Saturday, July 08, 2006

Changing Jobs Again

07.06.06
Well, we didn’t go to the Embassy cookout. We were counting on it being hosted on the prior Friday, but they had it on the 4th. And they charged a 200 com ($5) entry fee – too expensive for us. Instead, I spent the day at home.

I’m still working with RDC, but seeing how the office manager is one of the more unpleasant people I’ve met in country, I haven’t been going to work. This girl has single-handedly been making my life miserable, and I was contemplating why I’m staying here at all. For a while, I wasn’t doing anything at all and was feeling quite worthless. [Sidenote: A few weeks ago the PC staff visited and I ran errands with them. They visited a health NGO as a possible site for a future volunteer, but since I was interested they said I can start working with them.] So, on Monday, I was tired of waiting to hear back from the PC staff about working there and went on my own. PC wanted to talk to the director, who was absent from the initial meeting. Apparently, they had been expecting me to come for 2 weeks, but PC never relayed the message. They want me to help them promote personal health and reproductive rights in Talas City and the villages throughout the oblast. I’ll also help them find funding, because they don’t charge for their seminars. This week I’ve been teaching them English. This is the first time I had to start with the alphabet. I think it’s better to start with a clean slate, because then I know about how much they know. Although some of the staff members are older they are great students. They ask lots of questions, which younger students are hesitant to do. Today when I went to the office, they were working on their first ever Excel spread sheet. Recently someone came from Bishkek trained them about spreadsheets. The one they were working on wasn’t turning out right, so I helped them work out the kinks and showed them a few things about writing the equations. I was proud because 1) their Excel program is in Russian and I was able to navigate it even though I don’t speak Russian and 2) I finally feel like I’ve contributed something. I hope they keep asking for my help. The staff at RDC never asked me for help except to proofread things they’d translated. When I told them I wanted more work they didn’t offer any suggestions.