Ok, ok. I know I’ve been away from the blogging for way too long. Well, you see, I’ve kinda been on a crazy roller-coaster of emotions. And well, I just couldn’t imagine how I would blog about it.
It all started the Monday before site visit announcement. Zyri, one of the Health Coordinators of the Peace Corps, asked me to co-host a presentation with her on that upcoming Friday about Obesity. Don’t get me wrong, I was stoked and honored to have asked to present in front of my peers about a topic I had much experience working with. However, I’m kinda terrified of speaking in public. You may be thinking, “What? But you have done hundreds of presentations in your life?” Well you’re right. But for some reason, my anxiety levels get way out of control in the days leading up to every presentation that I get, even thought I secretly know that after I’ve finished the presentation, I’d think back on my stress and laugh. So by Wednesday, I was already waking up in the middle of the night thinking about the presentation. On top of that, Genti, the Volunteer Coordinator for the Peace Corps (yes, we have a lot of coordinators) had asked everyone to come up with a mini lesson to teach to everyone on Friday. Yes, the Friday that I had my obesity presentation and yes, the friday that site announcements took place. Oh, not to mention that we another health brochure project due that day as well. As you can see, lots of stress was building around this one friday.
On top of all that, language classes were getting intense. When I say intense, I mean WAY intense. This was the week that we were starting to learn different tenses. With Albanian, the different tenses aren’t simple. For each person (I, you, he, she, you (as a group), we, and they (each for masculine and feminine)), the ending of each verb change….for EACH TENSE!!! Plus, many verbs are irregular so when we learn general rules to help us memorize the endings of each tense, there’s a pretty good chance that the verb we use will not follow the norm. By the time we got to our 4th tense, I had forgotten how to conjugate the simple present tense, which at the time, I thought was super easy.
Outside of school, everyone was talking about site placement. “So where do you think you’ll go?” was the opener to almost all the trainees’s conversations. We were all so anxious to know. And for the Peace Corps staff and current volunteers, Site Announcement Day is a huge deal! They couldn’t stop talking about it either. “At least one or two people cry every year” one of the current volunteers told me, “It’s all that stress and anxiety that builds leading up to that moment when they call your name and you find out that it’s not exactly the nicest place to be placed.” But for me, the site placement was the least of my concerns. I figured that I really didn’t have any control of where I was going to placed so why worry about it, right?!
So by the time it reached Friday morning, I was burnt out by the language and my anxiety and stress levels were off the roof! All I wanted was for the day to end so I could get some sleep. Luckily, my obesity presentation was the first presentation of the day. I started the presentation off with lots of nerves (I didn’t know I could talk that fast!) but soon enough I eased into the role. Overall, the presentation went very well. I was very relieved. Next I had a few health sector-related and then it was time for the small individual lessons. I waited to till the last minute to present mine which I chose to teach my group how to preform the alphabet in sign language (we were suppose to chose something simple to teach our group so I chose something that I was an expert at, haha). It went really well, actually. My activity for the lesson was sign language picturades where one student was suppose to draw something and the other students were suppose to spell out that thing using the sign language alphabet. They all seemed to enjoy it which made me really happy. It was kinda nice to do some small fun activities which definitely helped lower my anxiety levels.
Directly after our short individual presentations, it was site announcement time. Many group 15ers (the current volunteers/the ones that started last year) and group 16ers (volunteers that were just finishing their 2 year service), along with all the Peace Corp Albania staff were there to celebrate the event. The staff rearranged the room so that everyone gathered in front of the table with the projector that displayed a giant map of Albania on the back wall. Before the event started, many of the trainees formed a circle and preformed (or at least tried) some traditional Albanian circle dancing.
Then it was time to get started.
One by one Genti began to reveal each of of placements by popping up our pictures next to the location of our future site. He started with the older volunteers, most of which were placed in the larger cities like Tirana (the capital), Elbasan, and Durres. With every revealing, everyone cheered and Mito, a fellow trainee that has been dubbed the photographer of the group, got the all-star hollywood reaction photo of each of the trainees. Since I knew that Ian and I were going to be placed together, I kind of had a feeling that we would be reveal pretty early on since not many sites could fit two people. And I was right. Almost right after all the big sites were revealed, two pictures pop up at the top of the map. It’s Ian and I. Genti shouts out “Ian and Jen in Bajram Curri!” My eyes widen and my mouth hit the ground! Half the group cheered, whereas the other half gave out a worrisome oooooo or laughter. This was the place everyone feared of being placed. One volunteer even said that if she was placed there, she would quit the Peace Corps. Nobody wanted this site. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! And I didn’t know how to react.
