Practicum Continued

We are well into week 7 of Pre-Service Training, and we are all required to wrap up our practicum projects.  This week has been very light on work since classes have been reduced to three hours per day.  The TEFL teachers are spending their afternoons visiting schools and accompanying teachers so that they may partially teach an English class.

For the Community Development volunteers, we are all putting the final touches on our practicum projects.  Emily and I met with our organization weeks ago and had decided to promote their website within Lozovo.  The website that the organization designed is actually pretty nifty- citizens from each municipality are able to register through the website and provide their input to how the municipal government should spend its budget.  After the municipal government finalizes its budget, the website tracks the needs of the community and how the municipal government spends the tax-payers’ money.   We planned to meet at the pazar last Thursday to promote the website to the citizens of Lozovo, but when Emily and I looked for them after class, we could not find them.

We arranged a meeting with them earlier this week in Veles to discover that they had in fact arrived at the pazar on Thursday and were able to meet with a few citizens.  However, they had arrived when we were in class and were unable to stay after class ended since they had a meeting back in Veles later that day. Emily and I assured them that we were in no way offended, and we only felt bad that we could not be of more help.  However, the organization assured us that their visit to Lozovo was more successful than they had imagined.  The mayor of Lozovo called them for an impromptu meeting and was happy to promote their website to the community. 

The Peace Corps has prepared us for the professional work experience and culture in Macedonia.  Keeping in mind the 80/20 rule (aka, generalizations are just that, and do not apply to every organization), most organizations are relaxed on timeliness and formalities.  Most successes in Macedonia are measured by connections and networks and not necessarily by accomplishing tasks.  Thus the organization had a huge success on Thursday- they gained the backing and promotion of this municipality’s mayor.  Emily and I have also volunteered to serve as a facilitator for the website.  If citizens from Lozovo experience problems with the website, they are free to call us and ask for help.  Emily and I created a beautiful poster, and we will present our practicum project to the other volunteers on Monday during Hub Day. 

Oh yeah, and Happy Halloween!