Less than 1 month away!

I made my plan ticket reservations for staging! I will be leaving San Antonio on February 8th at 10:30am and arriving in Philadelphia at 5:10pm. From there, we will leave Philly at 2:30am on February 10th, drive to New York and fly out from the NY airport at 10:30am. We'll have a lay over in Johannesburg and arrive in Entebbe at 7:10pm on Thursday, February 11.

Uganda is 9 hours ahead of us.

According to my pre-service training description, here's a little of what I'll be doing once I get there...

Arrival/Week 1:
This week involves community entry, as Trainees begin to understand how to communicate with their Ugandan families and communities. We will explore Uganda’s history, issues of community development and the Volunteer’s role in that development, personal health, and cross-cultural issues. The focus is on community entry skills and techniques, the concept of HIV/AIDS, at the global level and the Ugandan situation.

Week 2 and 3: Field-based training:
In these weeks you will be exposed to many different relevant technical areas and issues regarding the health and development of Ugandan communities which will be presented to you through a combination of classroom and experiential learning activities. You will practice community entry techniques and you will learn how to work with grassroots development partners.

Week 4: PCV visit
During this week, all Trainees will be in the field experiencing some of the responsibilities they will assume as Volunteers. You will visit a current Peace Corps Volunteer during this period using public transport and travel by your own self.

Week 5-10: Other key activities

You will be exposed to Peace Corps initiatives of Women and Gender in Development, ICT as well as youth empowerment initiatives. All of these sessions will be integrated with improved livelihood and capacity building development activities. You will have an opportunity to experiment with Village Savings and Loans, a great tool to use with people living with HIV/AIDS and their caregivers, and small business people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.