Weeknotes 2024W32

It’s been a busy couple of weeks and I didn’t get the time to write any weeknotes last week. So, this edition is a fortnightnote.

Attended the Close of Service Conference

Last week, my Peace Corps cohort attended our last training as a group. It was emotional, overwhelming, and exciting all at the same time. Over the three days, we talked about what ending these two transformative years is going to look like.

We got some tips on understanding and dealing with transitions and the challenges that come with losing an identity/forming a new one. I’m going to be ending a truly life-changing experience here soon. I know that I’ve learned so much but I don’t know who I am going to be after the transition back to normal life.

One really great activity we did was a visualization of the major points of service, starting from getting the invite to the current moment. I’m a long-form-write-it-all-down kind of processor so while everyone had their eyes closed in calmness, I was frantically taking notes so that I could process later. I’m very excited to do that write-up. There are some very clear chapters and events over these two years that I’m looking forward to returning to.

After all the logistical admin and medical stuff, we learned some really helpful career/job searching tips. I’ve never really gotten proper training on how to sell myself or write a résumé so I really enjoyed this. We talked about how to make good résumé bullet points and how to write a good LinkedIn About section. I’ve learned some really valuable and transferrable skills during my time in Morocco and I’m glad I’ve got some tools to actually show that.

Tangentially, we got some training on storytelling. One thing that kept coming up was understanding your audience. I’m having trouble trying to figure out how to condense 27 months of intense personal growth, learning, challenges, beautiful moments, and people into 30 seconds when someone inevitably asks me, “How was Morocco?”

We also had some guest appearances from a previous volunteer who is currently working in Morocco as well as some people from the embassy. They came and talked about what careers within the government and foreign service look like. I’m curious about some government organizations like EPA, Nuclear Security Administration, Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and some others. If you know anybody with a chemical engineering background in any of those departments that would be willing to do an informational interview with me, please let me know!

It wasn’t all work, though. The hotel we were at was a bit out of town which kind of forced everyone to stay at the hotel and hang out together. There was a beautiful pool that we took advantage of after sessions. On the last day, some volunteers made a long video of pictures from our first day in Morocco to now. It was crazy seeing how young we all looked just two years ago. There was also an awards ceremony and a T-shirt signing party akin to a last day of school before summer. It was a beautiful thing.

The night of the last day, we went back to the hotel that started it all. This hotel was the first place we went after being picked up from the airport all that time ago. We spent our first ten days there under a crucible of a tent with our masks on and chairs six feet apart. At the time, we weren’t allowed to go to the onsite bar. This time, we went out to celebrate. We had drinks and were the only people on the dance floor singing the most American songs we could think of. It kind of blew my mind passing by the room that I first stayed in where I was simultaneously jet-lagged, dealing with diarrhea, and wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into nearly two years prior.

Co-facilitated an English camp

Right after the COS conference, a small group went down South to facilitate a week-long English summer camp we had been planning for a while. Eight of us packed into one volunteer’s house for the week, living communally and planning activities in our spare time.

We created a schedule for who was going to cook and when then pooled together our money to go grocery shopping. We ate family/Moroccan style nearly every meal. After that, each day consisted of a three-hour block of activities and English classes in the morning, a three-hour block for lunch, and a three-hour block in the afternoon for electives and a group activity.

Another volunteer and I took the intermediate level students for English class and talked about values, habits, strength, and superheroes. My favorite group activity we did was a series of games that I emceed for. The last day was a beach day where we all went and picked up trash for an hour then enjoyed an incredible beach for the rest of the day.

Overall, it was a really great week. The camp was a major success and I enjoyed spending another week with my friends. I am glad to be back home and sit quietly at my desk and not live out of a bag, though.

Links

• How long do you keep your notes? by Analog Office.

  For digital documents you want to keep for a long time, I suggest the Three P’s:
  Plain text
  PDFs
  And especially,
  Printouts

• A Dark Room. It’s a text-based adventure game that is very simple but very fun.

Created: 2024-08-12

Last modified: 2024-08-12