One Year In!

- May 13, 2019

It's official! I've been in the Peace Corps for more than 1 year and I’m already halfway done. It seems wild that a year has already past. Sometimes I feel like I just stepped off the plane and unpacked here in Imereti.

The school year is almost closed and my counterparts and I have done some very exciting things this year. We have an English club that met once a month, doing everything from celebrating different American holidays to practicing our English using Disney movies. We started an English lesson program in the kindergarten, using 5th-9th-grade students as teachers, getting little kids a head start on learning a foreign language. We had a summer camp, a resume workshop with a guest speaker, dozens of interactive lessons and a stereotypes workshop with one of our neighbor schools.

I have many projects going on outside of school as well. I work with a group of volunteers on a summer camp project called “BUILD” – Boys United in Leadership Development. I am so proud of the work we have done as a team. We inherited this camp from previous volunteers and are striving this year to make it a sustainable project outside the confines of Peace Corps funding.

I am currently working two volunteers who live in my municipality to develop a “women’s English and skills training program” to provide the women in the city access to more resources and skills.

There is so much going on in my life now, I feel so blessed to be here doing this crazy job.

The new volunteers just arrived in the country and are working their way thru Pre-Service Training. Soon they will be signing up to work for camps, learning their permanent sites and swearing in. My head is spinning for them with how fast everything happens. I remember last year when I was in their position, thinking the old volunteers knew so much about Georgia and what they were doing. Now that I am the “old volunteer” I feel like I know nothing.

I have settled into my home life here in Imereti. I am still living with the same host grandmother. Two of her grandchildren just had babies so during holidays the house is full of signing, playing and learning to walk/talk. We recently got a new puppy named Rocky, who is a wild handful of bad manners. He loves people and constantly wants attention. I am still struggling with the language but slowly I am improving

Life is pretty much going as you would imagine: school, hiking, relaxing, occasional housework. All in all, life is pretty good.