Peace Corps Prom

So it's been a rough couple of weeks, for all of us here during PST (pre-service training).

During PST, we are all together in the same village with classes six days a week and living with our host families. This is basically practice integration and training in preparation for our next two years. Usually, we all have our language classes in the morning, then three more class sessions throughout the rest of the day that range from sector specific classes to medical information classes to policy classes. Its really hard; we are constantly bombarded by new information all day long, while trying to make new and supportive relationships, learn a new language, integrate into our communities, do homework and group projects, and attempt to maintain our sanity with no independence. I went from being a semi-functional 28 year old adult to being a 4 year old child that isn’t allowed to leave their town, be out at night, make any decisions about their schedule, or do simple tasks without someone literally taking things out of your hand to do it for you. So....that’s been a real struggle.

Due to the current political climate, we were unable to go visit our sites and we are rarely permitted to leave our village for a day trip. So, it goes without saying that we are all going a little nuts with cabin fever. But being the creative genius I am, I thought up this spectacular plan (if I do say so myself) for us to have a dance! I thought if we were able to listen to some good American grind music, shut all the windows of the church building we use for school so no Malawian can see in and stare at what we were doing, and had games and snacks everyone would have some much needed un-monitored fun. So we waited until all the main staff had left for the weekend, and very sneakily made plans and included only the PC trainees!

Muahahahaha!

We called it Peace Corps Prom and it had all the bells and whistles. People did promposals and could dress any way they wanted. We are really limited here in what we can wear, especially the women in our cohort, so by closing the windows we could wear whatever we wanted. Most of us wore tights and showed the world that we actually have curves! We made a great booty bumping playlist and created all kinds of decorations. We even had a photo booth with adorable props. To make sure that everyone felt included, we had a game area where anyone who didn’t want to dance could play cards and board games and another group watched Deadpool. We set out a snack table and had a flashing solar light that acted as a disco ball.

It was so much fun to just let loose! Almost everyone in the entire cohort showed up and we even crowned a prom king and queen (I totally got crowned Prom Queen guys!!!). Such great memories were made and everyone was so thankful for the break away from our reality. Don't mind me over here, I'm just patting the hell out of my own back for one of my best ideas yet.

22 June 2019

My prom date and I, taking obligatory awkward prom photos.

Colin, Brad, and Riley enjoying that photo booth!