Being on site visit allowed me ample time to read, reflect, and ponder. In an attempt to distract my tired brain from the heat, I compared my stage schedule to my emploi du temps last year in France and a typical day during my senior year of college. A typical Wednesday would look like the following for each year:
Senior Year (2nd Semester) 8 am get up and eat cereal, 9 am class, 10 am reading at library, 11 am class, quick lunch break at campus café, gym, nap, homework, nap, Chipotle dinner, homework/thesis research, ice cream/The Office DVDs
Nancy, France (3rd Trimester) 7:15 am scarf down pain au chocolat and dash to bus, 8 am class, 9 am bakery break, 10 am class, 11 am bus ride home, quick sandwich lunch, nap, Facebook, nap, blogs, jogging, chicken and rice dinner, email, French film/wine
West Africa (June) 5:45 am woken up by braying farm animals (in city), bucket bath, eat bread with long-lasting butter substitute and Nescafé, bike to school, 8 am local language class – grammar, 10 am French language class – presentations on assigned novels, avocat/omelette sandwich lunch, medical session on diarrhea, bathroom break, cross-cultural gestures, Internet café, chatting with host family while watching World Cup, homework, read book
As you can see, my productivity now more closely matches that from my senior year of college than my lazy days last year. I’m glad that I had that time to reflect and chill out, and am also très content that I’m doing so much per day now. We have a bit more than 1 month left in our training period. While many Peace Corps Volunteers are told to spend the first few months getting to know their sites and doing assessments before taking on major projects, we the future teachers will have one month until our 25+ hr/week jobs start. This should be a nice compromise – enough to keep me quite busy, but also let me savor the color of my new flowers and the sounds of the bleating goat tired up outside my courtyard.
No comments:
Post a Comment