Now We’re The Veterans…

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, AZ7s, the new group of Volunteers, have arrived. They arrived on October 1st and have been in training since then, and will stay there until they swear in as Volunteers (now they’re considered Trainees) in mid-December. Well, with the exception of the past few days. They had their Volunteer site visits and I was lucky to be able to host two new CED Volunteers (this is a great change from last year, where we visited random Volunteers instead of Volunteers in our same sector – CED, TEFL or YD). They arrived on Sunday afternoon and left on Wednesday morning, and the purpose of the visit was to see what life is like as a Volunteer in the regions, outside of their training “bubble” where they can still speak English everyday and have a set schedule. And while there’s not much to see in my town (it’s not one of the few tourist locations that Azerbaijan has) we had a great time. We had social time with Kevin (my sitemate) and the Trainees that came to visit him, explored the bazaar, made normal PCV visits to places like the bank, post office, multiple stores, cooked non-Azeri food and they also came to work with me on Tuesday. I know one of the main things I came away with from my own site visit last year was how much I would really use Azeri once I moved to site, and I think that’s true for them too – I only use English for a couple classes that I teach and then every other interaction I have is in Azeri – at the bazaar, the post office, with my Director, etc. They also bombarded me with questions about my experiences and got answers that will hopefully help them as they prepare for their service. Some of the questions were the following: What/who helped you when you moved to your permanent site (learning your way around, starting work, etc.)? Can you buy peanut butter anywhere in Azerbaijan? How much do you communicate with the Peace Corps staff once you’re at site? What’s your money situation – is what you’re given enough? What are the conferences that happen later in our service? What’s your favorite and least favorite thing about Azerbaijan/your site/Peace Corps? How can I influence my site placement? And on and on. But that’s okay, my group was exactly the same way last year. Now they’ve returned to their training environment and I’m sure they’re all comparing notes on what they learned and experienced on their site visits (along with where they want to end up, I’m sure)…

And while this site visit is mainly for the benefit of the Trainees, it was great on my end too. The Trainees really re-energized me as I look towards the remainder of my service and what I want/need to accomplish by then. It was kind of surreal today to talk to my Director – he had an application for a Volunteer (a different organization that he knows the Director of) that was too late for this year, so it will be considered next year, and while I was telling him this he told me that we’ll want to apply for his organization next year too – and if approved that person will replace me when I leave! That kind of brought it home for me how fast this time has gone and how quickly the rest of the time will go…I better get back to work!