Resource Room Projects: Do's and Don'ts

So, how exactly does a PCV start and implement a successful resource room project in Azerbaijan? Since I am a 2010 recipient of a SPA (Small Project Assistance) grant to do exactly that, you might think that I would be the right person to answer this question. Sadly, the English resource room I wanted to start at my school currently exists only in my mind. This is not good, because ever since I conceived the notion to write a SPA grant, my mind has become a deeply frazzled, disturbed, and occasionally violent place where children should not have to go to practice their English. My brain is not a good location to hold an English resource room for other reasons as well, such as the fact that my brain is not a real place. However, after nearly 6 months of planning, reconnaissance, attempts and reattempts, continuous bad luck and many expensive trips to Baku, the real English resource room at school holds only half of the materials I have funds to buy, and has not done much to enrich this year’s English lessons. My counterparts can only look on helplessly when I am slouched against the wall in a catatonic state after yet another infuriating telephone call with Baku bookstore representatives who still haven’t ordered the books I requested 3 months ago. A certain member of my school’s faculty, who from the beginning felt that a $7,500 electronic blackboard would have been a far better investment of SPA funds than actual English books and teaching materials, feels no compunctions about telling me the English room is “like an empty box.” I feel that at this point I may be able to give a more authoritative answer on the chicken vs. the egg than on how to create a successful SPA project. (The egg. It was randomly laid by a mutant dinosaur, since birds evolved from dinosaurs.)

The most useful thing I can give, however, is a list of do’s and don’ts for anyone else who might be thinking about failing to start a resource room project at their school or organization. The following is a summation of what I have learned, which is quite a lot, about how to unsuccessfully implement a SPA resource room project.

Tip # 1: When your Program Managaer comes for a site visit and meets with you in the barren English cabinet at your school, sees your excellent working relationship with your motivated counterparts, and suggests you write a SPA grant to create a real English classroom, DON’T assume that if you like this idea, construct a well thought-out proposal with reasonable goals and deadlines, and enlist your eager-to-help counterparts, that your project plan will become anything but moot in the near future, because your future will soon consist of slogging around Baku trying to purchase SPA materials that the stores no longer have in stock. DO thank your program manager for her input, leave your site, travel to your nearest PCV friend, and have him/her slap you repeatedly across the face. Then you will have a good idea of what you would rather be doing instead of slogging around Baku 4 months later, in 90 degree heat, arguing with apathetic shop clerks, wasting your living allowance on hotels and transportation, and then returning to site without most of your SPA materials. You will return to Baku to repeat the slogging process several times. As I said, the most well thought-out project plan becomes irrelevant if you can’t actually procure the things you need. There is no guarantee when you go around pricing materials for your proposal’s budget that any of those things will still be available in the stores after your grant is approved. So, DON’T assume, while you are waiting for your funds to arrive, that if you told the manager of a store that you will return in one month to buy, for example, the books on a list you gave him, that he will have them ready for you when you return. In fact, DON’T even assume that he cares at all about taking your money. He doesn’t. And he will never return your calls to tell you he still hasn’t ordered the books so that you can save yourself another trip coming home empty-handed, either.
Tip # 2: As your problems mount, DO ask your favorite Peace Corps staff members for help. They will be very sympathetic and understanding of the issues you are dealing with. They will try their best to help you get the materials you need in Baku and perhaps even give you a ride to the stores so you don’t have to take the bus. They may even thank you for your efforts to help the children of Azerbaijan. This will make you feel a lot better. It’s for the children, see? However, DON’T allow yourself to dwell too long in these sorts of good moments, such as when a PC staff member helps you to successfully negotiate with a furniture warehouse owner for your new bookshelves to be delivered to your school. If you enjoy this victory too much, you will be unprepared for the shock of when the delivery man later arrives at your site without the shelves for the bookcase because he forgot to load them in his car when he left Baku.

Tip # 3: If you take heed of anything in this article, heed this: DO avoid Shamaxinka at all costs. Shamaxinka is bus stop and taxi stand in Baku where drivers wait to take passengers to Ismayilli and other regions. (It is not, as it is sometimes mistaken by PCVs, another name for Shamaxi.) Shamaxinka is also a gateway to hell. It is worse than the Yeni Vagzal. In fact, I would rather wear a bikini and sit on a huge golden throne in the middle of the roadway at the Yeni Vagzal, with a neon sign above my head that blinks “PLEASE HARASS ME” than spend any more time at Shamaxinka ever again. However, in the event that you must take a taxi from Shamaxinka to transport your missing bookshelves to site, and if the furniture warehouse owner calls you to tell you that he cannot meet you at Shamaxinka with the shelves until 6pm (because he is busy “working”) DO tell him that he can consider delivering your 300 manat’s worth of furniture as “working” and meet you earlier than that, otherwise he will get stuck in traffic for an hour and a half, stop answering his phone, and abandon the task altogether. By the time you realize he isn’t coming, it will be too late for you to travel back to site. To the great interest of many nearby men with extreme staring problems, you will be stranded at 8pm at Shamaxinka with your PCV friend, several bags of other SPA materials, and nowhere for the two of you to stay the night in Baku.
Tip # 4: Once you begin to realize that your project is not progressing forward and you won’t meet your deadline to begin implementing the resource room, DON’T try to remain calm by telling yourself that everything will work out in time, because there are other PCVs in your group who have successfully implemented resource room projects - so if they did it, you can too. No. This is a faulty logic. Those PCVs are not normal people. Those PCVs are magical, unicorn-people who were chosen by destiny to build capacity and bestow sustainability wherever they go. After you conclude that you are not a unicorn and your SPA project is in a shambles, DO go and look at the “Project Risks” portion of your original proposal and reflect that what you actually should’ve written in this section was “WHO KNOWS? THE FICKLE GODS OF FATE THEMSELVES ARE RISKS TO MY PROJECT! AND NOW I AM A RISK TO MYSELF AND POSSIBLY OTHERS!”
Tip #5: If you possess the ability to transform into a unicorn at will, DO write a grant to start a resource room, and be ye blithe. I’m certain that your magical abilities will help you to easily procure and transport your materials to your site and successfully implement your project on its intended start date, with extra time left over for cantering nimbly through the forest by moonlight. However, if you are not part unicorn, I recommend that you spend serious time with PC staff and your counterparts, to fully consider ALL the risks to your project (and the risks to your mental health) before you accept the funding. Since Baku’s stores can be unreliable, you may want to look into ordering your materials online from the U.S. and use a community cash-contribution to pay for shipping costs. Like me, you may start off thinking “Yes, I know this project will be challenging, and I will likely encounter hurdles along the way, but I want to do it anyway.” That is the mindset we all had when we signed up for Peace Corps. But you will need more than patience and determination to finish a large-scale project here. You will need a lot of pure luck, which in my experience, is not a sustainable resource.