Around the World

When Liridon told Sara, Vanessa, and I that we would be teaching seperately from now on, I was pretty scared. First of all, I didn't have a great connection with the students because we would just walk in, sit down, and read out of the book until the bell rang. Secondly, I wasn't sure how they would respond to me as someone completely different from them. However, the next day Liridon sat down with us and set up a schedule. Vanessa teaches the two eleventh grade classes, and Sara and I have the six tenth grade classes split between us.
I like all three of my classes, but my favorite is 10-2. Liridon is in charge of this class, which just means he's sort of like a homeroom teacher or advisor to them. There are about two people in this class of 34 who can speak English fairly well, but the rest...well. I can only hope for a miracle. Just kidding. I have a lot of fun with them because I plan things to do and what to teach, plus they like me. Or I think they do. Most of the time I think they think I'm ridiculous and they tolerate me because I laugh at them and they laugh at me. Last week, I taught them how to play Around the World.
Around the World is something I played in middle school and high school Spanish. Two people at a time stand up and compete to say the answer first, and then the winner moves on to the next person and the loser sits back down. I had to explain this a couple of times to my class, even with someone translating. After about ten minutes of a lot of people yelling and a lot of me trying to demonstrate the way to play, we finally started. I decided to play with ordinal numbers. For example: I would say "Your number is...62." and they would have to say "sixty-second". The hardest number for them was five because they would always try to say five-th. I even wrote it on the board and they still didn't quite get it.
I had to throw someone out of the room for a couple minutes, do some seat rearranging, and take toys away, but everyone had fun, even the girl in the back with the attitude problem. Each time I had to yell or discipline someone, I tried to remember what my teachers in school did.
At the end, everyone came up to me to say goodbye and I left school on a high. There wasn't a winner, but they did so well that I brought them a snack the next time we had class.
Yes, I will definitely miss my students when we leave.
-Jin

Visiting old friends in Albania

a camping trip in the gorge

eating Greek food, it was so good!

Easter Morning We had an outdoor worship service

we visited some poor families and brought them food and clothing





climbing mountains

The Internal Struggle

I sat in the curve of our large green paisely couch, cross legged. My elbows resting on my knees and the heels of my hands pressed into my eyes. Lately my head has just been swimming with mixed emotions and lots of questions and sometimes, time away and alone is the only thing that seems to help. After being away for about two and a half weeks, from our trip to Albania, our service week in the capital and then our week of vacation in Greece, coming back here felt a little like coming home. It felt good to walk the streets here and see familiar faces and to go back into the shops that we frequent and to pop our heads into one of ourclasses, just to say hello and let them know we were "home". Since returning, we have had a lot of changes. Our new teaching schedule has each of us teaching individualy instead of in groups. This has been an adjustment for all of us, some more than others. But also coming back brought a lot of mixed feelings. It brought a lot of excitement along with a lot of anxiety. I know that I am looking forward to going home but the thought of going home scares me. I cannot imagine going back to Pennsylvania and having my life be anything like it was before. How can I put all of this behind me
and move forward with college? Do I need to put it behind me? I wish I knew how I could somehow mix the two lives I have. The life I have come to lead and my life that I left behind to come here. It would be so easy for me to go home and pretend that none of this ever happened. I'm good at that. I could go home and fall back into a daily routine of family life, work, and friends. I know that I do not want that at all. I want to go back home and be a changed person. I want to go home on a "high". With only 3 weeks left here, time is rapidly coming to a close. It's going to be hard to say good-bye. Good-bye to our outreach coordinators, who we have come to know and see as family. Good-bye to our students who have become friends. Good-bye to a lot of other people who were in one way or another connected to us. Yes, it is going to be hard and there will most likely be some tears, but when I go back to America, I want to feel not like I left something behind, but that I'm leaving with a part of this culture deeply routed into my heart. These last 3 weeks here I want to do so much more than just teach English and settle back into the routine. I want to try to reach out even more to my students. I want to step
far outside of my comfort zone and challenge myself to be the person I always wanted to be. When I go home, I do not want to look back on this time and regret anything. I make it a point in my life to never regret. I cannot fill my mind with "what if's" and reliving the past or I can never be satisfied with the present. Things here in K-Land really are going well, and for the most part I think we are all in fairly good spirits. We each have our own set of opinions, fears, and points of excitement with being here and what I've said, sums up everything that I have been feeling recently. Mixed feelings have become something that I am oh too familiar with, but right now, it's ok because I know that it's for all the right reasons and they will all resolve themselves.
~*~ Lakyn Parks ~*~

