2 Years of Being a School Teacher - check

Today was graduation and school is officially over. I’m never ever EVER teaching again and couldn’t be happier about it. I know this means I am one step closer to coming home, but 103 days still sounds like an eternity away. At least I won’t be too bored while counting down till September 12th. I am barely going to be at site in June due to my Riga vacation and the Close of Service Conference, and then in July I’m planning and participating in a number of summer camps which will keep me busy and whining for at least a few more weeks. In addition I have decided to take the Foreign Service Exam, which also fits in that time period of crazy.

Other than that the Peace Corps has been quite the love mixer lately. We are on our way to marry off our second PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) couple in June and are wondering who is next. The first two got hitched back in January and moved in together right after. They are both in my group and are preparing to go home, meet each other’s families, and plan the American wedding with all the perks they didn’t get here. The second couple is a mix between my group and the new group, and is tying the knot in the next week or so. The wife to be, Mariko is extending her service one year and switching her site so she can be with her man. None of this of course can happen in Azerbaijan, so both couples have had to go to Georgia in order to legalize their union. They come back with the papers and PC handles all the rest. Love love love. BLAH! Speaking of this, just this week I realized that I have forgotten what to do with myself around normal, interesting and attractive men. My local interactions with the opposite sex are either accompanied with anger and annoyance (at local Azeris), or the sisterly nudge nudge (with PC guys). How did I figure this out? It happened three days ago, when a Spanish cyclist contacted me via Couch Surfers, asking if he could stay with me since he was to pass by on his way to Iran. He is taking on the world with his bike and at the age of 40 has been on the road for 4 years and has gone through South America and Africa already. He left his job as a lawyer in Spain, and while on the road entertains the poorest of the poor as a clown, for which he actually has training. If you speak Spanish and would like to check out his videos you can go to his website at www.biciclown.com. Needless to say he was just as amazing in person as he is on paper, and yours truly wanted to hide under the table not knowing what to do with herself around him. Quite sad, I hope my flirting skills come back to me once I return to civilization because this is totally UNACCEPTABLE!

And now back to my Peace Corps life. I have been quite busy in the past two months planning an Earth Day event and an end of the school year assembly with my 5th formers. For Earth Day I planned an awareness campaign for my classes, which ended up with a school clean-up on the weekend. Around 25 students showed up, and we had a grand time picking up syringes, beer bottles, and cigarette butts. At the end I gave all of them hand sanitizer and candy for their hard work. The end of the school year event was a bit more complicated since I had to teach 26 students a number of poems and songs. It sounds easy, but I tell you getting those kids into gear and controlling 26 little torpedoes is a tough job. It took 3 months to have them learn 4 songs, a poem, and create a letter from cardboard. Any less, and the program wouldn’t have been a success. The theme was the alphabet so each student had to make their own letter, say a poem about it and learn 4 songs with the accompanying dances. On May 16th we had an assembly inviting parents and teachers and it was an utter success. I was very proud of the little ones and almost cried when they presented me with gifts and speeches about what a great teacher I am. Now I know that there is something I will miss once I go from here.

I have also been working with my Jehovah’s Witness counterpart, who along with her group have been harassed and persecutes since they started their activities here. She has written a letter to mail out to different NGO’s and International organizations and I have been helping her revise it and make it more professional. The letter entails all of the discriminatory acts against Jehovah’s Witnesses by town people, the police and the Ex Com and is quite lengthy. Her English is not that good so it hasn’t been an easy task to arrange and re-write it. I have uploaded the letter in case you want to read or give it to anyone who may help. You can download it HERE.

And finally, I have been an essential part of the Barda Bandits, and had to say goodbye to a friend who recently quit due to the fact he got a job in Iraq. 3 more blog entries till the end!!!