Our orientation was a complete whirlwind, but it’s a good thing that we had it to help us ease into the structure that is guiding us through the first two months of our time in this beautiful country. The hardest part wasn’t remembering everything, but remaining awake for the three days, the first of which began the second we touched down in country.
First off, family and friends worried about me will be happy to know that we have a great staff taking care of us here in the Kyrgyz Republic. They have thought of just about everything, and if they hadn’t thought of it pre-emptively, then they have things because of actual experiences that previous people have had. Not everyone will need a mosquito net or Tums, but we will be happy we have them when we do! This is definitely the softest landing I’ve ever had coming into an extended period outside the US.
We started out with a lot of introductions to everyone, with a session on medical and a session on safety and a much-needed caffeine break before getting cell phones and passing in our passports to be taken and registered with the police (this is a normal process here, and gets us our residence permit in our passports, which is rather important), and getting photos to be used in our identification paperwork (also important – it’s mandatory to carry your passport here, but our badges are an acceptable substitute for volunteers and trainees).
Finally, we got to the part that we had been most anticipating: our first langauge classes. At the time we started our Kyrgyz class (only two people in our group are learning Russian), most of our group had been awake since Friday morning. It was Monday night. Despite the exhaustion, we managed to learn a surprising number of phrases that we could use to greet our host families and other Kyrgyz people we saw around the hotel.
One thing that I’m particularly excited about is that all of us have been split into classes by our learning styles, which means that each class is small and has its own curriculum. My class is primarily using listen-and-repeat, which is how I’ve learned most of my languages that are strongest and that stay with me the best. Other groups are using more written, or more visual learning methods, so I think everyone is happy to be working in a way that fits them.
The three days at the hotel (we weren’t allowed to leave, and probably for good reason) went by quickly, with other sessions on Peace Corps policies, the Core Expectations that guide our service (I’ll talk about some of these in later blog posts, because these are things that I actually find to be good values generally when spending time overseas), and more language practice. The last day, we had an introduction to our programs (I’m working on health), and finally we were packed into buses and off to the Host Family Matching Ceremony.
The Host Family Matching Ceremony was an exciting and nerve-wracking event. We watched performances by children of each of our host villages (we are scattered across the oblast), before being invited one by one up onto the stage to meet our host mothers (very few host fathers attended the ceremony because of work). The group of us in my village were called up second-to-last, and the adrenaline level was substantial. We walked up onto the stage with nothing but a thin piece of paper with our host mothers’ names on it in Latin and Cyrillic, and began asking each woman on the other side what her name was.
I found my wonderful host mother almost immediately, and was greeted with a big hug and a bouquet of three bright red carnations (giving flowers in odd numbers here is a sign of welcoming and celebration, and flowers here are relatively expensive, so this was a very generous gift on her part). I handed her some tea and cookies that I had bought earlier in the day to give as a welcome and thank you gift. In Kyrgyzstan, whenever you are welcomed into someone’s home for guesting, or for an extended period like us, it is universal to bring a small gift with you, such as cookies, sweets, chocolates, tea, or another consumable like that, so we all picked up tokens of gratitude that we could give when we met our families.
Finally we were helped out to the street, where some families had brought cars, some had called taxis, some had asked friends, and others were just walking – they lived down the street. Two host mothers, another trainee and I packed into a sedan and off we went to our village.
Re: guesting, I’ll definitely write more about this once I experience it
Note: This post was time-shifted due to lack of internet access in my village.