Normally, taking off for a few weeks in the summer is no problem as not much work really gets done in the months of July and August anyway since most of the Albanians are off on vacation too. But in the World Vision office that I am working with, we have a lot to do, mostly because there was not a lot to do in May and June. We finished the main product of the past year- the Project Design Document (PDD) a detailed plan for the projects for the next three years- at the end of April and May and June were spent mostly in the process of hiring new staff. Only two of the four staff members were kept on for this next phase and 5 more staff members were hired. So now that the staff is complete, we have a lot to do to start implementing that big plan that we spent the last year working on.
The problem is of course, that I already had made plans to take a trip to Istanbul and Romania with a few other volunteers. It was originally planned for the end of August but was moved up due to various schedule conflicts. I almost canceled the trip (in fact I did cancel the trip and then uncanceled the trip), because this is just not that good of a time to go. But it is a better time to go than later when we are likely to have even more to do in the office, not to mention side projects that will really get going again when school starts like MUN and OA. Maybe I'm alone in this and no other PCVs end up with this dilema, but finding a balance between travel, vacationing and staying in site can be hard. I travel much, MUCH more than the average Albanian. Most of my friends and coworkers have not been to many places in their own country besides Tirana and maybe to Durres or Vlora for the beach in the summer. That being said, I generally feel justified with most of my travel. I usually take trips for work/training/meetings and will occasionally add a few days (the weekend) for fun (like my recent trip to the beach). I also feel justified in taking some vacation time and going out of the country. When else will I have the chance to take an overnight bus ride (rather than a plane trip) to Istanbul? Part of the great thing about being in a country like Albania is that it is right in the middle of a great region of the world with easy access to Greece, Italy, Turkey, Macedonia, Croatia etc.
But even with all this, I feel a little bit guilty about leaving right now. I know that if I were here for the next two weeks, I would have things to do, which has not always been the case over the past year (especially over the past two months when the office was basically closed). It's just too bad that I couldn't take this trip last August when I really didn't have anything to do yet . . . Oh well, anyway, I'm taking the trip and I'm going to have a great time and it will all be here when I get back . . .
First stop- Portillo in Macedonia! Can't wait to see you Jen!
Showing posts with label World Vision. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World Vision. Show all posts
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Monday, December 22, 2008
December blues
December has actually been a pretty busy month for me here, which is why I haven't updated so much since Thanksgiving . . .
In addition to IST (which was a really long week away from my town), things have really started to pick up on the work fronts. At my office we have finally started to have focus group discussions with the community- we will have more than 40 meetings before February in order to get ideas from the community on priorities for projects. This will all end with a big meeting in which we will hammer out a project plan for the next three years based on what we have been told in these community meetings. We are meeting with kids and adults and some of their responses are great. I love it when the kids in the villages start talking about people respecting their rights and living in a clean village after 5 or 10 years. I think that they have a good idea of where they want to be in the future, but maybe not how to get there. One of the biggest challenges with coming in to these communities is that there is often still the mentality that "someone else" (governement, the US, NGOs, everyone else) is responsible for change. This is really hard when you are coming in with an organization like World Vision- there are big expecations for everything to get better right away. I'm a little bit afraid that anything we do will not be enough (because there is so many things) because people will say "why didn't YOU do this, this, this and this!"
Other than that, I've been working with 8 girls on getting ready for a Model United Nations conference coming up in February. We are Burkina Faso (which if you don't know is a small, really poor country in West Africa). I'm pretty sure that none of these girls had ever heard of BF before (I had to look it up on a map). Additionally, they have very little experiance doing internet research, have never heard of Robert's Rules of Order and are scared to speak in front of people. But we are getting along slowly, slowly.
This week, I'm going to travel down to Gjirokaster to spend Christmas with my friends Chris and Courtney and some other Southern volunteers. This will be my first trip down to the South and I'm really excited. I'm not excited about the 12-14 hours that I will have to spend on the road to get down there . . .
Anyway, I hope that your holiday season is full of friends, family, light and love!
See you next year!
In addition to IST (which was a really long week away from my town), things have really started to pick up on the work fronts. At my office we have finally started to have focus group discussions with the community- we will have more than 40 meetings before February in order to get ideas from the community on priorities for projects. This will all end with a big meeting in which we will hammer out a project plan for the next three years based on what we have been told in these community meetings. We are meeting with kids and adults and some of their responses are great. I love it when the kids in the villages start talking about people respecting their rights and living in a clean village after 5 or 10 years. I think that they have a good idea of where they want to be in the future, but maybe not how to get there. One of the biggest challenges with coming in to these communities is that there is often still the mentality that "someone else" (governement, the US, NGOs, everyone else) is responsible for change. This is really hard when you are coming in with an organization like World Vision- there are big expecations for everything to get better right away. I'm a little bit afraid that anything we do will not be enough (because there is so many things) because people will say "why didn't YOU do this, this, this and this!"
