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

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!

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…

Traveling around Albania

The past two weekends have been packed – last weekend 3 of us went to a city called Librazhd to visit a fellow trainee, and also to work on the presentation for the photography contest to be held at our counterpart conference. Each trainee submitted 5 photos to be put in the presentation, and we ended up with over 140 fabulous pics – I have posted the link for viewing pleasure. It was a fun project but a time consuming one, especially since each caption needed to be translated into Albanian. It was great being in Librazhd and with friends – we all went for a run Saturday morning, which was nice especially because it wasn’t raining! (I have gotten caught twice running in rain/hail/thunderstorms…not fun with huge mud puddles and cars who seem to love to drive by as close as possible and splash the American girl)

Sunday was packing time, as the whole group left Monday for Tirana for our counterpart conference. This was the first time for everyone to meet their counterparts, me being the exception since I already know him – so I felt lucky and probably a little less nervous for that first introduction (especially for those who have counterparts who speak no English – how awkward those first moments are). We stayed Monday and Tuesday at a beautiful hotel in the mountains – and it was hot enough for us to enjoy the pool. Monday we went on a “tour” of Tirana, which consisted of eating lunch at a Mexican/American/Albanian/Italian restaurant – I think they had trouble picking a theme. And for some reason many restaurants here have birds in them…yes, either birds in cages or random birds that you hear and can’t see. At this restaurant there seemed to be one behind me, in between two walls. Oh – and I also went to one house where they had birds flying in the hallway. And they think it’s odd to let dogs inside…hmmmm.
After lunch we visited an American bookstore and walked around the center of Tirana. I was shocked when we walked through the park and saw a baby who couldn’t have been more than 4 months old just laying on the ground on top of a cardboard box. Sadly, sights like these are not uncommon – the gypsy community here (called the Roma) is extremely poor and they will often use their children to solicit money or food. To use that young of a baby though!? It was disturbing and heart wrenching. (On a more positive note, one of the projects I will be working on is the opening of a new Roma school for these children…) This is just one of many areas that volunteers help with here – keep in mind in Elbasan alone there is an unemployment rate of 37%, there is no waste management system, and the electricity goes out about 3-4 times a week.

Tuesday we presented recaps of our community projects, to give our counterparts an idea of how we can be of service. Our community project was Earth Day – we taught the students at our school the concept of reduce, reuse, recycle – and showed them through educational and interactive sessions different ways they can reuse trash. It was a huge success– we had about 150 kids show up, plus the school director and members of the community (who helped us translate). My station taught the students the effects of river pollution – each student had to write down some characteristics of trash, and then we discussed the impact trash has on our drinking water and the fish in the rivers – that we eventually eat. The kids then made a collage out of trash, representing the decomposition that occurs from the moment the trash hits the river. Since the event we have seen kids in the community stop others who are just throwing their trash on the streets/in the canals – and the teachers in the schools will continue to use our activities in their classrooms.


Wednesday everyone went separate ways to their future sites – I spent 2 days at the Bashkia, getting familiar with my workplace and meeting everyone. The mayor’s office was impressive and he was very welcoming and supportive of me being there. Now more than ever I’m very anxious to speak better Albanian because it will make my job of capacity-building that much more rewarding. Volunteers have shared that the first few months at site build your patience because of the language barrier, learning curve and the fact that a big focus is gaining people’s trust. This makes perfect sense – I don’t know how trusting I would be if a volunteer from a foreign country came into my workplace for 2 years to teach me – the essence of change is always hard enough with people we can understand!

Another highlight of my time in Elbasan was that I visited my future apartment – the landlord was nice, and I’m thrilled to report that she has no problem with me having Albi inside – yippee! It is on the second floor of a house, with 2 bedrooms, a makeshift kitchen (the fridge is a mini – I won’t be buying in bulk), and 2 balconies. Plus I actually have a bathtub and a western toilet – phew…since there is only a turkish toilet in the Bashkia I was more than thankful…

This week is the last week before swearing in. It’s bittersweet in a way, I have grown close to my host family and it will be hard to say goodbye, on to yet another destination in this 2-year journey. I’m sure there will be plenty of visits, since I am only 30 minutes away. But now I’m being sent out into the community, on my own for everything. They say the Peace Corps has its ups and downs and you will be on a rollercoaster the whole time – time to buckle up.

