One Year In

September marked the anniversary of our arrival in Azerbaijan, but this week I’ll have been in Ismayilli for one year. I’m going to try and keep this from becoming one of those “so much has changed, so little has changed” posts, but it’s worth noting that a lot has changed in the past year, while at the same time, it feels like no time has passed at all. One of my site mates has moved on, and is currently traveling the world before he eventually returns home. The new group of volunteers, the AZ9s, has finished their training and is preparing to move to their permanent sites (a huge congratulations to all of the AZ9s for surviving PST!). Things are changing. For many of us who have been in the country for a year, this is a time when we are evaluating what we have done, what we have learned, what we have accomplished. It’s very easy to get discouraged, and I’m no exception to that rule. There are days when things feel like they are dragging, that the students or teachers we work with haven’t learned anything; that everything is failing. But there are days here and there when someone surprises us, and our time here is justified; we are vindicated.

So here I am, closer to coming home than to arriving, and moving closer with every day. I'm closer to people than I was, and have been fortunate to form some very strong bonds with my host family, and a number of teachers, students, and other members of the community.

A part of me has to fight off the feeling that I have to do something to make my time here worthwhile. Write a grant, conduct some huge project, build something. That’s not for everyone, though my school periodically asks me what project I will conduct, what I will do for my permanent project. To be a success, I don’t need to leave a new school room or resource center, or have brought water to my village, as some volunteers in other countries do. I'm still not sure exactly what success is, though I know it must different for everyone, even for two volunteers in the same community.

I’m not sure what my plans are for the next year. I will wrap up the theater clubs I’m doing at school with a performance at the end of December, before I travel home for the first time, for Christmas and New Years. An aside—I feel like it was a long time in between arriving at site and Christmas, but of course it wasn’t, it won’t feel that way this year. There was just so much to take in and get used to in the three weeks between site arrival and Christmas that it felt like eons.

When I return from America, I will start several new clubs, though what their themes will be I haven’t decided yet. Health? Arts and crafts? Poetry writing? Sky’s the limit! I know that I will continue the work I have done outside of school, including an English club for teachers, and a TOEFL test preparation session. On top of that, I will continue to plan and work on the ABLE summer camp for next summer. I have a pile of books that I intend to read, DVDs to watch, and music to listen to, all of which I have postponed as I become distracted with new discoveries. I have a puppy to take care of, who needs attention and play, and something besides my fingers to chew on.

I hope to travel more in the country, to the north, to the south, to the east, to the west. There’s still a lot of Azerbaijan I haven’t seen yet, and even though Ismayilli’s a bit of a black hole, I should be able to find my way eventually. There’ll be a few more trips to Baku for Peace Corps conferences. I hope also to travel more outside of the country. I don’t know if I’ll ever make it back to this part of the world, so I’d love to check out our neighboring countries—really this means Georgia, as our other neighbors are Iran, Russia, the Caspian Sea, and the country that must not be named.

Beyond that, the next year is an open book. Here we go. Forgive all the I's in this post. It is after all, about me, or I.