Settling In

Woah it has been such a long time since I've posted, and so many things have happened. I was told the place where I will be living for the next two years, I visited that place, I celebrated Thanksgiving with my host family and all the volunteers at my training site and their host families, I officially swore in as a volunteer, and I moved to site. It has really been a whirlwind, but I also feel like I've been here a very long time.

My site is a very small village (about 500 people) about 15 minutes away from my training town. There are two and a half stores, a church, a post office, an agriculture firm, and the school that I work at. The school is really nice and huge by village standards. There are about two hundred students. My classes range anywhere from 5-17 students. I teach 2nd grade and 5th-9th grade. Some things about middle schoolers are international. My students are a lot of fun, but some of them are definitely in the developmental stage of challenging authority (which is totally normal but sometimes makes my job difficult). Right now, I am starting to learn more about my students and trying to learn as many names as I can! While I've worked in the classroom before, it is really challenging to teach in a language that I am just now learning. I rely on my counterpart a lot for translation.

My counterpart is amazing!! She had a volunteer for two years before this, so she knows what I'm supposed to be doing, and what it's like to be a volunteer which is really helpful. She is a lot of fun and really wants student engagement in her classroom, which is not always the norm. She is a dedicated teacher and is willing to try new things
. I was also told to not expect planning to be thing, but we have planning periods where we work together. All in all, I am very excited to work with her and really lucked out on the counterpart lottery!

My new host family has also been amazing! My host mom works at the school also, so it's always good to see her throughout the day. She is an amazing cook and makes her own bread from scratch. She loves to try new recipes from Facebook, and for new years we will be baking cookies together. She's already taught me how to make some traditional N. Macedonian foods such as Sarma (stuffed cabbage) and Baklava. She has also taken me to meet so many people which I am grateful for. Both her and my host dad have told me I am like their daughter. My host dad is also really nice! He is an agricultural worker and has pigs, goats, chickens, and rabbits. He really loves animals. He also likes to joke around a lot and is very friendly. I am very grateful to my host family. They have been so generous and warm and welcoming! N. Macedonian hospitality has really blown me away.

Adjusting to rural life has been really hard for me. In Lexington and Washington DC whenever I was bored I could go do something. In DC I loved to walk around or go to the Smithsonians. In Lexington I would just walk to Starbucks when I got bored. I definitely can't do anything like that here. I've been running, cooking with my host mom, and working on materials for school to try and stay busy. I also still have Macedonian tutoring and have been trying to practice the language. I keep telling everyone I'm going to work on my physical flexibility, but I still haven't gotten around to that yet. I'm trying to develop other hobbies, but the thing that's getting to me the most is how much I don't like being idle or alone. It's really hard to be the only american around, and the only fluent English speaker. I really miss being with my friends from training, but luckily I got to visit a few of them over the weekend. I know adjusting takes time, and I'm trying to be as patient as possible, even when the roosters wake me up for the 9,000th time.

One of the other really hard things is being away from my family and Danny for the holidays. I'm doing my best to celebrate Hanukkah by myself. One of my friends made me a paper menorah and I've been "lighting" it every night. I also made Latkes today and that helped me feel a little less homesick. This is the first year in my life that I haven't gone to New York for the holidays and I really miss my family and my extended family. Today is Christmas eve which is a family event I look forward to every year and it feels very strange and sad to not be there this year (the only other time I've ever missed it was when I had strep throat when I was 9). I also miss Danny and his family a ton. Usually I'm with them for part of the holidays, and I really cherish spending time with them. I'm very happy because Danny's family and mine will be together over the break, but I'm feeling a lot of FOMO because I can't be there. I am so grateful to the internet because I've still been able to talk to everyone, and I can't imagine what it would be like without it. Overall this is a hard time of year to be away from family and friends and it is not making adjusting any easier.

While I am adjusting, I am still really grateful to have this opportunity. I can feel myself growing a lot. This is maybe the hardest situation I've ever been in, but we grow the most from challenges. I'm excited to explore my village and get to know everyone better. I am also grateful for the support systems that I have!!

