The Training Course!

If you want to ride on a emotional roller coaster then the Project Trust training course is the place for you. Here is a rough example of the emotions I felt and trust me I was not alone:

Confident Excited Happy Tired Excited Scared Worried SUPER EXCITED absolute fear calm stressed loving sad happy giggly excited no emotion EXCITED nervous

The training course was again based on the Isle of Coll. This meant I started off feeling confident as I knew exactly how to get there having done the journey before - flight, bus, stay the night in Oban, Ferry to Coll.

I was feeling excited because I was soon to meet my partner. "What would they be like?" "Would they find me funny?" "Would I find them funny" "Would we like the same things" "How will we get on after only knowing each other for 4 short days?"

With these questions whirling round my head and the anticipation for the training course to start the journey to Oban went like a flash. This however meant I unfortunately found myself as one of the first to arrive at "backpackersplus hostel". With a slightly anticlimactic feeling I plonked my stuff down and sat at the table alone listening to a group of French people playing odd games on their phones. After what felt like a decade of alone time someone finally came through the door with a large rucksack... definitely a PT volunteer we both checked in and silently went to our rooms which happened to be the same one. It was then I decided to break the ice, "are you a PT volunteer?". She was of course however going to Zambia not Cambodia. After having a little conversation about how excited we were, we decided to venture back upstairs to wait for more volunteers to arrive but to our delight another girl and a boy were sat at the table. We joined them and informed each other of our country's and projects and it was at that point that I found out my partner's name - Maryam. Honor the girl who had just introduced herself had met her on selection and so knew what Project she was doing. Wahayy finally I know something about her!

Wanting to kill time this little group and I went to get some dinner - fish and chips, classic.

Not long after we came back a sudden burst of volunteers arrived and among them my partner! Finally! We introduced ourselves in a huge and excited hug really rather dramatic.

With all the nervous and exited energy in the room all of the volunteers that had arrived came to the conclusion that the pub would be a good place to get to know each other and so, so with a cheers, the start of our gap year journey truly felt like it had begun!

The actual training course

The training course itself had so much crammed into it in so little time that all seems to be muddled up in my long term memory as one continuous day. So the easiest way I could describe what happened is through my feelings of it. So without further ado...

I felt tired throughout a lot of the training course. Getting up at 7.30am each day was a challenge for me having been on a gap year for 3 months already, meant that early mornings have been rarities.

However, with only 4 days for the PT team to teach us how to become teachers, give us information on our country and tell us how to be safe while overseas meant they were in no way going to take things slowly so self pity tiredness was not an option.

Excitement usually came after having a talk with my country coordinator about Cambodia, its culture, religion and political history. It also came with the frequent bedroom conversations that Maryam (my partner) Kaylen, Katie and I would have at the end of each session about all the things we will do and see while over there and how cool it will be to be a teacher. It also came from the inspirational talks that Allison Fraser gave at the beginning and at the end of the course.

The feeling of absolute fear usually came after one of the long talks on safety while overseas because it put things into perspective e.g. you do not have your parents to pick you up when you are scared, you do not have the same safety net of the British law while overseas, you do not have the same easy access to health care that is so taken for granted in the UK and you do not have full knowledge and understanding of their culture and social normalities meaning it is very likely offence could be made.

Stress came when we were told we had to plan and perform two lesson one 10 minute lesson and one 20 minute lesson. However, this was quickly followed by confidence as the pressure caused the creative side of me I thought I lacked to come out in the form of fun, exciting and understandable lesson plans with the techniques that the PT TEFL team had given fitting in easily.

The feeling of loving came when my partner and the two other Cambodia girls and I learnt about each other, found things in common and talked about our differences. It came from praising each other for our lesson plans and it came from helping each other to feel better when one was having a stress or a wobble.

Sadness came from meeting all these wonderful people but knowing how unlikely it would be that I would see them all again. Sadness came from being given my flight itinerary and knowing I will miss out of my friends and family's lives.

Worry came when thinking about whether volunteering is really a good thing.

Feeling giggly came after concentrating for so long that the simplest of card games seemed to be the most impossible task of the day - forget teaching.

The feeling of happiness came when my partner and I realised we have the same sense of humour, the same taste in music and the same level of last minuteness.

And finally the feeling of calmness came at the end of the training course when I felt I had taken in as much information that I could.