LPI over...

20:00 12 September 2008

Well, I have now officially finished learning Russian for the duration of Pre-Service Training. We had our final placement LPI (language proficiency interview) to determine whether or not we were ready for site or not, and I passed with flying colors with a very respectable “Intermediate-High”. I’m very happy that I have progressed to this level (I was the second highest in all of the volunteers) and everyone in my language group did remarkably well. It’s pretty amazing that less then 10 weeks in a country with a completely foreign (and may I add, incredibly difficult) language I now feel relatively comfortable getting around and can hold long somewhat complicated conversations. While they weren’t always the most fun sessions, the 3 and a half hour daily sessions really do amazing things for learning language.

Aside from language classes, PST as a whole is winding down. We had our last technical session yesterday where we reported on an educational field trip into Bishkek where we were asked to find educational resource centers to which they had given us the addresses. The volunteers, as a whole, spent more time finding which areas had the best “gamburgers” (there are no hamburgers here- but a gamburger with lettuce and ketchup- two rare commodities here- really hits the spot when you miss America). We did manage to find some, and with some photoshoping on my part, we came up with a humorous presentation on the education resources we found.

We have less than a week until we swear in and become legitimate volunteers. This will be nice as I can stop saying trainees/volunteers or referring to us incorrectly as volunteers. Current volunteers, as I have iterated before, have told me that PST is the most difficult part of service. I definitely agree that the constant babying and restrictive policies by PC can get annoying, the closer we get to going to site the more I realize how much I am going to miss a lot of the friends I have made over the last 10 weeks. Stressful times lend themselves to quickly built and long lasting friendships with those sharing similar situations. I am also, paradoxically, going to miss some of the certainty of PST as school at site will likely be incredibly disorganized, the concrete schedule of PST could be annoying but it was certain. I didn’t have to worry about showing up to lessons to find no one else because it was a holiday and nobody told me. Nor did I have to worry about being expected to show up to events I haven’t been told about. A humorous, though telling anecdote, that illustrates how serious these scenarios can be comes from a fellow volunteer who showed up to his site last year after PST only to find that the NGO he was to work at no longer existed. Well, I can be certain- hopefully- that my school will still exist when I get to site, but the uncertainty of my assignment and expectations is definitely a scary thought.