November 10, 2007

Not much new to report per our phone conversation with Aaron today. We talked a lot about his efforts to get the Rosetta Stone software working properly. He finally gave up on the computers at the school in his village and has gone in to the next town which has a computer center. The gentleman who runs the computer center has been asking Aaron for awhile to come in and teach an English class. Aaron has worked out a deal with him, where Aaron can install the Rosetta Stone software on his computers and any of his students from the village who want to come in and use the computers there may for no charge and in exchange, Aaron will teach a couple of classes a week. Aaron says that he has the software working fine on the server and it is an awesome program!! However, when he tries to use it on the other computers, all he can get is sample lessons--some problem with the networking. So, Aaron is calling in all his markers and getting help to correct this problem and will soon have the software running on all the computers to it's full capacity!!
Aaron said that he is teaching a class two nights a week at the Center and is really enjoying it. The Director is very pro-active and is always asking Aaron for more!! Which in Aaron's mind is great!! At the center, Aaron has his own class and can run it his way--which is in direct contrast to what I have explained in an earlier post as to the way he "teaches" in his village. He only has 5 - 6 students right now, but they are all ones who genuinely want to learn English and put forth the effort that they need to!!
Aaron's goal is to of course get the software running properly as soon as possible, but very definitely have one or two people proficient with the software before his service is over next September. There are only 80 Peace Corps volunteers in the whole country, so Aaron is pretty sure that his village will not have another volunteer next year after he leaves. So, he is kind of feeling the importance of getting the software working well!!
Aaron's other challenge for the past week has been to get a new ID card. If you are a citizen of Azerbaijan, you don't need one of these, but because of Aaron's status--he has to have one. He went armed with his passport, Sadaqat's passport and all the other information that he needed. In typical government fashion (some things are the same everywhere!), he got there at 1:00 and they were closed for lunch--come back in 2 hours he was told--so he came back at 3:00 and still had to wait another 45 minutes before he got any help!! Then he was told that they needed to know how may square meters the house that he was living in measured, as well as individual room dimensions!! Finally, he called Sadaqat, and had the person he was talking to, tell her what he needed! Of course, the government official was talking to Sadaqat on Aaron's cell phone and using Aaron's contours up in doing this. Aaron said that it took about 40 minutes or so for the government person to explain to Sadaqat what he needed!! Aaron's next step is to go see the village administrator person that we had lunch with when we were there. It pays to know people everywhere!! I mentioned the lunch that we had with Lala, Aaron's Anthropoly friend who was Turkish and now taught at the University in Germany and was in the village doing some research for a paper she was doing? Well, she was living with a Chemistry teacher from Aaron's school and the teacher's husband was some kind of village administrator. That was Aaron's next stop. So, hopefully, by now he has a new ID card!!
Aaron will take the train in to Baku on Thursday evening. He has a dentist appointment on Friday and then will be staying at an Ex-Pats house for the weekend. He is looking forward to being able to do some "real" laundry, as he puts it. Every year, the Peace Corps puts on a Thanksgiving Dinner for all the volunteers. I don't think that the dinner is actually held at the Embassy, but someplace like that. The Peace Corps provides turkey, dressing, and some of the basics, and then the volunteers are all supposed to bring something!! So while Aaron is staying with the Ex-Pat, he is going to make mashed potatoes to take to the dinner. He is really looking forward to an old-fashioned Thanksgiving feast, too!!
Guess that is all for this week--will post more soon!