United Nations Development Programme

I won my first grant in Albania on Monday! The Association for Women with Social Problems (AWSP) won an award from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for an anti-domestic violence campaign this week and I'm psyched to have worked on it. I was a little surprised about the timing, we had only submitted the grant the Monday before and that meant turn around of less than a week. I'm not sure if that's the norm or an exception in this case though.

I'm especially pleased at the turnout because the project started off with some bumps. I didn't get told about the grant competition until Thursday afternoon on Nov. 6 and proposals were due Monday morning, Nov. 10 which left me with about 1 business day to write this.

Ok, fine...deep breath...

Fortunately they had started on it (sort of) and at least had a clear idea of what they wanted to do (mostly). My counterpart Aureola gave me her first draft which made me a little uneasy. All of the staff at AWSP are program people (social workers, psychiatrists, etc.) so their development work lacks a certain polish. UNDP had included a rubric with their RFP and a quick check against AWSP's proposal found that a lot of the requested information were missing. The planned project itself was pretty good but it hadn't been entirely thought out to its completion and none of the supplemental information that usually goes with a grant proposal was ready.

The project itself is pretty well designed: it's an awareness campaign aimed at reducing domestic violence in low income areas by targeting high school students. Most of the campaign was pretty standard stuff (discussion groups, posters, training peer-to-peer educators) but there were some very innovative components too. AWSP was organizing an art exhibition depicting students' perceptions of domestic violence to be displayed in participating schools and a street theater piece doing much the same thing. For the theater piece the organization is copying a model actually developed by a Serbian NGO in Belgrade that forces people to visualize the violence and its consequences. They showed me a DVD of the performances from the Belgrade campaign and it's pretty impactful stuff, I was impressed.

I had gotten to the office around 2 on Thursday (I work with Civil Society Development Center on Thursdays and Fridays) and ended up leaving around 7 after working with Aureola and other staff to fill in the (many) blanks on their proposal. I finally left when they closed up shop but not before making them swear on their mothers' graves that they would get me the outstanding information I still required by the next day. I mocked up the visual over dinner that night, which, I really think is one of the most important parts of any proposal. Probably the most important thing I learned at Alford is: if you can represent it visually, you should. It's really true, how much of your work do people generally read? Especially if they have it all laid out in a single powerpoint slide? Unfortunately working in the developing world means limited access to color printers so I had to work in black and white.



We got the technicals and supplementals done on Friday by COB but I ended up coming in on Saturday anyway to look over the financials and oversee production. Hopefully that won't become a habit here but I had enough crunch times in the U.S. to know that I should expect them here too. The one ambiguous point about working through Peace Corps that I can't decide whether I like or not is that I don't have to really account for my time at the end of the week. It's great in a lot of ways because I can do a 48 hour push like this without a) having to worry about getting overtime approved and b) being able to spend as much time on something as I think it needs without someone demanding why the project is taking so long. I remember doing 9 drafts of a project outline at Alford until my boss was happy and then his boss coming to me and telling me to justify the long development period. Sigh.

The downside of being detached from the traditional work schedule is that, now, if something needs to get done, it needs to get done and it doesn't matter if work hours are over or not. When I left my cubicle at 5 in the U.S. I was done working because I was encouraged not to work on projects after hours. After all, they'd have to pay me more then. But here spending nights and weekends in front of RFP's will probably be, if not regular, at least not unusual.

I prefer being busy to the alternative though. After a month of doing nothing in Armenia waiting out the war I'm not going to complain about having too much to do.

We got it wrapped up on Saturday although I did make sure to meet one last time with the Executive Director to do one last rundown. The project AWSP was proposing was slightly different than the focus of UNDP's grant so I made sure to talk that through with her. I was worried about getting disqualified after all that but she just smiled.

The ED at AWSP has built her organization and her reputations like most founders of non-profits do. She's a smart and motivated woman with great people skills and has relied on the relationships she's built over the years, not the quality of her proposals, to keep her groups funded. That usually works to get an organization's immediate needs but it usually means there's never much motivation to put the effort required into funding requests. It's like an oil rich country: most of the money comes from a single source (in this case, the ED) so other sectors never get developed. The problems usually come when the founder retires or the funders start asking for details.

So when she told me "don't worry, I'm dropping it off myself, there won't be any problems..." I was about ready to strangle her. Fine, you got funded in the past but how long is that going to last? Your personal relationships will only take you so far and international aid isn't going to stay in Albania forever.

Sigh, I knew this was going to be a problem going in but it's still frustrating to see, especially in a high functioning organization like The Association. I imagine that's going to be my biggest battle here: working with people to build professional capacity. I'm working with Civil Society Development Center on a plan to that effect but that's another blog post.

For now, we won and I'm happy. After going through about 4 months of training I finally got to get to some real work and I got a great start already.


Special Note: I almost forgot! Special thanks to Katie for helping me proof-read the project! Thanks sweetie, it was a HUGE help!

Out and Not Particularly Proud

I got a lot of concern from my family before coming to Albania because my Grandparents on my Dad's side are Serbian and my well meaning but, occasionally, misinformed relatives assumed that meant swift death for me as soon as I set foot on Albanian soil. Surprisingly I remain about the living but I did debate for a while after I got here about whether or not to talk about my heritage. I've never considered myself a "Serb" and probably never will but my last name isn't exactly "Smith" so I knew people were going to ask about it.


I can pull off a Croatian persona pretty easily if I have to, my grandparents are actually from the Dalmation coast and I studied Serbian/Croatian under a woman from Zagreb in college so I can speak with a Croatian accent. I figured I could play that part if I got "outed" as of Balkan descent but I was still curious about exactly how big a deal it was that I had some Chetnik blood in me.


I had tested the waters with a number of "safe" Albanians when I arrived: Peace Corps staff, couple of friends. I kick myself now because I know I was being ridiculous. My ancestory has come up a number of times since arriving at site and it's usually greeted with something to the effect of "Oh! That's so great that you get to visit the Balkans where your family's from!" or "Wow, have you been to Serbia? I went to Belgrade last year and it was beautiful!"


The point I usually need to clarify with people is how I feel about my heritage. It came up today at work and I was trying to explain to Vali, my counterpart when she remarked "Oh, you're a Serb then..." that no, I didn't consider myself a Serb. I was trying to explain to her that a lot of Americans don't identify with the countries their relatives emigrated from. It took a bit of doing but was helped along by an ancedote from Georgia:


I was having lunch one day with a coworker in Kutaisi and he and I were discussing our families and where they came from. I was working at an organzation for displaced people from the first war in Abkhazia (back in the 90's) so my colleagues were pretty adament about "where they came from." My friend was trying to convince me that I was, indeed, a Serb and said: "When you measure the age of a tree, where do you measure from? You measure from the roots."


To which I promptly responded: "When you want to make something useful from a tree, what's the first thing you do? Cut off the roots."

Internet!

Yes! I have internet now! With the sacrifice of a few other non-essensial ammenities like food (just kidding!) I was able to swing a 256k wireless connection for my apartment which means I will have to be better about keeping my blog up to date.

I know I'm back logged on a lot of emails and facebook messages, I'm getting to those if you're waiting for something from me. Also, I know I've been bad about posting pictures, I'll try to get some up this week.

Halloween!

Whoo! Halloween party! This weekend the bulk of the volunteers descended on Elbasan, in central Albanian for a costumes required night of Americana overseas and it was great.

Three of the other Georgia group and I were orginally going to go as a group costume but inspiration deserted us and I wound up going as a cow and that was mostly out of last minute desperation. I'm pretty proud of how I pulled it off though: I found myself at the bazaar on Friday afternoon, a little panicked, and I found a massive stuffed animal at one of the children's stalls. After haggling a bit in my broken Albanian I carried the 4 foot stuffed cow through the streets of Durres, back to my apartment and then gutted it on my balcony. Stuffed animals in the developing world are filled with styrofoam instead of the cotton fluff state-side plush toys are made up which makes them slightly less squishy and infinitely more messy when opened. Hopefully none of my neighbors saw me do this, I can only imagine what they would thing if they saw me cutting the head off a stuffed cow and then trying it on. (Halloween does exist here but is not widely celebrated, I tried explaining to a few people at the bazaar what the event was about but I gave up.)

The party was great although I got wine all over my costume in the first 5 minutes. I want to clear that up though for those who saw the pictures on facebook: Becky got her corkscrew stuck in a bottle, I rescued it - you might say I am a hero.

