Trust the process...

Since we arrived on Monday, we have been at the Hotel Amazona and we have been very busy.  We have language classes in the morning and then we are in meetings, interviews, and presentations with the  Peace Corps Staff .  They are presenting information on Safety and Security, Administration (Finance), Education, Health, and a variety of topics to help us through Pre-service Training and eventually through service.

The team is very welcoming and supportive.  Today, we had interviews with staff from program managers, the country director or her assistant, and our in-take with the medical team in charge of our care while we are here in Kosovo.

I interviewed today with our country director, Carolyne.  She was born in Africa and grew up in the U.S.  She has an amazing smile and melodic speaking voice.  She makes you feel very comfortable.  She mentioned that she is excited that we are both Rotarians.  She said she believed that Rotary and Peace Corps have a great connection.  KOS 08, the group who arrived in October, also had a Rotarian.  Carolyne told me that there is great need for support in education especially in the rural areas.  They may lack resources, teachers or teachers with the necessary training.  

The language learning is intense and we will have language classes Monday through Saturday.  We will have Sundays off.   Right now, language class is two hours with homework each night.  On Friday, we will leave for Kamenice.  The municipality is approximately ~36,000.   There has not been a census here since 2011, but the staff tell us there has not been a population increase.  Kamenice is our training site for the next 10 weeks.

Kamenice -- An hour and half from Prishtina

Today, Thom and I found out that there are not enough host families, so we will be placed in a family together.  At this point, all that we know is that it is a large family.  We will be walking to our training center from our host's families house each day.  KOS09 is such a small group, we will all be training at the same location, but Thom and I are in different language groups.  We also are in different service sectors and those classes will be different for each of us.  My sector is in education or TEFL; while Thom's is community development.  

Yesterday, we had a cultural sessions.  All we knew was that it was called "Valle" on the schedule.  Valle is the word for dance, so we learned two basic dances that are done in a circle.   Our language teachers lead the dance and staff and volunteers all dance together on the patio.  We have been told there is a dance culture is very big; especially at weddings. 

We also have been told that the best work gets done in the coffee shops and there is a significant coffee culture.  We are told the coffee culture is important. Hopefully, more will come on the dance culture and coffee culture in future blogs.

When our group voices our concerned with learning the language, grasping all the materials presented, or not being ready by the end of April, they all tell us to "trust the process".  When we ask questions that we are not yet ready for, they tell us that will come later and to "trust the process".  They tell us that they have never had a trainee not pass the language test and that we will all be ready come April

We eat at a buffet each meal and they are quite nice with a variety of options.  We have very little extra time, but Thom and Vincent get out for a run and exercise in our break between sessions and dinner.  I have been walking during that time as well.  We are very busy!

A buffet dinner at the Hotel Amazona

Trees on the hotel grounds as walked in the dark on Wednesday 

We are here, really here…

 

February 26, 2024

We made it to Prishtina around noon (Kosovo time) and our flights went well.  Our tickets were still messed up when we got to Dulles International, but we told the ticket agent about the problem when they started checking us in.  The ticket agent made the changes and it did not take us extra time as it did in Madison.  Our group got into Vienna early in the morning after our 8 1/2 flight.  Then we flew from Vienna to Prishtina where we arrived around noon.  It was just about an hour and half flight.  We got to see some beautiful views of snowcapped mountains and a very large lake, just a bit before we neared the airport.

An advertisement for Peace Corps at Dulles International Airport

The airport in Prishtina is small and very easy to navigate.  We were met by a group of Peace Corps – Kosovo staffers and they were so welcoming.  We also met one more member of our group, who flew in from Copenhagen last night.  He was finishing up school in Denmark and they decided not to have him fly back to the U.S. for orientation.  So now KOS 09 has team members.

Pristina International Airport

(There is a better photo at the link)

KOS 09 and some Peace Corps - Kosovo Staffers

KOS 09 in front of the airport after arriving

The Hotel Amazona, where we are staying, is on the outskirts of Prishtina and it is quite nice.  We have a small two room suite with a couch and easy chair in the one room and a bed in the other room.  

