Just got an email from my friend David who is a volunteer with his wife Lois in Samoa. It was really good to hear from him, and it is funny how alot of what he is experiencing there is similar to what I've gone through here. I guess alot of what you experience in Peace Corps is similar no matter where you are. Except for the fact that he lives in a cement house with a tin roof, and I live in a cement house with a tiled roof.

Had a meeting today with my PC program manager and my boss at Co-PLAN. It was a good opportunity to talk about what is going on and to think about my role in the future. The project in Keneta is really hitting an interesting phase. Co-Plan and the city government have developed an urban plan for the region and have overlayed it on the existing structures and roads. So seeing the new plan into existence is going to require working with individuals in the community to open space for road and canal systems. Could potentially generate alot of anger from the community, but if done right, could create alot of cooperation. We'll see what happens.

Quasi-funny story. There is a place here that I go to get rotiscery chicken. Last time I was there, I saw on the menu that they also offer rotiscery sheep's head. That doesn't bother me really because I understand that people here like sheep's head, but I looked at the oven and all of the sheep's heads were being cooked above the chickens and all the brain, and eye and whatever else juices were dripping onto the chickens. Kind of gross. But I ate the chicken any way because it is so darn tasty.

3 things I like about being in Albania

1. Life is "avash avash". Slow and take it as it comes.
2. The fruits and vegetables. Shume te fresket
3. When I find people here who have hope for the future.

Fatigue Cont'd...

I forgot to mention. I found out that the hospital is under the supervision of the city's Dept. of Health. According to discussions with them, they currently have the building earmarked to be divided in half. One half will be a psychiatric hospital with in-patient services and the other half will be converted for use by the Keneta community.

I can't possibly see how this is a good idea. I can just imagine having a community meeting or something and just hearing gutteral screams and wailing through the wall. We'll see. Might make for some good stories.

Fatigue

I've pretty much slept and laid around the house all day. I've finally dragged myself down to the internet cafe to make a much needed check of my email. I guess my body had just forgotten what a full week of work feels like. When I got home last night, I just crashed.

Last week was pretty busy with work, and it was really nice to be doing something. We had a group-organization training for teenagers in Keneta at our office Mon - Wed from 9 to 4. The training went really well, and the end result was the formation of a teen project group that we will be overseen by Co-Plan. The group was able to elect officers, write up some guidelines and regulations for the group and plan their first official activity. For that activity we went to Mt. Dajti yesterday. It is the highest mountain of the ridge line that surrounds Tirana. It was alot of fun. We chartered a bus to get up there and about 20 teens went. We played volleyball and soccer, rode horses and cooked out lunch. It was a good time for the kids to really get to know each other, and for me to continue to try to learn all their names. (Albanian names are not the Christian names I'm used to like James, Ann, or Michael, they are more like Kushtrim, Flamur, or Marilena.)

Plus this week I've been working with Katharine on creating our English discussion and professional development group for NGO professionals in Durres. We announced the group at a collaborative meeting of the NGOs here and we had alot of interest in it. We will be having that class on Tuesdays, and then on Wednesdays we are doing another English/Discussion group for some high schoolers. I am also going to continue my English classes in Keneta on Mondays and Thursdays and I'll be taking over Joe's classes there since his service is done in November. So my schedule will be pretty full.

This week I am going to be working on translating the urban plan we just finished for Keneta, and we have some more meetings with the community groups to discuss the plan and the next steps in the process.

One kind of funny story. The volunteer from my group that was with me in Belsh and left in week three had resigned and gone home because he wanted to be with his girlfriend whom he had met about 5 months prior. Well I just found out that after he went home, he and his girlfriend broke up and now he is in Solvenia teaching english with another organization. I wish him the best, but I still think it is kind of funny.

Rainbows

I know that everything that can be said about Katrina probably already has, but I just want to iterate here my hopes that all of the images and stories will wake America up to the reality of the level of poverty that exists in America. Though often unseen, hidden, and (truthfully) ignored, poverty does exist in its most usual forms of powerlessness, hopelessness, and injustice; not only in New Orleans, but in cities, towns, and neighborhoods throughtout the United States. In a stark coincidence, the Census Bureau report on poverty in America was released shortly before the hurricane, and it reveals that nearly a third of Americans are currently living below the poverty line, and the majority are children.

Hopefully the rainbow that emerges from this terrible storm will be a new concern for the impoverished, a movement of turning away from ourselves and looking to the needs of others, and that, like with Noah after the flood, the rainbow will again be a covenant between God and his people. A new covenant with the poor and rich alike, that God will no longer tolerate apathy and self-interest among the people of his church. But that he will see that the first will become last and the last will become first. It is my real hope that the Church will lead in this effort, and embrace a re-examining of what it truly means to love our neighbors as ourselves.

For those that would like to, Sojourners has put up a pledge on-line that is a committment to build a new America, one where no one will be left behind. I know that pledges like these are often kind of cheesy, but I thought I would make it available.

Happy 2nd anniversary to my Brother and Sister-in-Law. I'd get you a present and everything, but I am in Albania. (I think I am going to use that excuse a lot. It is very convinient)