Last Days in Gostivar!

It’s final: I’m moving to Struga! On the day after Christmas, no less. What a present.

For those of you who don’t know what “the deal” is, here’s a brief overview of what generally happens and what happened with me:

1. Organizations (NGOs, local governments, schools) apply to the Peace Corps office in Skopje expressing interest in receiving a volunteer.
2. The PC staff in Skopje researches these applicants and develops potential sites for volunteers.
3. The volunteers (i.e. me) arrive in Macedonia for 3 months of training.
Sometime during that 3 months, the PC staff decides which volunteers should work with which organizations.
4. At the end of training, the volunteers move to their new communities in Macedonia and begin work with their host organizations (for me, I moved to Gostivar to work with an “environmental” organization.
5. In most cases, the volunteer stays with the same organization in the same community for two years. However, in some cases such as mine, the volunteer and the organization are not a good match. In my case, I’m an environmental volunteer and must be working with an environmental organization on environmental activities. However, my host organization in Gostivar isn’t doing any environmental activities anymore, so I need something else to do.
6. First, we (me and my supervisor at the PC office) looked at potential new host organizations in Gostivar. None.
7. Then, we looked at potential host organizations in other parts of Macedonia. The best match for my interests and skills is in Struga, a tourist town about 2 hours south of Gostivar.

Throughout this whole process, there’s a ton of bureaucracy, including many documents that serve to legitimize my presence here. I can’t just float around the country doing whatever I want: I need memoranda of cooperation, registration documents, country agreements, housing leases, visas, etc., all necessitating many long conversations between the Peace Corps, my host organization(s), landlords, the police, the phone company, the Macedonian government... you get the picture.

So, in short, I’m happy about moving to Struga and working with an organization that shares some of my environmental ideals, but I’m dreading all the hoops I’m going to have to jump through to get settled in. I’ll miss my friends in Gostivar, particularly Beth and Shaun (the other PCVs here), but there are two other PCVs in Struga, Ian and Patty, and many other PCVs around Struga. Also, Peace Corps found me an apartment in Struga which I’m sure won’t be as nice as my apartment in Gostivar, but as long as I have a suitable bed, working refrigerator, and room to do Tae Bo, I’ll be happy.

I’m not going to post my home address here, but if want it, e-mail me and I’ll send it to you.
Happy holidays to all! I’m trying to figure out how to post pictures on here, so stay tuned!