This week, I spent my time in Bacolod City, in Negros, Occidental. It is a beautiful city, very modern, with lots of culture and pride. I was working with three Australian volunteers from two different Australian organizations, and with two other Peace Corps Volunteers, one of which is a Peace Corps Response volunteer who was in charge of setting up a GIS training project.
Throughout the week, I was really impressed with 1) the participants showed a real investment in learning the material and a stamina for sitting through a full week of really tough stuff, and 2) Our Australian counterparts showed a level of professionalism that was really a breath of fresh air. It was an air of sophistication that I really haven't seen during Peace Corps trainings thus far. I've worked with Australians before on field crews where I could see clear differences in culture with Americans. I think the lack of perceived professionalism is due in part to Peace Corps' efforts at total integration and understanding of the local culture, and we could see the real value of a truly straightforward approach without the games, or the wavering deadlines, or really much 'emotional' stuff at all. Us Peace Corps volunteers were very soft with our communication, giving energizers at breaks and singing songs to break the tension, all of the suggestions we've been given by program staff, while the Australians were nice, but did not spend as much time 'making people comfortable', got right to the point, moved along at the necessary pace regardless of whether a few people were left behind, and ultimately, the Australians, I believe, were more successful in getting the information across to participants. 
The objective of the whole week was to work with Provincial government Disaster Management Personnel to train in the use of GPS and GIS tools to create spatial data for modeling and reference during emergencies like typhoons, floods, earquakes, landslides, and volcanoes here. If you are familiar with GIS, you will understand how the creation of spatial data on demographics, structures, dwellings, roads, rivers and the like can be used to not only respond to disasters, but predict effected parties, steer land use planning in disaster-vulnerable areas, and do a multitude of other functions. 
Our class consisted of about 40 Provicial engineers, employees, and IT staff who would be in charge of gathering required information to be consolidated into GIS databases and would also be tasked with attaining new GPS'ed information on existing features of areas, population data, all sorts of stuff. Although the training was really technical, and we packed a huge amount of information into one week, teaching everything from satellite triangulation, to explaining Latitude and Longitude, to going into digitizing information and creating modeling scenarios for natural disasters, the participants hung on and got a lot out of it. The ultimate goal, to teach people the need for this technology, and to get them interested, was superceded. At the end of the 5 long days of training, people who were learning how to right click on Monday morning, were asking how they could get recent Raster files for their provinces and how they could simultaneously project multiple files into WGS 84/Zone 51. In other words, they came a long way in just 5 days.
We were fortunate that while we were here for the training, Bacolod was also celebrating the Masskara Festival, a famous mardi-gras type of street fiesta. The festival is full of ornate costumes, dancing, music, and lots of drinking.
Throughout the week, I was really impressed with 1) the participants showed a real investment in learning the material and a stamina for sitting through a full week of really tough stuff, and 2) Our Australian counterparts showed a level of professionalism that was really a breath of fresh air. It was an air of sophistication that I really haven't seen during Peace Corps trainings thus far. I've worked with Australians before on field crews where I could see clear differences in culture with Americans. I think the lack of perceived professionalism is due in part to Peace Corps' efforts at total integration and understanding of the local culture, and we could see the real value of a truly straightforward approach without the games, or the wavering deadlines, or really much 'emotional' stuff at all. Us Peace Corps volunteers were very soft with our communication, giving energizers at breaks and singing songs to break the tension, all of the suggestions we've been given by program staff, while the Australians were nice, but did not spend as much time 'making people comfortable', got right to the point, moved along at the necessary pace regardless of whether a few people were left behind, and ultimately, the Australians, I believe, were more successful in getting the information across to participants. 
People seemed to respect the fact that the Australians were not as interested in being 'fluffy' and 'nice.' It just helped to show me that cultural integration and patience has a place, but sometimes that is not the most effective in achieving the desired result.
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