Home Stay Family

After a hectic and informative training week at the hotel in Kumanovo, all 37 of the Mak 14's (Macedonian Volunteers in the 14th group)were nervous and excited to meet our host families to begin what the PC (Peace Corps) calls PST (Pre-Service Training). The smaller groups include 6 volunteers where each person stays at a host family who provide room and board. It is a way for the volunteer to transition into the language and customs of the host country. The week is very structured: language classes from 8-12 with our LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator), lunch, training projects in the afternoon, dinner, homework, maybe free time or just good-old-fashion sleep. After a day of trying to wrap your head and mouth around the language, sleep comes easy. Overall, I feel very lucky with my PST experience of group, LCF and host family. Being placed with 5 other bright and talented PC Trainees, I feel like we are becoming a team. Also, our LCF, who has experience teaching Macedonian Literature at the University, carries with him a quick, dark wit that makes class fun with jokes and stories of the cultural barriers where some others have gotten caught in the hurdle. Moreover, having a host mother to cook amazing meals and do my laundry didn't take much adjusting to. We had a few awkward conversations over the language barrier about what I like and don't like to eat. Mostly it was just a matter of me pointing to things and giving the thumbs up or down. Yovanka has a smile that warms the morning and is always ready to make a cup of tea for me. With two host sisters, Dace (Dat-say, 16) and Eugenia (Af-ghan-ee-a, 15) who speak English, there is always someone to talk to. Sometimes we stay inside and do our homework, or got to the cafe and chat or people watch. Of course the home stay wouldn't be complete without a cat, Leo (Lay-o) who is a striped tabby and loves to cuddle up on my lap. With one week of PST training still swirling around in my head, I feel a little bit better about having a routine and working on the language with my host family and in the shops in town.