There was a costume contest (my mutilated stuffed animal, still leaking styrofoam bits didn't win) and a bake off to accompany the festivities. I'm not a baker but was happy to participate as a judge. It was good to see everybody, all the Georgia volunteers are doing fine settling into their sites. Albania has an advantage over Georgia in that it's a much smaller country so the volunteers can get together more easily and often. It's not quite the bar hopping fun I had last year in Adams Morgan in D.C. but it was pretty good for a Peace Corps budget.

Sick

I've got some kind of virus thing lately which means sore through and runny nose for about the last week. Luckily I've had some people visit me lately and bring their computers so I've got plenty of movies to watch while I'm laying around. I'm also hoping to get internet in my apartment in the next week or so, that should help keep me occupied. Hopefully I'm not recovered by then so I can still stay inside and enjoy reconnecting to the outside world. ;)

Matt Taylor is the Shit.

Matt's my site mate, which means he lives in the same town I do and he's something of a legend among Peace Corps Albania volunteers. Now for those incredulous few of you out there who might not believe any volunteer could have so lofty of status at a post, I say to you: come to Albania, visit any PC party, bring up Matt's name...get comfortable.

He's a 38 year old TEFL and he's awesome. I've been in Durres for about a week now and Matt's showed me how to make stew, introduced me to most of the city and put on a private concert for me and the people who came down to help move me in.

Ask any PC:A volunteer, they'll tell you the same: Matt rules.

(He really does.)

Busy Day

We’re done! Today was the conclusion of our formal training here in Albania and we are all THRILLED to be finished with it. After 4 months, 3 countries, 2 pre-service trainings and a hell of a lot of languages we are finally going to get to start work.

I got up this morning because Peace Corps requires a narrative final self-assessment and I, with my usual flair for forethought, had put it off until the day it was due. I spent a couple hours writing it before turning up only slightly late at our first session of the day about transitioning to Albanian society.

In my defense there were two perfectly good reasons for the procrastination! First, the night before was spent out late, yes, but we were at the country director’s home for dinner and to play with his trampoline (not in that order); I fell asleep right after getting home. Second, all of us had a little trouble with a certain question our training director put on the self-assessment: “Explain your commitment to completing the full term of your service in the Peace Corps.” SERIOUSLY? I am sincerely curious to know, after what we’ve been through (see above…), how we could further prove our commitment to Peace Corps. We had a pretty good laugh comparing answers though.

After our last training seminar we milled around PCHQ for a while because today was also the date of our final language assessments (duh dum dum!) The Language Proficiency Interview (LPI) is the standard for all of Peace Corps and rates the PCV’s in one of 10 levels. The scale is Novice Low, Novice Mid, Novice High, Intermediate Low, Mid and High, Advanced Low, Mid, High and Superior. The level normally required to move from Trainee to Volunteer is Intermediate Low; because our language training was a scantly 4 weeks we were only required to reach Novice High but a lot of us were sweating even that. 4 weeks is a pretty short time to become functional in a language.

I walked out of my LPI with a score of Inter-Low; being considered having enough Shqip (Albanian) to survive and start work in my site. I believe all the transferees passed and most did very, very well. None of us is quite sure what to ascribe this to; Georgian is certainly a harder language and it helped to be in that mindset when we arrived. To be perfectly fair as well, the staff knew we were crunched for time and might have been a little generous with the grading…
But, whatever the cosmic fluke that caused it, the important thing is we all passed! My elation at my score didn’t last very long. My day wasn’t done and I was headed to go do something I envisioned being nearly as painful as my LPI.

If you’ve never gone to see a dentist in the developing world, let me tell you: the first time is scary. Now, it was a dentist used by Peace Corps and other American expatriates and I had heard good things so intellectually I knew it probably wasn’t going to be that bad. No one likes going to the dentist though and if you throw in the uncertainty of doing it in a developing country, where you see a fair amount of disturbing things on a daily basis, and maybe you can imagine the long walk I took from PCHQ (with my translator) to the dentist’s office.
It turned out to be fine and I got what I needed fixed. The visit ended up being mostly painless and the dentist’s office would probably put most exam rooms in the U.S. to shame (expats pay well) so there wasn’t any problem. It wound up being a good reminder to me about competencies abroad.

After a surprising pleasant visit to the dentist I met up with the rest of the group and some staff to have a last coffee. Hill, the country director, handed out the volunteer pins. The pin is something each post gives out to volunteers, usually the U.S. flag crossed over the host country flag with the Peace Corps logo, and they signify that we’re serving with that post. The pins mean we’re PCV’s and mine means a lot to me. We still have our Georgia pins but we’ll carry our Albanian ones too now and hopefully two will be our limit for now.

Durres

I’ve been assigned to my new site as of today. I’m heading to a coastal city on the Adriatic called Durres, Albania’s second largest city, and I couldn’t be more excited!

I’ve got a position at an NGO serving women’s issues, The Association for Women with Social Problems (AWSP), but I’ll be splitting my time between that and a civil society organization called Civil Society Development Center (CSDC) which, in turn, assists several other organizations with logistical support and general consulting services. AWSP runs a community center for women and children in a suburb of Durres; the elementary school attached to the center has also requested assistance so I’ll probably be involved there as well. In addition, the public library in the city has requested some help for a couple days a month so I’m betting I won’t be at a loss for things to do.

Hmm, living in the nation’s second city…serving a plethora of non-profit clients…why does this sound familiar? If only Durres had an “L” train…

I had a choice between Durres and a smaller town in the south of the country working at the local municipality. I think my program manager was pulling for the other site and I was a little sorry to disappoint her. The small town was a little more of a “Peace Corps-esque” experience and I imagine she (as a lot of people will) has some assumptions about why I chose the big city instead of a rural site. The truth is that Durres was a placement with NGO’s and the town, Cherivoda (spelled incorrectly, undoubtedly), was a placement with a government. I felt that my experience and skills (modest though they are…) would be better matched to the organizations I’m assigned to now and I would be more productive.

The seaside view didn’t hurt though…

Homecoming

This weekend the transferees were treated to an extremely warm weekend. Everyone has been exceedingly welcoming towards us so far but this weekend brought two events that were unlike any others.

On Saturday the current Albanian volunteers organized a picnic for us at Peace Corps Headquarters. We had had several Peace Corps events already to introduce us to the country and welcome us but this was the first organized by the volunteers alone. We met at the office for a pot luck, unfortunately the plan to enjoy lunch in the garden got rained out but we made do like the innovative, adaptable PCV’s we are. While we enjoyed some really fabulous food it came out in the small talk that there was going to be some kind of “ceremony” later on to extend the volunteers’ welcome to us. We, the transferees, were a little trepid about it; at least one smartass (Rob) mentioned something about hazing…

They had us close our eyes and stand in a circle, facing outward. With poorly veiled giggles the volunteers put something into the middle of our circle and asked us to reach behind us without looking.

When we were allowed to finally open our eyes we pulled out what we had grabbed: each one of us was holding a knitted scarf in the colors red, black and white. Red and black for the colors of the Albanian flag, red and white for the colors of the Georgian flag…knitted together. How sweet is that?

We were very touched. The gestured had been organized weeks beforehand when they had found out we were coming; volunteers furiously knitting away while we trained in the capital. The scarves turned out beautifully and, as we hear it, will be pretty practical come winter in Albania.

The next day we got treated again to lunch by a very kind woman named Brenda who’s an embassy employee. We were rained out again but still got to indulge in some truly fabulous cooking, including some UNBELIEVABLE humus. We spent a great evening with burgers and wine retelling stories about Georgia, Albania and that hellish month in Armenia. During a night of good food and good company my Mom called from her hometown where her and Dad were visiting some family. I talked with my parents and some extended family (everyone’s doing well) for about a half hour before heading back inside.

All in all, a wonderful weekend. The end of training is in sight for us (again) and then the 8 of us will be separated (again). I think most of us signed up for Peace Corps hoping to come out with some great friends, it’s amazing how close you get to people in an experience like this though. After 9 straight weeks together, confined in close space in the developing world and enduring two trainings…well, it’s an achievement that we haven’t killed each other. It’s a cliché to say Peace Corps is like a family but…well, what else can you call a high stress, closely confined group that’s amazed it’s members haven’t killed each other?

Albania

I couldn’t be more pleased with my new post. I am absolutely thrilled with the country, the people and the program in my new home in the Balkans and am looking forward to an interesting and productive couple of years here.

