PST

We just finished the first full day of PST. (pre service training). Which is good, because a combination of jet lag and sitting in a very humid room shoulder to shoulder with 49 other people was making me very sleepy!

From the time we left the hotel to the time we walked out of the airport in Baku, about 22 hours had elapsed. We were met by cheering Peace Corps Volunteers. It was pretty funny (in a good way) We were standing around the baggage claim waiting for over 100 bags and everytime a person came in or out of the sliding glass door about 50 feet away I heard a loud cheer. There were alot of smiles from a lot of tired PCT's (Peace Corps Trainee)

Peace Corps staff took all of our luggage, put us on busses and gave us dinner which consisted of a vegetarian sandwich, an apple, water and a snicker's bar to make us feel at home. It took about 45 minutes to get to the hotel. There are 2 to a room (which are very nice, running water, toilets, plenty of room) and the only difficult part was having to lug the luggage of a lot of stairs. And, if you were with me at the airport, you know I have a lot of weight in my luggage... as do many others. So, its 11:30 pm by now and everyone is lugging baggage. But the cool thing was a lot of people were helping each other. The team thing is already very present.

They let us sleep in a bit. Breakfast was between 8-10 and then sessions all day. Today was mostly an overview day... everything that we will be learning and some specifics about how certain things will work (like moving to our site families on tues.) When we move Tues, we will all be going to 3 different areas. We are divided up by sectors. Everyone from TEFL in one area, CED in another and Youth Development (YD, mine) in the third. Within those sectors groups are divided into cluster groups. These are the people we will do language with 4 hours a day, 6 days a week. The other 4 hours a day, we learn about culture, our jobs, how to live etc. Sometimes we will get together with everyone else from our sector. Once a week, we have a HUB day. The entire group will get together to learn about things not specific to our individual sectors... like safety and security.

We received our cluster groups today and were told about our host families.  In my host family, I have a 48 year old mother, 74 year old grannie and 2 older teenagers. (one boy and one girl) There are 4 people total in my cluster group. I like the other 3 very much and will try and post a picture of all of us.

Ok, thats it for now. Im going to dinner and then I have one more meeting for my sector at 8:30. I will have internet for a couple of more days and try and post once more. When I move to my host family, it sounds like I will have internet access around once a week.

I miss you all!!!!