First day of 'Women's Day' Celebrations...

All women's party at the hotel for International Women's Day..

My boys and some Tirana..

Buke me qofte..

The loving Dida family in Kukes.

Ta pastrojme Shqiperine ne nje dite..

International NGO's, Lets Do It and Greenline have teamed up to promote a country wide clean-up day in Albania. This movement was first held in 2008 in Estonia which included over 50,000 volunteers and 10,000 bags of waste. Over 85 countries world wide are participating this year, in over 20 different days and events. "Let's Clean Albania in One Day" has been the idea adopted in Albania, the goal being to promote trash clean up,  recognition of illegal dump sites all across Albania, to collect 20,000 tons of waste and to connect volunteers from the north of the country to the south. Peace Corps Volunteers across Albania have jumped on this bandwagon and have been promoting this event in our communities. Peace Corps Volunteers have a unique opportunity to promote this event due to our integration in communities all over Albania. May 9th is Earth Day and in Bajram Curri is the day that we're holding the 'community clean-up day' in correspondance of the renovated basketball courts. With support from the Health Center and the Municipality of Bajram Curri, we hope to clean up the town and collect bags of trash, the incentive being for the community members is being able to participate in the painting of a mural on the courts (we're still hashing out the details).

As Peace Corps Volunteers we have decided to do a promotional "Smart Mob" in the capital on April 22 to promote "the Cleaning of Albania in One Day." A smart mob is a 'flash mob' with a social agenda, ours being the promotion of a clean-up day. It is going to be a fun way to promote this day and spread the word to prospective volunteers in Albania. Our Smart Mob and Community Clean-up Day in Bajram Curri are in the beginning stages, so stay tuned..

Sunday from my kitchen..

My new goal boards, craftgawker.com

Water deposits and water colors..

So after being gone for what seemed like forever, I knew, as usual, it would take some getting used to and catching up once I got back home. No matter if you're gone for a month or a day, everyone always wants to know where you've been, what you've been doing, if you were somewhere else how was it, was it better there than it is here? So there's a lot of going through that with my coworkers, produce stores, neighbors, waiters and people that know me but I don't know them.

I always try to make the 7 hour journey from the capital and allow myself that day and a complete day to myself to unpack, mess around the house, get groceries, you know, resettle. This time, my plan was rudely interrupted. I returned home on Friday to Bajram Curri to seemed what to be a completely different town. The roads were plowed, people were out and about, the sun was visible and the snow had accumulated into 15 foot mud splattered eye sores.

This would work out perfect, I would have Friday night to hang out with my sitemates who I hadn't seen in a while and all day Saturday to renest into my apartment. Wrong. Friday was great, Garrett, Eric, Kim and I hung out and had another normal night in my apartment. Simultaneously (I'm not exaggerating), the next morning, Kim and I both woke up puking. Not to go into any more detail that I have to it was kind of like this scene from a popular movie right now (warning: while though hilarious, a bit graphic).

This continued all day. Now, we had drank a little the night before but this was not from drinking. Let me take you back to the night before my Peace Corps interview in Raleigh. I woke up at 4:00am with this same kind of sickness and actually was so poisoned by food I had to call in and reschedule my interview. Culprit: Sushi from Harris Teeter.

I've also had food poisoning in Albania twice before (cheese and a mystery food) and let me tell you, it's no fun feet being sick in a Turkish toilet, although I must say I've gotten better. "What did you eat?" you might ask. Well, Sunday, when Kim and I could actually talk about food (still not at the point of eating it again) we narrowed it down to one meal where it could have been: chicken, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions or cheese. In all foreign countries the food is just something you accept, in on way or another. Albania actually has, for the most part, pretty trust worthy produce, meat and cheese. I stay clear of the 'village milk' which is straight from the cow but we all choose our battles.

Anyways, since my readjusting day was taken away by recuperating, I did all my errands today. My water depot was also fixed! Three weeks with no water and finally I got to do laundry today and fill up my tank! Oh happy day. I also spent the afternoon celebrating the water by watercolor painting.

I also found out on my days away from my community that our grant was funded! The first project I wanted to do when I came to Bajram Curri was to fix up the basketball courts and that's what we're going to do! It started at PDM with Endrit a few months ago, we wrote the grant and found out last week that we were awarded the money. It's so exciting and something tangible that the community can see which is great. We invision restarting the community basketball teams as well which will hopefully play into the new sports stadium being renovated at the end of town. Even though I miss playing basketball like crazy, this is an awesome way to keep in the game.

The view from my office..