Post Pre-service Training

I just finished PST 2 (Pre-Service Training) which was the final installment of our technical training.  These past two weeks were full of techniques, practices, and more English social stimulation than I've had since PST 1.

Aside from the technical practices that we learned, which I'll get to later, we also learned about Monitoring, Reporting and Evaluation (something we here call, MRE).  This is the method with which we as PCVs use to record and report on our work at our sites while in country.  This process is multilayered and comprehensive as some of the data that we report goes to Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington, while other pieces of information stay in Peace Corps Senegal for our sectors individually, and, for my program as a sustainable agriculture extension agent, some of our data also goes back to Senegalese organizations working on improving practices, seeds, etc.  It is a lot of paperwork (digital of course), but also pretty straight forward and it seems like a cohesive way of collating data and information and disseminating to the sources that can best use the information.  I'll have more of an understanding of how collecting this data will actually look once I'm in the field.  We report this information through the Volunteer Reporting Form (VRF) that is used worldwide by Peace Corps.  It is a bi-annual extensive account of all of our extension activities and the way that our work is aligned to our project framework.

We also learned about how to apply for grants through Peace Corps' system.  I can use grants if my village expresses an interest in a project that would benefit the community, address their needs in terms of food security, etc.  We can also use grants for group projects like the Girls Leadership Conference that Tambacounda will be hosting later this month.  Some of the grants are funded by USAID or NGOs like One Acre Fund, World Connect, etc. while others are funded through community and families members back in the United States through a partnership program.  It was all a lot to process but I am excited about the many opportunities that I have for my two years of service in Botou and in Senegal.

Our technical training was also much more specific than what we received during PST. I'll give you an overview of what we learned and if you want me to expand on anything please let me know.  We learned about our seed extension program for field crops, SRI (System of Rice Intensification), permaculture planning and implementation, earthworks (boomerang berms, contour berms, cuvettes, etc), pruning, seed selection and storage (vegetable and field crops), companion planting, intercropping/mono-cropping, advanced gardening techniques (staking tomatoes, helping cucurbites climb), Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), vegetable propagation, integrated pest management, soil fertility management, chemical fertilizer best practices, and a few other things that I'm sure I'm forgetting.  It was quite the comprehensive education, particularly for someone like me (typical Peace Corps volunteer with a liberal arts degree) and I appreciated that they do give us a baseline of knowledge so that we can go back to our villages with something to teach them.  It is exciting and overwhelming and thrilling, and many other different emotions, but I'm very excited and looking forward to settling back into life in Botou and beginning the technical work of my Peace Corps Senegal experience.