Apartment? Yes please~Thank you!

Let's say you decide to join the Peace Corps. You've gone through the 90 days of probation followed by meeting the living requirements (whatever they may be) of staying with your host family and finally come upon the date that is pivotal in your service: Moving Out of your Host Family FOR GOOD! Well folks, here in Peace Corps Azerbaijan, we are required to stay with our host family during pst (pre-service training) and then 5 months at the site you've been assigned before you can move out. Of course nothing is guaranteed, so I'd ask you to remember that little nugget of info as I proceed to tell my story.

As I write this, I am essentially 3 weeks from the golden gates springing open to the glory of independence.com and your girl is a warm body of anxiousness. April 10 is the BIG DAY. Well in my little world it is. I'm eyeballing that date too. Waking up and thanking every day that passes like" hi there March 19th. nice to see you! hate to see you go. sike!"

Why do I want to move out to so bad?

1. I'm getting too old for noise and I'm typically the loudest person in the room. Karma is a mutha!
2. I like to come home without anyone asking me what I saw and who I did.
3. Food (oh man, my issues with food belong in their own blog post, but I'll keep this simple) and cooking in my own kitchen
4. I'd like to be alone and funky
5. I like to sing-to the top of my lungs
6. I like to play my music-to the top of my ipods lungs
7. The Guy is coming from Amerika and we are going to need a red light and some privacy-word!
8. I just think it's a good idea to show that many Americans prefer to live independently from their nuclear family and that's goal #2 of Peace Corps.

but here I make the case for living with a host family

1. Once a guest, always a guest. Do you let your guest wash dishes and clothes? probably not. relax!
2. If it's broken, they will fix it. Relax!
3. Want something to eat, they will cook it. relax!
4. Practice your azeri (sorry-this doesn't go well in my house. we speak english to each other around the clock, mostly)
5. uhhhhh, hmmm..the 5th reason to stay with your family is...uhm, because-well? gosh I don't know the 5th reason. OH OH 

5. the 5th reason to stay with a host family is because they will undoubtedly help you become more connected with your community through visiting neighbors, helping you navigate your neighborhood, and just allowing someone to vouch for you because trust me, once someone has seen you-then the questions come and the host family can sorta filter that. (run on sentence I know-forgive me).

I think independent housing is on a person by person case. Some people who I just knew would want to live alone, are actually deciding to stay with their host family. Good for them! Some people have their bags packed and steam in the caboose.Good for us!

But I'm moving out. I have to. I'm too--what's the word---anti-clammy to live with a host family.  I can't seem to let my hair down or get comfortable. I'm still living out of my suitcase if you can imagine that. It's not mine if that make sense. No matter how welcoming the people have been here, I'm still in guest mode. I cooked in the kitchen once and that was my lame attempt at getting comfortable, and it was a fail. Azeri women like their kitchens and they don't want any old schmuck(that would be me) coming in playing chemist-talking about they(read as me) are going to make fajitas and end up setting the roof on fire.Makes them nervous and antsy. You? American Brown Girl can cook? I gotta see this! and then I, American Brown Girl, burns the sugar cookies obliterating my reputation and any other future chance to cook in the beloved kitchen for myself (emphasis on for my self).

I digress.

Anyhow,I am on the hunt for that house and I really would love for things to go well. Keep your fingers crossed because as it stands "Mene eve lazimdir, kiraye qalmaq ucun" has brought me zip, zilch, nada!

Oh-by the way, I saw this one place and honey let me tell you, they should have just shot my eyes out. Place was a nightmare-but we can talk about that later!

sag olun!

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A foot in the door

My conversation clubs are probably one of the highlights of my service thus far. I would not have imagined that at all. I think I approached working in the classroom with trepidation in part because of language. My school places a higher emphasis on Russian than on English with majority of students at the most saying "hello" and not much else. But my clubs are pretty fun. I have on average 6 students mostly between the age of 11-14. My other club has about 16 students ranging from 7 to 18 years old. Want to know what is winning them over?

MOVIES!

The last movie I showed them was Coraline. I separated the older kids from the younger kids by giving them their own post-movie tasks. For young children they learned essential vocabulary related to what really stuck out to them such as buttons, eyes, pumpkin, spider, family, etc. The older children got questions related to danger for example and would they do something they really did not want to do. I also asked them if they would trade in their family for a different family. Be glad-the resounding answer was no.

Now we are working on Princess and The Frog, a carry over from Black History month.

The other club that has a large turnout and high participation is What say you-Beginners English.

We play pictionary, actor, and 5 second fill in the blank. Pictionary is definitely fun. I'm amazed at how easily roused the students get when they want their friends/classmates to guess the correct answer. Pictionary usually turns out to be a stick figure for everything on the white board with a bunch of impression dots to say LOOK HERE! THIS IS WHAT WINDY LOOKS LIKE. LOOK SEE..RIGHT HERE! I'M BANGING THE MARKER ON THE BOARD AND IT'S A STICK FIGURE. CAN'T YOU TELL THAT I JUST DREW THE EPITOME OF WINDY !?!!!

Actor is also interesting because I'm finding out that there is a bit of an imagination block with the children. So I often take them outside the classroom to show them how to display words or phrases such as putting on clothes, opening an umbrella, climbing inside a box, etc. It never fails. "Miss Malaika Miss Malaika, burda gel!" This means " teacher, come outside and show me what opening an umbrella looks like because I don't know." I squat down as close to eye  level with them and show them what it means to open an umbrella. The light bulb goes off in their head and I believe I am planting that imagination seed right then and there.

The other thing we do is a race game called 5 second fill in the blank. I write a load of sentences and each student has 5 seconds to fill in with the correct word or preposition, whichever I recently taught them. Extra points for reading the paragraph out loud. This amounts to loads of scribbled writing, pushed in marker tips, and some real hoots and hollers from the winning team.

Are they ultimately learning English? I think so but I don't push it on them. I think it's more important that they can use their own brain rather than someone telling them what to do. It's more important to me that they use reasoning than reciting the same ole "how are you, what is your name, I was born, la la la". It's more important that they trust their own instincts as opposed to being led astray by something that looks good but really isn't going to get them anywhere. And I prefer them to display however they wish, their own confidence and self esteem. In that process if they learn how to introduce themselves in English, talk about their favorite things in English and can tell you their astrological sign in Enlgish then OLDO (meaning fine, alrighty then, okay)!

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