COS Conference

From Tuesday until Friday of last week, I joined my fellow volunteers from the MAK8 group at our Close of Service Conference in Krushevo. Various members of the PC staff in Skopje gave us tons of information about all the things we have to do before they will honorably discharge us—mostly paperwork. We also talked about what it will be like to leave Makdo and return to the United States. At some point, I realized that as much as I am looking forward to coming home, I will probably go through a rough transition period and sink into a mild depression for a month or so. Mom, Dad, this means I will likely spend hours on the phone with my PC friends, almost all of whom live in different time zones. We will probably just cry into our respective receivers, bawling about how no one in the United States gets it (“it” yet to be determined). Please just put up with me and soon I’ll return to normal (“normal” also yet to be determined).

At the COS conference, we did such things as list our accomplishments over the past 2 years. And on a scandalous side note, three of the (male) volunteers in this picture are either already married to or planning to marry women from Macedonia! Thus far, we have a total of 5 lifetime love matches in our group (2 female PCVs and their Makdo men, and 3 male PCVs and their Makdo women). Our Admin Guy, Jim, has playfully dubbed the Peace Corps Macedonia program the "Macedonian-American Dating and Marriage Service" or MADAMS, for short.