Living out of a suitcase 101

Sorry about the lack of posts, our team has been doing quite a bit of travelling. Last Friday we left our dear little town and headed to Lezhe, Albania. There we visited with some families who we know. We spent three days climbing mountains, exploring an old castle, and strolling up and down the beach. It was a really refreshing time. I was especially excited. I spent eight months in Lezhe in 2003, so the streets and faces were all familiar to me. I was able to reconnect with some friends and my old host family. I have never before experienced the feeling of going back to a place that has meant so much to me, my heart was so full.
We left Lezhe on Monday, and got back home for one night to shower sleep and leave again. This time our destination was the capitol city, to join in a nation wide project. Every day this week we have gathered with about 35 to 150 people from all over the country to do some community service, things like picking up trash, and visiting the poor and elderly. It has been a really good week getting to know a lot of new people. I have been so thrilled to meet all these young people who are eager to make changes, and to see their brand new nation start off on the right foot. I can see that they truly value their freedom and Independence.
Tomorrow morning we are heading off for our third destination, Thessaloniki, Greece. I hope it will be a relaxing week. This is my first time planning a vacation, I don't feel so relaxed. Then after two and a half weeks on the road our travelling marathon will end and we will finally return to our own little town.
sara
ps we will post some pictures of our travels when we get back home.

I am the Loch Ness Monster

It's 1 o'clock pm and Lakyn and I gather up my big bag full of school books and walk a few steps down the alley beside our house to school. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday Lakyn and I teach some younger students, which happen to be, for the most part, my favorite part of being a teacher. New to being teachers Lakyn and I have been trying to come up with fun activities for the students to do. We've made dialogues about 50 cent (the rapper), going to buy groceries and plans for the weekend. I think I can speak for both of us when I say we've been relearning a lot English grammar that we've forgotten all about. (Plus Lakyn and I both have some kind of PA accent.This makes me rethink how I say some things). Lately though, we've run out of creative ideas. So, for the last few classes Lakyn and I had to read a story over and over again about the Loch Ness Monster. The classic tale of a monster and his problems with the evil scientist Mad Mick. I think that Lakyn has the first two paragraphs memorized. She can recite it on cue.

" I am the Loch Ness Monster. My nickname is Nessie and people have been
hunting me for generations. I'm nine-hundred and forty-seven years old
and I've lived in my grotto all of my life."

The funniest part of this story though is when the head teacher asks me to read it "solider style". I always dread those words. It means that I have to read one word and then the class repeats that one word and I do that for an entire paragraph. I feel and sound like a robot. This is usually just for the older classes though. The older classes that we teach are on Tuesday and Thursday from 12:45-3:00. Lakyn really enjoys teaching these students a lot more than I do. I also teach on Saturday with Sara from 8-2. Our day usually starts with teaching one class. This class goes until 9:30. 9:30 is a very significant time for Sara and I. We always eat lunch at that time. Yes, at 9:30 in the morning Sara and I bite into a nice huge doner. A doner is similar to pork BBQ sandwich. Instead of pork it's beef and sometimes it has carrots. It always comes with cabbage and some type of mayo blend with a drizzle of ketchup. It's an abnormally huge sandwich. We wash this honkin' huge sandwich down with a coke, followed up by a few strong energy drinks later in the day. After eating this sandwich I'm pretty much good until supper. Saturday's are always interesting between the early morning doners and the stories that we read out of the English curriculum. Last Saturday though, I had a singing solo in class, accompanied by Sara. I sang the ABC's in front of a bunch of 16 and 17 year old. I was a nice shade of pink when I hit "z". This is the week thus far.

Well, there's tons of other stuff that happens in the course of our days spent here, but I'll have to save them for a later blog.

