Domestic Training

I was browsing through some shared photos of domestic training, and I realized how little it was mentioned in Tomzanian. There are only two days left of training, and I do feel a bit regretful for clumping such an eventul month in one post. Please forgive the Tomzanian.

A large portion of training consists of dull lectures.  Topics include Korea's Vision to be an Advanced First Rate Country, the Proper Understanding of Korean Wave, and the Appropriate Volunteer Attitude. Eighty percent of the lectures are junk, which make the trainees respond as above during breaks.

And the Tanzanian group again! As government volunteers, we travel with diplomatic passports, so we had to go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to retrieve them. This is what we do when we are on standby.

Here are the dumbshit dudes who are going to Ethiopia. Okay just kiddin. They're notorious for being big clowns, but also real good people. The guy on the far right is my roommate, who wants to be the agricultural minister of Korea. Notice their short hair? They also went to boot camp back in August.

One of the key aspects of training is being vaccinated. KOICA provides four vaccines for all volunteers: Hep A, seasonal flu, tetanus, and typhoid fever. Those who go to Africa will get the yellow fever vaccine as well. All for free. Thanks for the free stuff government!

This is the library volunteer group at the National Fire Service Academy. We went there for a day long lesson on various safety measures, including CPR. The library volunteer group is famous for being a clique.

The most important lecture of the program was conducted by Doctor Yoon, who himself was a volunteer in Papa New Guinea and Peru. He gave us some very useful information on diseases as well as general health guidelines. This was one of his last words of the lecture:

"Marrying a local would be the completion of your assimilation to your host country. That's of course a good thing. But, keep in mind that they may love your citizenship more than you."

For most of the time the trainees are stuck at the training center, banned from leaving the premises. One of the exception was a day long hiking trip to Worak Mountain. It was a well timed relief from the boring ass lectures.

So how are them Korean girls? Well, you can find them in Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, and Egypt.

Or how about the boys?

Jinho and our Swahili teacher Samson in class.

The Tanzania group with Samson. Swahili 3 hours a day, 5 days a week.

One of the final events was the visit from former US Peace Corps volunteers who were in Korea in the 60s and 70s. (more about them to follow)