Thursday, May 19, 2005

"Idni Ekoloski Instructori" Proekt

My plan to do nothing of significance before coming home hasn't really panned out. I've been doing some work on a recently-approved (!) project that I wrote so that I can pass the reins to my coworkers with confidence. The title of the project is "Future Environmental Instructors," and the general idea is to teach about 70 elementary and high school students how to design and implement small environmental projects and campaigns. For the project, my coworkers are writing a workbook on project and campaign design, which will also have information about local resources that can be used for environmental projects (e.g. NGOs, municipal government, communal services providers). Then we are having two 3-day training sessions with the students, which will be facilitated by my NGO coworkers and teachers at local schools. During the training sessions, the students and teachers will work in small groups to develop ideas for environmental projects. Then, in September, the participants will select one of the ideas generated during the training sessions to implement throughout the town. The project will be their choice, but it must include teaching students at other schools in town (hence the title of the project) and raising public environmental awareness. The other project ideas that aren't selected for implementation during September will be scheduled for implementation later in the school year. My NGO coworkers will follow up with the schools to ensure that the activities are implemented and to provide any additional support.

So, when I get back from the States, I am going to be VERY busy. As soon as I get back, I have to attend a training session for PCVs involved in the GLOBE program. Then, I will have to start reading and evaluating project proposals as per my SPA committee obligations. Then the heart of this project (the training sessions) will be during the last week of June/first week of July. And I'll have to skip out on one of the training days in order to go to Skopje for the SPA committee meeting. The upside to this three-week period of chaos is that I'll be too busy to be homesick. And, once all of the above things are finished, I can look forward to a trip to Turkey with the Flomster in late July! Woohoo!

See (most of) you soon!

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Important Travel Info

For any of you who would like to meet up with me somewhere outside of Macedonia, please read the following!

According to PC policy, I am not allowed to leave Macedonia for the three months preceeding my close-of-service (COS) date. My current COS date is November 27, which would mean that I must be in and stay in Macedonia as of August 27. BUT (it's a big but) I can COS up to a month early without having to jump through too many hoops, and I think that is something I would like to do. If I move up my COS date by a month (or however much), I have to move my "house arrest" date up as well. So, for all intensive porpoises, I will not be able to leave the country after August 1. That date is a little flexible, but I think I will have to declare my COS intentions soon, so it may not be flexible in a month or so. (Act now! Supplies are limited!)

Of course, you're all welcome to come to visit in Makdo (and, FYI, Makdo gets rave reviews from people who visit and have a translator/PCV to lead them around), but please let me know what your plans are.

I'm already on vacation

So I leave for the U.S. in about a week and a half. From now until then, I have decided that all my activities will be directly related to either (1) preparing to go home, or (2) relaxing. Ahhh.

Last weekend, I went to visit my host family in Zrnovci, a.k.a. the willage. My host mother, Verche, gave me a lesson in familial relations. I drew a family tree, including the new Ehalt branch, and she told me who will be what to whom. This is much more complicated in Macedonian than in English. For example, Rachel (sister-in-law-to-be) will be my snaa but I will be her zolva. Rebecca (Rachel's sister) will be Scott's shurnajka, and Scott will be her zet. Rachel's mother and father will be Scott's baba and dedo, but my mother and father will be Rachel's svekrva and svekor. And don't get me started on aunts and uncles! (There are three words for aunt and three for uncle, depending on whether the relation is the sibling of your mother, sibling of your father, or a spouse of a sibling.)

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

What’s Next

This time last year, Beth and I would spend at least one morning a week sitting outside at our favorite café in Gostivar. Once we sat down as far away from the smokers (i.e. every single other patron) as possible and struggled to give instructions for iced coffee (which is not a normal thing here), we would begin discussing “what’s next.” At the time, I was trying to find a purpose in Gostivar, and Beth was doing her darnedest to convince Peace Corps to move her out of her truck-stop village; talking about jobs and graduate degrees was our escape from daily frustration. Eventually, merely talking about jobs and going back to school wasn’t enough, and thus the rhetorical job search was born. Anytime we had unlimited internet access (and even when we were paying for it), we would peruse job listings in our respective areas of interest, even though by the time we would be available to actually apply for these jobs, they would have long been filled. Beth’s rhetorical job-searching became such a distraction from her more pressing obligations (namely, working on her field paper for her master’s degree, which will be conferred at the end of her service) that we had to call an official moratorium on the practice until we could actually apply for jobs.

Well, that time isn’t quite upon us yet, but I AM in the process of setting up informational interviews for when I go home (in 18 days!). Here’s my plan for the next few years: move back in with the parents, find an environmental job in the DC area, explore my career and graduate degree options while working, apply to law/public policy/public administration/environmental something-or-other school, start going to school in fall 2007. Provided my parents haven’t converted my room into putting green, Step 1 is a sure bet. Next up: finding a job. Part of finding a job includes the aforementioned informational interviews to identify the workplaces that will offer some insight that might be useful before I commit to a graduate course of study.

More to come...