and I made cds of the Peace Corps lessons in 3 of them. With flight time and time zone changes, we will arrive in the evening on the day after tomorrow, July 8. Time travel of sorts.

My roommate, who is an elementary school teacher, made these great language learning flash cards with pictures she drew and colored on the front and the Zulu word for what the picture depicted on the back. One of my favorite had a blue Cookie Monster on the front thinking about a cookie and the Zulu word for hungry on the back. So cute and it made me think of my daughter Leigh who loves all the Sesame Street characters. One of the cards had a sign language gesture on the front and I wondered if sign language was universal but was informed there is more than one sign language. I also learned online at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language that South Africa has 11 official oral languages and about as many others that are widely spoken but only 1 sign language with 2 variants.

Joni in South Africa

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Peace Corps Mission and Staging

Contact Info