Day 5- family visits

Monday, June 4, 2012

This morning started as many others do but that didn't continue like that too long. I got up and prepared to go running at 7:20 after going to bed late again because we hung out with Morgan and Evan (blogging, picture editing, and playing banana grams). Most people decided they were going to sleep in so it was just going to be one of the students and me. She (Lauren) ended up turning her alarm off so I was the only one up. Needless to say, I got ready and then got right back in bed. It was nice to sleep in a little bit longer though.

After breakfast, we went to the Kosovo Project's office. The NGO, National Government Organization (like a nonprofit), is focused on widows, orphans, and poor families. This is the group with which we are working alongside to do the summer camp. Today, we were able to help some of the needy families in the surrounding villages. Our team split into four groups with a translator in each group. My group was with Fatos and we actually got to go into his village of Gilance. I got to go along with Morgan, Emily, Hannah, Lena, Kyle, Aryn, and Peyton. We road in a van with some guy we didn't know. He didn't speak English. The van wouldn't start and we had to be pushed to get going. From that point on we knew it would be an interesting story. The village wasn't too far away and the family was very kind. They brought out pillows for us do we could all sit down on the porch. Then we were given juice while we talked. There were two ladies (possibly sisters) and there were five kids. One lady talked most of the time. The conversation varied from topics like stitching/decorative bead decorations to how she didn't know how to read but how her daughter liked to pray five times a day. During the conversation we heard this loud noise that was like a gun shot. We all jumped. The daughter left an egg cooking in a mug or something and it popped and busted everywhere!!! Morgan shared a little bit about the reason we are in Kosovo too and about the camp. Before we left, they gave Morgan the bead decoration. The visit was nice but our driver came to collect us and we had to say our goodbyes. We went back to Rozafa to wait for lunch but Berat let us know we needed to eat fast and go back to the office for our next visit. We ate chicken burgers at a little restaurant by the school (Egzona/Pizza Express) and rushed to the office just to find out our group didn't actually get to go on another visit because we covered all of them.

Jeremy's group had a really neat time with their families too.

Morgan, Emily, and I played Monopoly Deal while we waited for everyone else to get back. This game, along with Banana grams, has become a trip favorite. When everyone got back, we went to the pool for the rest of the afternoon. The pool is fresh water from the mountains, which are in the distance. The big pool was freezing. I was sitting on the edge talking to Morgan and Ty pushed me in. Once I was wet, I went down the water slide. Right before I went down the boy in front of me pulled down his pants. I guess this was supposed to make him go faster because I got stuck a few times and I was laying flat and pushing off. That pool was a little warmer. After doing a little more swimming, we jumped off the diving board and the decided the big cold pool wasn't for us. The rest of the time was filled with talking and watching our students play volleyball in the shallow/warm kiddy pool. Somehow it got brought up that Valdete didn't know what a four leaf clover was so her and I searched on our hands and knees looking for one. I wish I was good at spotting them because I really wanted to find one for her. Jana used to find lots in a short period of time when we were waiting on kids to get picked up after track so I thought maybe I'll have her luck today. I never found one though, but we did have lots of laughs as we searched. Valdete's daughter (Lediana) even joined us a while and kept picking three leaf ones but thought they were four leaf ones because we was counting them twice!

We had dinner with the Foresters so we could talk about the manuscript study for the day. Most of the team ate there too. I have really loved our conversations with them over the past few days. After dinner, we had share time and watched a movie.

Here are our fun pictures from the pool.

The view from the pool. Oh my breath is constantly taken away.

Playing cards while drying off.

Four leaf clover hunting

Jeremy and I have new names- Ma and Pops. Kyle and Parker named us this. They were hilarious last night as they acted as our sons. Jeremy gave his testimony tonight because he was chosen by the kids. They were chanting "Pops! Pops!..." Jeremy paid for some ice cream yesterday for a few people and we joked about them getting me chocolate to make up for us spending money on them. We woke up to a note and bar of chocolate on our door! These kids are so much fun.