Diversity vsio!

18:45 20 March 2009

The conclusion of Diversity Week was today and, having viewed and participated in the whole thing, I think it was quite successful. I was hesitant the first two days, all of the sessions were conducted in English (the primary participants were students from the English language program at the University) and given the rapid rate of speech of some of the volunteers and some of the slang they used I wasn’t sure the extent to which they were able to follow and understand the proceedings. Speaking with some of the students after the sessions one of the days, however, made me realize with some bit of surprise, that their English was actually quite excellent, and with the exception of some of the slang, they understood pretty much everything.

The sessions I helped lead were ones on university culture, U.S. government, and religion in the States. The latter two were especially dear to me as I spoke about my experience working on the Hill and my experience as a religious minority in the States and then how it effects my identity here. Overall, I think that they enjoyed my sessions, they asked a lot of interesting questions about them, they seemed pretty interested in Muslims in America, it was interesting to them that the Muslims in a non-Muslim dominant country like the States are, overall, much more observant than the Muslims in majority Muslim Kyrgyzstan. I was also impressed with their knowledge of the American governmental system, and it was really fun playing the part of High School civics teacher explaining checks and balances, the branches of government, and what a bicameral legislature is.

In addition to being a positive experience in general, another volunteer and I are trying to start a Diversity Committee within Peace Corps itself. While it would probably also work with individual volunteers and how they can deal with their personal diversities in country (something that can be difficult for some volunteers of different backgrounds to do) we have a goal to hold seminars and trainings through out the country to educate the Kyrgyz public about American culture and how we deal with diversity.