Три години

We interrupt the regular Peace Corps content for a topic that is a lot more important, Danny and I's anniversary. We have been dating for three years for those keeping track at home, and it has been nothing short of  incredible. My life would be so much worse without Danny in it, and I could not be doing everything I'm doing now without his constant love and support. Later on I'll do a more in depth blog post about long distance and overcoming those challenges, but for now it is time to celebrate Danny!

Danny has been my main source of joy and support since we met four years ago in college. I have relied on for so much in those four years. He always handles everything with grace and gives really really good advice (he also writes really good insta captions and makes really funny Facebook events). I can always count on him to be reasonable when I'm freaking out. Danny is this kindest person I know. He doesn't just comfort me, but he is always texting friends and checking up on them, and whenever people are moving he is always the first to offer to help out. He always cooks the meat for me when we cook together because he knows I hate cooking it. He also would always wash the dishes so I didn't have to. He shows how caring he is in a million different ways, some small (letting me fall asleep on him literally every time we watch TV) and some really big (like coming to visit me before I left and doing every dumb activity I could think of with me).

Danny has truly been one of my biggest supporters. When I first didn’t get in to the Peace Corps, he encouraged me to keep trying if it was something I really wanted to do. He had no doubts that I would get in the second time I applied when I doubted myself every second. When things have been tough here my first call is always to Danny because I know that he will be there to listen and give advice. Last year during Americorps when I was too tired and stressed do anything but sleep after work, Danny was there for me. When I was sick for the 1,000 time because working in a school wreaks havoc on your immune system, Danny was there with soup. Senior year he was my number one supporter as I struggled to finish two capstones and was always willing to help me edit my papers. I could write pages and pages of all the ways that Danny has supported me and helped me through the years, so it's just safe to assume anything I’ve achieved in the past four years is at least partially, if not entirely,

because of Danny’s amazing support.

Long distance has been really hard because I miss being away from him so much. It’s hard to watch Turkish soap operas when I’d much rather be cuddling and watching Brooklyn nine-nine. It’s hard to wake up and not be able to talk to Danny first thing in the morning. It’s always hard when something funny happens and I want to tell him immediately but he’s not there. But even through all the hard stuff, Danny has been there for me and has not wavered in his support. I’ve called him crying so many times, and he’s always reassured me that things will get better, I’ll be able to adjust, and that it’s all going to be okay. Talking to him has gotten me through my toughest days here. Even from almost 5,000 miles away he manages to make me smile. He makes me so happy and my life is a million times better because he is in it. I’m counting down the days (read: seconds) til we see each other again, but it makes me feel better that this is the longest time we’ll be apart, and that next time we see each other we’ll be in Greece! How cool is that?

All of this is just to say that Danny is the best person I know and I love him so much and I’m beyond appreciative of him. I am so grateful to be his girlfriend and his friend. There is so much more I can say but I'm not always the best at expressing myself. Maybe I’m being a bit much, but I really really miss him and I just want everyone to know how amazing he is. Stay tuned for next time when I talk about my new site! Spoiler alert: it is a village.

Day to Day of PST (aka Pumpkin Spice Training)

Hey everyone! It's been a bit since I've posted because I've been trying to adjust to training and my new schedule, also nothing as noteworthy as the wedding has happened since. I have now been in N. Macedonia for a month! Some days it feels like time is zooming by, other days it feels like I have already been here for years. Since nothing super exciting has happened, I'll talk about my day to day life during PST or Pre-Service Training. Like American University, the Peace Corps is full of acronyms, and one of my favorite things to do is give the wrong answers for what acronyms stand for, hence Pumpkin Spice Training (I really really miss Starbucks).

Life in Sveti Nikole (or Sweaty Nicole as Danny calls it) is really nice! Every morning I wake up and get ready for school. My host mom is absolutely wonderful and always has breakfast waiting for me. Sometimes it's an omelet, sometimes fried bread, sometimes bread and ajvar (a Macedonian red pepper spread), or a piroshka (fried meat pancake). Whatever it is, it's always delicious and I'm very grateful to her for cooking for me.

