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. ~*~

shaky hands

First of all I would like to apologize to all our faithful readers. We have not been posting every week as we should. I am sorry, we are without excuse. Now that all that is said and done, here is a little bit of what has been going on for the past two weeks.
If I could sum it all up in a sentence, it would be that we are teaching English and making friends, which is good because that is exactly what our job description is. We have been working with a young teacher; he is an amazing person. He teaches English in the local high school, and he also has a private school where he teaches English and German. Those are only his day jobs. He also owns and runs a CD and DVD shop and a grocery store. He is a very driven man, and a visionary. Along with foreign languages, he also teaches the students his life philosophies of hard work, perseverance and optimism. I have learned a lot from him. I love to meet people who seem to understand that they only have one chance at life, so they take it for all it's worth. Often during the day we have two or three coffee breaks with him where we just sit and talk about life. He is only one of the great people we are getting to know.
Every morning from eight until twelve Jin, Vanessa, and myself go to the public high school, and assist in classes. In the afternoon Minda and Lakyn spend three hours at a private school. Lakyn home-schools one of the Krebs' daughters in the mornings, and Minda tests milk fat content at "Jeta E Re", the milk collection center. Then on Saturdays Minda and I teach all day at the private school. It's just like any other job, some days we come home absolutaly exhausted, and some days we come home with fun stories and lots of energy. The great days make it so worth it. We have gotten the opportunity to visit three of our students homes, they fill our stomachs with lots of delicious albanian food, and we go out for coffee with them often. If you haven't figured it out, we drink a lot of coffee. Sometimes at the end of the day my hands are shaking so bad from all the caffine. I think that in the future HDC should bump up the two cups of coffee limit for the Balkans teams. They are going to need to start training their bodies for large amounts of caffine intake.
Besides the shakey hands, things have been going well. Thanks for reading this and thinking about us, We are so fortunate to have so many people behind us.
sara