On Monday September 29th MAC 13 (the 13th Peace Corps group to serve in the country) landed in Skopje, Macedonia. We knew very little about the country – its history, its culture, its educational or political system or its language. It is now December 6th and the Peace Corps has done a wonderful job in preparing us to go out on our own. We have been provided with the basic knowledge in these areas by a staff of dedicated, personable, and knowledgeable individuals. We know that wherever we are within the country, someone from the Peace Corps permanent staff will be available to support us, whatever our need might be. They have given us the confidence which will enable us to settle into our new community.
We are now in our last week of training and will be sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers on Friday the 12th. We have had over 156 hours of language training; classes on safety, cross-cultural issues, and medical issues; lectures on politics and history; 16 hours of teaching experience in a Macedonian school; TEFL classes; and interactions with hundreds of Macedonian citizens within our community.
The excitement of moving to our new permanent site, however, is tempered by the fact that we will be moving away from our host family. These are the first Macedonians that we met and the ones that we have grown to know and to care for. We have lived with them for almost three months and we have shared many a meal, many a drink, and many a laugh. They have taught us about their country and their community and we have taught them many things about the USA. We have learned about their families and they have taken an interest in learning about ours. And all of this has been accomplished without them speaking English (except in a few cases) and without us speaking Macedonian.
Fortunately, Macedonia is small geographically, so we will be able to visit our host families throughout our two-year stay. Of course there is the mobile (cell phone) but at this point in time my conversations in Macedonian would be severely limited due to my scanty vocabularia (sounds good, not a Macedonian word – or any language for that matter – maybe Latin?).
We believe we are ready, and willing and now we are able!
2 comments:
I'm the mom of a volunteer in the current MAC 13 group. I've enjoyed reading your blog as it has filled in some details of life in Macedonia that I haven't heard about from my son. Good luck at your permanent site.
I'm glad you're enjoying the blog. We're all looking forward to our two big days - the swearing in and the move to our new community. I'm sure your son will tell you all about it.
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