We met more of the staff and had a nice lunch with lots of salad and vegetables.  There was other good food, but the salad was exactly what I felt like.  I had sat next to one of the staff and she is a vegan.  She told me that it should not be a problem to maintain my diet, which is almost vegan.  I don't eat meat or dairy, but do still eat eggs.

The Hotel Amazona

The grounds at our hotel

Playground at Hotel Amazona

More of the grounds

After lunch, we met other members of the staff.  We got our language workbooks, our Sim cards and our new phone numbers for Kosovo.  We learned who will be in our language group.  I will be with Winston, Vincent, and Geena.  Thom is with Sarah, Alyanna, and Cloe.  Noah and David are doing the Albanian/Serbian Language program and will be in a group by themselves.  We will start our lessons tomorrow.  Even though I am worried about passing the language competency in 10 weeks, the language staff is confident that they will get me to a point of passing.

We had only a short session today and we had the afternoon to get organized.  Everyone was tired, so we all went to our rooms after dinner.  Tomorrow, we start at 9 am and go until 3 pm.  We will eat our meals in the hotel with our group.

Who does this...

 

Saturday, February 24th, we spent the day with KOS09, as our group is known in Peace Corps.  We are the 9^th group to Kosovo, which started receiving groups in 2014.  We have 9 members in our group and we will be joining 26 current Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs).  One group has just celebrated their first year of service and the other group arrived October of 2023.

Our day reminded me of a professional development day at the beginning of the school year, when we were introduced to new staff, ice breakers, new goals, and agendas for the year.  It was, however; more fun and more relaxed, because I did not have a classroom to set up, new software to learn, yearly online coursework to complete, or any of the myriad of other tasks weighing on me during the start of school.  I enjoyed the day and what it had to offer.

We are Peace Corps Trainees (PCT) for the next 11 weeks and will be sworn in as volunteers on April 26^th.  KOS09 is a diverse group of people all in their 20s, except for Thom and I.  These are just a few of the interesting facts that I learned from our group members yesterday.

• One of our PCTs was a Rotary Youth Exchange student who went to the state of Parana, Brazil to the city of Curitiba the capital of the state of Parana.  Our son also exchanged to Parana, Brazil; but was hosted Cia Norte, which was more remote the Curitiba.
• One PCT lived for two years in France and already speaks French, Spanish and is working American Sign Language.
•  Another PCT was a special education teacher in North Carolina and worked up until a week ago.  While both of her parents primarily grew up in the U.S., her mother is Venezuelan and her father is Panamanian.
• Two of us have master’s degrees.  Mine is in Instructional Technology and the PCTs is in data science.
• Our group has a PCT whose father was a Peace Corps Volunteer. 
• We had two PCTs who flew in from California.  We are not sure which travel the furthest to attend, but we believe it was the PCT from San Francisco.
•  While three of our PCTs graduated in 2021, we have one PCT who graduated in 2023.

KOS09 -- Official Orientation Photo

     We spent time during our orientation reviewing the mission of Peace Corps, the three goals of Peace Corps, the core expectations for our services, reflecting, and getting to know one another.

  

     Because of the small size of our group, we finished early and several of the group were climbers and boulderers.  Three members of our group were belay certified.  Two members of our group had not climbed before.  There was a gym (Movements -- Crystal City) about a half mile from our hotel and so eight of us went to the climbing gym for a couple of hours before dinner.  One of our group opted to work out at the facility at our hotel and she joined us for dinner later.  We had a fun time at the gym cheering each other on as we climbed, talked, and got to know each other better.

I am looking forward to service in Kosovo!!!!

If everything goes right…

 

February 23, 2024

If everything goes right there is no story to tell.   It is just another flight, another trip through the airport.  We left Madison this morning and we already have an interesting story and the best part was that it had a good ending.  Thursday, when Thom checked in for us, he put our TSA pre-check numbers in and I printed our boarding passes for our flights to LaGuardia and then on to Arlington, Virginia on the hotel printer.  We neither one had TSA Pre-check on our tickets even though he had entered our numbers, but that has happened before.  Otherwise, everything looked fine and we each had a ticket.  However, when we received out our flight information from the Peace Corps, Thom got the e-mail for my ticket and I got the e-mail for his ticket.  We forwarded the tickets to each other and assumed that they had just mixed up the e-mail addresses. 