Other than that, I've been working with 8 girls on getting ready for a Model United Nations conference coming up in February. We are Burkina Faso (which if you don't know is a small, really poor country in West Africa). I'm pretty sure that none of these girls had ever heard of BF before (I had to look it up on a map). Additionally, they have very little experiance doing internet research, have never heard of Robert's Rules of Order and are scared to speak in front of people. But we are getting along slowly, slowly.
This week, I'm going to travel down to Gjirokaster to spend Christmas with my friends Chris and Courtney and some other Southern volunteers. This will be my first trip down to the South and I'm really excited. I'm not excited about the 12-14 hours that I will have to spend on the road to get down there . . .
Anyway, I hope that your holiday season is full of friends, family, light and love!
See you next year!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Let’s talk about Sex . . . and AIDS . . . and God?
I mentioned briefly in my last post about the workshop in which I participated in Tirana last week. This training was given by World Vision staff and was geared towards leaders of faith-based organizations (churches) in the area. The training, about how these FBOs can help the fight against HIV/AIDS was an interesting case study for me about working with or for an organization like World Vision. WV is Christian. I am not. I have what I generally call a “complicated” religious background and a (sometimes even to me) confusing belief system.
The history- my father is a Jew from Wyoming (pretty much the only one), my mother is non-denominational Christian that grew up in several different churches across Middle America (Utah, Missouri, Wyoming etc). They met in college while my mother was involved in the UCCF (United Christian Campus Fellowship) and my dad was involved in the Jewish group on campus. After their marriage (which I’m sure disappointed all of their parents) they pretty much stopped actively practicing either religion. During my childhood, we never were members of either a church or a synagogue, and celebrated all the major holidays in a pretty non-religious manner (Christmas Tree/ Chanukah bush, Easter egg hunt/ Passover Seder at a friends house). Unlike most people I know, my parents never TOLD me to believe ANYTHING. What they did tell me was the stories and the history of their families and of their different religions, but pretty much left it up to me to decide what seemed right. And here is maybe where it gets complicated- if no one tells you what to believe, then how do you know what you believe? I always gravitated a little bit more towards my Jewish side. Maybe because it was more exotic (not very many other Jews in my mostly Hispanic high school). Maybe because it seemed a bit more rational (I never really bought that whole died on the cross for our sins and then resurrected bit, but I could buy that we are still waiting for something). I respect Christians and their beliefs, but so far, I haven’t been able to go right ahead and accept Jesus into my heart. But even to call myself Jewish, I would have to believe in God . . . and that is where I get a bit stuck. I just don’t know. I’ve never seen any real proof that the big G-O-D exists, but I haven’t seen any proof to the contrary either. I guess that’s where the whole idea of belief comes in. You have to believe, without seeing or knowing or understanding, that there is this higher power out there controlling things. And I’m not sure.
And so here I am, in a mostly Muslim country, that was once the only officially Atheist country in the world, working with a Christian organization in a training with church members talking about sex, condoms and HIV/AIDS in a Christian context. And I feel a bit confused.
First, working with World Vision. Actually, as I have gotten to know people and the organization over the past four months, I’ll say this. I have great respect for the organization as a Christian organization that uses Christian values to help people, but doesn’t impose those values on the people that it helps. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started, but I was afraid of preaching to the children or evangelizing to the community and (at least in Albania) this is not present at all. In fact, I find that WV takes all the things that I tend to agree with in Christianity (which are also present in Judaism and Islam) like help your neighbor, the golden rule, protect the helpless, thou shalt not kill etc. and applies them to development. Additionally, they have a good process for sustainable development that focuses on local input and participation; small-scale local projects that actually help people and eventual power transfer to local groups.
