NOAH’S ROUTE MY ROUTE

Michaelsmoksha.blogspot.com
http://michaels moksha.blogspot.com/2009/08/we-did-it.html
Monday, August 17, 2009

This blog is not the content, beleifs, opinons, or ideas of the United
States Peace Corps. It is simply the experiance of one Peace Corps
Volunteer serving in Armenia and reflects no official ideas of the
Peace Corps.

We Did It

Well, we’ve done it. Forty-seven of us left JFK airport for Armenia
back in May and now forty-four of us have been sworn in as Peace Corps
Volunteers. I can definitely say it’s a good feeling to finally be done
with an eight month application process and a three month training
process that at times felt like college exam week times 100. I was
excited for the day when I would get to go to site and start putting
together ideas for a successful two years of service, but now I’m
out of my training site of Solak living with a new family. And I’m
in a town by myself and for the next four weeks I’ll have limited
opportunities to see other Americans, and I new that my village mates
and myself were particularly close, but I had now idea I would miss
them this much or my Solak host family to such a degree. I guess
because it had become the familiar and now I have to do it all over
again it just seems daunting. But this is all a new experience and
like the first three months I’ll learn to adopt and I hope that in no
time this new community will feel like home. So now to describe my past
three months experience. I guess if you’ve been reading my blogs this
might seem repetitive but I think its worth recounting. So back in May
I left for an orientation in Philadelphia. I met forty seven unique
and interesting people. Some of them I can vividly remember meeting
and talking to for the first time and it is them who have become
my best friends. I guess because we’re all in a unique experience
together we bound quicker then you might in other circumstances
because some of these people I feel really close to. Anyways, the
next day we flew out of New York City for Vienna before catching our
last leg into Yerevan. We arrived in Armenia early the next morning
a few days later we moved to our host villages were for three months
we learned the Armenian language, culture, traditions, and way of
life as well as the purpose, fundamentals, and expectations of our
particular assignments (remember I’m a CHE so I learned about differe!

nt health and education methods). We also learned how to live as a
group of Americans abroad and how to rely on each other when times
got hard and get hard, which they do but with a good group of friends
to fall back on (which I have made) then you can make it through just
fine. After all of this we were deemed ready and able for a two year
post as Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV’s) by our country director. So
last Thursday we got sworn in as the 17th group of PCV’s in Armenia. I
guess there isn’t a lot of news worthy things in Armenia because
the entire Armenian press corps showed up in mass as well as a lot
of high hated officials and other dignitaries and most interesting
the American Ambassador who swore us in as volunteers and when I
took the oath I could definitely feel the goose bumps. Then we had a
nice celebration with A-16’s. That evening the Solak seven took our
sleeping bags and on top of the hill behind my house we enjoyed about
three hours of uninterrupted meteor shower a pretty cool way to sum up
a hell of a three month bonding experience. The next day we loaded a
van with our luggage (which has grown exponentially) and then crammed
in next to it and drove down the road watching through the window as
our host families waved us off (most of them tearfully). When we got
to Cherantsavan, we unloaded our luggage and reloaded into different
vans before heading to our new sites all around the country, now that
was a sad day! But I think in just a few weeks we will find our way
again and be excited about the opportunities and chance we have to
make some impact.