This week, I spent more time at the professional school. On Monday, I filled in for the morning English teacher, Besim. I enjoyed getting to know his students who were all 10th graders. The English levels varied from class to class, but we always made good use of our time together. I enjoyed the metal work class. They shared out their shopping list (all in English) on the board and taught me a few new words in Albanian such as "gërshërë" or scissors and "përshtatës" or adaptor. I didn't hear the bell ring and the morning assistant, Agim, came to find me and let me know class had ended. The final class of the day was the 10th graders studying to work as electricians (all male class). Many had really good English. I had them for two class times, but the first was a test as their grades are being finalized. The second time we met, they got permission to show me their electrical lab and it was so interesting to talk to them and their teacher about their field of study.
Tuesday, I was back at the gymnaz where we spent some time reviewing for their Friday exam and I dictated to students in English while they wrote. Once again, they taught me new words "pikë" which is period, point, spot, etc. and "presje" for comma. I came home and looked up additional punctuation and during Friday's language lesson, Shpresim and I worked on pronunciation of them. I am a little sad that it is the end of the year and I will not see these students again.
On Thursday, I went with Besim to his Thursday classes. He did oral exams with his students and that was very interesting as well. The last classes was done with their exams and we had a great discussion instead. I asked students various questions. At one point, I asked students how they thought their school was different from schools in the U.S. One student said he thought his school was dirtier than schools in American. I certainly can't speak for all schools in American, but the schools here are dirtier that the schools I worked in the U.S. He told me that he didn't think there was much he could do about it, because other students didn't care. So I asked the other students in the class and found out they do care. This was at the end of class and we didn't get to continue the conversation, however; one boy picked up several pieces of trash and threw them in the wastebasket on his way out the door. I thanked him for doing it and I hope he will continue.
Friday, we headed to Prishtina early in the morning for a round table discussion at around 10:30 am with Carol Spahn, Peace Corps Director. She is here visiting Kosovo as they celebrate 10 years of Peace Corps in Kosovo. Unfortunately, the bus we took let us off on the other side of the 4-lane divided highway and it was a bit of a walk to the underpass to get to the other side.
The roundtable included all current volunteers and this was my first chance to meet many of them. A married couple is from Sugar Creek, Ohio which is close to where we lived for 9 years when our kids were young. There is also a volunteer from Wisconsin. After the round table, there was a luncheon celebration that included current volunteers, Peace Corps staff, host families, and counterparts. It was held at the Emerald Hotel in Prishtina. It was a big crowd.
We enjoyed a nice lunch with our counterparts. Speakers included former Kosovo President, Atifete Jahjaga, who was the person who invited the Peace Corps to send volunteers to Kosovo back in October of 2012. Since then 258 volunteers have served in Kosovo and currently there are 37 volunteers serving. It was a really nice event, with a four course lunch and many speeches.
Shpresim gave us a ride back to Ferizaj and we each had language lessons, before heading back home to Kaçanik.
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