John's PST Group

During PST (Pre-Service Training) we soon-to-be volunteers are divided into four groups: English Education (mine), Health Education (Shelbi's), COD (Community and Organizational Development), and ARBD (Agricultural and Rural Business Development). Each group is divided into two villages close to each other. The four groups study their materials separately so that they can focus on specifics of their intended jobs. For this reason, Shelbi and I live apart but can visit each other on the weekends.

The English Education group is a strong bunch of individuals with quite a bit of teaching experience. Those who stay in Trușeni with me are all quite close. We even get together once a week (Friday nights) to play Settlers of Catan and just have fun. Monday-Friday we have Romanian classes in the mornings and English second language training in the afternoons. Saturdays we have four hours of Romanian language.

The people pictured below help the time to go quicker as they all have great humor and despite some of the tedium of some of the technical classes, we have a good time together. We are working towards some of the project-oriented sections of our trainings, so I look forward to continuing our helpfulness towards each other in accomplishing joint goals. Here are some pictures from trainings and Settlers nights at my house.