Lezhe, Albania

This weekend all the trainees went on volunteer visits - we get split up to stay with a volunteer who has already been working in Albania for a year. I traveled to Lezhe (pronounced Lay – sha) – a town of about 35,000 people about an hour north of the capital Tirana. Lezhe has great mountainous views, plus it’s about 7 km from the beach – so we spent some time by the water (Adriatic Sea). It was great to get perspective on life as a volunteer from those who have been living it…
I stayed with a girl named Leslie who has been working in the Community and Organization Development sector at the Bashkia (the town government office). She works with the director of hospitality and tourism. Albania has so much potential in this area. For example, we hiked up to Lezhe Castle, which is absolutely beautiful and offers some of the best views of Albania – no one was up there (except for the herd of sheep we ran into and the snake that we saw – yikes!). Instantly we thought of how this attraction could make some money for the town – tours, day trips, a gift shop, etc. (is this too American?)
Part of Leslie’s job consists of developing brochures and materials about Lezhe (in both Albanian and English) to showcase its history and provide detailed information about the town features. Apparently this one brochure has been held up because there was some discrepancy on how it would get printed… they couldn’t decide what paper to print it on, what size to make it, etc. And the volunteer and the director also disagreed on the layout of the photos in the brochure - I was having déjà vu of the planner/artist disputes of my past… ☺

In addition to the Bashkia we also visited several places that the volunteers do work with - a center for mentally disabled children, a Red Cross center for the elderly, and the World Vision office – a non-governmental organization that is dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.…. The center for mentally disabled children was very eye-opening, considering these children (I use that word loosely, some are in their 30’s…) are not able to receive the care/education that can help them develop. The teachers are not trained to teach the mentally disabled, and there is a lack of educational materials to strengthen motor skills and expand their learning capabilities. Due to a shortage of funding there is also no available space for the children to get outside and get exposed to sporting activities – and the classrooms are getting more crowded each year. When asked why there were so many boys compared to girls, we were told that the families do not expect the girls to be able to do anything other than take care of the house – however the boys need to be able to grow their minds so that they can thrive in their communities. Very interesting reality here… Currently, volunteers in Lezhe are working on submitting a proposal to get more educational materials to the center.

All in all it was a great weekend – we even visited a café with ping pong tables – who would have thought? And I met my match – Peter (a volunteer from CA) beat me twice – and it was a pretty poor performance on my part. Oh well, at least I have 2 years to redeem myself…