Wrapping Up Training

It's been a busy couple days as we wrap up training and prepare for Swearing-in on Monday. For the past couple months, all of our sessions in Ouarzazate have been separated between the health group and the environment group. We are at different hotels across town and have our training and meals at our respective locations. For the past couple days, we've been together for all the "boring"-we-have-to-tell-you-these-things sessions. Unfortunately, this means the environment group has to walk across town in the morning, walk back to our hotel for lunch, walk back after lunch and then return to our hotel at the end of the day. While the really horrible summer weather hasn't hit yet, it is already really darn hot and always sunny. The room we use for training is tight with 60+ people in it and doesn't have much air circulation, so we are all a little worse for wear.
Tonight was a talent show, hosted by the health group. They put a lot more effort into it than the environment group did, but we all had a lot of fun. Tomorrow, the environment hotel is hosting a traditional music group after dinner. These events were organized by Peace Corps staff and the theory among the trainees is that it is an effort to keep us from going out partying these last few nights we'll be together. It is kind of working, although I think everyone is pretty exhausted from the past three months.
We've also had more free time during this last week of training than we had previously. It is kind of weird because most of us don't know what to do with ourselves. Its like we forgot what free time was and how we used to spend it. It is also a bit frustrating, because one of the top complaints among trainees was the lack of free time during training. It seems like we could have spread it out more evenly over the weeks instead of getting it all at once at the end. I think PC staff might be preparing us for the next phase of our service – being in our village without any structure and lots of time on our hands.