Salut and à Bientôt

  Саламатсыздарбы / Salut, Pre-Service Training hit me like a truck. Saturday morning, June 17, I set out with the cohort for the Host Family matching ceremony. Leaving behind gorgeous mountains for a more city-like environment. A larger village, less AC ( 🙁), amongst other things. I met my host family at the ceremony. They separate our cohort into six groups, 4-5 people in each one in separate villages to begin learning the culture and language. Some are closer to Bishkek than others. My village is a large one, so it’s two groups in one, which is a nice benefit because I have seven other trainees in my village. We’re about an hour and a half from Bishkek. Most people are in a small village, but some are closer to the mountains so I envy them. My wonderful host mother, Elmira, and her baike (older brother) came to pick us (and a neighbor) up from the ceremony. It was a fun experience. Zachary, a fellow trainee, packed with his host mom into the car, and we stopped along the way at

  Salut, Orientation feels like waiting at a hotel attached to an airport, with constant meals and food, for an entire week. It is a week of learning Kyrgyz, going over policies and expectations, and meeting, and getting to know the PC staff, who are all overwhelmingly friendly and warm. There is a sense of waiting. I have a room I share with a fellow trainee, but the room is small enough that I have not opened my checked bag or really unpacked it. I’m using my small hotel toiletries and using the clothing in my carry-on bag because there’s not a ton of room to open it. Other staff members have told me that our cohort is unique. We don’t have cliques and we’re all, as I said before, nondiverse in age range. I said on the first day that my room is everyone’s room. We’ve gotten a routine, despite it only being five days or so, but the routine will not last, which is an unusual feeling. It is like being in a holding pattern. Every day is similar. We wake up, eat breakfast at the guesthous

Salut,  June 11 I am currently writing from the Istanbul Airport with an hour of free Wifi. The last few days have been such a whirlwind; I scarcely can summarize all of it. Truth be told, I have been afraid. Afraid of going by myself, afraid of missing home, all of those things. I flew into Philly by myself and met some of the people in my cohort at the baggage claim, several from H Town. Flying into Philly was alright, I watched a ton of Succession episodes and fell asleep in the intervals. I was glad to immediately befriend some of the cohort; we’re twenty-six large. We’re a homogenous group in some ways; the vast majority are 22-28 and recent graduates, despite the fact that the average Peace Corps volunteer age is 28. I’m the youngest, which I quickly found out, and the only one underage (I’m 20). I won’t deny there were immediate anxieties I had once I learned I was the youngest, perhaps a part of me was desperate to prove my worth and overcompensate to prove I belonged in the ro