A friend emailed me recently that I must be in a busy period since I had not "posted" anything to the blog in a month.....Yes, the past month has been a whirl!
But after 11 weeks of wandering around a village where most things were "unfamiliar," we finally had a couple familiar events: Graduation. As part of our "community development work" four of us created a local "Youth Group" before leaving on August 15th for our new " work sites" where we will be for the next two years. I believe it was a learning experience for the teens and us. They learned something about the power of working together and making a difference in their own future. (It is not too hard to imagine how difficult it can be to keep "hope" or a "dream" considering the past 600 years in their country.) And on the Peace Corps side, the Volunteers learned to "trust the process," as there were times we were losing hope ourselves....that the group would make it! We also created (surprise, surprise... *;o) a new flower garden along the walk of their school. Or should I say we did some serious weeding, brought in new soil and put in a couple dozen iris to get started. I am going back to the village at the end of October for a "family birthday" and plan to finish the job, sprinkling in lots of wildflower seeds that I have been randomly collecting as I walked the roads for the past 2 months. Hopefully, some of the seeds will survive the winter and become flowers in the Spring. Hope Springs Eternal, as they say.
The other focus for the past month was the Final Language Exam. While some of the adept language learners achieved their "advanced" and "intermediate" rankings, yours truly was more than happy to be annointed as a......."novice." At least I am one step up from the hand signs that got me through my first couple weeks in the country! The graduation photo is of our village along with our two language teachers. In the back row on the far left is Lee Lacey, the Country Director for Armenia.
After graduation, it felt just like another day of work in Sacramento.....as I went home put on my "grubbies" and shoveled dirt into the school garden, as we were leaving the nex day. I was pleased and relieved to have a couple of the local teens show up on their own to help finish the job with me. It felt like they were starting to take ownership of the project.
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