Some of you know that our daughter, Heather, is embarking on a new phase in her life. This past Friday she flew out bright and early (way too early) to begin 27 months of service with the Peace Corps . She is now in Macedonia starting 3 months of training. She is part of a group of 39 volunteers – about half are teachers, the other half will be working in various community development areas. Heather will be serving as a Primary School English Resource Teacher.

While Macedonian history goes back some 3,000 years, it has only been a country since 1991. It has evolved a number of times over those years, most recently being a part of Yugoslavia. Mother Teresa was born in Skopje, the Macedonian capital. For you history buffs, Alexander the Great was a Macedonian. The country is fairly small, about the size of Vermont.

This week the entire group is together beginning training. In a week or so, the group should split into smaller groups of maybe 8-10 in a community. They will be living with a local host family. For the first 3 months they will be undergoing lots of training – learning about local cultures and customs, personal health and safety among other topics. And, of course, they will be taking an intensive course in Macedonian. If she were to be assigned to the northwest part of the country, near Albania, she would also have to study Albanian. Not sure at what point she will learn where she will be assigned for the remaining 24 months of service.

Heather arrived in Macedonia about 0630 our time Sunday morning (1230 local Macedonian time). She was able to call us yesterday evening using her Skype voice connection. Although tired from a whirlwind long weekend, she was very upbeat about beginning her service. This evening she talked with her aunt, telling her she had a busy day in school and had homework she had to finish up.

Her mother and I are very proud of Heather and her decision to spend 2+ years with the Peace Corps helping in a developing country. She is excited about her service, as are we. We know that she will do well and are hoping we will be able to work out a visit sometime during her service.

BTW, the reason Paul didn’t say much about their anniversary dinner is that he and Sue came up to join us at a farewell dinner for Heather. We appreciated Paul and Sue making the decision to spend their anniversary with us while wishing Heather well on her new endeavor.