What a Difference a Year Makes

This time last year, I was living in Albania, starting to look for jobs, considering graduate school or moving to Thailand to teach English, and who knows what else. I enjoyed my birthday in the company of Peace Corps Volunteers and open source Guitar Hero.

This year, I'm engaged, starting a new job, moving to DC and then (somewhere) overseas, and preparing to add 4 nephews or nieces to my family. Two from Matt's side (Levi and Luke) and two from my side. Whew!

I'm getting married on January 30th at the Kimberton Inn. It will be a small wedding with only a handful of family and friends, but I think it will be perfect. I've been having fun planning the wedding and it adds a dash of excitement that it's so soon.

A few days ago, I got official word that I am invited to the February class as a Junior Foreign Service Officer for the Department of State. I'll start on February 16th and be in Washington DC for at least 4 months for my training. It might be more if I need language training.

I don't know where I'll be posted yet, but I'll be sure to keep you posted.

I'm Engaged!

Matt came to Pennsylvania to spend Thanksgiving with my family (with a side trip to South Carolina to visit his sister and her family.) On Saturday, we headed out to Valley Forge to see the historical sites. After a walking tour and a gun demonstration from some Park Rangers, we went to the Washington Memorial Chapel and he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I said yes. The chapel is beautiful and the moment was perfect. The ring is turquoise and a diamond (his birthstone and mine.) It's non-traditional and just perfect for me.

He plays the guitar, wrote the famous Mire song, speaks Russian and Albanian, loves to read the almanac, and is the love of my life.

I'm happy, excited, and still can't believe that I'm engaged. The next couple of months are going to be a whirlwind. But I can't wait to start the marriage adventure.

Happy Halloween

I might be a little "bah hambug" about Christmas. (A tragic combination of too many retail jobs playing terrible Christmas music and my birthday being a week before the big day) But I do love Halloween. This year, I wasn't planning on dressing up, but at the last minute I decided to redux my pirate costume from a few years ago to give out candy to my parent's neighbors.

Gotta admit, I was a bit disappointed. First, there just weren't enough kids. I wanted to inundated. I wanted to have to make rules, stretch our candy to the last drop, and go rummaging through the pantry for something to give the lines of kids. Instead, we got about 30 kids who came in a few big groups. Secondly, there wasn't a single homemade costume. Isn't that half the fun? We got a Transformer, a couple of princesses, and even two Anakin Skywalkers. My favorite costume was a boy dressed as a taco. I gave him extra credit for not being a movie character, but it was still a store bought costume.

I'm not disappointed with these three little guys though. They are all too cute for words.

Flicker Photos

Reading back through my Albania blog, I realize that I definitely missed a few things. So I made a little flicker slide show. Take a look. Enjoy. It's not all of Albania, but it shows you the things that stand out most in my mind. Or at least the things I photographed.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43253482@N06/sets/72157622447281827/

What's on my bookshelf

The upside of part-time employment is that you have time to do the things that you've always wanted to do. The downside is that most of these things cost money. But one thing that is nearly free is reading. And I have been using this time to my advantage.

So what am I reading? Here goes...

Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. A famous author wanders around the US in a big, old truck with a poodle. It makes me want to go on a road trip and reminds me of all of the "characters" that I've met over the years.

Religious Literacy by Stephen Prothero - His main point is that Americans are very religious, but don't know much about religion. He spells out all of the things that we should know in order to be religiously literate. I'm only a few chapters in so I haven't gotten to "what you should know" part yet, but its an interesting idea.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown - It's like the Da Vinci Code but set here in the States. A slightly literate guilty pleasure. It's actually my Book Club book so that is added incentive to read it.

Twist of Faith by Anne Beiler - This is the story of Auntie Anne. It's interesting especially since I'm related to her in a sort of six degrees of separation way.

The Story of Christianity by Justo L. Gonzalez - I lifted this one from my Dad's library. It's a summary of the history of the church, but its still pretty easy to read. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a good overview.

