English Conversation Club

July 12, 2007

Today we had our first English conversation club and it was a huge success. As youth development directors PC wants us to create English conversation clubs within our communities as a way for us to learn how to work within the communities and learn more about the youth of Azerbaijan, while providing an opportunity for the youth to practice their English, which is a seen as a very marketable skill here.

Me and the four other volunteers at my site decided to have our first meeting together and then gradually split off into our individual groups. As we’ve been preparing for the meeting we had wondered whether anyone would show up or if it would only be guys, since most of our families said girls wouldn’t show up because they have too many other things to do (which means preparing food and cleaning up after the men), but we were all surprised and excited when an hour before the meeting was supposed to begin people started to show up. In all we had 16 people show up and even more exciting over half were girls! This is our seed and each additional week each of them will bring more and more friends and pretty soon we should have a big group of youth to practice English with. We’re going to try to do it in an environment where they are learning while having fun.

Things are still going great. I haven’t even had a down day yet. Everyday there is something new I learn and some new food I eat I’m really enjoying my time here.