Change is Coming

Last month I alluded to some drama; I’ll talk more about that now. We PCRVs had a meeting with the head of programming for Peace Corps EMA (Europe, Mediterranean and Asia), who was in Armenia for a week; she was here mostly to discuss programming for the two-year volunteers, but as long as she was here, she met with us to see if there was any feedback she could bring back to headquarters. I think that the meeting led all of us to think about our assignments here. Brian chose the timing of her visit to announce his desire/intention to leave Homeland Handicrafts; Peace Corps staff worked with him to find him another assignment here. Gordon and Jeanne had some good feedback and good insights into what they are doing and what they want to accomplish while here. My feedback was focused largely on the orientation that Peace Corps had for us when we arrived, but I also looked at my job description and realized that I didn’t feel well-utilized as a Peace Corps Response volunteer. A sentence in the job description mentioned the need to roll up our sleeves – and I realized that all I had been doing since I started is roll up my sleeves. I hadn’t really been able to get an actual project going, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to. I rewrote my job description so that it would be more reflective of what I thought the needs of the organization were and what I could bring to it based on my experience – i.e. writing a marketing strategy and plan and doing some of its implementation.

However, I also realized that I felt worn out and unfulfilled and that changing the job description wouldn’t be enough - if I had the opportunity to change the job, I should grab it. One of the options presented to Brian seemed up my alley; he mentioned it to me and I mentioned to Peace Corps that I would be interested. I went to meet with them earlier this week and I said yes! I’ll be working with Millennium Challenge Account-Armenia. This is the in-country implementation team of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, an independent U.S. foreign aid agency created in 2004 to fight global poverty. MCC (per its web site) forms partnerships with poor countries, but only those who are committed to good governance, economic freedom and investments in their citizens (read more about it at mcc.gov). In Armenia they have been working on canals and irrigation systems, something I don’t know that much about, but something a civil engineering major could love (read more at mca.am/en – note that if you google it, the first result is an old site; the new site is the second google result). The compact ends in September, and as they close out the project, they requested a Peace Corps Response volunteer to help with PR and marketing.

When I got there late Monday afternoon for a short chat, there was a visitor from MCC in Washington reviewing the communications. She said that Armenia’s communications are a model they use for other countries. There’s a strong team in place here, and they are looking to me to help with success stories, proofreading and editing in English, and writing articles for the quarterly bulletin. They feel I can offer a fresh (and a Western) perspective; the staff has been working on these stories for several years now. I might also write a blog about the closeout events for the MCC team here. There will be new closeout materials to be produced, and materials need to be made more user-friendly for the U.S. audience (i.e. Capitol Hill). All of this is very exciting! They’re busy this week and next with high-profile events, so I won’t start in the office until April 18; in the meantime I have a stack of communications to read and the (new, since I looked at the old) web site to review, so I have already started!

I went to one of the events today – the opening of a gravity system (I’m guessing that as I do the reading I’ll be able to explain what that is), attended by the President of Armenia, the U.S. Ambassador, the head of the MCC here, the Minister of Agriculture, and more. I’m waiting to see the television coverage of it as I write this. I was wondering if and how I would tell the Ambassador that I changed assignments, and I had my chance when I said hello to her! It was exciting to be there. Afterwards, I went with the MCC folks to the opening of a canal that was funded by the World Bank – this one featured multiple toasts and a complete buffet lunch. In trying to stay close to the MCC folks but also out of the way, I ended up quite near the President! The MCC folks then had to go back to the Embassy for a meeting discussing what would happen in case of a government shutdown.

As for when I finish – that’s not confirmed, but I told both Peace Corps and MCA-Armenia that I would like to leave at the end of July. I indicated that I would be willing to reconsider since there will be multiple closeout events in August and September, but I think I’ll be ready to leave after six months in country. They actually wanted someone through the end of the year, so maybe they can get a second Response volunteer to build on what I do.

And as for how I ended things with Homeland Handicrafts – that’s a story for another day.