After Breakfast, I head to school for Macedonian language class. I am in a class with 5 other trainees and our language teacher always makes class really fun. Even though it's four hours, it goes by really quickly. The amount we are learning is incredible! Three weeks ago, we could barely introduce ourselves, now we are talking about our schedules, what we eat, our families, and we can give and ask for directions! We have tons of dialogues and games, our two favorites are charades and Pictionary. I'm still not as good at Macedonian as I want to be, but I know that languages take a lot of patience and I practice every day with my host family. I can communicate with them so much better now, but it is still hard to get across more complex concepts.

After school I go to the gym with a few of the other trainees. The gym is pretty small but it has free weights and two treadmills, which is pretty much all I need. There are also inexplicably a lot of children who sometimes use the gym to play tag. In front of the treadmills there is a TV that is always playing MTV dance music videos, which I absolutely love. The gym also has a ton of really fun posters that emphasize the importance of getting swole. I am currently training for the Skopje Half Marathon which is in May. I think it'll be good to have a fitness goal to help get me through the winter. After the half marathon, I would like to run the original Marathon in Athens. It'll be in November 2020, so I have a long time to train, which I desperately need.

After the gym I go home to eat lunch with my family. We always eat lunch around 3, and it is usually chicken and rice, or soup with meat, or other traditional Macedonian dishes. During lunch I chat with my family about my day and ask for their help with some of the homework. After lunch I usually go hang out in a cafe or in the park with other Peace Corps trainees. Once a week we play soccer, sometimes against each other, sometimes against local youth (they beat us pretty badly last time). We also recently had a ping pong tournament and I got out in the first round. There are a ton of really nice cafes in the center, and I really like being able to hang out there.

After hanging out, I head back home to be with my family. Dinner is really small here so we usually have crepes with nutella, doughnuts call kifli, or bread, cheese, and ajvar. While we eat we watch Turkish Soap Operas. Turkish Soap Operas are really divisive, people either love them or absolutely hate them. My host mom really likes them, so I've been getting into them as well! They are dubbed in Macedonian so it is great language practice (It was really great for my family vocab, I would always ask my host mom "is he her brother or boyfriend?"). The three we watch are called the "The Smell of Strawberries", "Without Breath", and "Daughters of Fasilet". I don't really know exactly what is happening in any of them, but so far my favorite is "without breath" because it's the most exciting. There are also a lot of Serbian TV shows that are really popular here. There is a Serbian version of the voice, but my host mom doesn't like it that much because she doesn't like the judges. My absolute favorite TV show here is a Serbian show called "Your Face Sounds Familiar". It's a competition show where performers have to draw musicians out of a hat and recreate one of their most famous performances. The gender of the musicians doesn't matter, so a lot of times the performers have to be in drag. I understand a lot more of this show because most of the songs are in English, and it's musicians I've heard of.

That's pretty much my life here in Sveti Nikole, but there are some really exciting developments coming soon! I start practicums this week, and I have been partnered with a Macedonian English teacher. This week I am just observing her class, but in a few weeks I will be teaching! First with a fellow Peace Corps Trainee, then on my own! It is a bit nerve-wracking but I'm excited to be in the classroom. Also next week my class will be having a Halloween party, and I will carve a butternut squash because I have not been able to find a pumpkin. Two fridays from now we have our overnight in Skopje, and I'm so excited to be able to explore the city more!

 We will also know our permanent site placements in about 3 weeks so I am super nervous and excited for that. As always, I miss everyone at home so much (even more than I miss Starbucks), but I am finally settling in here and excited for all the things ahead. 

*These words are my own and do not represent the views of the Peace Corps or the United States Government.

