Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Reflections

This past weekend I went to Shales to visit my host family – it was so great to see them. I arrived to find that my host mom has kidney stones – yet she is still going out to the fields and mountains to work. I have so much fun with my family when I see them – and now that I can have longer conversations in Albanian it’s even better. My sister and I stayed up late Friday night talking, then on Saturday I went to visit her at the local government office where she works. After drinking coffee (I can not get enough coffee here – ever) and having lunch, I headed back to Elbasan, despite my family telling me numerous times they didn’t want me to go, and they couldn’t believe I had waited 3 weeks to come back to see them! I noticed a big difference going back to “village life” after living in Elbasan for 3 weeks. Living in the village does not provide the opportunity for much work (most families have farms/gardens), and basically the people that live there stay there all their lives, unless they leave to go work in Greece or Italy. Family units are the foundation of life in the village – almost every person that my host family introduces me to is a “kusheri” (cousin). The aura of village life is one of appreciation and contentment; there is not much complaining, and days are filled with genuine hard physical labor and talking with family and neighbors. One of the first things my host mom did when I got there was take me out to the garden, where we picked cucumbers (because she knows they are my fave!) and peaches off the tree (she had ulterior motives of course because I am tall enough to reach the ripe peaches)
My host dad, working in the field

Upon coming back to Elbasan I realized I had been attacked by flies – there were big red bites all over my legs and arms. No wonder the Peace Corps gives us mosquito nets to hang over our beds – they are killer here. I was able to enjoy some downtime on Sunday, starting off with a 6 mile run (Athens is only 20 weeks away – yikes!). The roads here are a bit complicated to run on (which is why I’ve been running in the park – but since one lap of the park is ½ mile, it can get a little mundane to run in circles). So needless to say I explored a side road only to be met by large rocks under my feet and construction vehicles passing me, leaving huge piles of dust in my face and eyes. (Thanks Mom and Dad for the Visine – it has come in handy!) My Sunday (and any downtime I get) was spent exploring, drinking coffee, spending time with Albi, reading, writing, listening to/downloading music, and dare I say it, cooking. The cooking part has been a bit difficult since I didn’t budget properly this month and am left with about 15 dollars for the next week.
At the Cross Border Institution Building Seminar

Ahh the joys of being a volunteer – it’s actually very satisfying to live like this, one because you really have to stick to a budget, which definitely means creative cooking, monitoring your travel, and thoroughly thinking through the shopping list (I have given up Diet Coke for this reason, and also because you can only find Coke Zero and Pepsi “Max” here – I would pretty much do anything for a cold Diet Coke right now). What you also realize though is that money distorts true visions of a satisfying life – we can easily live without many things that we “think” we can’t do without. Good ole consumerism – having a million choices staring us in the face every day doesn’t really leave us much choice but to jump on the bandwagon to keep up, even if we don’t have the means to. Being here has provided me the opportunity for me to focus on the service I came here to do.
The speed of life at times forces us to walk quickly, not listen to others, and not see those who are in need of help. Here in Albania, the people may need language help, technical help, or they may just need to talk with someone from a different culture to give them some hope for their own future or the future of their kids/grandkids. Taking part in these activities is the most rewarding part of being here.

“Our greatest mistake, as individuals, is that we walk throughout life with closed eyes and do not notice our chances. As soon as we open our eyes and deliberately search we see many who need help, not in big things but in the littlest things. Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him." – Albert Schweitzer, philosopher/theologian/musician/doctor

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Counterpart





Yesterday I went to the beautiful town of Pogradec (pronounced Po-gra-detz) for a Cross Border Institution Building seminar. The CBIB is an EU-funded project designed to help fund cross-border developmental projects in the areas of economic development, tourism promotion, environmental protection/promotion, and social interactions. This seminar provided the opportunity for organizations in Albania and Macedonia to meet and discuss potential projects. As it relates to this example, my role as a volunteer is to work with Ervini (my counterpart at the Bashkia – more about him later!) to build capacity in the area of project proposal writing. This would include methods of communication with the outside partner, collaborating for project ideas, preparing the proposal strategy and goals/objectives, identifying what financial needs are necessary, and analyzing how the project will be sustainable and provide added value to both countries. There also has to be capacity to manage the project if it is approved for funding.


