Maybe it was the military that went acronym crazy first, then our government, in its infinite wisdom, followed suit, maybe it was the other way around. Either way, Peace Corps (PC), is now, and perhaps has always been, afflicted with the same disease.
I, a Peace Corps Volunteer, am a PCV. I am in the Sustainable and Organizational Community Development (SOCD) program, and most of my friends Teach English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). During Pre-Service Training (PST), the PCVs who had volunteered to Train us were PCVTs and the Host Country Nationals (HCNs) who Facilitated our Language and Cultural learnings were LCFs. I wrote to you all some time ago from my program (SOCD)’s Advanced Community Development Conference (SOCD ACDC) and in a couple of months will write again from the Project Design and Management (PDM) conference. But today, I’m writing about the recently completed Inter-Service Training (IST).
We volunteers get few opportunities to visit the booming metropolis of Bishkek, and fewer yet to all congregate together, so this is a highly anticipated event. A general phenomenon with Peace Corps worldwide is that, by IST, male volunteers lose ten pounds, and girls pick them up. But as we met together, in the glory of the Issyk Kul hotel, dripping with its Soviet grandeur, these physical changes (if they had occurred at all) couldn’t be farther from our minds.
Instead, we gathered and basked in the pleasure community, the comfort of shared experience. None of us came to Kyrgyzstan knowing what we’d find, and as different as our experiences have been, what we have all shared is very real, and the resulting sense of camaraderie profound.
At IST we had daily trainings on language, safety and security, health awareness, and for my SOCD group, organizational planning. During these sessions, we shared all that we had been learning these past few months. But it was after the mandatory gatherings that the real development happened.
We went out to eat together at fancy Bishkek restaurants, we saw a culturally invigorated performance by a troupe named after the first sound in Kyrgyz music, Kambarkan. We shared pictures and we gathered in each other’s hotel rooms, like dorm rooms in college. The urge to be with each other was tangible, tantalizing. Working and living abroad, I believe, can be a lonely experience. But with the PCV bond, no one needed to be alone.
On the last night of the training, we had a talent show. No one knew it would be happening before we got there, yet two guys had come equipped with guitars. We had singers, joke tellers and improvisers. We played there, on the top floor of that Soviet hotel, just enjoying each other’s company. Everyone had a skill, and everyone was happy to see it. It was, in no way, performance for the performer. It was people wanting to be together, and finding every reason to do so. Somehow, I imagined, if JFK, the father of the Peace Corps, could have seen us engaging, so happily, so simply, in that moment, he’d have given us a wink, and just been proud.
