Marching orders are in

Peace Corps sent my marching orders this week and my staging (orientation) starts on Friday, September 11th in Washington, DC. Apparently everything we need to know to leave the country for 2 years can be learned between 1:30 and 7:00 pm that day and then we fly on the 12th to Macedonia. After arriving in Macedonia's capital Skopje, my group (the 14th in Macedonia) goes to a city 20 miles north called Kumanovo. The first week our group (about 35 of us) has more orientation in our hub city, then we are split into 6 satellite towns around Kumanovo where we live with host families and do language and vocational training, reconvening every so often in the hub. Training lasts 3 months and then I'll be given a permanent assignment, probably in another part of Macedonia, after I'm officially sworn in as an official Peace Corps volunteer (inshallah).

My preparations for Macedonia center primarily on two areas--packing and learning the language(s). Before I leave, I think I will single handedly restore the American economy with my purchases of long underwear, wool socks, and waterproof boots--I've heard the Macedonian winter can be mighty cold. Peace Corps provides online language lessons which I diligently studied earlier in the summer and lately...well, less so. There are actually two languages spoken in Macedonia--Macedonian (which some say is a dialect of Bulgarian but I doubt the Macedonians would corroborate) and Albanian. Macedonian uses the Cyrillic alphabet (like Russian), so that adds an element of difficulty. One quarter to one third of the population speaks Albanian and once I'm in country, I'll find out if I'll be assigned to an Albanian community and therefore learning both languages.

Now of course my Macedonian/Albanian will be greatly furthered by spending the next two weeks in Costa Rica. I fly out tomorrow for 16 days of just about everything Costa Rica has to offer--beaches, the jungle, a volcano, and many critters.

This weekend, my Kalinowski aunts and uncles came by to help send me off and to meet my brother's fiancee, Jenny. The Kalinowski family motto is "The one who eats the fastest gets the most," which I believe comes from my grandfather being one of 19 kids, and eat we did! So a good time was had by all and I'm glad that we could catch up.

I return from Costa Rica on September 1st and I'll set out for DC on September 8th so I'll have a few days to visit my Beltway buddies. In between, I have one week to figure out what 100 lbs of belongings (plus a carry on) will accompany me to Macedonia!