PERMANENT SITE ANNOUNCEMENT NEWS!!

I got some big news on Friday. They announced where everyone would be working for the two years here. Drum roll please...

I found out that I am going to be working in the city of Keneta. It is an quasi-legal, mostly illegal migrant settlement between the capital city of Tirana and the port city of Durres. I am going to be working with an organization called Co-PLAN. Supposedly I will be working with them in the formulation of women's and children's community groups as well as the development of an urban strategic plan for the city, but I am sure that is subject to change. The site placement sounds like it will be a great fit for my abilities and also for what I wanted to do while I was here. Co-PLAN has a website at http://www.co-plan.org/ and my specific project is at http://www.co-plan.org/eng/projects/project_steps.asp .

Right now we are in training week 6 of 12. For the next two weeks I will have a practicum with the local government here in Elbasan and will continue the language training of course.

One funny story to share. We had Saturday off, so some friends and I decided to go to Durres which is about two hours away. To come home that night we had to come back through Tirana and it was really dificult to find a furgon (mini-bus) back to Elbasan, so we cramed 12 total people into the furgon, but it is only legally allowed 10 passengers. The driver was really afraid to getting a ticket, but he knew where the police checkpoints were. So, he would stop around the curve from the checkpoint, and me and another lady had to get out and walk through the checkpoint and get back in around the next curve. We had to do this twice and each time the police were looking at me trying to figure who this random American walking down the road in the middle of nowhere was. Then I got home to Belsh and was tired and wanted to talk a nap, but my family had just killed lamb and it was on the table in my room draining the blood. I have a good picture of it and I will try to post it today.

Thanks to everyone that has emailed, sorry if I haven't written you back personally.