I really have been enjoying teaching English. It has opened the doors to a lot of new relationships and it's been a stretching experience to be a teacher when I feel completely unqualified.

-minda

Anything for a Sleepover

Before the actual events update, you need to know what amazing weather we are experiencing. I'm sitting on our balcony in a t-shirt and jeans while writing this, and I could wear shorts and still be comfortable. The whole town is taking advantage of these cloudless days by sitting outside at cafes along the streets (mostly just men do this), and venturing out instead of bundling up inside with a roaring fire in the woodstove.
Ok, now for more interesting topics.
On Friday, we went to one of the most dangerous cities in Europe for a sleepover. We took a bus to the neighboring city in order to take another bus (that's what the picture is of) to the dangerous city. We could have simply taken the bus to the next town, but then we would have had to wait along the road and flag down a bus, and we didn’t feel like taking any risks.
The three daughters of an American family invited us to their house for the night to do girly things and to get out of our little town. I had to keep reminding myself that the girls were only fifteen, eleven, and nine because they acted like they were around our ages. Once we got there, they took us on a tour to see a certain special bridge and to eat toast and ice cream. Toast here is really a sandwich that’s toasted like a Quizzno’s sub, and our ice cream sundaes beat Friendly’s classic Reese’s Pieces (only in style-not taste).
After seeing the riot police (don’t worry, they were just sitting around drinking Coca-Colas and talking to pedestrians), we went to a center that the family runs for teenagers. They meet once a week for a meeting and then hang out and play games. However, the kids and teenagers here don’t know about discipline and the concept that cheating is bad, so we ended up playing a simple, cheat-proof game we learned from our days of training. Afterwards, the five of us headed back to the house to make pizzas. We painted our nails, watched a movie, and stayed up until 4am.
The next day, there was a social for people like us who live in this country (mostly Americans showed up, but some English people came too.) I didn’t realize how many other workers are in our area of the world.
Thankfully, the two families we live near came to the social as well, and our ride home with them went smoothly.
-Jin

Urime Pavaresia

When I stop to think about the events of yesterday, I can hardly wrap my mind around it. This land is free! All of us had the opportunity to be here for a part of history. This land has been fighting for their independence for hundreds of years and now it is finally here. Yesterday the streets were buzzing with excitement. There was loud music in the center of town and plenty of dancing, along with free food and drinks along the streets. We all walked down to the center around twelve o’clock noon and joined in on the excitement. As we walked around, we became less of the “on display” Americans and more of a friend. We found plenty of people both waving or wearing Americans flags and others with their national flag or the flag for this new country. American flags could be seen flying side by side with national flags. There was a stage set up with flags on it and large speakers playing traditional music while young people dressed in traditional outfits danced on the stage. Most of the people found in the center could be seen wearing black and red in celebration. These people were all filled with joy and hope and it could be seen on their faces. Almost every person in the center had a smile on their face and would greet each other with kisses on the cheeks and hugs wishing each other a “Happy Independence!” Most restaurants, coffee shops, and grocery stores were closed for the celebration that lasted all afternoon and evening. Without hesitation, one could say that most of the town’s residents could be found in the center by five o’clock. Around nine o’clock in the evening, fireworks could be seen from the windows and balconies of just about any home in the town. It’s so hard to explain to the full extent of the events of yesterday because it was so much more than a party in the streets; it was an emotional high and a sensory overload. It just blows my mind when I stop and think about how I am now living in the world’s youngest country, a country that was born yesterday. I was here for the birth of a country. This is something that I will always remember and be able to tell my children and grandchildren about. This is something that will go down in the history books and I feel honored that I had the privilege of being here and sharing it with these people. We didn’t think that it was going to happen while we were here because the date of declaration has been pushed back so many times that it was hard to tell when it was going to happen for real. However, on Sunday February 17th at three o’clock in the afternoon, the declaration of independence was made. They are hoping for a quick recognition by other countries such as the United States, Italy and France on Monday the 18th during a meeting held by the UN and so we all await the outcome of these meetings. We are all hoping for the best and for what is right and in the best interest of this country.
~*~ Lakyn P. ~*~