Midway Training Point

Looks like I've officially reached the midway point in training; the vast majority of time until now was spent studying Russian and listening the the lectures of NGOs that came to visit us as well as some training on what to look for in an NGO, how to adapt to our sites once we get there, etc. - generally high level training. Next week we go to our practicum sites and once we return the 25 of us in training will get to choose between 34 available NGOs for our permanent site placement. As far as I see it it's more important for a volunteer to help by assisting in the creation of mission statements and project plans while doing things on the side such as teaching English and writing grant proposals. Even though I'm in the IT track I was told that I wouldn't be doing anything more sophisticated here than data entry and building websites but there is the possibility of me teaching some things at the university level if that's what I want to do. I'm slowly getting the idea of how busy my life will be once I get to my site and while I'm looking forward to it it's a little scary too. Over the remainder of training our schedule will become more flexible; today we were asked by the training director to help design it and it looks like we'll be having more detailed technical sessions on grant writing, etc. Kaz 14 is often described by the training staff as being reserved in the sense that we don't leave many comments for improvement but the truth of it is that most of us are content with the way that things are going. There are a few things that I'm sure will be changed for the next NGO training group (Kaz 16 in October) but the trainees in the current group won't be able to effectively judge how useful the training we received was until we actually begin to work at our NGOs. I'm looking forward to getting the chance to see a different area of Kazakhstan and to make new acquaintances and friends once I do get to my site.