Quick update on Heather. Have generally talked with her at least once a week - internet not readily available in the village she is in now. Got spoiled the first week when she had good internet access at the hotel they were in.

Heather is in total immersion language training - the family she lives with doesn't speak English, and she is just learning Macedonian (and a little Albanian). From her blog posts and our conversations, she has generally been enjoying the food, especially the quality of the fresh fruits and vegetables.

Living conditions are somewhat different than we have, but it sounds as if she is adapting. The most difficult one is that most homes have heat in only one room so it gets a bit cool - and they're not even into winter yet! She does enjoy the family she is living with, so that is good.

Living in the same village she is, there are a total of 8 Peace Corps volunteers. Some teachers, some community development. She has to walk everywhere she goes in the village, and is learning to use the Combi's to go to get to Kumanovo where she and one of the other teachers have been going for practicums in local classrooms.

Since she volunteered to go to a multi-lingual or multi-cultural community she was given her assignment early on. Unfortunately, this has changed since where she was to be housed became unavailable. She is kind of bummed about that as the village was 80% Turkish, 10% Macedonian and 10% Albanian which she felt would be an interesting setting. (Since I lived in Turkey for 2 years I think she was really interested in the assignment.) When I spoke with her today she indicated she will probably be given her new placement location sometime next week.

This weekend she is going to a field day of some sort. She said that most all of the Peace Corps volunteerotal s in the country should be there (about 100 tin country) so I'm sure it will be an interesting outing.