Thanks to the American Taxpayer... again

This past week was pretty good. Got a good amount of work done, got to meet some new people and made it another week without becoming a popsicle.

We are getting prepared for Peace Corps week from which will be the first week of March. The volunteers in the area are going to go around to the different schools and talk about our mission statement, talk about health related topics and show them how to better play basketball. Speaking of, I think I am going to give up on the basketball thing. It is too time-consuming, the kids don’t listen, and I have better things to do that will actually amount to something. So that’s that.

Last week, I had to go into the town to get some money and to take care of some other errands. Anyway, while I was there, I had to return screwdrivers to Vincent and got to meet some couch-surfers who were coming through. They were two French girls hitching it through Armenia, about my age. They were really interesting to talk to and we made an afternoon out of it, talking about travels and what we were doing. It was a lot of fun. They were a lot nicer than the french people we met last September. Very pleasant talk.

This weekend, I had to go to Yerevan. Lots of meetings. We had a health volunteer meeting to discuss some things and then we had an HIV/AIDS meeting to talk about what we wanted to get accomplished this upcoming year. It was really good and I hope we can deliver on everything that we planned on doing. Afterwards, I met with American Councils and I gave a presentation on AIDS and the spread of it in Armenia. They actually paid attention. I got some feedback from them and I think we are going to work with them to spread awareness. I am really exited about that.

So here goes my thanks to the American taxpayers for paying for me to go to the Ukraine for a week. There is a program called FLEX (future leaders exchange) where English speaking students from the post-soviet countries can compete to go to America for one year and reside with a family and study in an American high school. I applied for this position in December and got accepted to go to Kiev to learn how to train the students. I leave at the end of March. Pretty excited to go although I will be going with two Armenian girls. Awkward. Should be a good time. I have a 12 hour layover in Moscow and I will not be able to leave the airport. How awesome is that? More to come about this later on but I am excited to go. As far as I know, Kiev has McDonald’s.

Nothing else really to report. The weather has been a lot better. The snow has melted leaving a mudpit as a village. It rained a lot last night so I will have to fight the suction of mud to get to school. It will be a busy next two weeks getting information about the bathrooms I need for the school. Looking forward to it. Three more months until we aren’t the new volunteers anymore. Awesome.

I hope you all liked the pictures. Sorry for the lack of captions. The one with the Taj Mahal in the background was not taken in Armenia...

done and done.

Until next time...