My Sudden Transitions

Thirty hours on a train doesn’t really feel that long anymore. This past week I did the now-familiar trek to Almaty and back for our Mid Service Training (MST) conference. Organized by our lovely staff in Almaty, the conference gave all Kaz-19s the opportunity to take a week off from work to re-evaluate, re-focus, re-lax, and re-juvenate while staying at a lodge-style hotel complex in KZ’s economic capital.

This was the first training in which both EDU and OCAP volunteers lived and trained together, meaning that I saw some volunteers which I hadn’t seen since Swearing In last November. This change in PC protocol is mainly due to a restructuring in Regional Managers (RM) which was spurred by a tight budget and a need for higher efficiency in staffing. Previously, RMs covered an oblast or two’s worth of PCVs, but only those from one of the two programs. For example, my oblast had one RM for the 6 EDU PCVs and another for the lone OCAP PCV. Now, all PCVs in the area are under one RM, thereby saving money for site visits and hopefully increasing our collaboration across program lines. But all that is abbreviation-laden PC jargon for: This year will be a bit different (and hopefully more efficient) than last.

In more concrete terms regarding the result and effect of the conference on one PCV in particular, I found MST to be very helpful. The conference gave us the much needed chance to digest and synthesize the first year of service, brainstorm, plan and prepare for the second, and spend some quality time with other PCVs from all parts of the country. The first sessions were geared at acknowledging our first year’s achievements, projects, and challenges, as well as setting personal and professional goals and plans for the second year. Mine are as follows:

Accomplishments:
Learned enough Russian to feel comfortable
Found a successful team-teaching equilibrium with my CP
Taught many students (at least some) English
Gave motivated students a reason and possibility to greatly improve their English
Conducted/Helped lead several conferences and camps

Challenges:
Staying positive in a culture in which many things still “just don’t make sense” (Focusing on what I can change, and letting go what I can’t)
Preventing “Senior-itis” from preventing me from staying motivated
Continuing Russian tutoring
Planning for Post-PC options while trying to live in the present

Personal Goals:
Travel to more PCV sites to help with conferences and projects
Plan for Post-PC (Grad schools?, International teaching programs??, real job???)
Participate in Chrishenya (January 19th dunk in frozen river blessed by Orthodox priests)
Study more Russian, Kazakh, Spanish, GRE-prep (i.e. be more productive in free time, play less Freecell, watch fewer movies)
Cook with the Host Fam

Professional Goals:
Write a grant to get some English teaching resources for my school
Scan/print/compile a grammar resource notebook with worksheets and handouts not found in local textbooks
Preserve and organize current materials made in the past year (activities, magazine pictures, visual aids)
Host a teacher training conference at my supporting institute in January
Actively search for new village EDU and city OCAP sites for suture volunteers

In addition to these sessions, we received further training on subjects including grant writing, promoting volunteerism, teaching primary students, organizing and maintaining English Clubs, and many more. We were also treated with guest speakers who lead roundtable discussions about diversity, history, and violence in Kazakhstan. All the seminars and workshops gave us bits and pieces of information and skills to use and share in our next (and last) twelve months in country.

Extracurricular activities included shopping at the Zelony Bazaar, reenacting the Amazing Race episode from Almaty, playing capture the flag at the hotel complex, playing guitar live on stage at a night club (our band was called Spaghetti), running into a Petro University teacher, and trading stories, experiences, movies and pictures with each other. PS – if anyone wants to send me a cool, sleek little “passport” 300GB external hard-drive, I wouldn’t be opposed.

Now back at site, I am concentrating on our school’s English seminar and open lessons to be observed by the city department and English teachers this Friday. My CP is overly anxious about it, but she’s prepared it so thoroughly that it is bound to be an immense success.

Time to get cracking on those goals.