The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks - The story of a Haggadah which starts in Sarajevo and ends in Spain. Matt's mom recommended it and I think its awesome. Books, religion, history, eastern Europe... sign me up.

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer - Straight up guilty pleasure. It's the fourth book in the Twilight series. I read the first one in one day. Fortunately I was flying across the country so I didn't feel too guilty. Now I'm totally hooked and I'm on Team Edward.

Walk down memory lane

In my current state of suspended animation, I've been going through a lot of old boxes. It's been a fun walk down memory lane. I found a huge stack of papers that I wrote in elementary and high school. My teachers would always tell me that I would appreciate them some day (and then fail me for having a run-on sentence) and looking back... It's true. And having been a teacher (briefly) I now realize just how hard they were working to get our 5 paragraph essays in tip-top shape.

I also found a few parodies of nursery rhymes that I wrote when I was in high school. They are so ridiculous that I have to post them here. I must have been watching the news when I wrote these because I don't remember being all that aware of current events. Here goes..

OJ Simpson sat on a wall.
OJ Simpson had a great fall.
All the not-guilty verdicts of the jurymen
Couldn't put his reputation back together again.

Little Miss Croat sat on a tuffet
Fighting the Serbs all day.
Along came the UN which gave them a pen
and said sign this treaty today.

Where are they now?

People keep asking what I've been up to... So here is the long awaited answer. Not a whole lot. On second thought.. there are a few things to share. I finished up being a Peace Corps Volunteer in May 2009. Then I headed on a month long trip in Eastern Europe. I'll try to post a few more pictures on that one. I managed to get through Bosnia, which was truly the highlight of the trip. Don't let your memories of the war scare you. They are at peace and it is an interesting country to visit. Sarajevo will certainly pique your Ottoman curiosity.

After that I headed home to Downingtown, PA. It's been a great time to reconnect with my family and make some special memories with my nephew. Back in November 2009, I took a test to be a Foreign Service Officer, the people who work in the embassy. I passed the written and the oral test and now I'm waiting on my security/medical clearance. Any one who has gone through a similar clearance can probably sympathize. It's a long drawn out process that involves a lot of waiting time. But I'm hoping to start working with them somewhere around January/February.

Other than that, I visited Arizona, started working for my dad, contemplated the meaning of life, and have been catching up on past issues of reality TV. I also discovered that American Big Brother isn't any better than Albanian Big Brother. Who knew?!?

Bosnia Baby!

The Plotjice waterfalls near Jajce. We actually swam right up to the waterfalls. It was incredibly cold, but amazing

While we were visiting a town, we stopped by this woman's house who makes homemade syrups. You mix about a tablespoon of the syrup with water or sparkling water. Super refreshing. My favorite was the mint.

Kosovo

After the Peace Corps, I decided to take the long way home and went on a month long trip through Eastern Europe. First stop, Kosovo. It was an interesting place because there were a lot of similarities between Albanian and Kosovars. Exhibit 1. The very large statue to Skanderbeg who is a national hero in Kosovo and Albania. About 95% of Kosovars are ethnic Albanians so it was fun to use my Albanian language skills and make some comparisons between the two cultures.


The Fatih mosque in Prishtina which is painted in a floral motif. There was a little old man who was the key keeper of this mosque who thanked me profusely for being an American. He was one of several Kosovars who were really excited to meet me.



I also had the fortune of running into another PCV, Bill. Here we are in Gjakova, a smaller town whose name means place of blood. Hmmm.



We also visited Prizren which is really the jewel of Kosovo. It's an amazing example of a stone town built in the Ottomon style. The entire center of the city is built out of stone and filled with hamams, mosques, and cobbled streets.


Not to end on a sad note, but this picture shows the difficulties that this country still faces. This Orthodox church is surrounded by barbed wire to protect it from looters. There is a long history of struggle between the Serbian and Albanian Kosovars. Kosovo declared independence while I was living in Albania, but it doesn't look like it will be admitted into the UN anytime soon.

