MST

After the first year of Peace Corps service, all the volunteers throughout Micronesia (all 19 of us, ha ha) came to Pohnpei for "mid-service training," or MST for short. (Peace Corps loves its acronyms - it's like learning a new language.) The purpose of MST is to help us prepare for the 2nd year and review technical training, but for the volunteers MST is mostly about celebrating the big one-year anniversary and catching up with the other volunteers.

(This, by the way, is why I've had so much time in town to post blogs.)

I hadn't seen the other volunteers since last July. We've all been through so much in the past year, but as soon as I saw them, it felt like no time at all had passed. We talked for hours sharing funny stories and finding all the similarities between our unique experiences on the different islands. We all face similiar challenges at our sites across Micronesia.

We stayed in a hotel in Kolonia, which meant we had a week of hot showers, flushing toilets, and cable TV! It was a week of luxury!

Another special part of MST was the arrival of the new Peace Corps trainees. Hooray! We welcomed them to Micronesia with cheers and mwarmwars. They'll have two months of training and then they'll swear-in as Peace Corps volunteers!

It's crazy that one year ago I was one of those trainees first arriving on Pohnpei. I feel so much more confident and happy than I was back then. It's a relief to be at this point in my Peace Corps experience - I sort of know what I'm doing (emphasis on the "sort of") and I know I can do this. One year to go!