packing up and parting

I hate packing. I hate moving. I hate packing and I hate moving. I hate packing, I hate moving and I hate living out of a suitcase. It is kind of incredible how much stuff I seem to have accumulated over the past two years. I didn't think that I had that much stuff, and I think that compared to some other volunteers, I don't, but it still seems like a lot when I have to go through it all. I have started to separate everything out into different boxes: one for things going home, one for things I'm packing, one for things to leave here for other PCVs and of course trash. Whenever I am packing or moving, a big bit om my mom's pack-rat gene comes out. I have some pretty random stuff (some of it sent to me, some of it acquired who knows how) that I just don't know what to do with. Do I really need this? No, probably not, but it doesn't need to end up in a landfill either (or in this case in a burning trash pile). I have some clothes that are completely falling apart that I just can't seem to part with and also some clothes that are perfectly fine . . . except the fact that they don't really fit me well anymore (and I haven't worn more than a few times in two years). Getting rid of this kind of stuff is a bit of a struggle for me, but it will have to be done. The only saving grace for me right now is the fact the my dad will be taking a suitcase (or two?) home for me.

Part of the problem right now is of course the fact that as soon as I start packing, and I mean really packing, then it means that I am really leaving. Every day I get closer to the end here and I have to say goodbye to someone else. It may not seem as important as saying goodbye to my friends and coworkers, but I also sort of have to say goodbye to my house and stuff. Over the past two years, my house became a bit of a sanctuary for me in times of stress and loneliness. It was a place that I could invite friends into, but also a place where I could just be by myself and just be myself, away from the sometimes staring eyes of the people in my community. My house had it's problems, but in the end I love it and I will miss it. Even the frozen pipes and weird noise that my toilet makes . . .

Dasme!

Since most of my close friends here are either already married or in high school, (and thank god I'm not going to their weddings yet) until this weekend, I had only been able to go to one wedding in Albania (in my first summer, my language teacher Ola), so I was really excited when I found out that one of my coworkers, Marijana would celebrate her marriage right before I left Peshkopi. An Albanian wedding is pretty similar to what I imagine many wedding celebrations around the world- lots of food, drinking and dancing. Usually, an Albanian wedding will be at least two parties, one for the bride's family and one for the groom's family. As far as I understand, unlike in the American tradition where there is a "ceremony" with the exchanging of vows, rings and kisses, usually in Albania there is only parties and the official marriage (signing of the marriage certificate) is done privately. This wedding was a little bit special because the bride and groom are Christian, so they did a sort of modified Christian ceremony with rings (but strangely no kissing . . . hmmmm). Other than that, it was basically like any other Albanian party, in other words, circle dancing.

The Valle Shqiptare, or the traditional Albanian circle dance has it's equivalent in many other Balkan/Mediterranean countries. You find it in Macedonia as the Ora and Greece as the Choreia and even in Jewish tradition as the Hora. The dance can range from simple to complicated and slow and easy to a jumping heart racer. The most basic form involves the repetition of a few simple steps- basically, step, touch, step, cross. The first few times you try, you find yourself staring down at the floor in front of you trying to stay on step with the person you are following. After a while you are finally able to look up and enjoy the dizzying effects of the dance. In Albania, every region or town has their own traditional valle. Many of them use the basic step, but a few, like the high spirited Valle Kuksi (from the northern city of Kukes) includes a running jump step that only energetic youth or very experienced dancers should attempt. My favorite is probably the Valle Kosovari because the music has this great drum beat that I just can't resist. I love the way that the circle dance involves the whole community in the dance together. At the wedding, each dance was taken in turn by a different group; the DJ would announce "this is the turn for the Uncles of the bride on the mom's side" and that part of the family would rise up and dance. By the end of the night, no matter who's turn it was, most people joined the dance. You would think that going around in a circle would get old after a while, but somehow it doesn't. Somehow, it's just comforting to be part of the circle and part of the community that formed it.

