Placement
I found out last Wednesday that I will be in Vachagan, which is a small village right outside of Kapan, a city in the south. The school where I will be teaching has only 50 students and 16 teachers, which is a pretty good ratio. The plan for the future is for the high school students to go to Kapan for school, and the village school will only go up to 8th grade. I will be the first Peace Corps volunteer in this village and they have been waiting 4 years for an English teacher (TEFL). No pressure there!
The village is about the same size as the one I’m in now, which is what I wanted. I feel very safe in this village. It doesn’t take long for everybody to know you. I’ve only been here 4 weeks and I already feel very much a part of this village. But the good thing is that I’m within walking distance of Kapan, which has internet cafes.
My new host family consists of a mother, father and 3 young boys. The boys are 4, 10 and 12 years old. The father is a volunteer community leader and the mother doesn’t work outside the house. But after spending time here, I know that the mother works very hard.
My counterpart is a 28 year old woman and has been at the school since 2005. From what I’ve heard, she’s supposed to be very nice and good to work with. I’ll soon find out. I’ll go for a site visit in the beginning of July for 4 days.
On Wednesday there were a lot of current Peace Corps volunteers who came to Charentsavan to wish us luck in our placements. There are 12 of us going to the region I’ll be in, with Shannon being in Kapan. There were about 10 current volunteers there on Wednesday to greet and welcome us. It was nice to spend some time talking with them and finding out something about the area. I’m excited to go and really get started with being a Peace Corps volunteer.