We’ve been here for about 2 weeks now and I have no complaints. Our training is as promised: some language, a bit of administrative stuff, and the rest is up to us. We’ve spent a lot of our time here travelling around to see what other volunteers are working on, visit workplaces and conferences and getting some hands-on experience. A lot of the traditional Peace Corps Pre-Service Training (PST) is classroom based discussing development in abstract so this has been a refreshingly nice change of pace from our Georgia instruction. The language is coming along well enough; I think most of us are a little anxious about going to work with 5 weeks of language but we’re getting tutors once we get to site and no one is interested in stretching out our mini-PST any longer than we have to.

The staff has been wonderful to us here. Even from the little we’ve seen of the transfer process we know what a monumental pain it is to bring in new volunteers outside of the regular cycle. Despite this PC:A has managed to design a new, abbreviated language curriculum for our needs, bring us up to speed on the Albania post’s idiosyncrasies and identify and organize permanent sites for us. Our program managers have been running around the country for the last 2 weeks meeting with municipalities, NGO leaders and school directors finding placements for us.
We’re staying in the capital for 5 weeks right now to simplify our logistics and have been having a great time. Albania, and especially the capital, has some long missed amenities that we’ve gotten to indulge in by virtue of being held over in Tirana for a little over a month. (They have Buffalo wings here!!!!!) We’ve gotten the scoop on most of the highlights here by the current volunteers who have also been awesome to us while we transition into their post. Not to brag but, within walking distance of where we’re staying is a good Indian restaurant, a couple of ex-pat hang outs and at least one Karaoke bar. The entire country is, obviously, not as lavishly equipped as the capital but most places in Albania are better off than towns of equivalent size in Georgia.

The host country nationals here have been as warm and welcoming to us as any could be; Albania is one of the last places on earth still holding the U.S. in high regard (after the conflict in Georgia the U.S. is now in questionable stead there, as is most of the west) and it shows in our daily encounters with the locals. There are American flags everywhere and people are eager to learn about the U.S. and practice their English with its citizens.

We’re also blessed with the fringe benefit of good location here; Albania is not only a beautiful country but has some attractive looking neighbors too. Italy and Greece are popular weekend destinations for volunteers and just about everywhere else in Europe is easily accessible from our new home. This adds an extra benefit for me. Most of you know my dad’s side of the family is from the Balkans and I’ve got the unique opportunity now that I’m “in the neighborhood” to go visit some distant relatives and see the countries we came from. I took some Serbo-Croatian (BCS) in college and my cousin provided me with some travel tips for the region complete with the village where my grandfather grew up. I’m hoping to travel sometime next summer.

Some people had some concerns about me joining Peace Corps Albania: I’m not going to discuss them here except to say that they were unjustified.

I’m happy to be in my new host country and to get to keep my position as a Peace Corps Volunteer. A lot of you know what it means to me to call myself a PCV and I’m grateful to all the people who made the transfer happen. After a long, exciting summer first in Georgia and then in Armenia I think all the transferees are looking forward to a wonderful couple of years here in which we can enjoy a nice, quiet service and, hopefully, prove we were worth all the trouble.

Transfer

Transfers were supposed to be a real long shot for the evacuees from Georgia: the way staff pitched them to us was as “stars having to align” and posts being reluctant to take in new volunteers mid-stream. You can imagine our surprise, on our first conference call with Peace Corps Albania’s Country Director and Program Director, the staff was not only willing to take us but was enthusiastic! Hill, the CD (and my hero), told us that; if we were interested, we were in. We were shocked. We showed up at the conference call with 6 interested volunteers, expecting a competitive fight for scarce spots, and Albania asked us if we could get them 12.

We had sworn in as volunteers at this point already so we were, according to Albania staff, entitled to be treated as such. This might have been the most exciting part for us; a couple of other country posts had already agreed to take volunteers but with the caveat that the transferees join the Pre-Service Training (PST) classes about to begin. In the case of Ukraine this was 12 weeks of language and technical training in addition to the 10 week PST we had completed for our Georgia post. Albania wanted us to do a few weeks (it turned out to be 5) of language acquisition so we knew a little Shqip (Albanian) but how much else we wanted to during our abbreviated introduction to Albania was largely up to us. This was the big selling point for me.

There was a caveat to the offer though: they were willing to take a higher maximum of volunteers than any of the other countries but there was a minimum too. To justify the expense of having us moved to the post we needed at least 6 volunteers to sign on. Keep in mind no one had really made up their mind at this point. There were 6 that expressed interest in Albania but the conference call was the initial meeting. The option to go home is always on the table in Peace Corps; we serve at our discretion and can ask for a plane ticket home at any time. After what happened in the month preceding this no one would blame anyone for wanting out. Frankly, after sitting around doing nothing in Armenia for 3 weeks Peace Corps had lost of its “magic” for us too.

The truly interested left the conference room and started spreading the word as soon as the call ended. We probably pitched Albania to all 80 of the volunteers staying with us. We were the victims of bad timing too because, the same night we got a green light from PC:A, logistics starting finally coming through for tickets home. We had been sitting around for 3 weeks with agonizing little information about our fate and, in one night, we were presented with the choice between a new post and a ticket home.

I talked up the country as hard as I’ve pitched anything in my life. One small stroke of luck was that everyone was up late and gathered together to hang out that night. The unfortunate part was that people were up late to celebrate going home in most cases…We lucked out and found some converts by the end of the night. There ended up being 8 of us going but I want to write about one here. Stephanie Yingling is our agro-business expert and she caught my Albanian pitch on the way to confirm her travel plans with the staff. She actually had a ticket home in hand and turned it down to come with us. Hopefully her family in the states, who she had told she was on her way, won’t hold it against me. And, perhaps more importantly, she won’t hate her assignment in 6 months and come strangle me for talking her into this. Pennsylvania’s not that great anyway…right?

We met again with the PC:A staff the next day and presented the second crop of potential transferees. After a few more rounds of questions by our newly interested volunteers (and the confirmation of a few promises I had made to said volunteers, thank god!) it looked like we had our Albania group. We signed up with 3 English teachers, 2 Health volunteers and 3 Community Development consultants. Everyone came away from the talks with staff excited which was a nice change from the catatonic state the boredom in Armenia had left most of us in. Albania’s staff seemed genuinely enthused about taking us in which was what seemed to be what won people over in the end. It’s a nice thing to be wanted.

So, we’ve made it here now and are well into our “bridge to service” as its being called. The country is beautiful and the people are hospitable. The staff has proven to be just as welcoming as they sounded on the phone and we can’t express our appreciation enough for the hard work they’re doing to put us into the mix. They didn’t have any more notice than we did that this was really going to happen so it’s very impressive they were able to arrange teachers, trainings and sites for us in the span of a couple of weeks. They also had the good sense to take us to the beach our second day here which should keep the “converts”, those volunteers we talked into coming, from regretting the decision.

Hopefully, at the least, until I can get out of strangling range. :)

Backlog

Ok, I know I’ve been bad about updating the blog since the evacuation. In Georgia I had nothing but time to write most days so I was a little more productive there. I also needed the blog posts to organize my thoughts. After a month in Armenia my brains have effectively turned to mush so there weren’t many thoughts to organize. Plus I had a lot of other volunteers as an outlet there, as I do here, so I was able to discuss things with other people that might otherwise have been recorded in my journal/blog.

After some loving rebukes though, I’m back at it. I’m in Albania now serving with the Peace Corps post here and I’ve got plenty of updates about the transfer, my time so far in PC:Albania and the second chance I’m getting with Katie (we decided to give it another shot). I’ve also got some back posts from Georgia that were recovered when my laptop was retrieved from my training site, I’ll be putting those up to as well.

Enjoy.

Georgia Back Log:I don't know who was more surprised...

On Sunday my cluster mate Casey and I were preparing for our mid-training language assessment and freaking out a bit about it (at least I was). My host grandfather came into the room excited about something, when we came downstairs we found a couple of bicyclists in the backyard. The man was from South Africa and the woman from the Netherlands and we were all a little shocked. They were riding from Turkey to Azerbaijan and were passing through Georgia. My grandfather found them at the highway and invited them over for lunch.
Having 4 foreigners from 3 continents over for lunch is pretty rare in my little village so my host family really did it up. We sat down with the couple (who spoke no Georgian) and my host grandparents (who spoke no English) to a fabulous meal and proceeded to translate back and forth.

