So for the last hour, I have been at my computer, writing emails, checking facebook, catching up on some work, and there has been a cow somewhere which has incessantly been mooing up a storm, and it sounds like the cow is outside my window with the head through the window and right next to my ear, which is strange because there is no cow in site. Yeah. So that was what inspired me to write this blog.
Hi Daniel,
Your project is approved! Your SPA project number is xxx-10-xxx, please use it in all the further reporting. Total amount of the project is 1,231,390 AMD. You will receive it by or around Oct. 11.
This was the email I got from Peace Corps saying that I am good to go. The bathroom will so become a reality. I feel pretty good about it. Half because the hard part is finished (premature words) and half because this is something that the village truly needs. I talked to some of the people on the committee and they said the pictures really did it. I mean, when you see the dilapidated outhouse that the 400+ people in the school uses, it really makes you root for a new restroom facility. I will let you know the process as it happens. The mayor assures me that the bathroom will be built in two weeks. I will assure you that I wasn’t born yesterday...
In other news, I went to Tsaghedzor this past weekend for counterpart conference. We stayed at the sports complex which was pretty cool and I got a good chance to hang out with the new volunteers. So far they seem to be doing pretty well. So this conference is used to explain the most efficient ways of working with someone from another culture. The first session was “cross cultural exchange” so Nick, my sitemate, and I did skits to demonstrate working with a different culture. To identify how your culture works will give you a clue as to how to work with another culture. First we would do the skit the Armenian culture in mind and then the American way. For example, the first skit was to demonstate “direct communication vs. indirect communication”. Nick was the school director and I was the volunteer.
So keep in mind this is the Armenian cultural way. I came in as the American volunteer wanting to get business done. I did some small talk and tried to ask Nick, the school director for a class to teach. He asked me how my family was, how the children were, how the village life was, if I was married, if I wanted to get married, why I wasn’t married already, when I thought I would get married, and again why I wasn’t married yet. You know, normal Armenian questions. We also had coffee. This whole scene was condensed from what would have 30 minutes down to 1 minute. The second scenario, as is with American culture, I went into the director’s room, shook his hand, asked one personal question and then got straight to business. This took a good 30 seconds. After this and every other skit, we would ask if they understand the skit and what cultural differences there were. The responses were funny.
Moreover, after this skit, I mentioned something I learned during my time as a FLEX trainer that cultures were not good, not bad, but were just different. So right after I said this, one of the Armenian counterparts said “I think that the Armenian way is better because its not all about business, we get to know the people.” I gave him a blank stare thinking “thank you sir for listening to the statement I just said.” This man will come up in my blog later on.
The other sessions went very well and I think we did enough interactive activities to get people to learn something, or more importantly, not fall asleep. So all this led up to developing a lesson with their counterparts. Realize now that these volunteers have been in country for a total of four months. To plan a lesson in another country is very demanding and knowing the counterpart for only 6 weeks is a lot of ask for. So between the language barrier and the cultural differences, they have to come up with a ten minute outline on a topic we assign them.
Most of the groups did really well. They planned things out well and came up and divided the presenting evenly. Remember the guy I talked about before, he had been a problem the whole weekend because he didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. He would say something, and when someone else was speaking, he would just interrupt and just keep talking. I got tired of this. So it was his turn to go with his volunteer. He didn’t let his volunteer do any of the talking, she just stood behind him and did nothing. It was supposed to be a ten minute presentation... He decided he would still talk at minute 15. So, I intervened and told him thank you and that that was enough. After he agreed, he kept talking, which I told him that we got the gist.
So after that, we asked to the group about their presentation. The volunteer said that she didn’t get a chance to do anything. After that the counterpart kept saying that he included her in most everything. So, then I said a couple things which he interrupted. He did this twice, so everytime he tried to speak, I told him to wait. There were some raised voices. At this point he stood up and started walking over to me. I was bracing myself to get punched in the face. He came over and stood at the front of the class and tried to explain himself. (This was a great relief, because who wants to be punched in the face?) It was useless. I told him again to sit down and after the class we would talk.
After the class, I met with him and apologized for trying to get him to stop talking and if I offended him in any way. We talked (in great detail) and finally came to an agreement. He is a good guy just doesn’t know how to get his volunteer involved. Pretty much everything we taught that particular weekend, he didn’t pick up, which was stressful and frustrating. Anyway, with the conference over with, I left Yerevan and went over to Kyle’s house to help him move in. After looking for a house for 9 months, he found out and has moved in. It is a new house too. It was nice to hang out with my six sitemates. This morning, I came back home and just fell asleep. Kyle’s bed was so uncomfortable it felt like I was sleeping on a hammock. Funny thing was, since there were six guys and limited places to sleep, we put two beds together and I thought we were going to put three guys in two twin beds. One person would just sleep in the middle. Well I woke up in the middle of the night to Kyle right next to me and thought, crap, there actually are three people on this thing. This morning, I woke up wondering where the third person was. Yeah, Kyle does a lot of moving when he sleeps and decided he wanted to overstep the personal boundary. We got a pretty good laugh out of it this morning. Also, because it was a new house, the door handle got jammed and we were stuck in his room and had to call Hector to come to the other side of the door to get us out. Great.
We walked to Martuni, I got on the bus and came home. At home, I just passed out. I went over to a couple neighbors’ homes to hang out and then came back to get some more work finished.
So, tomorrow there is school and then Friday I go back to Yerevan to put AIDS packets together and prepare for Initiative weekend the following weekend. This Friday will also be the last day that Susanna will be my Program Manager, so I want to see her before she goes. She is a great Program Manager and I will definitely miss working with her.
This weekend, one of my friends from the south is coming up to see how the volunteers in this area live and work. Looking forward to it because I never get a chance to see him.
As I type this, Mike is on his way back from the States. His sister got married on Saturday. So congratulations to her. I think I may have already said that, but whatever.
I guess that’s it.
Until next time...
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