but I’m constantly busy and my days are packed. Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) volunteers thankfully have a pretty set schedule and tasks. I’m happy for this because my organizational brain does need a little consistency to function. Unlike Health or Business volunteers, TEFLs have to teach a set schedule of 12 hours a week (in their first year). In-between lessons we lesson plan or curriculum plan with our counterparts. On top of all this, we hold English Clubs and work on writing grants/attend trainings. Usually I am gone daily from 8am to 5pm either going to class, leading clubs, or planning with my counterpart. We keep pretty busy and I like it.
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| One of my 5th grade classes. They were in charge of ringing the bell to signify the end of class this day. |
I am really enjoying the clubs I run or that I am a part of. They are fun and help occupy/share some of my other interests. On my own I run two to three English Clubs. I actually haven’t started them yet because I’ve been so busy with schedule changes and trainings that the times would keep changing or the days and dates. Depending on how many kids show up, I’ll hold a beginning, intermediate, and advanced English Club. Or I may just run the clubs by grades. I’ll get there next week after yet another training I attend. On top of the English Clubs, I also have a FLEX Club/Olympiad Club which are for more advanced students. FLEX is the Future Leaders Exchange program that sends kids from other countries to the US for one year of high school. All of the students I helped prepare for the earlier testing sessions passed and so now we have to get them ready for the final round. The final rounds includes an interview and a skit of sorts where the student’s leadership and work ethic is observed. It’s much like the theatre skits in middle school I did but instead of acting skills being judged, it’s how you set up the skit and think outside of the box. For example, you may be given a pen to sell as if you were on an infomercial and you have five other students to work with. AND GO! Olympiad is a subject competition that starts at the city level and then goes to Oblast level and then national level. Subjects range from Math, Science, Kyrgyz, and English. Kyrgyz people love competitions and this is the school intellectual one. I have to wait to see what the Olympiad exactly holds because it’s not until January. We shall see.
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| My FLEX Club practicing essay writing. |
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| The girls practicing at the clinic for their lesson. |
The other two clubs I enjoy being a part of are GLOW Club and Photography Club. GLOW Club is an offshoot of our camp over the summer and includes meeting two to three times a week. Once for the girls to lesson plan, once to practice their lesson, and a third to give their lesson at a local school. So far the girls have taught two classes, one of which I was able to attend, and they are great! I am so proud of what they have accomplished and teaching their peers about important topics that everyone should know about. I work on this club with two fellow Balykchy volunteers, Taylor and Jake. I enjoy all our girls as they are motivated and keep positive attitudes. I can’t wait to see where they go. Many of them are also trying for the FLEX program and are pretty spectacular people. I have high hopes.
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| GLOW peer leaders planning the teaching schedule with the camp girls. |
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| First lesson about nutrition given by two GLOW girls. So proud. |
Photography Club is great because I get to hang out with more volunteers and follow my photography passion. Eric, Taylor’s husband, started the Photography Club last year with one of his business organizations. He got funding to buy cameras, go on field trips, and start a website. I have had the pleasure of going on two field trips with the Club this year and I love it. Again, another interesting group of kids and we have fun exploring and taking pictures of neat places. We teach the kids photography skills, editing skills, and website skills. Also, essay writing. First we went to the ‘new beach’ in Balykchy and a couple weekends ago we went to Fairytale Canyon on the south shore of lake Issyk-kul. I hope to work with the kids and Eric this year and then take over the Photo Club when he leaves. This year Eric’s goal is to build a website about Balykchy, Right now when you Google our city, some interesting blogs/articles turn up. The Photo Club page would hopefully be more informative and a much more real representation of this city we call home. Next year, I’ll have to come up with some other good goals and/or add to the website. But that can be left for later. So much to work on now.
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| Taking photos at New Beach. |
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| Having fun at New Beach. |
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| Beautiful Fairytale Canyon. |
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| Exploring. |
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| Sisters helping each other and one member observing in the distance. |
When I’m not in class, at clubs, or working with my counterpart, Peace Corps keeps us busy with reporting information, attending trainings, and applying to grants. At the beginning of October I finished a volunteer wide report on activities, community integration, and feedback. We do this report every six months and continually update it throughout our service. This past week I attended a training on grant writing and how to manage funds while living in Kyrgyzstan. This is very useful as it will help with the projects I want to do and the larger secondary project we complete in our second year. I am happy to announce that I applied to a grant in August for World Aids Day on December 1st and was given funding to proceed. I am working with Taylor, the health volunteer at my site, and we are bringing in our GLOW girls for the project. December 1st is World Aids Day and in their GLOW camp, girls learned about HIV/AIDS and how it is transferred. Our goals are to create a video that the girls produce and show it at the clinic Taylor works at as well as take it on tour with a lesson the girls will write. We will travel to three neighboring villages on the World Aids Day and give lessons at the school in each village. It should be fun, interesting, and engaging. I’m happy to be starting off with something small too. It’s a great intro into the grant and project writing world.
This week I am attending another training, see I told you I’m always busy, about women’s empowerment. The goal is to start a club when you return from the training and work on physical activity, life skills, etc. With this training you bring a local from your community interested in leading the club with you. I have befriended an English teacher at the local Education Center and she was interested in working with me on things. She wants to practice her English and become more active in the community. Taylor and I will also work on this project and maybe start a women’s club in the coming months.
I have been talking with other volunteers and we agreed that sometimes the days go by slow, but the weeks and months are going by fast. On October 24th, we will have been in Kyrgyzstan six months. SIX MONTHS! As Peace Corps Volunteers, we are committed to 27 months; we have three months of training and two years of service. In this long period of time away, we have many ups and downs, good days and bad. We were given sound advice to travel at some of these known downs. So around the holiday time, new years to be exact, two friends and I have decided to take our first trip. We wanted to keep the group small so we can move faster and not be keeping up with a ton of people. We decided to go to India! We will spend New Years in Almaty, Kazakhstan and then two and a half weeks in India. I can’t wait, 22 days of travel and a sari in my future.
Speaking of traveling, a couple weeks ago I got to go on my first big hike and yurt stay in Kyrgyzstan. I went with Taylor and Eric from Balykchy to a city called Kochkor in Naryn and met up with another volunteer. Together we grabbed a taxi and headed to the mountains. On our second day we got snow over night and woke up to the reality that winter is coming sooner than we had thought. I am bummed I did not get to go on many hikes this summer, but next summer I hope to be around in country to experience more of this place. Kyrgyzstan has such beautiful landscapes and not many people. If you are a true nature seeker and don't like the crowds, KG is the place to come.
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| Walking from the village towards the foothills. |
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| Basecamp and my bedroom. |
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| Heading into the clouds. |
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| Our hiking trail was more of a shepherds horse trail. |
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| Made it to the lake! |
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| Sunday morning snow! |
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| Enjoying the mountains with the sheep and goats. |
For now, I’m still getting used to working as a teacher and teaching with a counterpart. Some days we have great lessons like today when we were teaching the verb ‘to have.’ The kids loved our activities and were fully engaged. Others days our lessons are okay and could have gone better, but there is always something new to learn.
