Roundtable Feedback Review

Madagascar Butterfy or "Lulu"

Sunday, 26 March 2023 (42)

Google translate - Where have you been all my life? I just learned this weekend that many, if not most of the others have been using it regularly, if not constantly. How did I miss out on it? I went from coming home and expecting to say little to nothing to my host family to suddenly speaking full sentences and them complimenting me on my pronunciation. This is weird. Unfortunately, I won't be able to use it in the final language test.

As there was extra time waiting for the one vehicle to take 23 of us back to our host families along with all of our baggage - I thought it would be helpful to ask more questions of staff. We have these wonderful staff members who speak really descent English. Only now am I realizing how much they can inform us beyond what the cultural classes have done. They know a lot of things that could help us in the field but I don't see many taking advantage of them enough. Even me - not till this site visit did I even know what questions I wanted to ask. 

Often they can only give generalities as things could vary depending on your location. But there are useful insights like how much to pay for someone to do your laundry, how to arrange it, how some things are misunderstood or not known to us at all There are literally hundreds of questions I want to ask. Sometime they don't have the answer. Many times, they might not have been to places or know things themselves.

Tuesday, 28 March 2023 (44)

Received my "Roundtable Feedback Review" this afternoon. It is a review from 11 teachers and staff members related to your behavior and attitudes associated with Accountability, Adaptability, Emotional, Social, Intercultural Engagement, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Collaboration, and additional categories. All my categories were "Meets - Developing" (which I am guessing is the default) except for one "Language and Intercultural Communication" which is my current language skills. No surprise there. 

They also dinged me for not using "Whereabouts" to text notify them when I went off site for our site visit. They obviously knew where I was because they drove me there. All the other volunteers I talked to said it was unnecessary for the same reason - the Peace Corps knew where we were going and when we would get there. Whatever! Maybe they just wanted us to have a strong reminder for the future.

But it was made clear to me that I was meeting all the categories except for language and even on that they knew I was working hard at it.

The pressure to get this language is strong.