What does a PCV do?

For those of you who are new to this, PCV stands for Peace Corps Volunteer.  That’s me. I’m a TEFL PCV at that (Teaching English as a Foreign Language).  There are countless more acronyms that are tossed around within Peace Corps, but I’ll try to steer clear of them for clarity purposes. 

So, my particular brand of PCV is “English teacher.”  I am placed at a site, in a village, to work with one school for two years.  Of course, I am not limited to working only with one school, but my primary assignment is the school at which I’m placed.  In my case, that school is Groupe Scolaire Kiruli.  A Groupe Scolaire is the “French” term used to describe nine-year basic education schools.  These schools are public, and supported by the government, which means there are almost always money struggles. 

At this school, we have a Primary School component and a Lower Secondary School component.  I am a teacher at the Secondary School.  My particular school is rather small, with about 2,000 students (only 300 of which are Secondary students).  We have 6 classes in the Secondary school: three Senior 1 classes, two Senior 2 classes, and one Senior 3 class.  I have no idea what’s going to happen next year, because we really only have 5 classrooms for secondary to begin with.  Each class has their own classroom and the teachers are the ones who rotate and move around for the lessons (opposite of how we do it in America).  Since space is so limited, our classes are huge.  The class size ranges from about 40 to 60 students per class- meaning that nearly all classes have challenges which include crowding, lack of personal attention from the teacher and noise issues.  The secondary students range in age from about 14 to 20 and our instructional level is about equal to 6^th to 9^th grade in America.

My job is pretty much what I make of it.  I work far less than I would in America, but you have to remember that life out here requires different things than does life in America.  Here’s a typical day for me:

Wake up with the sun (and the chickens),

make tea because it’s always chilly in the mornings,

do some things around the house and get ready for work,

go to school for a few hours (teach, chat, hang out in the library etc),

come home to cook lunch (takes a few hours),

maybe pop back up to school or go to visit another school/ people in the village, 

come home and relax inside because it’s usually quite cold in the evening.

And that’s it! When I’m working on projects things change, and my routine tends to vary from day to day.  On market days, I’ll sometimes walk the 25 minutes to the market to buy some fresh produce.  Time is very elastic out here and can easily “get away from you.”  The benefit to my languid, elastic schedule is that I can be available for people when they need me, which is part of my job after all.

When I’m teaching, I teach English communication skills; which focuses on listening and speaking.  My students are able to understand me now, but when I began, as the first foreign teacher to ever attempt to teach these students, it took a while for us to be able to really work together. We do various activities that focus on this aspect of the English language, and I have seen significant improvement in English levels over the past two years.  I’m not taking all the credit on that one however.  I have observed all other teachers giving their instruction in English, so I know we’re all working together to teach these students.  I am lucky enough to have 2 hours a week with each class.  It’s not much, but at least I’m instructing all 300 students.

Since I am extending to work as a third year PCV, I will soon move to the capital city (Kigali) and take a new position.  When a PCV decides to extend, the project they work with for a third year is their decision.  I’ve decided to work in conjunction with an educational development NGO in the city, so I will no longer be teaching.  I will, instead, be working with a team of developers to help improve curriculum and materials at the Primary level.  My current village is only about an hour and a half journey from the city, so I do plan on visiting the folks here from time to time during 2013.

Peace Corps' tag-line is “the toughest job you’ll ever love.” I feel inclined to agree with them but I also find this misleading.  At least, the job is never “tough” in the ways you would expect. It’s the underlining toughness that gets to you- the small things that you’re always having to fight against.  It is not easy, but I do enjoy it most days. So, perhaps they were trying to capture the mix of emotions and experiences that PCVs encounter on a daily basis... endure that for 2 years and you too may understand how that tag-line came into being.