So, they are doing this campaign to get churches and FBOs to help spread the message and demystify some things about HIV/AIDS prevention. Growing up in a society (and family) in which talking about sex and sexual health was encouraged I feel lucky to not be (very) embarrassed by all of this talk. Talking about these issues at all is a bit hard for many people. It gets harder when you are talking to religious people and even harder when you are talking to religious people in the incredibly traditional society of Albania. In most of Albanian society (Muslim, Christian or Atheist- it doesn’t matter), sex, talk about sex, talk about sexually transmitted diseases, and even sometimes just talking to someone of the opposite sex that’s not a member of your family is all pretty taboo here. So talking to church leaders about condom use . . . what does the Bible say about condoms anyway? And this is where it gets tricky to be a Christian organization. I don’t think that the Bible says anything about condoms, but certainly the Pope has said a lot. HIV is a special case however and a lot of Christians around the world have come to the conclusion that condom use to prevent the spread of this deadly, incurable disease is not only appropriate but also necessary. I’m glad the WV is one of these groups of Christians. That still doesn't mean that I like to go into a workshop and start praying, but anyway . . .
I don’t think that this will be the last time over the next few years in which my religious identity will be challenged or confused, but I’ll figure it out and do the best that I can.
The history- my father is a Jew from Wyoming (pretty much the only one), my mother is non-denominational Christian that grew up in several different churches across Middle America (Utah, Missouri, Wyoming etc). They met in college while my mother was involved in the UCCF (United Christian Campus Fellowship) and my dad was involved in the Jewish group on campus. After their marriage (which I’m sure disappointed all of their parents) they pretty much stopped actively practicing either religion. During my childhood, we never were members of either a church or a synagogue, and celebrated all the major holidays in a pretty non-religious manner (Christmas Tree/ Chanukah bush, Easter egg hunt/ Passover Seder at a friends house). Unlike most people I know, my parents never TOLD me to believe ANYTHING. What they did tell me was the stories and the history of their families and of their different religions, but pretty much left it up to me to decide what seemed right. And here is maybe where it gets complicated- if no one tells you what to believe, then how do you know what you believe? I always gravitated a little bit more towards my Jewish side. Maybe because it was more exotic (not very many other Jews in my mostly Hispanic high school). Maybe because it seemed a bit more rational (I never really bought that whole died on the cross for our sins and then resurrected bit, but I could buy that we are still waiting for something). I respect Christians and their beliefs, but so far, I haven’t been able to go right ahead and accept Jesus into my heart. But even to call myself Jewish, I would have to believe in God . . . and that is where I get a bit stuck. I just don’t know. I’ve never seen any real proof that the big G-O-D exists, but I haven’t seen any proof to the contrary either. I guess that’s where the whole idea of belief comes in. You have to believe, without seeing or knowing or understanding, that there is this higher power out there controlling things. And I’m not sure.
And so here I am, in a mostly Muslim country, that was once the only officially Atheist country in the world, working with a Christian organization in a training with church members talking about sex, condoms and HIV/AIDS in a Christian context. And I feel a bit confused.
First, working with World Vision. Actually, as I have gotten to know people and the organization over the past four months, I’ll say this. I have great respect for the organization as a Christian organization that uses Christian values to help people, but doesn’t impose those values on the people that it helps. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started, but I was afraid of preaching to the children or evangelizing to the community and (at least in Albania) this is not present at all. In fact, I find that WV takes all the things that I tend to agree with in Christianity (which are also present in Judaism and Islam) like help your neighbor, the golden rule, protect the helpless, thou shalt not kill etc. and applies them to development. Additionally, they have a good process for sustainable development that focuses on local input and participation; small-scale local projects that actually help people and eventual power transfer to local groups.
So, they are doing this campaign to get churches and FBOs to help spread the message and demystify some things about HIV/AIDS prevention. Growing up in a society (and family) in which talking about sex and sexual health was encouraged I feel lucky to not be (very) embarrassed by all of this talk. Talking about these issues at all is a bit hard for many people. It gets harder when you are talking to religious people and even harder when you are talking to religious people in the incredibly traditional society of Albania. In most of Albanian society (Muslim, Christian or Atheist- it doesn’t matter), sex, talk about sex, talk about sexually transmitted diseases, and even sometimes just talking to someone of the opposite sex that’s not a member of your family is all pretty taboo here. So talking to church leaders about condom use . . . what does the Bible say about condoms anyway? And this is where it gets tricky to be a Christian organization. I don’t think that the Bible says anything about condoms, but certainly the Pope has said a lot. HIV is a special case however and a lot of Christians around the world have come to the conclusion that condom use to prevent the spread of this deadly, incurable disease is not only appropriate but also necessary. I’m glad the WV is one of these groups of Christians. That still doesn't mean that I like to go into a workshop and start praying, but anyway . . .
I don’t think that this will be the last time over the next few years in which my religious identity will be challenged or confused, but I’ll figure it out and do the best that I can.
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