Our Peace Corps Training

      Our training was necessarily intensive, given the short time allotted to learning all about life in the Philippines.  We were awakened early in the morning and attended classes throughout the day and into the night until 8:00, with few breaks, except for eating, and a bit of “down” time.  This went on Monday through Friday and on Saturday morning.  It seemed relentless, and I was always exhausted each night and ready for bed.

    The training had three main focuses.  Naturally, the primary emphasis was on learning the language, which in the Philippines is Tagalog.  Secondly, we had to learn all about the Philippine culture, and the lastly we had to learn about what we would be doing.

    This last bit was a big disappointment to me.  I assumed that I would be in a classroom teaching kids, but to my dismay I discovered that the Peace Corps program I was now in was to set up to run seminars for Filipino teachers.  Running seminars didn’t appeal to me in the least, but I waited to learn more.

    The more red flags went up as I learned more about the culture of the Philippines.  Things like “status” and “Face” meant very little to me, but they were extremely important to Filipinos.  I remember being told that men, who often wore shirts made of thin material, would often buy Filipino cigarettes, then put the actual cigarettes into a pack from American brand of cigarettes, then have them visible in their thin shirt pocket so that everyone would think they were smoking the more expensive American brand.

    While I was not happy about many cultural aspects of Filipino society, I really liked the Filipino instructors and cooks that we had.  They were friendly, kind and fun to be around.  

    My biggest problem happened during the Tagalog class.  It was set up as a language immersion class, with practically no English spoken.  My exposure to foreign languages was pretty much non-existent.  I had taken Latin my Freshman year of high school, but even though it was not really much of a spoken language, I flunked it, receiving two red “F’s” on my report card.  

    I don’t think I have much ability in hearing subtle differences in the spoken word or remembering unknown sounds.  I depend heavily upon seeing the word visually.  The Tagalog classes were set up just the opposite to what I needed.

    We went into the classroom, and right away our Tagalog teacher would start saying something in Tagalog, repeating it several times.  Then they would give a Tagalog response to the statement or question they had ask.  The Tagalog question was then said to the class, and the class was encouraged to respond, and many of them did, but we didn’t know what was asked or what the response was.

            I will always remember once in our Tagalog class I was asked some question in Tagalog.  I responded the best I could in Tagalog, but then all of the Tagalog staff burst out laughing.  I didn’t know what I was asked or what I had said that was obviously, ridiculously wrong,  I never did find out.

    I began to recognize that I was not doing as well as the others in the group.  It was frustrating.  I just wanted to visually see what the Tagalog words and sentences looked like so I could remember them.  It wasn’t until about three weeks later that we were finally handed papers, that showed  the sentences and words that the class had been learning, but by that time it was too late for me.  I was too far behind.

    The photo above shows our friendly Filipino teachers.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca