The warm weather continues in Peshkopi. Last year, I don't think that I could sleep with my window open until April, but the reasonable February weather continues this year.
Again, not much new to report. School has been really mellow, and I've found a lot more satisfaction with my classes this year--fifth grade and sixth grade. In these classes, the students are largely at the same level and students who are behind still have the opportunity to catch up with their peers. You'd be surprised. Starting in seventh grade, the differences in English levels become really pronounced and the bottom level students have extremely slim chances of catching up, even by eighth grade. As such, it becomes really fulfilling to teach the students past tense, present continuous tense, and other grammatical concepts that never interested me, since these skills are what will allow them to stay engaged the following years.
Today's title come from an album that I recently listened to, Long Season (1996) by the Fishmans. Recently, I met an Albanian DJ at neat cafe called Radio Bar in Tirana (check out their Facebook page!). It was probably the first time in two years that I had good music talk, chatting about pretty obscure new wave bands and house musicians. So, I got in the groove of listening to something that I takes a little more work than my usual furgon tunes.
Wood chopping
It's a Peace Corps Albania tradition to paint a square canvas that represents our host sites at our close of service. Here are the paintings from my cohort.
Mine is in the top left
Sadly, the trees of the main boulevard have been liberally trimmed lately.
View of Peshkopi (from a hike this past weekend)
Recent site mate dinner. Rice, eggs, salad, and sugar cookies from America.