Kruja

Today our whole group took a trip to Kruja, Albania – it was about a 3-hour bus ride one way. On the way we visited a town called Fush-Kruja – which is the town that George Bush visited when he came to Albania in 2007. They actually renamed the café where he had coffee to the Bush Café (STM). Kruja attracts many tourists (even though so many towns here have huge tourism potential – one of the things volunteers work on). The biggest attractions are the Skanderbeg museum and the castle- we visited both of these and also walked around the town, which had amazing views. There is also a market (bizarre) on cobblestone streets – here you will get your fill of traditional Albanian clothing, souvenirs, and basically anything with the Albanian flag icon on it. On the way back from Kruja we stopped in Durres – one of the biggest cities in Albania, located on the western coast. Everyone loves when we can get some time near the ocean – plus there was a beautiful hotel right on the beach –with an amazing pool and outdoor dance floor/café. Looks like the weekend road trip plans to the beach are starting to come together…


Since we were in Elbasan all week last week, I didn’t get much time to hang with Albi – so I brought him along on the bus trip. He slept a lot on the bus, and he made a new friend – my teacher’s 7-year old son. The two were inseparable and had me chasing after them the whole day (which was quite interesting considering he doesn’t speak any English). At the hotel in Durres I actually collapsed on the ground from exhaustion, until the hotel guard yelled at me for sitting on the grass. On the bus ride home Albi fell asleep on his lap, and I handed him my iPod (which he loved) - he fell asleep listening to music he can’t understand.

Gettin Down to Business

This week we had our practicum – all the Community Development trainees spent the week visiting different government offices in Elbasan to gain a better understanding of the government structure, learn what progress has been made economically during the past few years, and to hear about where the opportunities lie for us as volunteers to contribute. Fortunately for me, being in Elbasan gave me the ability to meet some of my future colleagues, and I was able to spend some time in the Economic Development office where I will be based. I also visited the Tax Department and the Office of Social Services. Although I can understand more Albanian every day, it is still very difficult to be in a work environment and not be able to understand the conversation. As challenging as learning the ropes of a new job is, the added language barrier makes it that much more important that we pay close attention to the surroundings and also to body language.

Each volunteer gets assigned an Albanian counterpart that we work with on projects over the two years. My counterpart is one of the Peace Corps Albanian teachers – so I am lucky to already know him and to be able to spend time with him in these final few weeks before swearing in (May 28 – the big day). He has agreed to only speak English to me when absolutely necessary, to help me reach my goal of becoming completely fluent in Albanian. Speaking English at this point hinders the learning, even though sometimes it takes me 5 minutes to speak a sentence that in English would take me 5 seconds…

Albi

Last Sunday was a big day – I went to Elbasan with one of my sitemates to do some shopping and to use the internet. When we left the internet café, I spotted a small animal across the street, with a few people near it that were paying it some attention. At first I wasn’t sure what it was, was it a huge guinea pig? A baby bear? Or maybe it was a misplaced raccoon. I crossed the street and finally realized that it was a puppy – AND that it was all alone – none of the people that were around it were claiming it to be theirs. I couldn’t believe my eyes – this puppy was so adorable, and so small…and it was all alone walking on the streets, surely to meet its demise sooner than later.

Without hesitation I picked him up and decided to take him home – some would think twice about this, but given the fact that I have been wanting a dog here in Albania since I got here – and I especially wanted a puppy – I felt there was no way this was a coincidence. Here he was.



Taking him home would not be an easy feat. Since most dogs in Albania are not pets, there are different views here. Dogs are often abused and neglected - and they are certainly not trained. Given the fact that this puppy is so young – I would guess he’s probably no more than 4-5 weeks old – I thought this would be a great opportunity to show people here how dogs can be great pets. I also thought it would provide a chance to share a facet of American culture – owning a dog as a pet and taking care of it.



Unfortunately, my host family did not like the fact that the puppy was crying outside all night (they absolutely would not let him in the house) and today I found out that they did not want him at all – inside or outside. I was crushed – but at the same time I can understand that dogs are not for everyone and I need to respect my family’s wishes. There was a big dilemma though – how could I still keep the puppy? (oh – I named him Albi, short for Albania…would love some feedback on the name. I’m also not sure what kind of dog he is??) There was no way I was just going to let him go back out into the streets. I even went to the vet here in town and arranged for him to get his vaccinations. My sitemates joined in my frustration, and rallied together to find a safe place at one of the other houses where Albi can sleep. He will still be outside, but we created a kennel for him with boxes, and he has some blankets to keep him warm. He had a bath and some fresh milk on Monday, and on Friday I was able to get a collar and some food for him.

Every morning I will go get Albi, feed him breakfast, and have him accompany me during the day whenever possible. When I move to Elbasan in 5 weeks he will be able to come with me, and have a warm home. It will be well worth the wait when you think about what could have been the alternative.