6 Months In...

It's hard to believe it, but I left Seattle almost 6 months ago. When I signed my name on the line and accepted my posting to Macedonia, 27 months seemed like such an enormous block of time. The possibilities of what could happen in that time were just so vast and unpredictable that there was no point in imagining what all would happen. It's kind of like when I was a kid and thought about becoming an adult...I knew that it was supposed to happen but it was just so far away that I halfway didn't really expect to ever grow old. And here I am, an adult who just happens to already have finished 6 months of the 27 months I signed up for. The hard part is thinking about what I've accomplished...because it doesn't really feel like much.

There are 3 main goals of the Peace Corps 1. to provide assistance to those in interested countries, 2. to promote understanding of America to locals, and 3. to share understanding of the host country with Americans. When I signed up for the Peace Corps, I knew that I wasn't going to save the world. I knew that a lot of my "job" was going to be just talking with people and hanging around. I knew that my projects and work would be a struggle and I knew that I needed to have realistic expectations. No matter how much I know though about what to expect, when you sign 27 months of your life away you hope to have a bit of validation here and there that it's all worth it. And I still don't feel like I've accomplished much...but I at least feel like I'm on my way to that point.

My first couple of months with the Macedonian Croatian Society (Makedonsko Hrvatsko Druzhtvo or MHD), I felt like I was just spinning wheels. Within the last few weeks though, I feel like I'm actually doing something worthwhile. The first month with them, they just kept mentioning working on projects...which admittedly drove me a bit nuts because in my mind, projects are a means to an end and not an end of themselves. The second month, I finally got things narrowed down to a couple of core problems that I could help them with. The third month, I researched these ideas and found one that seemed like something I could work with: we would rehabilitate a park.

Across the street from my house, we have a large park called the Sport's Center that has a playground and a few different fields, pitches, and courts, all of which are in awful condition. This is one of the few green spaces in the city and is a place that both ethnicities frequent. With the schools, shops, and businesses largely self-segregated, there's not many places where both Albanians and Macedonians actually have space to interact. It could just be naivete, but the park seemed like a good place to focus my efforts. I wrote a letter of interest to the German Embassy in Skopje and they expressed interest in funding our project MHD just wanted a place to play Bocce Ball (evidently it's a huge sport in Croatia...who knew!), but I'm hoping to use this as an opportunity to share good practices for project development: stakeholder mapping, use analysis, grant-writing etc.

Evidently, we're not the only ones interested in rehabilitating the park either. A few local organizations held a community meeting about the park (Check out the Facebook Page here) and there was a report on the local news. There was lots of opinions voiced and a lot of people who seemed eager to work together. It was so great just to be in a room of civic-minded people!

The next day, some of the guys from MHD and I had a meeting with the Sport and Culture director at the Municipality and we got their support too (for anything that they didn't have to fund themselves). I have no idea how this will end up working out, but I'm excited to be meeting so many cool people and working with them on this project (and hopefully sharing competences along the way.

On top of this project, I've started planning a SAT/GRE/TOEFL/IELTS prep class for the local youth who are interested in studying abroad. (The TOEFL and IELTS are tests of fluency in English that are required for those wanting to study in the US or at English-Language universities programs abroad). I've had a lot of interest from people I've met here and I'm excited to be able to help them in this small way. I'm planning to hold this test-prep at the local American Corner, a library & resource room in cities around the country (and around the world) that are funded by the local American Embassies and support the spread of knowledge and interest in the US.

They've also asked me to help them out with planning a school competition that they're calling "Americana" that will have students competing in a Knowledge Bowl-esque Quiz on American history, geography, civics, literature, media etc. Seems like a pretty good way to work on goal 2 to me.

When I write things out it actually sounds like I'm getting a lot more done than it feels like in the moment. But I'm ok with that. After the crazy business of grad school, I'm finally getting used to spending time for myself. I've been working out a lot more, getting a LOT more reading in, catching up on show that I've been meaning to watch, studying Macedonian (while trying not to forget Albanian), eating healthier, and getting full nights of sleep. I'm getting into a schedule and realizing that I like it. I've even started making my bed every morning, something I haven't really done since I was 10 or so. It's not exactly what I expected to happen over here...but I feel like I'm accomplishing small personal victories which will hopefully better equip me for making larger victories elsewhere.

I have my frustrations here and there, but I'm generally pretty happy with my service so far. I've got something to work finally, I've got a great living situation (I have popcorn and a glass of wine just about every night), I'm beginning to make some friends with the locals, and I've a great juice cafe just a few blocks from my house where I'm able to write blog posts like this in smoke-free bliss. I hope all is well with you all too!