We’re starting on our fifth week here in North Macedonia. We were given a competency checklist with all the things we should have learnt up until this point. Learning two languages at once (Macedonian and Albanian) means we have some weaknesses and strengths in both languages. Everything is starting to click, slowly. I wish I were faster at producing full sentences, and amusingly, I have picked up a few dialect/accent issues where what I’ve learned is different from the official language, especially in Albanian.

Along with language classes, we are doing our first observations this week. I’ll be observing an English teacher (obviously) in the high school behind the school I’ve been in for my Macedonian/Albanian lessons. I met him and the vice principal today. I can’t wait to see inside a classroom and learn how everything works. One of the other trainees here in the city is with me in the same school. Next week, it’s to our orientation city for an observation of an actual PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) and what she does in the classroom. Then there is peer teaching and then solo teaching. Everything is rolling very quickly towards our actual service. I’m not nervous about that, but I am nervous about having to choose a language later for my LPI test (Language Proficiency Index).

Otherwise, everything is clipping along. I am enjoying the city I’m living in, I’m enjoying classes, and I’m enjoying our trips to the capital. It’s warmer than usual for late October (and I mean much warmer; I’m still wearing my summer dresses everyday) but soon it will be cool enough for autumn and winter clothing. I am hoping for snow, honestly. But for now, the weather is nice enough and not boiling hot.

A tiny bit of trivia about the city I’m living in: it has a reputation of being a friendly place with very fashionable men. I can definitely attest to the former; even as a foreigner I have always been treated kindly (even at the salon when I had my wedding hair done by a woman who had never done Black hair before). Now, of the second? Most men look fine. I’m not really one to judge men’s fashion. But most men here wear jeans that fit well and emulate Southern European styling.