Photos

I had a post from sept 11th that didn't load right i will post it next time in. Here are some recent pics.

The first is of my good friend Whitney in front of the Caspian Sea.

The next is of me and my good oregon buddies.

This is me and my cluster mate Jenni

This is me and the coolest Azeri i've met she is my language teacher vafa

The last is of my new room

The First Week Of The Next Two Years Of My Life!

September 24, 2007

I apologize for how long it has been since my last post. The last 2 weeks have been really busy. I’ll try my best to fill you in on everything that has happened.

Back on September 12th we had our swearing in ceremony. Even despite the stifling heat and the feel of a high school graduation it was really pretty neat. We all got dressed up and our host families came. We had speeches from representatives of the 3 ministries our programs fall under the ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, and Economic Development. Then we had a speech from the U.S. Ambassador who did hers in Azeri followed by one in English. Then we had a couple speeches from volunteers one in English and one in Azeri. After all the talking we stood up and raised our right hand and recited the same pledge to defend the constitution that I did 12 years ago before going to basic training. (that was kind of strange) Then each of our names was called as we walked across the stage getting congratulated by the Ambassador, our country director, and training director. Afterward we had some good food with our families and then all the volunteers and language teachers went out to celebrate and say our good byes.

The next morning I awakened to the realization that I should have started my packing sooner, and threw all my stuff together as fast as I could. I made my bus and was off with the wonderful feelings of anticipation. As I was riding on the 8 hour bus I had a bit of time to reflect and the major feelings I was having were finally the “oh crap what have I gotten myself into”. I have been waiting for these feelings from the day I finally got my acceptance letter but up to this point hadn’t really felt them. I think with every great adventure you really have to have the moments where you ask yourself, “What in the world am I doing?” And the more times you ask yourself that the better the adventure will be. So I was feeling the opposite of what most people would feel in that situation since I had the conscious understanding that these feelings were not only good but also exciting.

I got to my house and from the moment I walked in the door I had an overwhelming feeling of being the long lost relative, which they couldn’t wait to have return. I had been a bit apprehensive after my site visit but all those feelings melted away as soon as I arrived. I went into my room dropped my bags and actually felt as if that was my room. The next day I unpacked all my things, did laundry, and spent the time settling in.

On Monday I went to work where my 2 counterparts and myself went all around town meeting many different people. Of those were the directors of the college and teachers institute. They asked me if I would be willing to teach both English conversation clubs and computer classes. I said yes and then thought, “Do I have any idea how to teach a computer class?” I mean sure I know how to use a computer but to teach a class! I thought that especially when I was asked to help a man in the office next to ours. He said there was a problem with the monitor going to sleep. I went in and looked at it for a few minutes and I was stumped to. I couldn’t even press control alt del to restart the computer. So I thought well we can unplug it and try to start every thing up again and it was only at that moment that I realized he had not turned the computer on. He had only turned the monitor on and couldn’t figure out why it didn’t all just come on. That got me thinking this is going to be hard to realize all the things we think are just common knowledge.

Reading over this it seems paint a picture of a much less busy week one in which I could have written many posts. In reality however it was really busy, things just seem to work in slow motion here sometimes. Take this post for example it is just longer than a page in a word document but it has taken me two days to write because the power has gone out so many times and my battery no longer holds a charge. I promise as I get into my routine I will update this much more often.

This is a shameless attempt to get each of you to include a frisbee in you next (or first) care package! We loved this one to death and i'm not even at my site yet where i had planned on getting them into ultimate frisbee since it's so foriegn that boys and girls can play together. My thought was if i put it on the blog each of you will send one and then we will have many for all the teams i want to start! the ones that ore the best are the ultimate or heavy weight ones. I think they are 180oz -200oz. then if you have any other old sports equipment laying around the house we could really make good use of it over here! ie. basketballs, soccer balls, footballs, old baseball mits, and softballs. If you deflate the balls i can get a pump here and they wont take up too much room! thanks in advance!!

Photos

Here are some new pics the first is of my cluster and LCF, the second is of our great teacher vafa trying to teach us, the next is my oregon friend sporting the ducks shirt the day of the first game! the last is of some traditional azeri dance.

“I’m about to go eat a bologna sandwich!”

September 2, 2007

Last Sunday was probably my worse day thus far! I’d been going through a little mini slump in my motivation. I thought I had sent some subtle hints in emails and the post previous to that day, that my attitude was not as rosy as it was when I left. I hadn’t been to the internet café for a week and as I was going there all I could think was how I was going to have so many emails because I hadn’t been there in so long. So when I opened my email and all I had was junk mail I was devastated.

I pasted the post I had previously written which explained even further how I was having a hard time. I sent the email letting all my friends and family know that I had updated the blog and was about to leave, but then said no wait a minute I’m going to need to prod a little more if I want to get their attention. So I sent a second email mainly explaining how excited I had been and how if I had just had one email not even saying anything important just a simple, “I was online nothing new has changed just wanted you to know I was thinking about you” how that would have made my day that day! Classic guilt trip stuff.

Well as you can imagine my inbox 3 days later was stuffed full of all sorts of emails. I got the “keep your head up”, “you inspire me”, and the “don’t worry this will pass” emails. But my absolute favorite and the one that totally made my day was from my best friend Dave it was in a string of completely random emails he had been sending each time he got online and it only read, “I’m about to go eat a bologna sandwich”. Nothing more nothing less and that was enough to totally make my day! I even think a few azeri’s got a kick out of it as they were laughing at the crazy American who couldn’t stop laughing at his computer. Thank you all for the encouragement and happiness you have brought me this last week.

I don’t know how to describe the feeling someone goes through when they leave their family and friends and life happens while they’re gone. When you’re away you feel as if everything has stopped and all people are doing is sitting around wondering what’s going on with you in Azerbaijan. You don’t think about how when you were back in the US a week or month went by without every realizing it.

This experience is really humbling in understanding how much a person really depends on friends and family. I know there is no way I could ever do this without all of your support. I also know there are many of you reading this who have children, siblings, parents, or friends who here with me. As much as I want you to read this please open a new window and send them a little note even if it’s as simple as “I just ate a bologna sandwich!” They will love every word of it and it may just make their day!

This last week as I said has been much better. We had a hub day where all the trainees came together for a day of lectures. Our language teacher shook things up a bit, which was good. She split our class in two. For two hours she works with the more advanced then the next two hours she works with us that need a little more attention. Then during the other two hours she has us sit in a separate room studying vocabulary.

Then yesterday we had a cultural day where we tried to share parts of our culture and then went and had a great traditional meal followed by a fantastic demonstration of Azeri dance. The part we shared had to do with environmental awareness. The main hub city we all live in and around is ranked by the state department as the most polluted city in the world. There just isn’t any infrastructure to deal with all the trash yet. So as most people would do they burn garbage here. Yesterday we tried to educate university students and anyone else that would listen about the harmful effects of plastic and then told them about the new plastic recycling plant, which is opening this month. Then we all went out to the beach and picked up hundreds of bags of plastic water bottles. It was great when looking at the truck seeing how much we were doing but really disheartening when looking at the beach and realizing we had only walked about a half mile. We have to just keep reminding ourselves that these are baby steps but you need to take those before you can run.

So things are starting to wind down here in training. This next week we have our last language test. Then we have two hub days next week learning about transitioning into service and then later next week we’ll have our swearing in ceremony and the next day move to our permanent sites! Thanks again to everyone for the flood of emails.