We were picked up at the airport by Paul Reichel at 4:30am.   Paul is a member of a Saturday morning running group that Thom has been a part of.  He was also a former Peace Corps Volunteer and a Peace Corps Staffer.  We arrived at the airport an hour ahead (which is typically more than enough time) for Dane County Airport, but found the lines longer than normal.  We were still fine when we got to the security point ID check and the gates are not far, so even with the longer than normal lines, we had no concerns about making our flight.

When we finally got to the ID check point, the TSA agent checked my ID and my ticket and then said “that’s strange”.  She looked at Thom and asked if we were flying together and we said “Yes”.   She then scanned his ID.  My ticket had Thom’s ID information and his ticket had mine.  We had to go back down to the ticketing agent and get the tickets corrected.  When we got back to the ticket counter, the ticket agent was not sure if we would make the flight as we would then have to go back through the security check.  Fortunately, she was able to get our Pre-TSA to work on our new tickets and the security line would be faster there.  Once I had my ticket, I hurried to TSA-Pre and as I arrived, I heard our names paged for our flight.  Thom was still with the agent and she called to the gate. 

Our gate was right by the exit from pre-check, but Thom needed to have an additional scan because of the hip replacement.  The gate agent told me that they would not wait long for him and asked me if I still wanted to get on the plane.  I said “yes” and on I went.  But I took my time walking down the jetway.  The good news is that we both made it on the plane. We have learned that we should not assume.  We should have checked when we received each other’s ticket to make sure they were no other errors.  Becky, our country desk agent, will make sure there is no problem with our tickets to Kosovo.

The rest of our day went smoothly, although our landing at LaGuardia was interesting.  We were coming in for a landing we were just to the landing strip with landing gear down and ready to land, when the plane pulled up and started back into the air.  After getting back into the landing pattern and starting a new loop around the airport, the pilot got on to explain what happened.  There was another plane moving off the runway and although the pilot thought it would be fine, in an abundance of safety, they decided to pull up and try again.

The clouds hung low around NYC giving it an ethereal quality

We had our first meeting with our group last night.  We are a group of 9, which is a small group.  We have a split between 5 females’ and 4 males; and I think five in the English education sector and 4 in Community Development.  There are quite a few that graduated in 2021 from various universities, worked for a few years and wanted something different.  One of the young ladies taught for 3 years before joining.  They are very interesting and quite amazing. 

We joined a small group at the High Line for a beer and game of Cards Against Humanity.  If you haven’t played it, it is the more adult version of Apples to Apples.  We will be in training sessions from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm on Saturday and then it is off to Kosovo Sunday evening.

It was a part of the journey...

I have been working to update my blog as we near our departure to Kosovo.  It is no longer called Blue Sky Days, as that was the title when we thought we would be going to Mongolia last June.  As we found out 72 hours before we were to leave for our staging event in Philadelphia, that we were not cleared to go; I have been holding off making the changes until we were certain that we were leaving for Kosovo.  Now, that we are less than 24 hours away from staging in Arlington, Virginia; it feels like it is time to make the changes.  The URL for the blog still includes blue sky country 257, because on average that is the number of sunny, blue sky days in Mongolia per year and we have already shared that URL with so many friends and family.  Besides, the preparation for Mongolia was part of the journey that has lead to our departure to Kosovo.  And it has been a bit of a long journey.,,

Image by fokustier from Pixabay

I looked up the meaning of the word Kosovo and a number of sites (including the CIA Factbook) suggests that kos is Serbian for blackbird and that the word "kosovo" refers to the fields of blackbirds found there.  I don't know if that is true, but I like "fields of blackbirds" or "blackbird fields" as a title for the blog.

