Amazing views...

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

We have been in Kosovo for a week and a half; and Kamenice for less than a week.  It feels like longer, because everyday is so big in terms of what we are learning and doing.  The language learning is hard, but we have great teachers.  We have 3 ½ to 4 1/2 hours of language five times a week.  Sundays are our free day, but we still have homework to do on Sundays.  During this week, we have our service sector training on Thursday.  It is a break day from language classes. 

The language lessons went well for me the last two days.  We have been working on learning food names and about buying food.  We often talk about what we eat (in Albanian sort of). For some reason, I usually do well with learning about food in any language.  We did have a lot of homework last night and I had to finish mine this morning.  Tonight, I had one page of homework left and some review.

Yesterday and today, we have had training with the Peace Corps staff from Prishtina.  Some of the training is universal for Peace Corps trainees, no matter where they are place.  This training is created in Washington DC by staff there.  Some of the training is Kosovo specific. 

Our training is held at Hotel Jehona, which is about a mile from the community center where we have our language lessons.  It is at the edge of the city up a steep hill.  It provides an absolutely beautiful view of Kamenice.  The training is to provide us the tools to be safe, healthy, and to help complete the work that we are here to do.

The walkway up to our training room

These houses are just below Hotel Jehona

The view from Jehona

Our family is great and very patient with our lack of language.  Ganimete is doing her best to make foods that I can eat.  She is a wonderful cook, however; the style of food here is very carb heavy.  They eat large chunks of bread with every meal.  Ganimete is learning that I am not a bread person and now excepts it when I say “no” to the big chunks of white bread.  We did find a loaf of whole wheat bread at the bakery on our way from Jehona today.  It was .80 cents for a fresh loaf of whole wheat bread.  The girl at the counter sliced it for us as well. 

Tonight was one of our favorite meals.  Ganimete made “Spinach Pita” as they call and it was really good.  Mine did not have the kos (think Greek yogurt) in it and it was still very good.  It is similar to spanakopita.  

This is what's left of the spinach pita

We have a routine here and everything is feeling pretty comfortable.  We have a really great support group and our family is very helpful.  

We have seen some really beautiful houses, especially on our walk to Jehona.  Many of the nicer houses that we have seen in Kamenice, are actually owned by Germans.  They come here for the summer.  The windows on these house are covered with shutters (essentially boarded up) and you can tell that no one is living in them now.  This does bring money into the community, but it may also drive up prices. 

Right now, we find prices are very inexpensive.  For example, a coffee at the Sip Cafe is .50 cents to .70 cents (They  use cents even though it is euro cents, not to be confused with our US cents).  You can go out for lunch and get a meal for under 5 euros.  I had a nice pasta dish for lunch the other day and it was 4 euros.  The rest of the group had a popular chicken dish that includes rice and salad for just 4 euros.  We do not go out that often, because we are provided food from our hosts.