New Peace Corps Blog

Hi, friends and family. Peace Corps stipulates that I have a password-protected blog to record my experiences related to my next two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Azerbaijan. Please visit http://AndreasOdyssey.shutterfly.com/ for my photo gallery and http://AndreasOdyssey.shutterfly.com/blog for my Peace Corps blog. The password is my first name.

See you there!

Just in Case

Hi folks, I am taking advantage of the internet access at our hotel one last time before we depart tomorrow. We've packed (repacked, I should say) our bags along with the heavy-duty sleeping bags, smoke detectors, water filters and medical kits we've been issued and are excited to move in with our first host families.

Orientation Week has gone well. I am getting to know my fellow trainees better, feeling slightly more comfortable with basic phrases in Azeri (thanks to 2 hours a day with Sabina and Elshad), and understanding a little more about what it will mean to be a Peace Corps trainee and volunteer. My body has not quite adjusted to the new time zone (10 hours from home), so I am a bit tired. Nonetheless, I am excited about jumping in to the next phase!

As I mentioned before, I will be grouped in a "cluster" of a few other volunteers who are also in the Community Economic Development (CED) Program. We will spend 4 hours a day working on language and culture with Elshad followed by afternoons with our fellow CED trainees for pratical training and exercises. From a rough map of the community where we will be living, it will be easy to get around and in the afternoons, we will only have to take a short bus ride to meet up with the other CEDs. I think our community may also have an internet cafe! I have not idea what to expect at the moment, so I find it best to try not to expect anything and be pleasantly surprised. ;)

On a side note, due to Peace Corps policy, I may have to make this website password-protected. If that is the case, the password will be my first name. I apologize in advance for the inconvenience if it comes to that, but I will do my best to ensure that checking in on my blog is easy and convenient.

Week 1 in Azerbaijan

After two tiring days of travel, 61 new Peace Corps Azerbaijan volunteers arrived in Baku late Tuesday evening to be greeted with several current volunteers and key staff members. We traveled by bus to our resort/ hotel approximately one hour from the capital along the Caspian Sea.


This week ("Orientation Week") we have a fairly rigorous schedule of training seminars, introduction to the language and culture, and opportunities to talk with current volunteers and staff. Despite the entire group being a bit jet-lagged, we are all holding up pretty well, just excited at this point to learn the ropes and meet our host families this weekend. We've already gotten a handful of vaccinations and talked over safety, health and security procedures at length.

We will move in with our host families this weekend and begin the awkwardness of trying to communicate with them given such a significant language barrier. For the training period of almost 3 months, I will be living in a community with a number of other volunteer trainees, including the 4 who I will be training alongside with a native Language and Cross-Cultural Facilitator. We will have language lessons 4 hours per day, followed by lunch with our host family and an afternoon of work training or practice sessions. This will occur (most weeks) 6 days a week with Sunday to rest although during the next 3 months, there are a few outings to Baku or days in which all 61 of us meet up in Sumgayit scheduled.

All in all, things are going great, and I am both excited and nervous to meet my host family and really experience Azerbaijani living! Unfortunately, it looks like our internet access will be somewhat sporadic during training, but I hope to be able to post once 2-3 per month.