Made It

Well, I made it. It's good to finally be here. The flights were reasonably stress free and we got to Albania about 5 pm on Thurday (Albania time). The past two days we have been going through more orientation and tomorrow we will be moving in with our host families. I found out I am going to be living in the town of Belsh, about an hour southwest of Elbasan. I'm anxious to meet the family and find out where I will be spending the next three months of training. Thanks to everyone for all of your prayers while we were traveling. Everything went smoothly and a large percentage of the luggage arrived.

I think that's it. Gotta go back for more training.

Staging

Well I made it to Philadelphia without incident. All of yesterday afternoon and all of today we are having our staging before we leave the country. We've covered topics like safety, crossing cultures, anxieties, aspirations and goals, etc. Some of it has been a little stale, but most of the topics are good review to keep the issues in the front of my mind for when I go. There are twenty-seven people leaving in our group. Surpisingly it is about 70/30 guys to girls. The Peace Corps average is 40/60, but girls are subject to increased levels of harassment in Albania, so it is understandable. We have all age ranges from 22 to 66, so it will be a nice diverse crowd to get to know and work with. Tomorrow we will be driving to JFK and flying out about 9 pm (est) so keep us in your prayers as we travel. Hopefully my next post will be from Albania. Gotta go to lunch.

Here is a map of Albania. My training will take place in Elbasan, just south of the capital. 

Abbey, Brian and Staci's dog (Thanks to Staci for the picture) 

The whole family 

(l to r) Lisa, Staci, Sidney, Brian, and Me 

My niece Sidney and I