Blogging in the Peace Corps

The number one rule in blogging is to write. If a blog isn’t frequently updated, people lose interest, and without interest, this becomes nothing more than a diary. A proper blog should be informative, which is what I hope this is. That being said, my circumstances have made it hard for me to update my blog as frequently as it should be.

I have an alternative, though. I’m going to be writing posts at home, but since there is not internet connection, I won’t be able to upload them right away. So, when I do get around to getting them online, there should be a couple posts to read. I hope that will suffice.

Also, on the ‘about’ page, there is a disclaimer that should be read. I thought I had written it already, but apparently not.

Rusdili bilirsan? Inshallah.

Originally Written December 10th

I started my Russian lessons today.  A friend in the neighborhood to tutor me a few times a week, and while I’m really excited about the idea, the reality of the situation hit me right in the face this morning.  But before I get into my realization that this is going to be really difficult, I should give a little background.

When I came back from Korea, I needed to finish one more year of a foreign language for my B.A. requirements.  In many ways, continuing with Korean would have been the obvious choice, as I had just returned, and could probably hold my own with second year students, so there would be no need to start at the beginning level.  But before I had left for Korea, I had taken a year of Spanish, and ultimately decided to pursue that language during my final year at PSU.  Along with being a simpler language to learn (with saner professors), Spanish held the title of being the ‘more practical’ language.
I think it would be hard to argue that there would be any language that is more practical to my being right now than Azerbaijani.  As I have learned in my time here, I’m only as good as I can say I am.  For example, I might want to do some project in the computer room at school, but if I don’t know the work for ‘open’ or ‘key,’ I’ll never get in there, and any ideas I had will all have been for nothing.  I plan on relaying this bit of wisdom to then next batch of volunteers.
Still, I don’t think that taking Russian lessons and not getting a tutor for Azerbaijani is analogous to the Korean-Spanish situation. I’m not dropping one for the other.  I’ll still be speaking Azerbaijani all the time. I don’t really study Azeri any more, and that my improvement of the language has come from practice, not from cram sessions.  And while I don’t want to simply get by, should my Azeri not get any better, I certainly wouldn’t be stranded.

I’m looking at this as a chance to broaden my linguistic horizons and learn a language in a place where nearly everyone knows it.  I would put my salary on the table and bet that at least 50% of the people in Ujar speak Russian.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the percentage was closer to 80 either.  Do you speak Russian? is probably the second most commonly asked question I get, after Are you from England?.

I also think that I’m getting on board of this whole Russian thing early enough in the game that I could walk away with some competent ability in the language.  I’m amazingly six months into my Peace Corps service, and with 21 months left in this little country, I’d like to think that learning Russian could do me some real good, both while I’m here, and afterward.

November and December Workplan

So this might be more interesting because it’s taken me so long to upload it, but here is my November and December Workplan.  Without going into detail about every point, I think I’ve done pretty much all I wanted to do with a few minor exceptions.

I’m also in Baku right now for In Service Training, so we can talk about how to do some projects after the November and December groundwork stuff.

Approachng IST

On Christmas, I’ll be heading to Baku for our groups In-Service Training.  The original dates were supposed during this week, but it had to get pushed back for some Peace Corps reason.

Except for Thanksgiving, and other informal meetings of Peace Corps Volunteers over the past few months, this will be one of the few times that all of us will be together.  The obvious appeal of this is that we haven’t seen each other in this type of setting since Pre Service Training, where we were put into this type of group setting every week, if not everyday.  Then again, the downside, which might be better left unsaid, is that there is going to be a lot of schmoozing going.  An innocent mistake, but I’m not much of a schmoozer.

That aside, I’m really looking forward to the two days of meetings.  Honestly.  I just read an email from one of the Program Managers, and it said that one purpose of the training was to get “reenergized,” which I couldn’t agree with more.

I’m not sure how other volunteers here feel about this, but I think things have become a bit stagnent, which makes sense.  When we finished training, we were told that we were only getting enough information to get through the next six months, not the next two years.  We were ready to go into our communities, find contacts, introduce ourselves and our purposes, and look for projects that would be appropriate for our communities.  I feel like a lot of us have done that, and now we’re all sitting around, wondering “now what?”  Hopefully, our training will give us some answers.

northwestjeff: Volunteer, blogger, journalist

Last week, a column that I wrote for my hometown newspaper was published.  Here’s a link the the article.  I was approached by someone at the paper, who just had some questions about why I joined the Peace Corps, and things of that nature.  After a few responses, we decided that a column might be more appropriate, as the process is essentially ongoing.  I’m not exactly sure how often it will be running, but I’ll try to post links to them as they come up.