Mid-Service Conference

Last week, my group of volunteers (MAK8) had our mid-service conference. Never mind that it’s three months late. For those of you who haven’t been keeping track, my COS (Close of Service) date is November 27. However, that date is a Sunday and Peace Corps will most likely want to have us out by Friday so they don’t have to work on the weekend, so we’ll say I’m COSing on November 25. As of today, I have been in Macedonia for 18 months. I have 8 months and 18 days to go until COS, and roughly two and a half months until I go home for the wedding. Who’s excited?! (Hint: me.)

Back to the mid-service conference. This was a two-day, three-night extravaganza of reflection on the past year (or so) and planning for the next year (or so). It was held in Strumica, which is a city in southeastern Macedonia that is famous for their dialect, “Strumichki,” which is some sort of Macedonian/Bulgarian/Making-it-up-as-I-go-along hybrid. Fortunately, the only things I had to say in Macedonian during the entire time were “one beer,” “I’m a vegetarian” and “one more beer.”

We stayed at Hotel Sirius. Seriously. It greatly exceeded my expectations, considering that Peace Corps is on a tight budget and is doing things like moving volunteers to less expensive apartments. On the downside, to get from Struga to Strumica takes about 6 hours by bus, plus a layover of an hour or two in the middle of the journey. Both to and from Strumica, we encountered delays such as snowstorms, car accidents (not involving us) and shoddy breaks. A redeeming factor: we saw a volcano erupt on the way back! At least, we think it was a volcano. All of a sudden, in the distance, we saw this stream of glowing orange shoot down a hillside. I thought maybe it was the Balkan branch of the Gates of Central Park, but I don’t know how they would have erected it in a matter of seconds.

So the actual conference (that’s how I got started on this babble, right?) was great. A few months ago, some volunteers in our group suggested that we hijack the schedule and make sure that it wasn’t a complete waste of time. Volunteers in my group presented and facilitated discussions about relevant topics such as setting up adult English classes, after-school clubs and summer camps; conducting organizational development trainings for local NGOs; stimulating civic participation; and putting together a resource for us and for future municipal/NGO volunteers that gives ideas and instructions for how to do useful things in one’s community, since our role here is so ambiguous.

Another highlight of the conference was finding out that I do not have tuberculosis. That’s RIGHT! Whose immune system rocks the house?! Holla atcha girl!