I’m surprised at how well the conversation went. In part because I lucked out having Casey with me because he happens to be the trainee who happens to know every food item in Georgian so we could explain to our guests what they were eating. In general though, we didn’t have a lot of trouble going back and forth. It’s amazing what you pick up in just 5 weeks of language but, at the same time, it wasn’t a very complicated dialogue. The couple complemented the food and offered their thanks; my host grandparents welcomed them and served the food and wine. Casey and I explained all the toasts my grandfather made (to our guests, to the family, to peace; usual stuff) and communicated the couple’s gratitude. Our biggest task was interdicting the refills of their homemade vodka (“chacha”, awful stuff) and thinking up excuses to explain to my host grandfather why they couldn’t drink.

After a successful lunch my grandparents held an impromptu demonstration of Georgian folk dancing which they persuaded all of us to join in on. Casey and I wrote up a cheat sheet of Georgian phrases to get them through the rest of the country, explained a few cultural points and gave the couple the name of a good hotel in Gori. After a few pictures we said our goodbyes and they continued on. Peace Corps is one of the few jobs where you can come from America, work in Asia, have a woman from Europe and a man from Africa over for lunch and get really loaded with your grandparents while technically being on duty. We blew off studying for the rest of the day but felt pretty prepared for our language assessment all the same.

[Supplemental: Casey and I did fine on the test, I score in the top group.]

Georgia Back Log: Condoleezza Rice

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice showed up in Georgia this week and Peace Corps got a chance to crash the press conference. Most of us volunteered; it’s not everyday that you get to meet a cabinet member and it didn’t hurt that it was a day out of language class.

Secretary Rice is in the country to talk with Georgia’s government over the increasing tensions with Russia but made time for a quick meet and greet with embassy staff, AID workers and us. There was a short speech about the importance of our alliance with Georgia and the future of the region (I’ve got it on video if anyone’s interested) and afterwards she came out to shake our hands. The press conference was nice but I think I was happier about the fringe benefits of a free trip to the capital than the sound bites. I hadn’t had a doughnut since leaving the U.S. and there were huge trays of them waiting for us when we showed up at the Tbilisi Hilton where Secretary Rice was speaking. It sounds like a small thing but right at that moment, it was pretty awesome. 50 Peace Corps volunteers beat out embassy staff, some Marine Corps officers and pretty much all of US AID to raid the continental breakfast the hotel had set out and not a one of us feel bad about it.

AFTER the speech is when the real perk came. When were in America we couldn’t have cared less about McDonalds but, once in Georgia, it might as well have been the American Embassy. Cultural imperialism has its critics but, after living in a village in rural Asia for 6 weeks, the golden arches looked pretty good. We spent (lets just say longer than we were supposed to) getting cheeseburgers and milkshakes before heading back home.

There was one extra bonus: when the Secretary was done the embassy staff let us play on her podium with the official Department of State seal on the front. We all took pictures of us playing Secretary of State and generally looking like children in front of the American expatriate community. Good day all around.

The Dog Story

I wasn't originally going post this story for another two years because I didn't want anyone to worry while I was in Georgia but now that we're evacuated I think it's safe to tell. It wasn't a fun experience at the time but it's become one of the favorites around here so I hope you like it too.

I was walking home one day my first week in my village after spending an afternoon at the internet cafe in the next town. You have to go through an alley to get to my house which dog-legs a bit (no pun intended). Now, admittedly, I was probably not paying as much attention to my surroundings as I should have at the time. I did have my iPod on and was pretty euphoric at being able to access a computer for the first time in a couple weeks. I walked around the corner and froze when I realized I walked into a pair of angry looking dogs having it out in the gravel. A huge black dog was doing his best to take a chunk out of a smaller red mutt and I was doing my best not to get involved.

Now we are given training on how to deal with these situations. Dogs are a huge problem in Georgia, both as strays and as pets. You'll find this true of most developing countries unfortunately which is why we spend so much time learning strategies for avoiding and defusing danger. Rocks are a huge asset (I know, that sounded really bad to me too when I first heard it but read on) and we're encouraged to use them liberally. One of the reasons it works at all for the Americans is that the Georgians are even more profuse about using stones and most of the animals have learned by now to fear them.

I started to back away when I saw what I walked into but, as soon as I did, both dogs turned to look at me and growl. I grabbed some pebbles out of the gravel road and started to whip them down the alley. It worked for a bit. The black dog took off running in the other direction but, as soon as he was out of range, did an immediate u-turn and, in what seemed like an impossibly fast time, planted his jaws on my butt.

I don't recall the next 5 minutes or so. I think I set a record for most swears in that amount of time and my neighbors must have come out because I have no idea where the dogs went. The next thing I remember was limping my way back though the gate of my family's house with the Peace Corps Medical Officer on the phone.

PCMO was trying hard to calm me down and assess the situation at the same time, I eventually had to give up the phone to a family member to discuss the animal and the bite while I got my first aid kit. I hobbled my way upstairs and did one of the first things they tell you not to do in Peace Corps which is to show that you have access to expensive medical supplies by flashing them in front of other people in the village. In one of my first blog posts I talked about PCV's being pretty well equipped with everything we would need for such an emergency and its a good thing we are. I tore open the kit and strew supplies across my bed in front of my family and a couple of neighbors as I pulled out gauze, tape, anti-bacterial gel and pain killers. I also changed out of my jeans and into a pair of running shorts in front of my audience.

I grabbed a wash cloth and went down stairs to wash the wound with soap and water at the outdoor faucet. Your upper thigh area is kind of an awkward place to reach under the best of circumstances and I had a stinging pain from the bite so it was difficult for me to scrub like I should have. My neighbor, who owns the dog, eventually saw this and came over.

Now I should mention my neighbor was a 22 year old co-ed who was pretty attractive and who I had known for about 4 days at this point.

She took the cloth from me and, before I could protest, started to clean the wound. If you've never had a cute Georgian girl you've just met wash your butt for you...well, it's exactly the emotions you would imagine. I don't consider myself a religious person but, if God had killed me at that point, I would have considered it a sincere kindness. My host grandmother didn't make the experience any better by, throughout the ordeal, repeatedly pressuring me to apply some kind of home remedy she had with her that she swore up and down by but looked like infection in a bottle to me.

When she was done, and I was sure the situation couldn't get any worse, I grabbed for my gauze and tape to cover the wound and was horrified to find, when I turned around, there were 50 people in my backyard now that had come over to see the American that got bit by a dog. It seemed to me at the moment that the entire village had turned out to see my ass.

It may be the only time I've seen a neat, orderly line in Georgia but all my neighbors queued up to see the bite. I was still in a mix of shock, adrenaline and horror and this point. Each one came up to me, bent over to lift up my shorts, look at the wound, make some comment or suggestion about the treatment, and then make way for the next person. You can't imagine...

Later that night I found that there were two unexpected consequences of the attack. The first was that my stock rose way up in my host grandfather's eyes. He took the incident as some sort of right of passage for me and gave me a hearty thumbs up and a couple shots of whiskey to show his approval. I didn't know a lot of Georgian at this point but some one translated the phrase "real man" for me.

The second outcome was that my host father came to me and promised to go kill the dog that night. I want to say, unabashed, that, then and now, I am 100% for this idea. Unfortunately our medical officer stepped in and squelched the revenge plot because the dog needed to be observed for signs of Rabies. The neighbors swore that he had been vaccinated (there is a program in Georgia that sends veterinarians to villages to give free inoculations) but they couldn't find the paperwork. Since this was my first week in my village I didn't even have MY vaccinations done at this point (Rabies is a series of 3 shots over a number of weeks, I had had only 1 so far) so I was a little put out with the owners' poor record keeping.

I had to start Rabies post-exposure treatment later in the week which is a series of 5 shots over 20 something days or so. I still needed to get my pre-exposure vaccinations at the same time (in addition to all the other things we're inoculated against) so it was a lot of shots. The certification was eventually found that the dog was Rabies free (after 4 of 5 post-exposure shots...) and Peace Corps stepped in to manage the situation with the neighbors to make sure it didn't happen again. Unfortunately they did not recommend killing the dog. They did however issue me a high frequency sound dog zapper which I do not go to the bathroom without.

And once it was discovered that there was no danger to my life the story became a fast favorite of my fellow volunteers. I will forever be that trainee that got bit in the ass his first week at site. It's mostly healed up now but if my laptop is ever recovered from my village in Georgia I have photos of the immediate aftermath which are pretty gruesome. If you promise not to laugh too hard maybe some of you can see the scar too.