Thank you

For the last two years, I had the incredible opportunity to learn (and teach) in Albania. It's a fascinating country filled with some of the warmest people I have ever met. Each and every day held a new adventure and I met some amazing friends for life.

To everyone I've met, thanks for all of the great times that we had. To all of my friends and family back home, thanks for all of your support.

I will talk to all of you soon.

Just in case....

Meet America

Two weeks ago, another PCV and I took a group of 25 of our students to participate in a program called Meet America. It was great. They got to meet three diplomats and the American Ambassador to the United States. The most impressive thing was that the ambassador was one of the most personable people I have ever met. He answered every single one of their questions and was incredibly inspiring. I still can't believe that we got to meet him. Check out the link at the US embassy in Tirana's page.

RIP

After three years in America and two amazing years in Albania, my computer has gone on to a happier place. We've laughed together; we've cried together. And as long I fed it a steady diet of electricity, it was an unfailing friend.

But now it is time to part. I'm sorry to say goodbye and I apologize to anyone who has emailed me recently because I am seriously far behind. I will try to catch up but be patient with me. Internet cafes are not great places to type emails.

Go You!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to announce that the Outdoor Ambassador project is now fully funded. I will (hopefully) be taking a group of students to the southern town of Erseke in May. This will be my last hurrah because I will be leaving the country less than a week later.

So, on behalf of my students, a great big thank you to all of you who donated. If you missed the opportunity there are projects currently open all over the world for Peace Corps Volunteers who are doing awesome things! So check it out.

Here’s a picture of my students for you to enjoy. They are making posters about biodiversity.

Albanian Article

Sometimes it's difficult for me to remember what it was like experiencing Albania for the first time. So here for your reading enjoyment is a great article about a guy who visited Albania. I enjoyed his take on the country. Albania: The Tail Wags the Dog.

The No Electricity Blues

Today I got back from school around 3:30 and there was no electricity. Last year, I wouldn’t have blinked an eye, but we have had pretty stable electricity since last November. Sadly, we still have occasional black outs. I settled into my electricity-less existence and warmed up some vegetable soup on my little camp stove. Then I tried to get caught up on emails until the battery died on my computer. I put clothes into the washer, but couldn’t turn it on. I straightened my house and then it started to get dark. Grabbing my head lamp, I curled up under the biggest blanket you’ve ever seen and read for about an hour or so. As the darkness deepened, I noticed that my neighbor’s lights were on. Hmm. While it is possible that they recently purchased a generator, it’s unlikely. Eventually convincing myself that this was worth investigating, I left the warmth of my blanket and realized that somehow the breaker had flipped. We were not under a blackout and the rest of Kavaje had been experiencing an electric evening. Sigh.

My new website

You can now access my blog from www.denisemgreen.com. How cool is that!! I have a website. Technically, it just redirects you back to this blog, but maybe, just maybe I will add more thrilling content. Probably not till I have internet at my home though.

Side note: I have a new internet cafe and one of its most attractive features is its soundtrack. For those of you who don't know, I love that Albania loves love ballads. Since I've been here, I've heard, "Said I loved you, but I lied," the song from Robin Hood, and Total Eclipse of the Heart. I keep catching myself singing along. Those of you who have had coffee with me in Albania realize that this is true!

Happy Valentine's Day

I must admit, I do not view Valentine's Day as a "real" holiday. If you have someone special its a great excuse to tell them that and if not its a great reason to go out with a big group of friends and have an anti-Valentine's Day party.

All this to say, that I was a bit surprised to find out that not only did we get out of school early on Friday, but the school psychologist planned a disco party. The fact that the school psychologists plans disco parties says something, but I'm not sure what.

So, I jumped in a car with some of my teacher friends, followed by three bus loads of teenagers. It was fun to watch my students cut the rug. They danced. I took photos. They begged me to dance with them. I politely declined. They drank. I looked on uncomfortably. After about an hour of floor shaking, techno music, I was mercifully released to head upstairs with my teacher friends and have a nice seafood lunch. And this was all before the final bell would have rung.