OCRegister ... Front Page News

http://headlines.ocregister.com/articles/-41557--.html OCRegister.com the morning read By RASHI KESARWANI Tiny ice crystals swim in Grey Goose vodka as Christine Moore nervously sets the classic martini on the bar. A rookie bartender who's already broken glasses and spilled drinks, Moore prays that the stern man at the bar doesn't complain and get her fired. She sucks in a breath as he takes a sip. “That's the best drink I've ever had!” For Moore, who works at Infusion, a popular restaurant in Ladera Ranch, it's a moment of triumph – if not the kind she bargained on at age 35. In 1998, when Moore finished college, she envisioned another path. She called it “The Script,” and it went something like this: Own a business, get married, have kids, buy a condo. But 11 years and several plot twists later, Moore is shelving the script. Today, she will board a plane destined for the Eastern European country of Macedonia. ACT I: Own a business Moore didn't grow up in a business-minded family. Her dad wrote computer manuals; her mom stayed home to raise the couple's nine children. Moore, the second-youngest child, loved puzzles. She sees running a business as akin to assembling a jigsaw puzzle, moving pieces until everything fits perfectly. Seven years ago, as a Cal State Long Beach grad with a flair for business and a passion for working with children, she launched Abacus Education. By the fall of 2007, Moore was set for a banner year. She was tutoring 10 students, had hired three other tutors and had secured a home-schooling client – a position that paid half her salary. But everything began to unravel on an overcast day in December. Moore was reading with her 7-year-old pupil at the child's home in San Clemente when they heard voices and footsteps in the other room. A blonde in a navy blue suit introduced herself as a real estate agent. “This is not a good sign,” Moore thought. The client's business had nose-dived. A few weeks later, the San Clemente house was sold, and the family moved away. Gone, too, was half of Moore's income. Month after month, clients dropped away. Moore doubted herself, not sure if she'd lost her business savvy or if she was simply a victim of economic forces beyond her control. Moore turned to her best friend, Debra Chavira, for advice. “I'm just really stressed out about not having clients,” she told Chavira. “Why don't you get a second job?” asked Chavira, a mortgage broker facing her own harsh business reality. Moore dismissed the idea as a sure sign of failure. “What's failing more?” Chavira replied. “Not paying your bills or getting a job?” Moore started to consider all her options. She took a bartending class, pored over MBA programs and looked into the Peace Corps. By fall, Moore found herself making cocktails at Infusion. ACT II: Marriage, kids, condo Moore, the hard-charging business owner, approached her quest for a husband as an academic pursuit, reading dating books and following to-do lists. She broke up with her boyfriend of eight years in 2005, a man she describes as sweet and kind. It just came down to timing: She was ready to get married, he wasn't. On the hunt for Mr. Right, Moore created a profile on match.com. She asked friends and family to set her up – a chore she describes as embarrassing. She joined social groups. All the while, she wondered: Why does this feel so forced? “I didn't find the joy in it,” she says. Moore did meet a lot of nice guys and had plenty of dates. But none of these men was willing to volunteer with her at Heart Outreach, serving meals and giving away hygiene bags. Eventually, Moore realized she could give herself permission not to play the dating game. Now she tells herself: “Maybe it isn't for me. And it's OK for it not to be.” ACT III: Rewrite The script When society's script – or our idea of how we're supposed to live our lives – doesn't fit, what then? Moore has decided she can't wait around. Instead, she's broadening her horizons. Last month, she ventured to Haiti, traveling from Port-au-Prince in a van to an area known as Les Cayes. Peering through the van's window, Moore saw streets lined with makeshift shops and heaps of garbage. Women in bright cotton dresses balanced bananas or laundry on their heads. Moore and 11 other volunteers were traveling to Espwa, an orphanage and school surrounded by lush trees and bushes. Moore spent a week in the school's small library, a cinderblock structure with a bookcase of about 100 titles. Her voice fills with joy and longing as she talks about Jackson, the shy 6-year-old who stayed at her side throughout her stay. They read Dr. Seuss' “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish” and Moore's favorite, “Hop on Pop” together, as the other boys in the school crowded around them. Moore says that visiting the orphanage – and the connections she made with the children – confirmed that she wants to adopt a child in the future, when she's ready to settle down. But that will have to wait at least two years. After a yearlong application process that she started before she began bartending, Moore was accepted by the Peace Corps as a business development volunteer in Macedonia. There, she will troubleshoot for business owners, tasks that will include performing market research for established businesses and securing grants for new enterprises. She hopes to help businesswomen gain a toehold in the economy. Moore says she felt she had two choices: Get married or join the Peace Corps. She laughs when she says it. It's shorthand for being comfortable with the life she's chosen, even if it doesn't follow the predictable script. After a year of making classic martinis, she's ready to write the next act. You can read about Christine Moore's adventures in Macedonia on her blog, cnaomimoorego.blogspot.com.

Packing, Purging.... Re-packing.

It seems as if the last week of my life was like a child in a sandbox making a pile of sand, then moving and making another pile, and more and more piles until she is surrounded by mounds until she has to stand up, brush herself off, and carefully navigate her way to the edge, tip-toeing between the heaps. Except with me it is not sand, it is the treasures, clothes, pictures, cards, books, and random nick-knacks that I have collected over the last 35 years. I question what I should keep, what goes to Goodwill, what I should store in the closet of my parents extra bedroom that they won't look in until I get back in 27 months, and what I should take with me. A favorite pair of pumps, a bracelet which carries sentimental value and those curve-hugging jeans are all great to have here in Southern Cal, but will they be useful in Macedonia where the temperatures get below freezing in the winters and as hot as hell in the summer? A big part of it is when the realization that I am actually leaving hits like a pit in the middle of my stomach, then my head gets light like a drop on a roller coaster and I just lay there in the middle of my piles contemplating my life in the past, present and future. For me, I see life as a series of choices. To get to this point I have made some pretty great choices, and I am confident that in the future I will undoubtedly follow that same pattern. So, the top that I couldn't live without a month ago sits at the bottom of the plastic garbage bag being crushed by the pants, the shoes and the bracelet that I gasped for when I saw them in the store window. And, there is a bag in the closet with other things that I hope to sit down with in the future, unpack, make piles and reminisce about my life in the past.