It wasn't a pleasant experience but I came out of it with a hell of a story which I'm sure I will retell in bars for years to come in this country and the next. Peace Corps is the few jobs where you take away experiences like this and I'm sure the dog bite won't be the last great story I come out of service with.

PCV!

Last Sunday Peace Corps swore us in as full volunteers and we couldn't be more excited. The 2008 group got pulled out of Georgia about 10 days before we were set to become volunteers and it looked for a while like we'd start, serve and end our PC commitment just as trainees. This was pretty depressing to think about naturally. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to our staff here who arranged this, who believed that we had earned the right to be called volunteers and who made sure the event went through with typical Peace Corps style.

Someone is checking on this but we may be the only class to swear in in-exile. We held the ceremony in a soccer field behind the hotel, we're officially calling the post Peace Corps Georgia "South" for right now. There were some speeches by the staff, a couple by the trainees and (the event without which no Georgian gathering would be complete without) a toast to the future of the country.

It was probably the most bittersweet time of my life though. Everyone got pretty emotional when the"graduating" trainees sang the Georgian national anthem. I remember watching the scene in Casablanca when the expatriates sing the French national anthem, it was pretty much like that. We knew most of us would not be going back to Georgia anytime soon and its hard to describe the mix of emotions that brings up. You get invested in a country quickly in Peace Corps and it's not an easy thing to leave...

I think, with that thought in mind, a lot of effort was put into making this event about Peace Corps and the volunteers. We are all immensely proud of having made it this far and of the people that helped us get here. I thank the Georgia staff in every post now it seems so I'll put in a quick nod this time: you guys are the best.

Being a PCV also opens up a lot of options for us. They're allowing us to close our service (COS) successfully (see last post) and providing a lot of benefits that we might not have gotten otherwise. Peace Corps has been very understanding about our situation, evacuations don't happen often but there's been a few and the people in our ranks that have been through them have been extremely sympathetic. For many of us the experience was like completing 3 1/2 years of college and being in danger of not getting a diploma. Fortunately for us everyone in the organization understands the importance to us of being able to call yourself a Peace Corps Volunteer and we're very grateful we have that opportunity.

Armenia

We've been evacuated to Armenia for about 3 weeks now. It's a beautiful country with a fascinating culture but hopefully our hosts will understand when I say I wish it was under different circumstances and that I was hoping for my stay to be a little shorter. We've known for about a week now that we're not going back to Georgia, Russia has been slow to withdraw and the conflict spread way beyond what anyone thought was going to happen. Boredom is probably the word to describe our time here. We've spent our time hanging out, getting bad news about Georgia, and speculating about our future. We have pretty nice accommodations here (especially for Peace Corps) but everything loses its novelty at some point, particularly when you have nothing to do.

There’s been several options discussed for us here: we can go home to America, we can try to transfer to another Peace Corps country, or we can sit and wait for Georgia.

The last option isn't really an option any longer; we were hopeful at the beginning but it becomes less and less likely with each passing day. The Russians haven't exactly been cooperative and Peace Corps answers to Congress (and our families) if something bad happens to us. The PC office will not be closing in Tbilisi, our staff will continue to work in the country assessing its safety for volunteers, its needs and ways in which Peace Corps can assist. There will be no PCV's in the country for some time though while the assessment goes on.

Some of the 2007 and a few of the 2008 (my group) volunteers are organizing non-PC trips back to the country in the coming weeks to work with NGO's they had relationships with while they were volunteers or assist in the relief effort in general. Plenty of people are job hunting on Georgian websites now but it'll be some time before the formal aid programs shape up and a lot of the work will be unpaid until then. I love Georgia dearly and it would be great to go back but I don't really have the money or the language skills to participate in the rebuilding right now.

Transfers are another option but a tricky one. A lot of you know what a hassle (and paperwork) I went through to get into Peace Corps, it's exactly as much hassle (and paperwork) to get out. Now imagine trying to get out of one PC program and into another at the same time. Now add in a war and I think you'll have an idea of the current situation. A transfer would be my preferred option but a lot of stars have to align to make that happen so we'll see. Some other PC posts have come to us and said they'd be willing to take transfer PCV's so we're looking into it. More on this later if it happens.

Going home is pretty attractive for a lot of people. Peace Corps has offered us the chance to have Close of Service (COS) which is like an honorable discharge is for the military. It means, in the eyes of Peace Corps, you've successfully completed your service and all the duties it required. It also means fellowships, access to Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) networks and career services. For the 2008 volunteers we'll be separated with 6 months of our readjustment allowance (we've accrued about 3 right now) to help transition from the evacuation in addition from our free ticket home (or cash-in-lieu).

The COS option is a really good deal for us and we owe a special thanks to our staff who went to D.C. and demanded this for us. Peace Corps didn't have to offer us this and it means a lot that someone was fighting for us.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. I'm looking at transfer options but it's pretty nerve racking. While I really want to continue my service There's plenty of outstanding questions about whether that would work and the COS offer is pretty attractive. If I took the cash I could travel around Europe for a bit, see some family (I've already contacted a lot of relatives who seemed excited for me to come visit them) and I could always re-up later. We've also been promised priority for placement as part of the COS package. This means if any of us reapply for Peace Corps we'd move to the top of this list and have a good chance at getting preferences honored if we wanted.

It's not an easy choice and we're getting information at an excruciatingly slow pace so it's back to "wait and see" for now. As definition forms around each option I'll do my best to keep everyone in touch, weigh all the pros and cons, and do my best not to go crazy from cabin fever.

War

I want to record my perception of the last few days before it gets too cloudy. I’m not sure even now I’ve got it all straight and it sure as hell hasn’t all sunk in yet but it’s important I get this down. The one thing to take away from the story is the incredible staff we’re blessed with here in Peace Corps Georgia and how amazing they have been to all of us.

We were in Gori giving a training session at one of the universities on Thursday the 7^th when we got our first indication that something was seriously wrong. There are incidents all the time here in Georgia, skirmishes are frequent between Georgia and the territories and Russia is often considered involved in some way so, perhaps, we could be forgiven for not being overly concerned at first glance. We’re not proud of it. My cluster was yanked out of our training early for a security briefing in Khasuri, about an hour away. It happened during our dinner time so we were all a little surly when we arrived. Everyone in the Shida Kartli region (that’s us, right below the South Ossetia region) was pulled in to get an appraisal of the situation. We had a group meeting anyway at 9 the next morning and most of us mumbled something about this being able to wait until morning. I can’t remember exactly the news we got but it was something to the effect of increased fighting between S. Ossetian militia and Georgian forces; more of the same. Trainees, volunteers and staff accepted the news and understood but no one panicked. Our class (Georgia ’08) heard over and over again how these things flair up and then cool down a couple days later. We left that night with some idle talk about the situation of the caucuses and what a jerk Russia was as a neighbor. No one was very concerned from what I could tell and I had friends over that night to have some beers and watch The Karate Kid.

I want to note that our detachment has everything to do with the tense situation that survives in the caucuses and nothing to do with any failing in our staff. It’s not that we thought the staff was being alarmist or exaggerating the situation. Looking back it speaks to their impeccable competence that they called a special meeting instead of alerting us by SMS text messages as is the usual procedure. The conflict spiraled out of control very fast and it may be hard to remember that no one, NO ONE thought it was going to escalate to the point it did. We had been receiving reports from everyone from Peace Corps, to USAID, to the Embassy itself telling us from the day we got here how no one wanted a war and it would not get that far. And people were damned cocky about it too.

There was shelling later that night into Georgia proper and a couple of planes pushed over the border to drop some bombs. Unfortunately the village next to mine, Kareli, where we had trainees staying was attacked and a Police station destroyed. None of our Peace Corps volunteers were involved thankfully but I did hear one case of a host family member being injured. I will admit that I slept through all of this. I woke up the next morning oblivious until my friends and I were walking to the bus stop and they filled me in. When we passed the lake in our little village we heard one more explosion go off which is a very surreal sound.

We arrived back at Kashuri more confused than anything. As recent immigrants to Georgia the G8’s didn’t have much idea what constituted the status quo and had a lot of questions. There was mostly the same talk as yesterday; tensions always flair up in the summertime… every 2 years or so…no one wants a war. We went on as business as usual mostly; we had some seminars on PC procedures, a cultural class, coffee breaks. We got security updates throughout the day but we weren’t always sure of the implications. When one of the parties (Georgia, Russia, South Ossetia) released a statement was it just blustering or did it mean escalation?

