A Day in the Life of a PCT

I suppose I should give an idea of what a typical day is like for Peace Corps trainees (PCTs).

I usually get up between 6h30 and 7 and take a cold bath to wake myself up (it’s even more effective than coffee!) and clean off the previous day’s accumulation of sweat. Compared to my life in the States, this seems early, but given that some other trainees live 45 minutes from the training center and sometimes rise before the sun, I certainly can’t complain.

Every morning, the family has prayer, including singing of hymns, a scripture reading, and a short lesson. It was a pleasant, almost dream-like surprise the first morning I awoke here, drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness on the soft sounds of hymns in Bulu and the cooing of babies. I’ve grown accustomed to it now, so it doesn’t seem quite so otherworldly, but it’s lost none of its charm.

Breakfast is usually 10 to 30 minutes after prayer ends, and always includes baguette with margarine. Sometimes Mama Isabelle or one of my sisters will make an onion omelet, which we put in the baguette like a sandwich (which is absolutely delicious). In addition, there’s always a pitcher of hot water on the table, so that each person can mix their hot chocolate or coffee to their taste. (Mama takes her coffee with two sugars, and Crystal takes hot milk since she doesn’t like coffee or hot chocolate.)

The Abate residence is only a 10-minute walk from the Peace Corps training center, so I usually leave the house at about 7:45, or earlier if the roads are especially muddy and I need more time to navigate all of the puddles and slippery spots. Another trainee, Mireille, is staying with the family next door, so lately we’ve been walking to training together. While I appreciate having a companion when navigating a foreign environment, I savor my solitary walks back to the house at the end of the day, when I can look around at the cornfields, the wildlife, and even the distinctive burnt orange earth.

en route to the training center

Our days begin at 8h00 (American time) and consist of four sessions; two in the morning and two in the afternoon. The order and subject matter change from day to day, but can be roughly divided into technical, cultural, medical, security, “Global Core” (learning more about Peace Corps practices and ideology), and principally, language. Each of us will have more than 100 hours of language lessons over the course of training, so I have no doubt that by the end of it, the trainees who arrived with little or no proficiency in French will be able to survive in a francophone country.

During our first week here in Ebolowa, there was a clear lack of motivation among the trainees, as we had all become accustomed to our mid-morning coffee breaks at the hotel in Yaoundé. Thankfully, one brave volunteer took it upon herself to organize a “pause café,” so now, every morning between our first and second sessions, I can indulge in a hot cup of coffee with sweetened condensed milk and a beignet for 400 francs (about 80 cents).

Lunch is also served at the training center, usually consisting of rice and beans, a vegetable, and a meat, usually chicken or meatballs. Today I splurged on some fresh pineapple for dessert, so my vegetarian lunch cost 600 CFA (“say-fah”), or about $1.20.

The training center itself is a beautiful and impressive structure, which may have served as a church at some point. At the center is a round atrium with two-story ceilings, and windows near the top that let in the brilliant sunshine. The classrooms and hallways are sort of arms that extend from the atrium, and the exterior walls feature large windows and grand arches, allowing the elements and the birds to come and go as they please. In a somewhat shocking juxtaposition, there are about half a dozen language classrooms outside of the main building, which are constructed of cement and corrugated tin and are each perhaps six feet squared, so that if there are more than three students in a given class, it gets a bit crowded.

the training center and language classrooms

After stuffing our brains with endless acronyms and slowly roasting in oversized tin boxes, at 4:30 in the afternoon we scatter in the directions of our families’ homes, thankful to have completed another day of training.

Two weeks down, eight to go.