Just another long, tough, day at school!

Italian Yoga Class

For the last couple of months I’ve been taking Italian classes. It’s a change of pace to be in the student’s seat. Even though it is a beginner class, they have all taken Italian courses at school and have grown up watching Italian television. Needless to say, I’m not the star pupil. It’s humbling to be beaten on your conjugations by a 9 year old.

So one day, we began learning vocabulary for activities. “Doing yoga” was one of the vocab words. The teacher translated it (into Albanian) as Chinese exercises. I laughed to myself, but let it go. A few minutes later, we had to say sentences like, “I always read books.” One of my sentences was, “I sometimes do yoga.” This caused a great stir in the class. They started peppering me with questions. “What is yoga?” “How do you do it?” “Where did you learn?”

The teacher closed her eyes and started humming. “Is it like that?” she said. Nope that’s meditation. One student started karate chopping the air and I had to say that that wasn’t it either. So after several attempts at explaining, they finally convinced me to show them.

So in my jeans, three shirts, sweater and a coat. (It was really cold that day.) I did a sun salutation for my fellow students.

Just a moment of sharing “American” culture.

Inauguration Day

I'm constantly amazed at how closely my Albanian colleagues, students, and friends have followed the election process. It seems like ages ago that I was giving endless (and confusing) explanations about the electoral college to my students and watched as their faces fell when I explained in primary after primary that there still wasn't a winner. As a people, they were early supporters of Clinton because of Bill Clinton's actions during the Kosovo conflict.

Another great moment was in my extracurricular activity - Club America. I split the kids into two sections and gave them summaries of each party and asked them to design their own political poster. It cracked me up how quickly both groups began designing smear campaigns. I quickly stopped this and declared they could only put positive statements on the posters. By the end of the evening, they could actually summarize each political party. It was great.

But the most memorable event was the morning after the election. I arrived at school (like always) and was greeted with a standing ovation, numerous double cheek air kisses, and cries of Gezuar (Cheers, in Albanian) It was a really touching moment. To top it all off, my counterpart came up to me and told me that she never thought she would see an American president who was not only African American, but the son of an immigrant. She followed it up by saying, "Americans have taught me today that democracy can work."

So to all of you out there, from my Albanian friends
Gezuar

We Need Your Help

This isn't my typical blog post, so I hope you don't mind if use this opportunity to do a little marketing for one of my Peace Corps projects. I'm working on something called "Outdoor Ambassadors." Outdoor Ambassadors is a club for Albanian students who get together to learn about the environment and participate in environment-related activities. As a developing country, Albania faces a number environmental challenges, and we're hoping to make young people more aware of them through Outdoor Ambassadors. This volunteer-initiated project has been implemented in ten cities all over Albania. One activity we did in my club in Kavaje was a discussion of the animal species native to Albania. The kids had no idea how many species were uniquely indigenous to their country.

So far, the entire Outdoor Ambassadors project has been funded out of volunteers' pockets and by contributions from Albanians, but it has grown enough that we need to raise a little bit more. The additional money will be used to translate and print the Outdoor Ambassador organizational manual. It will also be used to fund a conference in the southern Albanian city of Erseke for the ten local clubs. This conference is something that I'm particularly excited about because very few of my students have had the opportunity to travel outside of their own region. My kids are really looking forward to this adventure!

If you want to contribute to one of the great Peace Corps projects here in Albania, please think about donating. We don't need much to get this project underway so a contribution of a few dollars will go a long way. The project description and donation options are available online here at the Peace Corps website.

Feel free to email me with any questions. When I get myself organized from my trip to America I will post a few pictures of my group enjoying their time together.

Santa Claus: The Symbol Man of the New Year

I taught a bunch of my students how to make construction paper turkeys for Thanksgiving. It was great. They loved it.