All about the IST

A scene from one of the final skits from our Theatre IST.

Every Peace Corps group in Peru gets one In-Service Training during their service. Peru 9 Youth Development’s was last week. It was held up in Piura, and yours truly plus two of my good friends from Peru 9 lead and taught it. The IST was about starting a Teen Theatre group in these small communities to talk about social issues. It was a three day workshop taught entirely in Spanish as volunteers were required to bring a Peruvian Community Partner with whom they would start a Teen Theatre group upon returning from the IST.

My Community Partner and I. Elba is so much fun. I'm glad I took her.

I am most proud of the fact that my Spanish managed to hold up, and that I did one of my favorite workshops entirely in Spanish. I'm really proud of our efforts to make it the best IST possible, and we heard that this is the first time PC-Peru has used volunteers to teach the Workshop. So we're very excited that this will be replicated with Peru 11, and that they will have our Peru 11 trainers.

But I think pictures say it best, I mean theatre really is all about action.

Volunteers playing the improv game "Machines".

Jamar and Jah playing props as Peruvian Cumbia Singers in a Music Video.

Ali, Elena, and me the three Volunteer trainers. We had such a good time, really NAILED IT.

All in all, I feel like people had a really good time. I didn't hear a negative comment the entire time, and people who were only doing it to do it, said they learned a lot and are excited to go back to their sites and use it. So I think we should be pretty happy. I think there are ways we can fix it before the Peru 11 IST, but that will come when it comes.