Talk the Talk

It has recently been brought to my attention that some of you guys may or may not be having a difficult time trying to decipher all of my Peace Corps babble. So, this blog is solely dedicated to breaking it down for you guys so you will now be hip to the Peace Corps lingo.

Ok, this is pretty much the breakdown of Peace Corps Bulgaria. We have a Country Director (CD) and her name is Lesley and she's in charge of everything and everyone in Bulgaria. Then we have Phil and Jason. Phil is the PTO (and I honestly have no idea what that means) and Jason is in charge of finances. So those are the three big dogs.

Then, out of however many programs the entire Peace Corps offers, we only have three in Bulgaria. We have Youth Development (YD), Community Organization and Development (COD) and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). I am a TEFL, obviously. It's been said that the TEFLs have the most work and the most difficult jobs out of the three programs here. I'm not trying to make you think that TEFL is better than the others...but it is. I'm not biast or anything.

Anyway, each program then has two or three Bulgarians that are in charge. Dora is the Program Director for the TEFLS and she has two assistants, Valya and Chavdar. All three of them are absolutely amazing. Actually, the entire Peace Corps Staff is pretty fantastic. I think it's really cool how Lesley, Phil and Jason are the only three Americans and everyone else is Buglarian. I like that a lot. Also on staff are three Doctors, a Safety and Security Coordinator, a Training Manager and Assistant (they were in charge of everything that happened during Pre-Service Training), and a Language Coordinator.

Also, there are different groups of Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) here in Bulgaria. The group that I'm in is B26. The B26 group is everyone that left America when I did to come here. We are the 26th group to be in Bulgaria since Peace Corps got here. The group before us is B25 and so on. I think at this moment, we have some volunteers all the way back to B21, or B22. The next group that's coming in (the B27s) are coming in March, so that will be fun.

So that is the Peace Corps breakdown. Hopefully I've cleared some things up for anyone who was confused. If I did leave anything out, though, or you just have questions, leave me a comment and let me know! These questions can be about anything, not just necessarily about this post. Have a good weekend, everyone!