It seems like the countdown to leave Albania started in March at the COS conference, but now it has really begun in earnest with the first real live, official COSs of G11 this week. We have had a couple of people leave since the March conference; one to get her knees fixed (hope you are feeling better!), one to go home for family reasons (our thoughts are with you!) and one to accept a job here in Albania that pays real money (congrats!). But this week is the first week that our group can start to leave without it being an early termination and I feel a bit like every time I say goodbye to people I might be saying goodbye for good.

I think I had an idea when I joined PC that I would become close with my fellow volunteers. I'd been to enough camps and intense study experiences to know that things like this bond you together in a way that is not possible under most normal circumstances. But PC has been a new level of bonding for me. From PST to IST to Midservice to COS and counterparts to hostfamilies and successful projects to failed projects to project ideas that never got off the ground, I feel like my fellow volunteers understand me better than any other people in the world right now. I miss my family and I miss my friends (Hi guys, I'll be home in August, can't wait to see you!), but I know that it will be hard to go home again because I will have to explain things and recount my stories for the folks back home . . .

Will I ever see them again? There are volunteers in my group from every corner of the US. East Coast, check; West Coast ,check; Midwest, check; Mountain West, check (duh, that's where I am! and Paul, hey Paul!) Alaska, check. I think all we are missing is Hawaii. The good news is that I feel like I have places to stay all over the place now and in this age of facebook, email, blogs etc. it is easy to say that you will stay in touch with people. The biggest problem is that it is easier said than done. Just like I feel like I have only sort of stayed in touch with people back home (you read about me here, I stalk you on facebook . . . ) I'm afraid that once we leave Albania I will grow apart not only physically but emotionally from my fellow PCVs (now RPCVs).
So the goodbye process has started . . . and don't get me started on how hard it is to say goodbye to some of the people in my town

Une nuk jam nje gomar! (I am not a donkey)

Or our Earth Day project . . .

I have to say that overall it went really well, or at least as well as can be expected. Did we make a big difference in the world? I'm not sure, but it was a great process to go through:
For the past four or so months I have been working with my Outdoor Ambassadors kids (about 10 high school students) to plan and implement a project for Earth Day. We started with an idea to fix up one of the parks in Peshkopi and went through the whole project planning process. We applied for a grant from Disney for "Global Youth Service" and won the $500. Now we had to figure out what to do with that money. Probably the most difficult part of the whole process for me was trying to get the kids to make decisions, plans, and lists and not just doing it for them (I think I said "this is YOUR project" about four thousand times over the past few months). I think that we spent two months making task lists and then on the day of the project I still had kids asking me what they were supposed to do . . .We decided to buy new wood to fix all of the broken benches in one of the parks in town, plan some flowers and do some education about Earth Day, protecting the environment and not using plastic bags. For this purpose we also got some cloth bags printed that say "Take drastic measures, don't use plastic bags" (it rhymes in Albanian) and the Outdoor Ambassadors logo.We spent the last week really getting ready for the project- we put up posters around town, we invited important people, we talked to all of the classes in both of the high schools. And finally the day arrived. And it was raining. At about 9:00 I started getting calls from the students, "are we still going to do the project??." YES! It's not raining, I don't believe in rain, rain does not exist! Luckily for me, my positive attitude won over the weather and at exactly 10:30, the project started and the sun came out. The rest of the day was beautiful. And chaotic. We had men from the bashkia (city hall) come to help install the new wood for the benches, and then the kids painted them. We passed out plastic bags and gloves to the (it seemed like) hundreds of kids that came out of nowhere as soon as the sun came out to pick up trash. When they came back with full bags, we gave them candy (whose wrappers ended up back on the ground half the time . . . what can you do?). When I tried to distribute the cloth bags to the kids that worked the hardest, I got literally mobbed. With children climbing over each other and onto me, I almost lost it. It's hard to remember how to say "Get off of me, I am not a donkey!" when children are attacking you. Eventually, most of the craziness died down and we were able to get some work done including planting some flowers and painting the rest of the benches.

