We spend the night at a hotel in D.C. and then leave on Thursday, May 27 for Armenia. We will travel through Vienna with a layover that gives us enough time to either sleep (my personal preference) or sightsee. Late that night we fly to the capital of Armenia, Yerevan. We land at around 5 am and will then head to our training site in Charentsavan about 35 km from the capital.
We will spend a few days in a hotel, meet and move in with our host family, and start our training. Right now we have absolutely no idea which of the villages around Charentsavan we will live in during training, what our host family will be like, or what training will actually be like. We have been told that we are in training 6 days a week. Looking at last year's schedule, we are likely to have about 20 hours of language lessons each week. The rest of the training schedule includes cross-cultural training, safety, teaching, and lots of other things. At the end of 10 weeks we should have some basic Armenian language skills. Even though we will be teaching English, we will need to be able to ride public transit (and read the signs and ask where the bus is going), buy food, and converse with our host family and the rest of the community. It is going to be intense, intense, intense!!
We are now done with traveling and having visitors. It's been a whirlwind since the end of February. We have counted very few days where we haven't either been traveling ourselves or had people visiting. It has been such a gift to be able to spend time with family and friends before we leave. Very difficult to get my mind around the fact that I won't be able to just hop on a plane to San Francisco to visit, or drive a few miles to see my sister, niece or brother. We are going to be 9 time zones from Cambridge, which is a really, really, really long way away. For months now I've been saying it wasn't a big deal. I was lying. It's a big deal.
But we are going on an amazing adventure, and we will be doing amazing things. We hope that some of it will make a difference. Even if it doesn't for the people we will be serving, I know WE will be different when this journey is over.
Big yard sale on Sunday. Looks like the weather is going to cooperate too (70's and sunny). We are slowly selling things in the house. Movers come on May 8, and our last night in Cambridge is May 14. Then we move to Hingham where my sister has graciously invited us to spend our last 10 days in the U.S. for a while.
We have tons still to do before we can go. And all I see right now is boxes, piles, and more to do than there are hours in the day. I know it will get done as we are a great team under pressure.
More later.
Susan
