All of us have gone to visit our next sites where we will be living for the next two years after swearing in. As I mentioned last time, I’ll be staying in the same city where I have been training, so I won’t be learning anything new. The only difference is that I will be staying with a new host family in a different part of the city.

As a TEFL volunteer, I will be co-teaching with one or two English teachers in a high school. It’s the same high school in which I did my practicum sessions, and I have already met my counterparts. Counterparts are Host Country Nationals (HCNs) who will let us into their worksites to help and create new development opportunities.

My new host family is also Albanian. There is a father, a mother and a daughter. One of the other trainees is already here for the training session, so it seems very strange to occupy her space. She has photos of all her friends and family, which is quite comforting, even though they’re strangers to me. It seems odd to be in a family for three days and then be away for a fortnight, but I can see why Peace Corps does this.

On the drive back from Skopje, my counterpart and I talked about life in the Balkans, which is/was quite enlightening–Balkan history isn’t something that’s focussed on in the West, unless you go out of your way to study it. It is a quite tumultuous and sometimes sad history. We must remember that unlike us in the West, who have not seen much intense internal warfare (though conflict may be a different story), that people who suffered this are still alive, and most are just in their 30s and 40s. Some were internally displaced, some were made refugees. What effects on society, especially a young one, does this have? We must keep it in mind as we bring development and educational opportunities to this country.

I can’t wait to see what these days bring, and what the rest of my time brings. I’m sure there will be some hardships, but I know this will be fruitful for everyone involved.