TOT

No, the title does not indicate my second childhood, although I feel that I am going through it while experiencing the Peace Corps euphoria.  TOT is short for training of trainers-a common phenomena here in Zambia. All last week 20 trainers representing Health and Language were working through the July 4th holiday and a Zambian holiday called "Heroes Day. We were preparing for the new group of 36 Health Volunteers expected to fly in toward the end of July and undertake 11 weeks of training. Three of us volunteers will divide that time away from our villages so that the trainees and even the Zambian trainers can benefit from the experienced American's perspective. It felt good to reunite with our trainers in the same buildings I was prepared for village life.  Pictured is a presentation in the open air gazebo.  The blinds are lowered to protect us from the winter cold and blowing dust.  Our sessions centered around facilitation skills. Of interest was a DVD about the Millennium Generation (or genY).  The info explained alot of the behaviors I observed while working with young people.  Wish I had seen it when I was the internship director but it was good to know while surrounded by all the 20-year-olds in Peace Corps. It felt good to be back as a trainer and not worry about passing my Bemba simulation exams.  My "bamayo" with whom I lived those 9 weeks so seemingly long ago came to visit.  Now that I own a netbook, I could show her all the photos I had taken while living with her. While in Lusaka I printed 39 photos of my village to give out before leaving them in 2 mos.  I can almost hear the timer ticking down the days....