First Taste of 2 Years

Sorry that it has been so long since I have written anything here. Time has been rather full lately as I am nearing the end of training. Right now I am in Durres. I will be here for this whole week as all of the trainees are having a one-week site visit with their future organizations or schools in the cities where they are going to serve for two-years.

Last weekend we had a conference in Pogredec (in the east next to lake Ohrid) where all of the trainees meet with their counterparts from the places where they are going to work. I met my counterpart Oriana. She is the project director for Co-Plan in Keneta, Durres. She is quite intelligent and we seem to get along rather well. I have been meeting with her in Keneta the last few days and the rest of the week and I am starting to get a little bit of a taste of what I will be doing for the project and what living in Keneta will be like. Keneta definitely has alot of problems. I found out that Keneta is the Albanian word for swamp. All of the area that has been built-up with houses used to be wetlands and agricultural space. So all of the drainage canals built to drain the area back in the 70s have turned into open sewer lines. Smells great. I am trying to take pictures this week and I will post them sometime later.

I am really excited about working here. I think Oriana was glad to hear that I had studied urban planning because she said I look very young, and age is a big indicator of ability here. She didn't know what kind of volunteer she would be getting, and she was worried at first when she saw how young I was. It is going to take some time to build trust with her and the community, but it will come soon enough.

They are still looking for a host family for me in Keneta. Most of the residents there are migrants from villages in the north and the south, so they still have alot of traditional values and are concerned about having a single man living in there house if there are unmarried girls in there family, immediate or extended. Hopefully they will be able to find something in the next three weeks. I move to Keneta for good on June 16 after our swearing-in ceremony.

Wow, I wrote alot. Anyway. Later on.

Host Family

Living with the host family is great, but it continually makes me feel like I am six-years-old again. The other night I had taught my neighbor cousins how to play four-square. We were playing in front of a neighborhood house and my host mom came out a called me to dinner. I just said "yes, mom" and ran home to eat. Things are the same here. Not much to report. Happy Mother's Day to my mom and happy birthday to Aaron on the 4th. Une duhet te shkoj te los billardo dhe pi kafe. Mirupafshim.

Photos

I forgot to tell you where the photos are. Go to yahoo and go to the photos page.

The login is : arbor602
password: baylor

Enjoy

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.