Feeling like a Two Year Old at a Macedonian Wedding

Hello! It feels like it has already been two years, but it has actually only been a week since I arrived in North Macedonia. After an orientation week at the university in Tetovo, we have been sent our separate ways for training. I am with 10 other trainees, in a town of about 13,000 people. I haven't been able to explore much yet (I've been here for 4 days), but there is a wonderful park, a ton of cafes and bakeries, and even an archeology museum! We go to school in the firehouse, and we have language classes for four hours a day, every day.

We have all been placed with host families for the two months of training. My host family is an older couple named Vesna and Tome. They have two daughters: one lives in Slovenia, and the other lives in  England. They have been absolutely lovely and very patient. They only speak a few words of English, and I speak less Macedonian than a toddler. We have been using a ton of charades and google translate to communicate. Some times I use a word in Russian if I don't know it in Macedonian and hope they understand. There is a lot that gets lost in translation. For example, when I first got there on saturday, my host parents kept saying "Cvadba" which means wedding. I looked it up on google translate but I still didn't know if they were going to a wedding or if I was invited too. I finally figured out that I was also invited to the wedding, which was very exciting because that was one of my goals. I was really worried though, because I only brought one dress that was wedding appropriate and it was white. I texted my language teacher in a panic, asking her if it would be okay to wear, and she said people wore white to Macedonian weddings all the time and it was fine.

We left for the wedding that evening. It was in Shtip, which is about a 20 minute drive from the town I live in. The wedding was at a super nice hotel and all the guests were dressed to the nines. I saw a woman in a white pantsuit and I felt much better about my dress. When we walked in, instead of a reception line, there was a place where all the guests could line up to take a picture with the bride and groom. I still don't know how to say "congratulations", so when I walked up to the bride and groom, all I said was "hello". We got our picture taken, and then went to our table.  I said hello to everyone and introduced myself, but that's all I could say. I really felt like a toddler.

After we got to our seats, the bride and groom did a ceremony where they crossed arms with each other, and drank champagne. Then they had there first dance and that part was very similar to American weddings. They had a live band and the singers were very talented! Since I couldn't talk, I danced a lot of oros. Oros are a type of Balkan/Turkish dance where everyone holds hands and dances in a circle. They usually only have a few steps, and most are pretty easy to pick up even if you are not the world's most talented dancer. I still managed to mess up a couple of times, but it wasn't a big deal. My host mom did tell me to sit one of them out because she thought it would be to hard for me, and it definitely would have been. Oros can go on forever! It was hours of the same dances, but to different songs. At this wedding, they danced before the food was served. We finally ate at 10 pm!

The waiters danced with a plate of roast meat as they brought it to the bride and groom. The bride groom, and the groom's brother stood up on their table and started dancing as the waiters brought them the food. I did not understand what was going on or the significance of it, but it was a lot of fun to watch. After the bride and groom got their food, the musicians brought out the traditional Macedonian instruments like a wooden horn and a drum, and played traditional wedding music. Something I thought was interesting is that they also did the bouquet toss, but the groom was the one who threw it and a man caught it.

By the time we finally left it was midnight! We had been there for 6 hours. I'm so grateful I was able to be there, and it was a great way to experience Macedonian culture! My next goal is to go to a wedding here where I actually know the bride or groom. I feel so lucky that my host family included me.

It has really been a struggle being in a place where I have a lot of difficulty communicating, and I've been feeling really homesick. Every day gets a little bit better though, and I am learning so much. I've also been hanging out with the other volunteers and that has helped a lot. I also feel really happy about the small victories such as being able to explain to my host family slightly complex things, like that my cat is declawed and that's why she lives inside, and learning tons of different Macedonian words. Overall, this is really challenging, but I'm glad I'm doing it, because I am learning so much already.

My Peace Corps Journey- So far (timeline included)

Today is the day I've been waiting for! I will get to Philadelphia and start training tomorrow. On Saturday, I will get on a flight from JFK to Belgrade, Serbia and then fly from there to Skopje, North Macedonia.

