It's finally spring! Even though we've had an incredibly mild winter compared to last year, it's been very chilly and wet. Any ideas I may have entertained about living in the Northwest have sufficiently been squashed.
If it hasn't been obvious from my lack of updates (albeit a large part of that is laziness), things have picked up here in Strumica. Peace Corps wasn't joshin' when they told us to expect the second year to be a lot busier. Basically the first year is the "feeling-out year", for both the volunteer and the community; the second year (if you're still there) the volunteer has generally found their comfort zone and earned the respect or street cred of the community - and things really start crackin'.
Some of the projects we've been working on in my community are:
- I worked with a local NGO to fund-raise for a grant that enabled them to host numerous workshops in the surrounding villages. The villages educated the farmers (mainly women) on the dangers of pesticides, and how to properly handle and apply them.
- My primary work site (the municipality of Strumica) applied for multiple EU/cross-border development grants last year. *Due to our proximity to both Greece and Bulgaria, the municipality of Strumica is eligible to work with 2 EU nations. We were awarded multiple project grants, and in January we moved into our new EU project office.
There have been other, smaller projects along the way that have filled in lots of gaps in my spare time, so much so that I can't believe I only have about 8 months left here.
Other than work, my life has become pretty staid and routine. I hope to change that soon though with a train trip through Budapest and Prague. Then it'll be summer time, and time for me to get busy with another project, figuring out what I'll be doing and where I'll be after Macedonia.....
Enjoy the spring y'all.
