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?