Was it a big change in the world? No, not really. It wasn't even that big of change in this small corner of the world (I think between picking up the trash and all the candy wrappers we maybe broke even on the whole thing . . .) but all that is besides the point. Ten motivated high school students, a few supportive adults and two slightly crazy Peace Corps Volunteers took a project from an idea to a reality in a few months. I hope that I have at least proven to these kids that it is possible to do SOMETHING even if it is small and that people will help if you have a good idea. I also hope that I have laid some foundations for projects with these and other kids to continue in the future. I can't wait to see what they do next . . .

One month and counting

My countdown begins.

I leave Peace Corps in exactly one month (although I will be in Albania still for about two weeks after that). As I approach this date, I am, of course, filled with a lot of mixed emotions. I will be sad to leave, I have come to love this beautiful country and especially my little mountain town. I started to make a list (I really like making lists) of some of the (sometimes very unexpected) things that I will miss and not miss about my two years here:

Things I won't miss:

1. Furgons

2. The weird noise my toilet makes when I flush it, dubbed by my dad "the climaxing buffalo"

3. Frozen pipes

4. Trying to light my wood stove with frozen hands

5. Parties in the bar next door to my house that go till 2am when I'm wanting to go to sleep

6. Furgons

7. Hand washing my clothes and waiting for days for them to dry

8. Having too much time to knit, read and watch movies (alone).

9. The small town of Peshkopi. It is hard every time you walk into the post office or store and everyone knows everything about you and is all up in your business.

10. Mentaliteti Shipatar (the Albanian Mentality) and "avash, avash" (slowly, slowly or step by step). The idea that things will never change is that everything here takes sooooooooooo long. You get beat down when people keep telling you that nothing will ever change and that nothing we do will make a difference. I swear, the next person to tell me, "Mos e merzit, avash avash" (Don't worry, step by step) will get slapped.


Things I'll miss:

1. Getting plenty of sleep- never in my life have I been this well rested. Part of the charm of living in a small boring place is the ability (nay, luxury) of going to bed early and waking up without an alarm. I probably sleep an average of 9 hours a night here, something that I don't think I'd done in America since middle school and something that I don't expect to be able to do in America ever again (being a teacher means getting up at 5!)

2. The view out my kitchen window- pictures say it better than words, but pictures can't capture the beauty of the fog rolling down the hill and engulfing the town or the smell of the apple blossoms . . .

3. The horrible translations on the bottom of the News 24 screen "The president felicitated the country on independence." It may be a real word in English, but no one talks like that. Seriously. Seriously funny.

4. My wood stove

5. The small town of Peshkopi- it's amazing how nice it feels to walk into the post office or grocery store and have everyone know you, ask about your family, your work, and how you've been.

6. Having the time to knit and read and listen to news and watch movies.

7. Cooking dinner with Dylan.

8. 50 lek pilaf.

9. Circle dancing.

10. My students in MUN and OA. They give me hope for the future of this country. When things are going just avash avash, they encourage me and make me believe that change is possible and Shqiperia po ndryshon (Albania is changing- this was the slogan of the Democratic Party in the election last year, but despite that connotation, it is something to believe in!).

My last call for funding help . . . from Albania at least

As a generally "do-gooder" type, I feel like I am always asking for money from my friends and family. Help me with this project! Support this great organization! The only thing that makes me feel better about this is that when my other do-gooder friends ask, I usually try my best to help them out with their causes (I haven't much for the past two years . . . it is a bit hard when living on $200 a month, but I promise to start giving again when I get home . . .).

