Dobro Dan! (aka Good Afternoon)

Zdravo!

I hope you are all having a splendid day as I am! So hmm- I realize that this blog has instead of turning into a once in a while up-date has turned into a play-by-play/ 12-yr old diary entry... but ya know, I'm totally cool with it! (once again, insert smiley face).

So yesterday was hot & muggy, and yet the sun was shining brightly. After work, Christina, Bree & I decided we needed to go to the market to get food so we don't have to keep eating salads and stuff. Interestingly enough, their 'supermarkets' are called by the name 'Bingo,' which I just found comical. But really, I was so surprised to find toothpaste, soaps, detergent. They actually had Nutella (which is one of my favs!). So that was an experience in itself...

After a refreshing night's sleep, I got up and went to work. Christina and I found out that we are going to be working on two projects. One of them we learned a whole heck of a lot about. It is a program that was started by CRP (the office under Mercy Corps that I am working for) called 'First-Aid in remote villages of Srebrenica, Vlasenica and Milići,' and it was started in 2004. So basically to give you some background, there are all of these remote villages throughout Bosnia, but CRP is focusing on the Eastern side. The goal of this program is to ensure that the communities throughout these areas are equipped with medical supplies. Some of these villages are over 25 miles away from the nearest medical facility, and when accidents occurr they usually end up dying because no help was able to reach them at all (in regards to bad weather) or have to have extensive medical work done because they were left so long. So CRP not only provided these materials along with the local Red Cross, but has also trained hundreds of volunteers that live within these villages.

Now this is where Christina and I come in! (hahah) So, our job is to take a look at all of the aspects of these projects and see if there is anything that may need to be tweaked and in what way. So essentially, we are doing a program evaluation on what they are currently doing, and what they could be doing in the future to better these communities situations. So I am pretty pumped about that! And I just think this whole program in and of itself is pretty awesome. The other program that we are going to be doing falls under the human rights category, but we are to learn the details of that tomorrow, I believe. ALSO! with the first project I was telling you about, we are going to one of those villages to go check it out and have coffee with the locals to see what its all about! We were suppose to go tomorrow, but we are going to go next Tuesday instead.

The language piece is coming a bit easier for us all. I can only imagine that I will be speaking serbo-croatian very well by the time I get home, hehe. It's pretty cool though, because we like to go to this little cafe, called Česma. The wait staff are all really nice to us. It's interesting though, tipping is sometimes a 'no'no' and that's only because people usally don't have the money to tip. But, we asked our boss Alma, and she said that it depends..'If you asked for a coffee, and the guy brings it to you and he is a A-whole (she actually said the word, but this is a pg blog people, so use your imaginations!) then you don't tip, if he brings it to you with a smile and is nice, then you can tip.' She's been really helpful, hahaha and funny.

So this weekend we are all going to take a trip down to Sarajevo to see all of the other girls who are stationed in Bosnia too! I am pretty pumped about that, but also because we are just going to get out and see more of Bosnia! We are mainly going to celebrate some of the girls' birthdays, so that should be a ton of fun!

Oh, so to update everyone else other than my Mom and Frank, I'm looking in to getting a USB thing that allows me to get wifi in my computer so that we are able to be on the internet a lot in the apartment and skype whenever we want too! So, I'm hoping by the end of this week/ beginning of next that I will have it, because I really want to skype with people. Then I can show you the apartment! hahaha! And I'll also be able to put up pics too!!

Ok, well I think I've written enough of a novel to keep you entertained for a while, hehe. I love you all! Check back soon to get the update of this crazy Bosnian lifestyle!