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.