Like a Glacier

There is a great program the Peace Corps has called World Wise Schools, which pairs volunteers up with classrooms around the country in a pen pal style program. I keep correspondence with a third grade class and their wonderful teacher in North Carolina about life in Azerbaijan, life in North Carolina, and various other things. Its fun and productive (they gave me with 10 idioms to present in a conversation club, I taught them how to play 'buzz') and I try to keep on a somewhat regular schedule of every 2-3 weeks.

Similar to these emails, there is a perpetual search of what is truly worth writing reporting to home. I continue to think 'What is the overarching theme or plot I'm aiming for in these emails?' And, not surprisingly, I continue to encounter a blank in my head. At this point in my service it is largely isolated data points rather than an emerging pattern. So I continue to go through the week amassing random interactions and asking myself 'Is this 'bloggable?''

Things like a presentation on Easter a fellow volunteer did. At this PowerPoint presentation (in English mind you) there were probably 40 children formally sitting learning about, or at least seeing pictures of, various symbols used during the American Easter holiday. After the presentation, in typical Azeri style, there was eating and dancing, which is usually what I feel like doing when I survive through a PowerPoint presentation in America.

Or coming to a Health Club to teach some yoga poses. I had taught some intro level yoga in Denver when I worked at the African Community Center, so I came in with an idea of what we could do in 20 minutes. Never have I been so significantly off with a lesson plan. I forgot a key difference between America and Azerbaijan-laguage, and I had no clue how to translate the steps we was doing. But the kids had fun and by the end they had learned one position.

But maybe my favorite isolated data points come from my teachers at school, because it is here where I expect the theme of my service to emerge. School ends at the end of May, and the students, the teachers, the volunteer all know this. We feel this in our bones and fight against this knowledge in our minds. But a school day becomes worth it when I hear things like a teacher using simple drawing techniques she learned in our shared 7th form class in her 1st form class. Or when a teacher suggests that we adapt the 'make a movie' exercise for another lesson. Despite the fact that the glacier appears to be unmoving it actually is advancing inches at a time.

And it may be this very idea that is the theme itself of service.