This is the start of the most critical part of my story. We as PCT’s and PCV’s did not get all the implications but I’m sure our staff understood more than we did. I don’t have the words to stress this next part enough so please try to add your own emphasis. Most of our staff is from the area near South Ossetia, a lot of them from Gori itself where the attack would later come. These people not only reassured us but tried to carry on as business as usual. If there is anyone questioning whether that was the right thing to do, whether they should have parked us in front of the news and tried to read into the implications of the information we got I want to say, for what it’s worth, I think our people did the perfect thing. It’s complicated even for us to understand even now but these people knew there was a danger to their country. They have families in the areas talked about on the news. They kept our organization together and moving forward flawlessly. They did their jobs to the letter and they did it with good humor, we never would have known.

Around early afternoon some critical tripwire had been hit in Peace Corps procedure and the decision was made to remove ourselves from the regions surrounding the conflict zone. Fighting picked up and we were packed on mini-buses. They stopped into our villages quickly so we could get the things we’d need for a couple of days (no one thought it would last past Sunday). All PCV’s and PCT’s are supposed to have a “ready bag” prepared at all times for such an event with clothes, medical supplies, food, passport, etc. My cluster was supposed to be packing it the night before but we watched the movie instead. We had about 10 minutes to stuff things into a backpack and grab our medical kits before the bus looped around and picked us back up. When I arrived at my house my host father and brother had gone to the brother’s other grandparents to get father away from the fighting. My host grandmother and grandfather were still there. I ran up to my room while explaining the situation in broken Georgian the situation. They knew so it didn’t take long. While I was gathering up some essentials I told my grandmother where I was going and assured her I would be back on Sunday. Read this next part seriously because this woman cares for me: when the fighting broke out and we evacuated Shida Kartli my grandmother stood in my window and, as I packed, asked if I had had lunch, if I was hungry, if I needed food for my trip. I wanted to cry and hug her and scream at her at the same time.

I said my goodbyes to both of them and promised to be back before the weekend was over. The bus picked us up and most everyone headed to the mountains. Peace Corps Volunteers at sites remote enough were given the stand fast instruction and the rest of us holed up in a ski resort in Bakuriani. The transportation was provided and the accommodations were nice which is impressive considering Peace Corps in general; it’s indescribable considering the logistics were arranged within a few hours after a conflict broke out. There are no words to describe the people serving us.

We spent 3 days in the mountains getting a trickle of news. We had no internet and, of course, all the news was in Georgian so there were a lot of frustrating periods where we didn’t hear anything new. Among volunteers no one’s language was strong enough to catch everything being said on TV and we only had a few conversational speakers to start with anyway. PC Staff had plenty of other things to do than translate for us.

We tried to continue with business as usual. Saturday morning brought language class as it always did. We tried to stay in good spirits; we still didn’t have a lot of news about what exactly was happening. There were plenty of rumors but we treated those with the attention they deserved. It’s hard to describe what happened that morning. I don’t feel like anything I can say will convey the gravity of it. I want to tell this part of the story without any disrespect so I hope my version will be accepted as such.

We did language for 3 hours in a pretty cheerful class but got antsy and our language teacher finally agreed to let us turn on the TV for the last hour. The news showed Gori , our teacher’s city, after the attack by the Russians and she recognized her apartment building which had taken a bomb hit.

She eventually did reach her family and her mother, who lived with her, turned out to be ok but it was a while before anyone could be reached. I won’t try to describe the time right after she saw the first news report though. Don’t try to imagine it.

Our language teachers (mostly from Gori) left that afternoon. It was a tearful goodbye but they must have been given some instruction from Peace Corps because they put on a brave face. I gave my teacher my email and I sincerely hope I’ll hear from her again soon. The volunteers and trainees occupied ourselves for the next couple days and tried to filter some news out of the rumor mill. I called home at one point just to find out what was on CNN. We talked about the conflict, watched movies, there were some yoga sessions, some cultural lectures, we drank; it was a strange kind of limbo. We heard talk about evacuating the country but, even at this point, no one believed that. We heard optimistic statements about the flair ups never lasting very long, about foreign powers getting involved and pressuring Russia. I won’t speak for others’ emotions at this point but it was a wide spectrum. I would bet most of us can’t describe how we feel even now.

The evacuation order came Sunday night and we were packed on coach buses at 11am the next day. All of Peace Corps had been collected at that point and we moved down a back road towards Armenia. The conflict had spilled out of the disputed territory at this point, Russian troops and armor were pouring into the country and there was talk of a second front opening in Abkhazia. Peace Corps arranged transportation, food and water for us. None of these things were small tasks. By this time there had been a run on all the markets in the country as everyone stocked up on supplies for what could be an extended conflict. Even our hotel, our very nice and expensive hotel, ran short at meal times – we had a lot of rice and some vegetables mostly. Transportation was even worse. All the drivers have families; we have stories of people refusing to take us anywhere no matter the price because they had to be ready to evacuate their own families if the situation called for it. I don’t know the details of how everything was arranged and I won’t speculate here but this was one of the monumental tasks that spoke to us about the people our organization employed.

Armenia granted us gratis entry into the country and our counter parts in that country’s Peace Corps branch agreed to host us. We arrived at our new hotel after about 13 hours to find dinner waiting for us. PC:Armenia has also done a fabulous job of taking care of us. They found the hotel to accommodate 90 of us, got us translators and language instructors and have been genuinely welcome. Through the efforts of all our people everything was arranged for us from new SIM cards for our cell phones (for the Armenian networks) to cultural activities to do to walk around cash.

We’re told we’re not going back to Georgia and right now Peace Corps is deciding what to do with us. Most people want to continue in the organization, we’re looking for new posts but there are a host of challenges associated with that. We’re not sure if countries that want us can get funding from D.C., if they can when, how long we have to wait, whether we have to compete with a new group of applicants: a million ambiguous problems.

This is my short version of the story: I left stuff out, there are mistakes. I don’t remember the exact sequence of events for us or for the conflict. I don’t describe how I feel in a lot of places because I don’t remember now and I probably didn’t even know then. There’s a whole swirl of thoughts in my head but I had to get some of them typed out. I’ll make revisions as necessary. Please keep Georgia in your thoughts; please join me in thanking the people that kept us going. Please keep in mind that most of the world thought this conflict would never escalate into something serious and one of Georgia’s major cities was bombed a few hours later. Things changed very quickly here and it took some incredible people to keep us from being affected. We owe our undying gratitude to the staff of Peace Corps Georgia, please keep them in your prayers.

Summary

I haven’t posted any updates in a while. I have several written but, unfortunately, I abandoned my laptop in the village when we evacuated. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I might not get it back so, for now, I’ll give you all the summary. Anyone’s welcome to ask me for the full details on any of these stories but some of them are more pleasant than others. I’ve avoided telling anyone in the states about most anything bad that happens in Georgia but we’ve gotten some updates about the situation and it looks like no one is going back so I might as well tell all the stories. Here’s the short of what you’ve been missing:

We broke a bar in a ski resort, a couple from South Africa showed up at my house in the village, I got a chunk taken out of my left leg by a dog thought to have rabies, I thought up a hilarious joke about parasites, Condi Rice came to visit us, I scored in the top percentile of our language assessment, I’ve been drinking shots of gasoline with dinner, and Georgia went to war with Russia. The last one I’ll tell the whole story on in the blog.

Summary

I haven’t posted any updates in a while. I have several written but, unfortunately, I abandoned my laptop in the village when we evacuated. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I might not get it back so, for now, I’ll give you all the summary. Anyone’s welcome to ask me for the full details on any of these stories but some of them are more pleasant than others. I’ve avoided telling anyone in the states about most anything bad that happens in Georgia but we’ve gotten some updates about the situation and it looks like no one is going back so I might as well tell all the stories. Here’s the short of what you’ve been missing:

We broke a bar in a ski resort, a couple from South Africa showed up at my house in the village, I got a chunk taken out of my left leg by a dog thought to have rabies, I thought up a hilarious joke about parasites, Condi Rice came to visit us, I scored in the top percentile of our language assessment, I’ve been drinking shots of gasoline with dinner, and Georgia went to war with Russia. The last one I’ll tell the whole story on in the blog.

