On how I feel about PST and on what will be coming next

By earning a satisfactory score on my Russian oral exam, I cleared the last major hurdle of Peace Corps Training. On Friday I will be sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV), and the next day, head to the town of Karabulak, where I will live for the next two years.

During PST, I learned a lot that will help be successful here and beyond after my service. I’ve learned about the Kazakhstan NGO environment. I learned how to teach English, and the basics of the Russian and Kazakh languages . I’ve also eaten horse (and liked it), battled with dogs (and survived), and tried to refuse a second helping of dinner from a babushka (and failed). It is impossible to win an argument against babushkas, more so when it comes to dinner and second helpings.

I also learned a lot about myself. I’m not the same person that I was when I left America. Physically, I’m a bit thinner, a bit quicker on my feet, and a little smarter about my limits. Emotionally and mentally I’m a lot tougher. I’ve learned that you have to be mentally tough to survive in Kazakhstan. I was never a total pushover when it came to standing up for myself and what I believed in, but I’ve surely gotten a lot better at it here. Whether it’s yelling for correct change at the bazaar, engaging in a heated debate with a NGO director about corporate philanthropy, or dealing with the adolescent kids that yell and whistle at seeing their first African American person that is not on TV, my experiences in PST have taught me a thing or two. (Of course, it is also fun to yell back, “What are you looking at?” in Russian, which usually stuns the kids into silence.) The Green Eyed Lady also says that I’m more mature, but I’m not sure about that.

The only way that I was able to learn this much here was because of the wonderful staff that remains and other volunteers here. The remaining 17 OCAP volunteers are a second family to me. This is very rare for me because it usually takes a long time for me to open up to people. The only time I have felt this way about a group of people was my Fraternity. Knowing that they were going through the same stuff that I was and that I could talk to them about it made PST easier. You know you are close when someone says to you “can I have the last of your anti diarrhea pills?” and you give them even though you are sick yourself.

Since I have gotten so close to the other OCAP volunteers as PST ends I have felt a variety of emotions. I am proud to have the chance to know some pretty awesome people. I am curious to see good things they will do in the next 2 years. At times I am downright fearful and almost panic because I know that the support structure I’ve relied on during PST will change. My town has no other volunteers, or fluent English speakers that I know of. I will be living with a host family I met for 10 min, attempting to get a community’s support to raise funds for a new building for my NGO, and finding new friends and community partners (but not replacing the old!) all while using two languages I do not know. However, while beginning the process of standing on my own two feet in this country is my greatest fear, it is the very thing that excites me the most because after this PST experience I know I have the tools, the abilities, and the will, to do what I can to assist the NGO and people in Karabulak.