The first goal of the U.S. Peace Corps is to help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women. On, a little serendipitiously, the fourth of July, I started three training classes in my desert town. They have been absolutely one of the highlights of my PC service.
I actually started the process in October, after three months at site. I had confirmation of both need for and interest in business training, and since a lot of people had also expressed interest in improving their English, I proposed courses in both to my boss. He was enthusiastic, and promised me a laptop would be available shortly. So I started drafting Powerpoint slides for both courses, and posted notices that the trainings would begin in January, and interested prospects should visit me at my office.
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| English afternoon learners. |
I didn't want to start trainings in November, since we would quickly bump up against the December festive season, when many people travel. Since things sometimes move a bit slowly in my organization, and Namibia generally, it was also worthwhile to allow extra time to ensure the laptop really was in my possession. I knew slides would work a lot better than my imperfect handwriting on flip charts.
Designing the courses was great fun -- I'll post some details shortly. Meeting the prospective students was an invigorating experience, too. I gave people applying for English a brief assessment, and asked those who wanted business training which particular topics most appealed to them. Two highlights: almost everyone could read a paragraph from Business Week about the merger of Dell and EMC, stumbling maybe a bit over 'converged architectures.' But almost no one understood the words they read out so fluently. On the business side, pretty much everyone was interested in pretty much every topic.
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| My boss addresses the English evening class. |
Well, the laptop took a lot longer too arrive than expect -- about eight months longer. Two applicants with especially good English joined me in my office for an hour twice a week for advanced English improvement, which was fun and quite valuable in refining the class material. (One of the highlights of those sessions was one learner asking, on request from her sister, whether English has a word for the bad feeling you get when you've been gossiping about someone and you think that person knows. The closest I could come was 'ashamed' or 'guilty,' but of course neither encompasses the full particulars of the feeling she described. So apparently there is a word for that very specific emotion in her Owambo language.) I would have started the larger trainings with the flip chart, but every delay was reported as being just a week or two, and I had this material all prepared in Powerpoint, so I kept hoping. It was an exciting day indeed when I turned to see Robert from IT standing in the door, clutching my re-purposed Dell. Then it was just a matter of securing a projector...
Based on the level of interest expressed and a bit of a haircut for people who want to be involved but cannot for whatever reason, I offered an evening basic-business course, two hours an evening, two evenings a week, for six weeks. The English improvement was in two sessions, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, two days a week for four weeks.
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| Business learners working on an exercise -- the unheated Town Hall was chilly on August evenings! |
Business training had 12 people the first night, and averaged ten per night for the 12 sessions. English had much greater attrition, though it was the lesser commitment. The evening session started with 17 people, and averaged about 10; the afternoon session began with 13, but in late July we lost a bunch of the 11th-graders as they prepped for exams, so we ended with eight.
Those two months were exhausting and exhilirating. I'm hoping to start everything back up again in January -- I have my laptop and projector hidden away!
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