Hey all, I have been at my site (Karakol) for a few days now. We swore in as volunteers on Thursday, and were whisked away by our counterparts and host families for our permanent sites. On Friday, I got to go to the university I’ll be working at and meet some of the staff in the departments I’ll work with. The veteran volunteers have been showing us around and helping us get settled into our work sites. On Saturday, four of us got together to plan (and un-plan) a teacher training that we will lead this week. The training will be five days long for five hours a day. The plan is to focus on improving teachers’ English language skills while working with a new curriculum that some teachers are using in their classes. More on how this turns out later. I am excited to jump into work, but I’d like to see a couple of other Teacher Trainings in order to observe and glean techniques. After the next couple weeks, many people go on vacation and work slows to a halt in Education. That might be a time for me to get in on some existing clubs, camps, or trainings that other volunteers have going. We will see.

My host family is great. I have a mom, a brother and two sisters. My brother and older sister are students in another city and will come home in a few weeks for the summer. The youngest is 6 years old. She is a bit of a fashionista. My brother was trying to take me to the center to meet some other volunteers, but we were late because my sister had to change her outfit 2 times and had to have two fluorescent orange bracelets on before leaving! She’s cute though and is really intelligent. She hangs out with adults a lot and is learning English in her kindergarten.

My birthday was good. Thanks for the texts and emails. It actually meant more than I thought it would. Generally, I despise being the center of attention, but it has been good to realize that there are still people thinking of me at home and new friends welcoming me here. When I woke up, my host mom was making me a cake, which caused my sister to have a sugar-high and fits of giggling. I resumed my role as dish washer in my host family; this actually is rewarding and makes me feel like a part of the family. Later my sister and I watched, a homemade dvd from a New Year’s party at a kindergarten. New Year’s here is like Halloween and Christmas smashed together. Kids dress up in costumes and the commercial holiday decorations (Christmas tree, santa, frosty, snow/ice princess etc) are featured. After that I got to shower!!! Yes, shower! We have one inside our house, and it can be hot. A bunch of the city volunteers met to have pizza and cake at a local cafe. If your wondering if I’m still in the Peace Corps, I am, but there are some aspects of my time here that remind me of why Central Asia/Eastern Europe have the nickname “Posh Corps.” We have amenities that other volunteers might not have. This is also true because I live in a city in K’stan, but I’m feeling spoiled today. (See Gramma, no worries!)

This is a longish blog, so I’ll end here. Note: I’m working on getting pictures uploaded somewhere, and I have a personal goal to make Sunday blog day just to keep some regularity. I’ll try for a mid-week post as I get life settled.

All’s well. – Amber

~ by Amber on June 6, 2010.