1000 words and not a single picture

I know, I know! It's not because I haven't taken any but even when we have internet there's usually not a lot of bandwith so text makes it up but pictures do not. I'm working on it, I promise.

Cluster F’ed

Pre-Service Training (PST) is organized into 4 or 5 person groups called clusters that are assigned to a village and hold language training together. I’ve have 3 close cluster mates from the first days of orientation and we’ve been through an awful lot together. Lauren (lawyer from South Carolina), Casey (financial expert from New Jersey) and Chris (banker from New York) have been my family for the last 4 weeks and today we heard we’re being split up. Understandably, we’re furious.

Peace Corps is shuffling the clusters in an attempt to group trainees according to skill level in language acquisition. While I’m sure this makes sense in some ill-conceived, bureaucratic thought process, it’s outrageous to us. We’ve spent the last month building group cohesion and bonding with our cluster mates and now we’re being torn apart because of some arbitrary assessments.

It’s a ridiculous system: there’s no comparing our skill levels. We all have our good days and bad, our good subjects and bad subjects. Lauren has the best pronunciation of the group, Chris is the best at social vocabulary and Casey knows virtually every vocabulary for foods and drinks in Georgian. (I don’t have a specialty per se; I get by on my looks and charm.) Difficult and stressful as language acquisition has been I feel its been the support and friendship of my cluster mates that has pulled me through so far. Whatever the minute benefits of working with people slightly closer to your level and skill set is certainly offset by the upset of cleaving off my family members from my life.

We go through an awful lot here and I’d like to think we’ve been pretty good sports so far. I’ll spare the blog from the gory details but the trainees have to go through some pretty extraordinary circumstances in-country. In my first post, back in Philadelphia, I wrote that I though the best asset we were going to have in Peace Corps is the energy that each volunteer brings and that that was what was going to sustain us. It’s been true so far and this Friday that support system is about to be crippled.

I’m going to miss my friends.

Back to work

We’ve just finished our first project in our technical (social entrepreneurship) training. Each group had to construct a business plan for a potential Georgian business and I think we rocked it. We were given an outline of an idea for a juice company in Shida Kartli region and told to flesh it out with marketing, organization structure, SWOT analysis of competitors, etc. We worked for about a week on our presentation and put together financial documents, process maps, organization charts, and marketing and distribution strategies. Luckily I’m blessed with some very talented people in my group and we put together a detailed, well thought-through and sharp looking presentation and were able to put enough energy behind it to successfully sell our ideas. A quick note to my friends at The Alford Group: we had the slickest PowerPoint in the room thanks to the time I spent at the firm. (Extra special thanks to my man Tim)

It felt good to be working on a project again. We’ve been killing ourselves for the last month acquiring the language and it was almost cleansing to get back to something that uses our strengths. I got to work out the organizational structure, distribution strategy and do a SWOT analysis among other things. Those that have worked with me know that I have something of a fetish for procedure and, after struggling day after day to pick up a foreign in a place far from home; it was something close to heaven to do what I do best. I worked on the flow charts until about midnight last night and I couldn’t have been happier.

Gori

CULTURE TRIP!!!! Peace Corps gave out the first round of culture trip allowances this weekend and I left my little village to join another trainee in Gori, one of Georgia’s larger cities and Stalin’s hometown. We spent Saturday and Sunday exploring the city and enjoying our first block of truly free time in a month. We were cut loose to wander on our own, at our own pace without schedule or supervision and loved every minute of it. If it sounds weird that 20-something’s should have supervision at any time (especially at a volunteer job) remember that we’re now working in the most complicated bureaucracy on the planet (our beloved government) and there’s nothing bureaucracy loves more than even greater bureaucracy. We were pretty happy to get out on our own for a while.

While in Gori we got put up at the Hotel Victoria which was especially welcome because it had more than a few amenities not found in the rural villages we live in. Use your imagination.

We did a number of cultural activities while in Gori (Gori fortress, Stalin Museum, the bazaar) but the shining moment of the trip was undoubtedly Populi. It’s not a monastery or statue or ancient battlefield, it’s a small grocery store on the edge of town about the size of your standard CVS. If you’ve never lived in a developing country you may not get the appeal but I’ll try to explain. I think the main selling point is this: occasionally you want to eat something that wasn’t less than 12 hours ago was inside or a part of an animal, something that’s undergone some processing. “Organic” has lost something of its novelty and appeal for me.

Populi is a beautiful, luminescent, heavenly western-style grocery store that (almost) could have been plucked out of any American suburb. April and I went and bought fried chicken, Ruffles, Nestle chocolate, Pepsi, orange juice and most anything else that looked appealing, was heavily processed and tasted like home. We eat well here in Georgia; most of us will count ourselves lucky to still fit into our pants at the end of training. This weekend though we got a little bit of America with our meals and that’s hard to come by here.

April and I both left feeling recharged and better about the future. We’ve got Peace Corps staff, our host country counterparts and our host families to help us through our time here but I’m betting Populi is going to be the most important partner to surviving service.

I got a call from Katie!!!!!!!!!

Whoohoo! Katie called me today and we talked for about 20 fabulous minutes! (Hopefully she’ll still think it was worth it when she gets her phone bill, sorry sweetie.) We caught up on what both of us are up to, talked a bit about things we did together and I got some news about her family, friends and America in general.

She’s doing fabulous as ever of course. A rock star at work as always, I’m going to be very disappointed in Katie if she’s not CEO by the time I get back. I got some updates on our friends in D.C. and some other tidbits about what she was doing for the holiday weekend, what her brothers are up to…the subjects we talked about weren’t important: I was thrilled to hear her voice. We chatted a bit and laughed and it’s the best I’ve felt in a long time.

Lots of love, butterfly.

July 4, 2008: Independence Day

Today is our Independence day, a holiday for every American except Peace Corps volunteers. We went to work today while the rest of the U.S. is getting drunk, barbequing and stockpiling explosives (lucky, lucky bastards). There is something satisfying though in representing the country on its birthday. I wonder if that’s why we had the formal celebration yesterday?

Probably not, I’m still betting on poor logistics instead. Either way we’re still all feeling pretty American and liking it.

I’m thinking today about my contribution to the U.S. I don’t know how many are considering their worth to their country over the holiday but I’ve actually worked out the numbers on mine: it’s about $43,000. That’s the cost of keeping 1 volunteer overseas for a year; logistic, staff support, medical supplies, language training, etc. It’s a surprising number. If you saw how we lived you’d be pretty shocked too that it costs 43k.

I discussed the cost of the program with some of my fellow volunteers yesterday; jury is still out on whether we’re worth it.

The 4^th in Georgia is, at the same time, surreal and mundane. We go about our business, class and seminars, and eat the same food we always do, just trying to make it through our training. It’s odd though because we know what’s going on in the U.S. right now and, even if we really wanted to, we probably couldn’t have put together a decent celebration of our own. Sigh. Right now Rogers Park is preparing to blow a hole in Loyola beach the size of a Buick and I’m missing it this year. Of course, this is also Taste of Chicago week and this is the first in six years I’ll be missing it. Those of you who know me know how I feel about the event, I don’t think I need to explain to any of you what it means to not go.

Damn, I would kill for a buffalo wing.

All in all, I’m happy that I get to celebrate the 4^th in the Peace Corps though. Being an American means something extra dear to you when you’re far from home and surrounded by nothing familiar. Peace Corps training has been a pretty trying time for me so far, there’s definitely more good days than bad but there’s been some rough spots. We all feel pretty good today though and I’m learning to appreciate small victories over here.

Happy Independence Day everyone, God bless America.

July 3, 2008: Almost a Holiday

Today we celebrated our independence day in Josef Stalin’s hometown and the irony was most definitely not lost on us. The staff organized an event in the honor of the 4^th that could only happen in the Peace Corps. Aside from the location the astute reader will notice that we’re a day early. Don’t ask my why this is, the fact that we can’t get the answer leads me to believe in either poor logistics or the staff has tomorrow off.

The food was good and definitely well intentioned but lacking a certain authenticity. Whatever we ate resembled burgers and hot dogs although I’m not sure any of us forgot for the day we were in Georgia. The cake was good.

Naturally, no Peace Corps event would be complete without a bit of paperwork and even our Independence day is no exception. Mary, if you’re reading this, I think we’re ready for a break from the ice breaker activities.

