(not sure if this is the correct forum…)
Hi Kyla! I tried sending you an email through the email address in your profile and it got bounced back. I have noticed through several of your posts that you are working in Bulgaria and I just accepted a job that will bring me to Sofia, Bulgaria for the summer. Please email me, it’s in my profile. Thanks!
Her last known blog was http://nodforno.blogspot.com/
I am here! Oh how exciting, a thread just for me! I will send you an email.
Also, now that the topic has been broached, can you tell me some more about the Peace Corps? I’ve kinda wondered and thought it could be a fun alternative to a mundane life in America.
You know, having a mundane life in Europe, for example.
Here’s the thing about being a PCV: it’s hard. I mean, it’s really, really hard. I’m a member of the LiveJournal PC community, and a lot of the posters are people in the application process, and they tend to be pretty idealistic and go on about making the world a better place, etc. Which is nice, but about 97% of the time, I personally, anyway, feel like I’m doing pretty much nothing to make the world a better place. My life is, as you seem to be aware, pretty mundane. I oversleep sometimes. I spend an inordinate amount of time looking for my keys. I wonder what to make for dinner. Etc. My job is teaching English as a Foreign Language in an elementary school (which includes middle school in Bulgaria, I teach grades 2-8) and it can be both really rewarding and really frustrating.
Obviously, what makes the job so hard is being a foreigner. I’ve worked really hard on my Bulgarian but I’m often still left in the dark when we have teachers’ meetings at school. I miss chiles rellenos and shag alu paneer and avocados and cheddar freaking cheese. It’s really lonely being the only English speaker in my town. (Although I live in a really small town, some bigger cities have multiple volunteers, not to mention bigger cities are more cosmopolitan and thus have more people who’ve studied English. Plus, they have imported food.)
In general, I wouldn’t recommend the Peace Corps unless you have a selfish reason to stick to it. I want to do a masters degree in public policy after this and am hoping two years of experiencing some really bad policy decisions will make me a good candidate for grad school. Remembering that this will help me in the future is a good motivator when I am feeling down. If you pretty much don’t have anything better to do and have a vague idea that you want to help people, don’t do it. Twenty-seven months is a long time to devote to a whim.
All the complaining aside, I am generally pretty happy and am grateful for this opportunity. It’s amazing to live in another country and experience a different culture. Sometimes I can’t wait for it to be over with, but I never regret coming in the first place.
I assume that “Pease Corps” looks good on a resume. Would I have any selfish reasons for going? Sure. I’d wanna see new shit and meet new people and all that fun stuff. I’d hafta work my sack off on a language, though.
There are postings in anglophone Africa and the Caribbean, so not necessarily. But if you want to go to Europe, yeah. And Bulgarian, gotta say, is not one of the world’s easier languages to learn. (When you apply, you don’t really get a lot of say in where you go: the key phrase is “be flexible”. But apparently the European postings are the least popular, so if you really wanted to come here specifically, it’d probably be easy to manage that.)
FTR, PC Europe includes: Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine.
The Caribbean? Hmmmm…
But seriously, if I went ahead and did it, I’d happily go wherever they put me. I just may do some preliminary poking around and see what’s out there.
Silly question, but I’ve gotta ask it. Do you get paid to do it?
Yes but not much. Still more than many local people get (she had one of those Ask the… threads)
That’s RIGHT! I remember that now. Gah.
<–idiot.