Our journey to Peace Corps, most likely started back in 2003.  That is when our family agreed to be the host family to a Rotary Youth Exchange student from Poland.  Dorota immediately became a part of our family and we still keep in touch with her and her family today.  By the time, we agreed to host the second Rotary Youth Exchange student, the Middleton Sunrise Rotary Club (the club that sponsored the students) asked my husband and I to join the club, and we did.  As Rotary members, we began to live the motto "service above self" as we involved ourselves in club service projects and continued to host additional Rotary Youth Exchange students.  We also hosted many other short term exchange students through a variety of different programs.  We always felt we gained more from them, than what we gave by hosting them. 

We liked the goal of Rotary Youth Exchange the primary goal of which is to provide young people with the opportunities to experience cultural exchange and to develop as leaders who promote peace and justice around the world (from Rotary International).   We always felt that more young people should have the opportunity to exchange as exchanging leads to greater understanding of people from other countries and cultures.

It was through Rotary the seed was planted that eventually led to applying to the Peace Corps.  My husband and I had later joined different clubs. He came home after one of his club meetings talking about how we could join the Peace Corps after we retired.  The speaker at the meeting was a former Peace Corps Volunteer.  I was not close to retirement yet and was not really interested at the time.  That seed laid dormant until Fall of 2020, when I decided I would retire at the end of the school year in June of 2021.  My husband and I talked about what we could do next and we both agreed we would like to try the Peace Corps.  The goals of the Peace Corps to promote understanding between people of different countries and cultures were definitely in line with our beliefs.

In late February of 2021, we received a e-mail that we were being considered for Albania.  In March interviewed to be assigned to Albania.  However; we were still in the midst of CoVid and groups were not yet being sent out to Albania.   We periodically got e-mails letting us know that our applications were still active, but it was taking longer than originally anticipated.  As I am a retired teacher, my first year of retirement started in June of 2021 and when we still did not have an invite by May of 2022; we decided to try something different in the interim.  We applied to be campground host at Chiricahua National Monument in southeast Arizona.  Within a week of applying, we were accepted as hosts, bought a camper to live in, and a truck to pull it with.  Chiricahua is a lesser known park of great beauty.  It is a volcanic sky island in Chiricahua Mountains with spectacular rock columns created from the various volcanic eruptions and later erosion.  It is a fairly remote, small park with a single ~ 8 mile road up to the highest point and the best hiking trails.  We loved our roles as campground hosts and the four months we lived there.  We quickly became a part of the community of park staff, volunteers, and visiting guests.

We left Wisconsin, for Chiricahua, in mid August 2022.  We were to arrive in Chiricahua on September 1st and we wanted to drive first to visit our son, who is a PhD student at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona.  On August 30, while still visiting our son, we received our invite to Peace Corps Mongolia leaving June 2023.  This worked for us, as it gave us time to complete our volunteer work in Chiricahua (four months) and also time to complete our clearances before leaving.  We had all our clearances for Mongolia by the end of April 2023.  This was no small feat.  Unfortunately, due to a medical issue in late May, we did not end up going to Mongolia.

We received our invite to Kosovo in September 2023 and now finally, in three days we will be heading Pristina, Kosovo.  It feels almost a full circle moment as we originally interviewed to go to Albania and now we are starting to learn Albanian as that is the most common language in Kosovo.  It has been a bit of a mental journey to go from thinking we are going to Mongolia to be going now to Kosovo; but I feel ready.   Tomorrow, we start the actual journey to our Peace Corps adventure.

Starting to feel real, again...

We are once again both cleared medically and we have completed all other requirements for our adventure with the Peace Corps.  We have received our flight itinerary.  We are scheduled to leave Madison early on Friday, February 23rd.  We will fly to Arlington, Virginia for our staging and then leave for Kosovo on Sunday, February 25th.  This is what we know so far.  

The flag of Kosovo is represented below.  The gold figure is the country and the six white stars represent the six major ethnic groups in Kosovo:  Albanians, Serbs, Bosniaks, Turks, Romani, and Gorani.

In comparison to the size of U.S. states in area, Kosovo is between Delaware and Connecticut.  The population is around 1.8 million.  Pristina (Prishtinë) is the capital of Kosovo and has a population of around 490,000.