My bags are Packed, I'm not ready to go...

Tomorrow I have to move out of my apartment. It would have been fine if the camp was still happening from the 1st to the 5th but now its the 5th until the 9th. Not only does that mean I don't get to go, it also makes me homeless for my last week. Tonight I'm taking pretty much everything down to Nikolla's and then I'll be floating around for my last little bit here.

I am also going down to Cerrik tomorrow to see my host family one last time. It will be good closure. They were a great family and I feel bad that I haven't gone to visit them as much as I probably should.

This last week was Dile's 50th birthday party and my good-bye party was on Monday. Dile's birthday was awesome. We circle danced, drank and ate... the usual as far as Albanian parties go. My going away party was also very nice. A lot of friends, co-workers, and "family" came. The first picture is of my girls that I taught English to and the second is of co-workers from the bashki, Red Cross and the center for children with disabilities.




The 3rd picture is of Dile and Nikolla. They have been awesome to me for these two years. They pretty much have adopted me as their own daughter and treat me as such. I'm gonna miss them and their two boys, Lisenko and Luis. It's going to be so hard to leave Lezha. It still has not set in that I'm going to be leaving this place in a week. I think I say this all the time now-a-days but really, it will be so weird to not have lunch with Nikolla or to say hi to the barbers as I walk by their shop on the way to work or go for 5 coffees in a day. I'm excited to go home and see my family and friends but it will be sad to leave this place where I've made a second home.

Even though it is going to be extremely hard for me to leave Lezha, I will always have the memories. I know that when I come back next summer (inshallah!) for a visit, I will have many people to visit and go to the beach with. For now, I just have to enjoy my final days by going for coffees with all my friends and take lots of pictures!!

It's the Final Countdown!

Days left in PC Albania: 18
Days until PC Morocco: 56

Ok, so not really the final countdown but it's getting so close! This past week, I went down to Corovode. One of the only cities I had yet to travel to in Albania. It was beautiful and a lot cooler than Lezha! Another PCV, Aida, showed me around her site and we went to the canyons and swam in the river most of one day. It was awesome and probably my last leisure trip outside of Lezha. Now I only have 2 weeks left in Lezha and then 4 days at my summer camp before I head to Tirana to COS. Where does the time go??





Crazy kids jumping off the cliffs - no worries, they lived :)














MMMMMM, watermelon!!





















Yes, this car really is parked right in the middle of the road.

Is there such a thing as too much watermelon??

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!! Ok, so I'm a day late but internet has been terrible here lately and I haven't been able to use it in my office for a week now. We celebrated on the 3rd here in Lezha with about 15 PCV's and some Albanian friends. It was a great 4th. We grilled hamburgers, ate potato salad, coleslaw, jello, cake and of course watermelon. Watermelon here is dirt cheap and we were expecting more people to come so we bought 10. Yes, 10 watermelons. We ate 2. But they were really good!!

The rest of the party was watching the Spain-Paraguay game and then we headed to Shengjin to camp out for the night. We found fireworks, which is strange because Albanians only use fireworks for New Years Eve. Our fireworks may not have been Rhythm & Booms or the Big Bang like I always enjoy going to in America but it settled my urge to see fireworks on the 4th. It was nice to camp out on the beach but there were so many mosquitoes!! I had one in my sleeping bag down by my feet that would not die! Trying to squish a mosquito in a sleeping bag does not really work for those of you wondering. We all woke up early (around 5) and decided to try to head back to Lezha to get some sleep.

When I woke up again I realized that I lost my phone somewhere. I decided I must have dropped it in the furgon. I went to Nikolla and told him what happened and he drove me to the furgon station to see if we could find it. The furgon that we had come back to Lezha in was not there so we started driving to Shengjin. I saw the furgon about 2 km outside of Lezha and told Nikolla and he did a U-turn in the front of lots of cars and started chasing down the furgon like a mad man. Luckily, the furgon pulled over and I asked if he had found a phone. He said no but said to check where I sat. I went all the way to the back and luckily, there was my phone :) Thank God it was there!! I went back into Nikolla's car and we went to have a nice lunch to celebrate the 4th before returning to Lezha. I spent the rest of the day relaxing/sleeping but it was an enjoyable 4th.

Only one month left......

The dasem I've been waiting for

This past Saturday was Yllka's wedding. I have been waiting for this wedding for 2 years. As soon as I met Yllka at the counterpart conference during training and found out she wasn't married I told her, "You better get married before I leave!" Now she is married and I have just about one month left in Albania. Good timing Yllka :)






I went all out for the wedding and got my hair done, make up done and bought a sparkly dress so that I looked truly Shqiptare for the occasion. The hairdresser used almost an entire can of hairspray on my hair and I'm gonna be washing it out for the next week or so....