This has been a long time coming. I first applied to the Peace Corps in the fall of 2017. I had been looking at the postings out of curiosity, and I found one in Costa Rica that seemed absolutely perfect. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to do the Peace Corps yet, but the deadline was fast approaching so I applied. I got an interview request, and through researching the position and the Peace Corps I became obsessed. I checked Peace Corps Reddit multiple times a day and refreshed my email constantly. By the time my interview rolled around, I had gone from not knowing if I wanted to even do the Peace Corps to it being the only thing I wanted to do after graduation. My interview went well, I really liked my interviewer and I felt happy with the way I had answered the questions. However, a good interview was not enough to get me the job, as a senior in college I just didn't have enough experience.

I was devastated! I knew that I would apply again, but it seemed so far away. I decided to do an Americorps program called City Year after graduation. It was really tough, but I'm so glad I did it. Apart from being super rewarding, I have so much more experience that I know will help me in the Peace Corps. I grew a lot, both personally and professionally. In the first month of City Year, I applied to the Peace Corps again. I couldn't decide which country or position to apply for so I decided  to apply to go anywhere. I realized that it was more important for me to volunteer than it was for me to pick the specific country. I made sure to emphasize my Spanish speaking ability on my resumé, and tailored it to education. A few weeks later I got an email that I was under consideration for the Youth in Development position in Guatemala. I was happy to have been placed in Latin America! Then I waited and waited and waited. I finally got an interview request at the end of November after not hearing anything since August. Since I had interviewed less than a year ago, I got to do a shorter interview. I honestly had no idea how it went, it was an absolute blur. At one point I was rambling and had to apologize to the interviewer for being so nervous. It must have went well though, because I got my invitation 5 days later.

I got all my legal and medical clearances, and was preparing to go to Guatemala. A month before we were supposed to leave, I got my plane tickets. Three weeks before I was supposed to leave, I got a call from the Peace Corps office. They asked me if I would consider switching to an education position in North Macedonia due to my experience in education and in Eastern Europe (if you know me you know I love Eastern Europe). My initial reaction was a visceral no. How could I switch when I had more than a year to get used to the idea of Guatemala? But after two days of careful consideration I decided to do it for a variety of reasons, including the fact that it was where I was needed the most, which was where I had originally applied. Now I've been spending the past 3 weeks researching North Macedonia and getting ready to leave. My boyfriend Danny came to visit, and we had a great time being tourists in Kentucky and saying goodbye to some of my favorite places and people.

Now the day I've waited so long for is finally here. I am so nervous but also so excited. I feel I am as ready for this as I am ever going to be. I could not have gotten here without all the wonderful people in my life. My parents have always supported me and helped me edit all the drafts of my application and resumé. My friends have been listening to me obsess over this for the past two years and have been so encouraging. My team at City Year helped me grow so much over the course of this past year.   My boyfriend has been my rock through all of this, and one of my biggest supporters. I was surprised when I got my invitation, but he wasn't,
because he had always believed in me. It's going to be so hard to be away from him, but we are going to make it work. Thank you so much to everyone, and if you are reading this, know that you probably helped me get here too, and I really appreciate you.

When I was researching, I looked obsessively at people's timelines so here's mine:


10/11/17- Application for Costa Rica Submitted

11/11/17- Under consideration/ Interview Request

11/13/17- Interview for Costa Rica

2/27/18- Rejected

8/12/18- Application to go Anywhere Submitted

8/19/18- Under review for Youth in Development Facilitator in Guatemala

10/10/18- Under Consideration for Youth in Development for Guatemala

11/27/18- Transcript Request (to prove I met the language requirement)

11/29/18- Interview Request

12/6/18- Interview and additional documents submitted

12/11/18- Invitation!!!

3/20/19- Legal clearance granted

3/22/19- Medical clearance granted

8/26/19- Asked to switch to North Macedonia

8/28/19- Switched to North Macedonia

9/19/19- Departed to Staging!

PS- If you want to join the Peace Corps or have any questions about the process, please let me know! I know a lot at this point and I would really love to help!