First Summer-Finished

Summer is coming to a close and fall is beginning to show itself.  The oppressive sunshine and humidity is giving way to cooler and cloudier days.  Slowly, but surely, the leaves are beginning to turn.  The seasons change here as they do in America, but are signaled differently.  Microseasons are brought on by harvests rather than holiday sales.  Discussion is turning from the seashore and watermelon to new school uniforms and hazelnuts.

In my own corner of Azerbaijan, this means an end to my wonderfully idle days of summer and a return to the routine of school. Actually, looking back, my summer was anything but 'idle;' different clubs and traveling, weeks of camp, and numerous trainings in Baku have kept me busy this summer (not to mention an awesome respite in Americastan).  But its time to get ready for my first full school year.

Preparing to begin this year of school, I'm reminded how awesome the timeline is for a volunteer in Azerbaijan.  We arrive in nice weather, as fall is beginning.  Our first few months at site was the same as our first winter, two extremely difficult times that got compressed into one, and if thats the case, you might as well be living in a host family's warm house.  By the time an AZ PCV moves out, there are only a couple months left of the school term before the ultimate relief: summer.

Having just one semester of school and then summer is a real blessing.  We get a feel for our school and teachers before beginning the bulk that is a full year.  Last semester I tried to work with 4 different teachers and there wasn't a single class that I met with each time they met.  That ended up being a crazy idea and it would have broken me to suffer that mistake for a full year.  But with a clean break from a school year so early on, I get a chance to recover.

Last semester, the bulk of my extra time was going to beginner conversation clubs and tutoring sessions.  That was helpful, and certainly helped me integrate, but there was little enjoyment received on my part.  More than conversation clubs, I'm excited to develop teachers' ability using interactive teaching methods and more and more of the meetings and activities I've been doing have been working towards this goal.  For youth, I'll definitely keep my Advanced Conversation Club going and probably be coerced into a beginner-ish one at my school, but I'm more excited about the plans for a blogging club going in Xachmaz.

All of these are things that I wouldn't have been able to figure out those first few weeks at site as I jumped head first into the school year, but now, after a semester's worth of Azeri school madness and 9 months of lessons learned from successful and failed clubs I feel a bit more confident in my step.  Don't overextend myself while hunting for the projects I can become as passionate about as I want the members to be.