After our picnic some of us decided to take advantage of the day by heading to the Stalin museum in the center of town. If you haven’t been, it’s an experience. It takes about 30 minutes for the tour and, while they do seem to leave out some rather critical bits, we learned a lot. Did you know Stalin wrote 18 books? Me neither. We saw some of his belongings including his private train car (I have a picture of me laying on Stalin’s bed!) and a casting that was done of his face after he died. This was probably the most fun I’ve had in Georgia so far and a hell of a way to celebrate Independence Day. Best 10 lari I ever spent.

Back to work tomorrow, hope everyone in the U.S. is enjoying the day off but we’ve got to keep at it. Have fun.

Outfitting

I wanted to do a quick note about how we're equipped for our stay here for those of you who might be worrying.

We're doing a 10 week intensive course right now of language, technical, professional, medical and cultural training. We're issued a cell phone, a substancial medical kit and a fair amount of local currency to keep us humming along. We've got a good staff of both locals and Americans and 4 Peace Corps doctors.

Peace Corps headquarters in the capital is our little slice of America in Georgia. We've been using it to meet with the current volunteers and resupply anything we need (books, medical supplies, etc.).

We have a prepaid card plan for our cell phones, text messages are big among the volunteers. One message is about 4 tetri (100 tetri in a lari). Mostly they function as watchs, alarm clocks and flashlights though.

We have Peace Corps filters for our water here. Even though there are days when it seems like we're being vaccinated against every possible disease on the planet we still purify everything we drink or buy bottled. A pretty considerable water allowence is built into our pay here. When we had to go to a hotel for training or a conference center or the like where there's no water to buy Peace Corps staff go there first and install Peace Corps water coolers for us to use.

We're pretty well taken care of here. PC does a lot but its important to remember that we're also in maybe the last country on Earth where America is still popular on the streets. Throw in a grateful Georgian government and an extremely protective host family and we're pretty well set.

I'm sleeping great at night.

Useful skills

Top 3 things I learned in college that are helpful in the Peace Corps:
- How to play Frisbee
- How to take a shot
- How to stretch my laundry in between washes

Top 3 things I learned in college that are NOT helpful in the Peace Corps:
- Comparative Political Theory
- Popular Literature of the 18th century
- Fundamentals of Finite Mathematics

I’ve heard that academia doesn’t always prepare you for real life: I’d say that’s pretty accurate right now.

Second Day in Bebnise: These are good people

My host dog has decided to keep me company while I work on my blog entries. I got my first Georgian shower in today. There’s a wood fired boiler that heats the water, my host grandmother [bebia] was happy to show me how to use it. It’s a bit of an ordeal to set up but, overall, a very pleasant shower. Feelin’ clean and happy.

Ilia and I watched “Gone in 60 Seconds” today. Ilia seems to have the same car fetish as my real brother and, also like my real brother, likes to fast forward through the dialogue to get to the action packed car chases.

I got the 50 cent tour of Bebnise today: the residential areas, the fields, the lake, the church and the 2 shops [maghazia]. The people seem friendly and I’ve had a couple of them come up to me and practice their English. Ilia has some fluency in English (maybe second year college level?) and has been a huge help in showing me around. It remains an endless source of amusement for him and his friends for Ilia to point to something in the town, give me the word in Georgian and listen to me butcher it mercilessly with my miserable language skills. It took about half an hour to see all the highlights of the town today. No sign of the other volunteers in Bebnise (in a town of about 500 families I bet if they were out today I would have saw them), I hope they’re enjoying their stay so far too and not staying in their rooms.

Lunch is about ready.

(Supplemental note: my host grandmother and I just did a shot of the nastiest looking vodka I’ve ever had in my life. It was kind of a dark, dirty yellow color. I think I'm going to go lay down for a while.)

My First Day with the Host Family: Frisbee remains the universal language

These are wonderful people. Peace Corps handled out home stay assignments in Khashuri today and introduced us to “our” Georgians. My host family consists of a pair of grandparents, a father, a brother (13) and a dog. Their home is surprisingly big, my room on the second floor is easily the size of the studio I had in Chicago (although considerably cheaper). There’s a small garden out back and a chicken coop, all surrounded by cherry [bali] trees. It’s so beautiful here.

There was a large dinner [supra] waiting for me at home. They make this cheese bread [khatchapuri] that has quickly become my favorite Georgian food. It’s goats’ cheese wrapped in a very soft bread and is uncannily similar to the cheesy breadsticks they serve at Pizza Hut. I couldn’t identify most of the other dishes served but there hasn’t been anything so far that’s unpleasant tasting or has caused problems after eating it. The hospitality has been wonderful.

During the ride back, the tour of the house and the dinner I got to see many of the fascinating differences between Georgia and America, after the feast it was time for the similarities. Even in college I’ve never seen so many bootleg DVD’s (dubbed in Russian). My host brother, Ilia, and I watched “The Fast and the Furious” for a bit and held a game of Frisbee with a couple of his friends. That Frisbee may be the best investment I made of all my Peace Corps purchases and that’s including my solar charger. Humor and humility remain universal throughout the world as the kids, my host father and I laughed and cheered as we either caught the disc or fell on our asses trying. Not a lot of progress was made on the language barrier but for some things words are superfluous.

All in all, I’m rating today as a success.

Day 4: Georgia!

We're here! Everything is wonderful, I'm in Peace Corps headquarters briefly with the group to do some administrative things and get a few vaccinations so this will be quick:

We're having a fabulous time, the country doesn't disappoint. We arrived in the capital yesterday and were welcomed in. We've begun our training here, mostly (comprehensive) medical instruction and language so far. The food is amazing, best cheese I've ever had. The staff and organization is amazing, none of us is worried. Everyone is cheerful and enthused.

I'll organize my thoughts better for the next post.

All for now.

Day 2: Oh shit! I'm in!

Another round of seminars, paperwork and "team building" exercises today. It becomes more real for all of us each hour but, despite the title of this post, I don't think a single one of is freaking out any more. It's not that we are so thoroughly impressed with the institutions and procedures of Peace Corps (although we are) or that we have recouped our energy through the excitement of others (although we definitely have). Our anxiety is mostly dissipated because we were reminded once again that we are working for the biggest bureaucracy in the world (our beloved government) and the hour long seminar on logistics has stripped away a bit of the "magic".

Not to say we didn't have fun today. We did some more games and ice breakers and, as cheesy as those are, they showed how much energy and intelligence we have packed into this group of 57. We seem to be a talkative and creative bunch so the day has gone by fast. It's evident today even more so than yesterday that we're thrilled to go and ready to dive in. I have a lot of confidence in my fellow trainees. I'm betting that we're all going to need each others' enthusiasm to recharge ourselves from time to time and I seem to have the right group to do that with.

On a less sentimental but equally fantastic note: Sallie Mae can go to hell. My student loans are now officially in deferment and I am psyhic'd! Blowing off those blood suckers for 2 years would make this trip worth it in and of itself. If they're going to loan our own tax dollars back to us at outrageous rates than I feel snubbing them is as much a service to society as anything I'll be doing in Georgia.

We're all headed to New York by bus tomorrow (2.5 hours) and then on to Turkey (10 hours) and then to Georgia (2.5). We're excited to be finally on our way but I think they planned this travel schedule so test our commitment to "peace". They seem like a lovely group of people but, so help me God, if we discover mid-Atlantic that someone has some little "quirk" that keeps us from sleeping in-flight there are only going to be 56 of us arriving in Istanbul.

I have a couple more emails to send out tonight and then I'm shutting down my computer and will probably be without internet access for at least a week. We've got to make a stop at Peace Corps headquarters in Georgia so I bet I can steal some bandwith there but, after that, I'll probably be incommunicato for as much as 10 weeks. I'll be in intense training for a while and I will try to get to an internet connection in that time but the chances aren't great. After that I'll be back in touch with email and those of you who need it will get my new cell #.

Wish me luck everybody.

Day 1: I'm in!

I arrived in Philadelphia today and officially moved from Peace Corps Invitee to Peace Corps Trainee. There are about 60 of us going to Georgia and we're excited and nervious but trying to act nonchalant about it. We did some "ice-breakers" and the like today and airing some of our expectations and anxities, I know I have more than a few of the later.

We're finally here though after all the waiting and I don't think any one of us is having second thoughts. We're a little miffed that we've spent half the day filling out paperwork and taking seminars on safety but I suppose we knew we were signing up for that too.

I'm exhausted. Most of us here today didn't sleep well last night and we have a whole 'nother day and a half of paperwork and compliance activities in front of us so I'll write more tomorrow.

All is well.