Back To Training...

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in a training session for the AZ7s, the Trainees who arrived in October and will swear in as Volunteers next week. The session that I helped with was called “What To Do When There’s Nothing To Do (Problem Solving)” and I was there along with another Volunteer. We brought very different experiences to the session – she had almost too much work to do right from the very beginning while I definitely experienced a lot of downtime in the beginning. We talked about our experiences – what our challenges were/are, how we solved problems, what we did upon moving to site, and much more. It was almost more interesting to just answer their questions. They all have their permanent site assignments and are getting an idea of what their next two years are really going to be like. Before receiving site assignments it all seems a bit hypothetical – there’s really no way of knowing how they’re going to use all this information that is being given to them. For example, the other Volunteer that I presented with lives in the second largest city in Azerbaijan, has multiple English speakers at her counterpart organization, and very rarely uses Azerbaijani, whereas I’m just the opposite since I’m in a smaller town, without English speakers at my counterpart organization, and I rarely use English. But that’s something that is specific to each Volunteer, the city/village they are placed in, the organization they will work with, and the community projects they will undertake.

It was kind of surreal to be back in the familiar environment of Sumgayit – going to the same internet café, eating at the same restaurant (even recognizing employees from those places), etc. But there were obviously new things there too – different Americans, a new bus station, and of course, I understood much more of what was being said. Due to the travel time necessary I stayed in Sumgayit for two nights, which made it a great time to get to know the new Volunteers. I stayed with one of the Trainees (at her host family’s), chatted with the Trainees before and after the session, had tea with one who wanted some more discussion because he’s going to an organization that’s very similar to mine, and even went to a conversation club that a couple of the Trainees were participating in. It was a great addition to the Thanksgiving weekend (I went to straight to Sumgayit from Baku) and I’m excited to get to know these Volunteers once they move to their permanent sites and they’re in the “real” Azerbaijan out of their training environment. They are super excited to move to the regions and get to work, and hopefully that will help to reinvigorate the rest of us as we, the AZ6s, move into our final year of service. Due to the time it takes to integrate and increase language skills, most Volunteers say that their second year is much more productive than their first…so let’s see what we can do!