The Third Goal of Peace Corps

Dear Friends,

I think I’ve mentioned the Third Goal of Peace Corps before: “Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.” This is often the most overlooked goal of Peace Corps, but it’s just as important as the other two (1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women and 2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served). PCVs strive to meet this goal in different ways, some more than others. For me, I feel a responsibility to communicate, to the best of my ability, my PC experience to my family and friends back home. This is largely due to the incredible amount of support I’ve gotten, and continue to get every day, from all of you. It’s an honor for me to share my experience with you!

That being said, I can only achieve this goal if I have an interested audience. I know there are lots of you out there reading this blog – thank you so much!!! I also know that at times I may not explain something clearly. If you have questions, please ask! Even if you aren’t signed in and able to leave a comment, you can always email me at mksurdyk@gmail.com. My internet access will be somewhat limited, but I’ll do my best to answer questions. Comments and suggestions are also greatly appreciated, on anything from the content of my blog to the aesthetics of the site. I’m no web designer, so if there’s something I can do to improve the reading experience, I am totally open to suggestions! Of course you shouldn’t feel obligated to always comment or question, just if there is something I can do to help you understand Mali and the Malian people, please let me know!

I’ve realized through a few conversations with friends that I never quite explained a lot of the logistics of training in Peace Corps. Some Peace Corps countries do all of their training at a Training Center and then the PCVs go out into their communities where they’ll live for the next 2 years. PC Mali, for the last 5 years, uses what's called Community Based Training. For the first 9 weeks in Mali, during what’s called “Pre-Service Training”, or PST, we live with host communities to become integrated into Malian life: both language and culture. We live 6-8 people per village because we're doing language and technical training, and we're close to Bamako because we come back to the Training Center every few weeks for group sessions. Using Community Based Training actually cut the total training time by about 3 weeks because we learn so much faster! At the end of training, we go out across the country to our various sites for our actual service period. Typically volunteers are the only PCV in their permanent site. The next volunteer may be 3 km away or 80 km away. We all have different sites and different experiences.

I hope this helps! Again, thank you so much for your support and for reading this blog. You are so important to my experience here.

Love,
Michelle