Just days after graduation former Calvin College Student Senate President Jeremy Konyndyk left for relief work in Albania with International Aid, Inc.

Recently he sent e-mail to the Calvin campus, bringing friends up-to-speed on his efforts there. Excerpts appear below: 

". . . I'm getting settled in here in Peshkopi, although not too much since I am still in the hotel . . . I am enjoying my job very much, so far. From what I have seen in the past week, I anticipate that the next six months will be alternately very frustrating and very fulfilling. "There is much work to be done here -- Albania is poorer than I had anticipated. The nation's infrastructure is in shambles . . . The roads are uniformly speckled with potholes, and in some cases it is generous to refer to them as "roads" (a more accurate description would perhaps be: a collection of small hills and valleys over which one is forced to drive). 

"The phone system is in terrible repair and is very primitive, which makes email, faxing, etc. very difficult . . . The standard living conditions in much of Albania are such as would be considered to be among the worst slum tenements in the U.S. "In sum, it is hard to imagine a country less suited to handle close to 500K refugees than Albania. 

". . . I am dealing daily with other international organizations and NGOs, and learning a great deal . . . It's very exciting to be involved in the relief process. It's also nice to finally be doing work that has a broad and extremely relevant impact. Doing Senate stuff at Calvin was fulfilling in its own way, but was small fry compared to this. 

". . . I monitor the projects that we are funding and I work to ensure their timely completion. I assess what changes, if any, are needed depending on fluctuations in the situation, and recommend to IA HQ that we undertake these changes. For example, I have recommended a change of direction and expansion of our food provision program based on the current political situation (long story). I also network with other NGOs in town and try to coordinate IA's efforts with theirs. One such project was making sure that our food provision program didn't duplicate or overlap what World Food Programme is already doing. Finally, I keep my eyes open for other projects we should/could be doing and recommend them to IA. I recently received the green light from IA for one such recommendation. With their approval I will take over management responsibilities for a camp of 130 refugees and the adjoining transit centre through which all new refugees pass when they first arrive in Peshkopi.

"Working and talking with the refugees has also been very interesting and rewarding. There are truly all kinds of people here, each with their own story - from the peasant women who wept as they told me about being expelled from their homes by Serb soldiers and swore that when they made it back they would hang a picture of Clinton on their wall forever, to the young hairdresser from Mitrovica who simply sleeps every day because there is nothing else for her to do, to the english teacher from Prizren who wants me to join him there when he returns, to the blues-loving former basketball player from Pristina who yearns to leave the Balkans forever. It is quite an experience."