Anyway, I have one last call for help before I leave Albania. I have been working for the past year with a group of kids called Outdoor Ambassadors. Last summer I took 6 kids from Peshkopi to a camp in the south of the country for a week. At that camp, the idea came up to try to send some of the best kids from all around the country to a program in the states. Outdoor Ambassadors works with about 200 youth spread throughout the country and a lucky eight of these kids have been selected to attend camp at the Wolf-Ridge Environmental Learning Center in northern Minnesota and to participate in two weeks of home-stays with American families. These youth are the leaders of a new movement toward a cleaner and more environmentally friendly Albania. One of my kids (17 year old Fatjon) was selected along with 7 other students from 4 cities. Right now, Albania is considered by the EU to be the most polluted country in Europe. The young people in Albania have never seen a landscape free of plastic bags, bottles, pop cans, and other garbage. The drinking water is severely toxic due to the highly polluted rivers, lakes, and seas. As the infrastructure in Albania slowly develops, the means to take care of these problems begin to appear, but cannot be utilized until the mentality surrounding these issues also begins to change. It was only thirty to forty years ago that America was dealing with some of these very same issues and showing these students one of our most beautiful national forests, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, will give them a great vision of how the most protected areas in nature can be preserved and protected.

We had a great idea- send 8 great kids to a once in a lifetime experience in America, now we just needed to get it paid for. These types of projects can be really difficult to get off the ground since the cost is so high, but we looked at many different funding sources and decided that if we all worked together (the 8 kids, and volunteers from all around the country) that we could get it done. We found a great camp in Minnesota and with the help of some Minnesotan PCVs found families to host the kids before and after the camp. Then we applied to the US Embassy here in Albania for the airfare. They like to encourage cultural exchange between the two countries and they were happy to help, now we just needed the camp tuition. This is where you come in . . .

More about our project and instructions for donating can be found at:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=304-017

The kids are working their butts off doing local fundraising, but we still have a long way to go. Any little bit helps! Thank you for your support over the past two years and I promise that this is the last time I will ask for money from Albania . . . until I get a job back in America with some other do-gooder type group . . .

Site Mate Roulette

A year ago at this time, I was anxiously awaiting the announcement of the site placements for Group 12 because one of those lucky kids would be my future site mate. A site mate makes a big difference in your service. A good site mate is someone who you can spend time with, relax with, work with and puts up with all of your crazy. A site mate is the closest thing that many volunteers get to a spouse- it is not uncommon to hear "you guys act like an old married couple." The site selection process can throw together people that would never be friends in any other life than Peace Corps and this random throwing together of people can create some interesting relationships. I have seen site mate pairings that started out great only to disintegrate into silent feud (or all out war) within a few months (two examples that I can think of involve three women placed in one site- this can be a deadly combination as usually it will end up being two against one as two of the girls become close and leave the other one out). I have seen people that you would think never would get along end up the best of friends.

I remember two years ago how nervous I was that I would get to Peshkopi and Kenji and I wouldn't get along. What would I do if he hated me? What would I do if he never wanted to hang out? The only thing I put on my site placement form was that I wanted a site mate (I didn't care if I was in a big or small place, if I was far or close to Tirana) but what I really meant is that I wanted a COOL sitemate. Of course the Peace Corps staff tries their best with placements- looking to work compatibility the most, but they can't predict who will get along. My fears were completely unfounded, of course, and Kenji and I got along great. I was almost just as nervous about the site placements last year. I was so lucky with Kenji, could lightning really strike twice? I was hoping for a girl actually. Kenji was great, but sometimes you just need some girl time, right? The odds were in my favor- like my group, G12 was more girls than guys. I didn't get a girl, I got Dylan. And I was terrified again. He seemed like an alright guy, but what if he hated me? Dylan has turned out to be great too. We have a different relationship than I had with Kenji, which makes sense. They are very different people, but I love them both. Kenji and I became very good friends, Dylan and I are almost like brother and sister (some of the kids here even thought that early on- they were very confused by the fact that we have different last names) meaning that we fight and sometimes drive each other crazy, but in the end we know that there is love . . .
Today, the site placements are announced for the new group, G13. I have only met a few of them as I have been busy here and have not made it down to Elbasan for any training. They are a big group, 50 people, the biggest group ever in Albania. Today they are going to go through the incredible range of emotions that come with site placement- excitement, fear, hope and happiness. Hopefully, whoever comes up to Peshkopi will appreciate the simple beauty of this quiet town and will take care of Dylan for me. . .