Slowly being phased out..

As to be expected there's a lot of paperwork that goes along with closing your service at the end of two years with the Peace Corps. Today marks the day that the group that will 'replace' us arrives in Albania. I'm a member of Group 14 (the 14th group of Volunteer's that have been in Albania) and today Group 16 arrives in Elbasan to start their two year journey just like I did not that long ago. The first week in April I will probably meet the person that will take my place at the municipality. I'm in the process of filling out questionnaires and plugging in names and numbers so the new person can know who will be willing to work with them and projects that I did that were successful and one's that didn't work out too well. Another Volunteer made this Youtube video for the new group about what our group has learned in our two years here.

When I think about my first impressions of Albania when I was living with a host family and how foreign everything felt it makes me realize how far I've come because everything feels too normal at this point. You start doing a lot of reflecting on what you could have done or what you wish you would have done as well as looking back on all that you have actually accomplished, even if at the time it seemed small and not important. I've now been in Albania for over two years which means 1/12 of my life has been spent living in the land of the double headed eagle.

Weekends are starting to fill up and in the 7 1/2 weeks I have left here it seems that I've become very busy. Weddings, going away parties, site visits for the new Volunteers, hopefully a basketball camp, speaking to the new Volunteers in Elbasan, planning my C.O.S. trip, wrapping up projects here in town, spreading the word in town that I'll actually be leaving soon and in fact won't be living here for the rest of my life.. It is nice to have something sort of planned out for when I go home and not have that blind falling feeling again like I did after college.