I am gonna miss this girl so much when I leave!













Yllka and Blerim dancing away. It's tradition that when the couple dance together, people throw money at them. Note that Yllka has some money stuck down the front of her dress. Totally normal :)



Just wanted to post a few pics from the wedding. It was absolutely beautiful and I'm glad that I was able to be a part of it. Congrats to Yllka and Blerim!!!

50 Days

The countdown now stands at 50 days. It is extremely weird as I go through my days thinking about how soon I will be saying good-bye to these people who have become a fixture in my days. I'm still trying not to think too much about it but it's getting harder day by day.

I found out that instead of 2 summer camps there will only be one this summer. There are several reasons why. First off, there are still major trust issues between certain community members and the bashki. Especially the Roma have a hard time with letting their children attend the camp for a week. They believe that we may keep their children. The camp that we were planning for July has also proved to be difficult. My counterpart was not going to be able to attend as she is getting married (9 days!!) and will be on her honeymoon. The parents do not know the other people who will be acting as counselors and are therefor afraid to let their children come. So, as it now stands, there are 36 children enrolled for the camp August 1-6th. Hopefully we will be able to fill the last 4 slots but we'll see what happens. I'm sad that I will only be able to go to the first 4 days of the camp since I will be leaving on the 6th and have to go to Tirana on the 5th. I'm just happy that I will be able to see a little bit of the camp.

This week has been really busy. On Tuesday, I was in Tirana doing my COS medical stuff so that it could be sent to Morocco. Yesterday, I was in Shkoder having lunch and coffee with the volunteers up there. Today, the country director and 2 men from PC Washington will be in Lezha to talk to me about the partnership grant I did last year. Tomorrow, I have to go back to Tirana to finish my medical stuff. I have big plans for this weekend by which I mean, I will be at the beach :)

Time to go live it up!

Rruge te mbare Piter!

It's happened again. Last night, I went over to Peter's house and helped him clean out his house, pack up his things, and take things that needed to get to other people. We actually got through it all really fast. After about 2.5 hours, his bags were packed, all his trash was thrown out, the clothes he was leaving behind had been taken care of and all the things that needed to go to other people had been taken over to my house. While I helped Peter get ready for his departure, it made me sad to think that this was the last time I would see Peter in Lezha.
Peter has been an amazing site mate. He's helped me get through some tough times and he's celebrated the good times with me as well. We had a final dinner together on Wednesday night with the new volunteers here in Lezha, Laura and Jen, and two other volunteers, Chris and Joe. It was great to have one last hoorah all together. I'm really going to miss Peter during my last 1.5 months here in Lezha but I will survive :)


Today is the official COS date of my group and there are several other volunteers leaving today with Peter. A few have left already but the majority of us are still here for awhile. I know I'm not ready to leave quite yet. I will be ready August 6th, but not yet I'm not. It's even odder to think that in about 3 months I will be joining a new group of volunteers to go through this experience all over again.

Congrats G11 on COS'ing!!

Another Day, Another Change in Plans....

And the plan has changed yet again..... I went to go see where I could live with a family last night and the house was nice. Nothing fancy or great but nice. The problem was that they didn't have a car to bring me back and forth to Lezha everyday, they have a motorcycle. PC is strictly no motorcycles here in Albania. The other problem is that turns out there are some issues at home. It would not be a good situation for me to be in. So now it looks like I will be staying in my place and Laura will have to live with Jen for the summer and then move into my place once I leave. Easier for me but more hassle for her and PC.

Another thing I wanted to say that I kinda thought about a lot last night. I was sitting with Viktoria after we ate dinner (they slaughtered a chicken for me) and she was telling me about her marriage. She went into detail about how violent and abusive her husband has been to her over the years and we were both in tears by the end. I just have no clue how these women put up with it. Almost every married couple I have met have been happy in public eye but behind closed doors its just goes from bad to worse. There are some amazing women here that have to live terrible lives because their husbands suck.

The bigger question I have is, why is it that all the women hope that I will marry an Albanian man if they know it most likely means I would be in an abusive, violent relationship??? I wish there was a place for these women to go to get help, but those types of places do not yet exist here in Albania. Hopefully, their daughters will not be put into the same situation. Only time will tell. The other issue is that it is strictly taboo for these women to bad-mouth their husbands, or leave their husbands. If they do either of these things they are shunned and have no chance of meeting someone new who could make them happy. It's a terrible situation that many women in Albania face but maybe one day it will change. My hearts go out to these women and I'm making it my mission to have as many coffees with them as I can before I leave so that they can at least know true friendship and have a simple pleasure to look forward to in their day.