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| Little did we know that Luke (the guy standing behind me in the purple shirt) would be our site mate! |
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| The reaction photos! Yep, I was shocked! :) |
See, Bajram Curri is a small town that is extremely isolated in the mountains of Northern Albania. It’s so isolated that to get there, it takes 8hours and the only road that leads there forces you to go into Kosovo and then back into Albania. Plus, it’s known for it’s harshly cold winters, frequent power outages, and limited amount of running water. This was like the most undeveloped site in Peace Corps Albania and they chose me to go there. CRAZY!
At first, I didn’t know what to think. All I could think about was how unreal it felt. Out of all the sites that current volunteers predicted we would be placed, Bajram Curri was not one of them….not even close!
While everyone else was getting their site announcements (many of which were in nice, sunny places near the beach or near Greece), many people came up to me asking me “How do you feel?” with a slight hint of worry in their faces. Others came up and patted me on the back and said “Bajram Curri, huh?!” Even the Safety and Security Coordinator came up to me and asked how I was dealing with it. When I told here I wasn’t sure, she kept saying oh you’ll be fine it’s a beautiful place. I was so in shock that I didn’t really pay attention to the other site placements. After everyone was announced, everyone clapped and one of the trainees announced that we were all going to celebrate at one of the local restaurants down the street. So we all grabbed our bags and headed over there. This time, we definitely took up the entire seating areas. Americans were everywhere.
This is when I started to get worried. I could see a routine forming. Fellow trainees came up to me and said things like “Oooh, Bajram Curri. What do you think about that?” or “So are you ready for the cold?” but most of them were very supportive like saying “I hear it’s beautiful up there” (I still hear that all the time!) and “You’ll be just fine, plus you’re very close to Kosovo.” And then when current volunteers came to introduce themselves to me, the first thing they’d ask is “So where are you going?” and the minute I would say “Bajram Curri”, I’d either get a “Ooooh, you’ll be fine” or a “pause…..Good, I hear it’s beautiful up there.” All I could think was “Why me?”
And after leaving to head back home, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Why would they choose me to go to such an isolated, cold place? Why couldn’t I be spent to live on the beach for 2 years? What the heck have I gotten myself into? My emotional roller-coaster was sinking with each negative thought.
And it wasn’t stopping there. That night and the morning following, everyone wanted to know where I was going to be working for the next 2 years. And every person, and I mean EVERY single person, had the same worrisome reaction. “Ooooh. It’s cold there.” Some even asked me why.
It got too much to handle. Could this place really be that bad? And yep, I turned into one of the people that cried over site placement. I spent the whole day in my room feeling sorry for myself. I’m not that adventurous of a girl. Sure, I like going hiking and camping if it only consists of a few nights. But living without hot water, electricity and in the bitter cold was not something I enjoy doing, not in the slightest. I just couldn’t see any positive in it. I had spiraled down.
It took a few days for me to bounce back. After talking to my mom (who always knows how to comfort me) and hearing some of the good things about Bajram Curri, I started to feel better.
What really helped me was reflecting on why I chose to do the Peace Corps in the first place. I am here to help people improve their health. That’s the bottom line. And sure, I won’t be enjoying myself on the beach while fulfilling my mission but at least I have the opportunity to share my passion of healthy living with a community that needs it. And then I thought about how I was originally suppose to be placed somewhere in Western Africa. I thought to myself “Would the living situations there be that different than what I was dealt here in Albania?” It’s probably a lot warmer there, but they still have electricity and water problems.
On the next HUB day I got to talk to other trainees that were placed in isolated areas in the North and it made me realize that I wasn’t the only one worried about my site. We all kind of formed a bond and a pack that we would help each other out. I’m excited for our North Group! And I guess Bajram Curri is actually quite a popular place for vacation. So many people came up to telling me that they were going to visit during the summer to come see the mountains and beautiful landscapes. This definitely made me feel better. Plus, Ian and I got a site mate! Luke, a COD (community outreach development) trainee will be joining us. YAY! And he and I have been already planning co-projects like building a gym or/and designing trail maps when we get there. Things are looking much brighter now.
So yeah, that’s what has been going on with me. I think my roller-coaster is balancing out now. We’re only 3 weeks away from swearing in and moving to our future sites. I can’t believe how fast PST is going.
Expect to see a few more blogs up soon about Practicum and some events I’ve been up to lately. They were…wait for it….EPIC! (haha, How I Met Your Mother reference for all you fans out there :))
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