When I first walked in and saw the translator at the head table I was relieved – until he started translating from Albanian – Macedonian and vice versa ☺ It’s a great exercise to listen to people speak Albanian, but with 2 foreign languages for a whole day it gets just a little overwhelming. During lunch we went across to the lake and took some photos (some you see here).

That brings me to my counterpart – who upon looking at my blog was shocked to see there were no photos of him. Ervini is my second brother here – he is a language teacher for the Peace Corps so I had a bit of an advantage in that I knew him in the 2 months of pre-service training. Since we started working together, he has started running with me in the mornings, we have our morning coffee ritual, he has helped me deal with my landlords and go to stores to translate, and he even brought me to the “coach” that is going to help me train for the Athens marathon. As a sidenote, when I had lunch with the mayor on my first day of work, we talked about the marathon and then he told Ervini to bring me to this coach that works out with a group at the futbol stadium. Well, Monday was my first day, and the coach runs a session with kids ages 7-16 (plus me, the 32 year old American girl) consisting of sprints and other variations of running drills. They do this 3x a week for an hour. Next week it looks like Ervini will be joining us (and I’m secretly hoping to convince him to run the marathon with me).

One of Ervini’s goals is to get a MacBook – he LOVES computers and anything technological – and is addicted to facebook and youtube. We talk about computers, music, movies, culture, and of course I try to speak Albanian with him as much as possible – even though sometimes he will only speak English – I don’t blame him since I can’t understand a lot of what he says! In the next two years I’m sure we will be able to learn a lot from each other – one thing that is so nice is that he comes into work every day with a smile on his face no matter what the situation. It is a refreshing feeling to get to work with someone so positive that really loves life and embraces every opportunity presented to him. Here’s to a great two years Ervini – but if you play that Michael Buble song one more time…Unë jam duke shkuar për të goditur ju!

Sunday, June 7, 2009

First week at site


I’ve finally started to settle into my new apartment here in Elbasan and am now an official Peace Corps Volunteer! The first week has been very interesting. First, it was a bit overwhelming to be at site on my own to do shopping and other things and have to speak Albanian – talk about immersion…when I speak the language sometimes I get tongue tied and forget words – which is especially awesome when I’m in the grocery store asking if they sell veal, which in Albanian is “mish vici”. I didn’t remember what it was, so I just said I wanted some “baby lopa” (baby cow). The clerk took me over to the baby bottle section. Needless to say it was a time consuming first trip to the grocery store.

My apartment is in need of some work – when I arrived and turned on the kitchen sink it just about exploded with a shower of water. I have to plug in the water “deposit” twice a day for 30 minutes to make sure that I have water. The toilet was running nonstop, and every time I flushed it water went everywhere. Then, I went into the guest bedroom and found a neat pile of termite-chewed wood on the floor. I’m not sure what they’re building, but now I’m enjoying the pleasant sound of the busy termites. Hey, we all have to make a living right?

Then there’s Albi, or should I call him “wolf dog”. Because he doesn’t have chew toys yet and since I wasn’t able to properly train him when I first got him, this first week has been a circus of him biting my feet, my legs, my clothes, and relieving himself as many times in my apartment as possible. Petsmart where are you?! Just as I can’t tolerate another cleaning-up session, he looks at me with those puppy dog eyes and I am convinced to make this work.

The good news now is that I got the plumbing fixed, I got internet installed, and I’m learning new recipes so I can actually cook ☺ The washing machine was a crapshoot, since I can’t read the settings or the knobs – but after 2 loads my clothes aren’t destroyed so that’s a good sign. When it gets to be winter it might be a different story - because right now my clothes are hanging outside on a clothesline drying. Apparently in the winter it might take 3-4 days to get the clothes dry…