So so long ago

In a nutshell, here is what happened this week

• Went to a local village to teach a girl to juggle. She is going to be in a play and is a clown. She is a quick learner..and hopefully what took me years to learn while sitting on the bench during baseball, she learned in a few months.
• The new PCVs arrived a few weeks ago and one stayed at my place to see the life and times of a PCV. His name is Chris and will be placed in a village about 30 minutes from me. 3 other girls stayed with the other girls here in Lezhe and for a weekend we kinda had a back to college weekend..hiking playing pingpong and had power hour (a drinking game where, whenever the music changes, you take a shot of beer)...every 1 minute it changes..there is a website to log onto for more info on such fun games. One of the girls is a very good pingpong player. The 5 girls and 1 guy and I crashed the "All boys" bar showing girls can drink and play pingpong too. The boys in the bar are getting used to the weird American...first I play a lot of pingpong/second I am older than all and beat most of them, third, I brought a dog in, forth brought in girls that drink and play pingpong and lastly, they watch the NFL playoffs one night with the Americans....
• I did my presentation to the new PCVs on the business environment of Albania what to expect and what we can do to help.
• Went to Skrapar, a small village 6 hours south and with 4 other volunteers and 5 highschool kids as guides we went on hikes to caves the communist dug to hide from the mean Americans. The sencond day, our guides picked us up at 7:00 am and we then headed to natural caves to find bats flying around our heads. All in all a great weekend with movies, homemaker stir fry, and good company.
• Last week was Bills birthday dinner. 3 of us went to a village 1 hour away and had dinner with his former host family.
• Work update..Website is as complete as it will be...the Director after 8 months still has not given me information and is getting tired of me asking for it...now instead of saying next week..he just changes the topic.
• CAAP website..first meeting should be this week...we will see.
• Outdoor Ambassadors...had a great beach clean-up week 30 bags filled 15 kids lots of fun and Frisbee football and futbol.
• The next meeting only had 3 people and had some disciplining to do...not a good feeling after that one.
• The survey is still in the studying stage...the big push to get it done was this weekend...nothing came about it...so that just means I have to go out of the D of A to get things done. We asked the farmers what was needed...according to them/the results we cannot help them a more than we do...My fears that I stated before the survey came true... I recommended training our surveyors ...it did not happen...recommended a date to complete the survey...never made and still not completed....Surveyors not really taking it seriously...bingo again.
• So what i have is 100 document..sitting on the desk in my office all in Shqip and nobody is looking at it..
• To days a good thing to be followed up by a bad thing...a bunch of kids always ask where I am going...I always say to a bar/cafe to read...this time I said you get a book I will buy you a drink/cola.That first day when well. Yesterday I invited a 12 year old girl to join us, and the boy got mad since girls "don't" belong in cafes. So much for trying to change a culture, maybe he will show up anyway and get over it.