The Week of The LPI

You know how you’ll have one of those classes in college where you have a great time going to it because you sit next to your best friend, and the two of you always go out for lattes afterwards? The actual subject matter of the class doesn’t really seem significant because of all the fun you have in the auxillary portions of it. It’s just that at some point, there’s going to be a test on the stuff you were supposed ot be learning, and suddenly you begin wishing you could rewind and pay attention instead of gossip for the past semester. This week was that test for our training class and I was petrified after having spent the past eleven weeks having a lot of fun, but doing a really bad job of learning Turkmen.

The name of the test is the Language Proficiency Interview (LPI), and there was actually a minimum score we had to get, to be considered successfully finished with our Pre service Training. I was so afraid of not making the cut. I spent all week trying to cram every little bit of Turkmen into my head that I possibly could, all the while berating myself for being such a slacker of a language student.

The test was scheduled for Friday morning, and the time between Monday and Friday seemed to pass in a flash. Mahrie’s birthday was on Tuesday, The baby pooped on the carpet on Wednesday (very funny incident), I went shopping for the last time at the Talkuchga bazaar on Thursday, and suddenly it was Friday. Eek!

Don’t worry, I won’t keep you in suspense, the test went fine. I was classified as an intermediate low speaker. Which in normal language means that I know how to speak in complete sentences, but not in paragraphs yet. Good enough for me, and good enough for Peace Corps. I was relieved.

All of the other volunteers came over for dinner at my family’s house on Saturday. My family was quite pleased that they’d finally gotten an opportunity to host “The Americans” in the village, and we all had a really good time haging out with each other. I can’t believe that we’re going to be saying goodbye to one another in only a week. Oh sad…