Great Staging, Uneventful Flight

(This posting was actually written on September 30th) The staging events finished on Saturday evening. We now know a bit more about our assignments, the Peace Corps expectations of us, and a relief of many of the concerns that a new volunteer might have. The Peace Corps staff did a great job in getting us ready to take our first steps – getting on the bus to JFK. Their enthusiasm was contagious.

The Macedonian ambassador to the U.S. dropped in and gave an address that presented us with a first person view of the problems, concerns, and accomplishments of his country. He thanked us for volunteering to come to Macedonia and answered a host of questions presented to him by the volunteers ( I should use the term Trainee, rather than volunteer, because you are not a true Volunteer until after you complete three months of in-country training and are formally sworn in).
The trainees in MAC13 (The 13th group to be sent to Macedonia) are a wonderful collection of wonderful people. We are a very diverse group. We have individuals from New York, Maryland, California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Arizona, Minnesota, Maine, Michigan, Connecticut, and Montana (I hope I didn’t leave anyone out). We have two young married couples, seven of us in the 6% Club, and a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer going on a second tour, and a diversity of racial backgrounds.

It was a with a great sense of the adventure that lay ahead of us, that we took off with on Sunday morning. It was a little unbelievable that we would be leaving the USA for 27 months and be in a foreign land in 36 hours. The bus ride to JFK was uneventful except when we passed through Manhattan and witnessed for one more time the awesomeness of one of the world’s greatest cities and knowing that we were headed out to a country that has and still is going through some difficult growing pains.

There was lots of waiting around at JFK, lugging around 140 pounds of baggage and exploring the International Terminal, utilizing every electrical outlet to recharge laptops and IPODS. We flew to Vienna on Austrian Airlines with two delicious in-flight meals served by flight attendants attired in bright red uniforms. It’s been a long time since I had a meal on a plane. It does kill some time and gives you something to look forward to on an otherwise totally torturous voyage.
The airport in Vienna was rather large. Thank goodness we didn’t have to lug our baggage around. Lots of police and tight security. The Macedonian Under- 16 National Football Team was traveling back to Skopje on the same flight as us. I approached the coaches who were standing in a group and asked if any of them spoke English and it turned out that one of them did. We talked for a few minutes and upon ending our discussion, they gave us a Macedonian Football Federation patch. The President of the MFF is a teacher in the capital and gave me his card. Maybe someday I will have a chance to drop in on him.

I had a nice conversation on the flight with a gentleman from Tate who spoke a little English. When we arrived at the airport, the first thing we noticed was the contrast between the cities we had passed through in the last 36 hours and the airport in Skopje. Everything was on a smaller scale. We quickly went through customs and collected our baggage and then proceeded out of the building where we were enthusiastically met by the Peace Corps Country Director, his staff and some current PCV’s. We loaded our baggage onto an awaiting truck, got on the bus and preceded to our first week training site in Kumanavo which is about a thirty minute ride. It gave us our first chance to see a country that we had been only reading about for the last three months. The countryside was beautiful ; the highway was somewhat empty; and the vehicles we did see were more compact and for the most part older, then we were used to in the USA.

The Satilite Hotel that was serving as the training center during our first week is about a thirty minute walk or a five minute taxi ride from the city of Kumonavo. It is a very lovely hotel and is enabled me to take my first shower in MAcedonia. When I exited the brand new modern shower stall, there was a large puddle on the tiled floor and water was leaking into a floor drain from the stall. After dressing I notified the desk clerk of the leak, only to be told that that is the way plumbing in Macedonian bathrooms is designed. Shower water is supposed leak into the floor drain, The only problems are that you can’t use a floor mat, the wet tiles are extremely slippery, and trying to avoid having your dry clothes from dipping onto the wet floor is a challenge. I am sure there will be many more cultural shocks in the next two years.