Back in Albania...

A little side note about my re-entry back into Albania coming back from Turkey. After my stint out of the country, it was only appropriate that I should have a typical Albanian welcome back into the country. As I was headed back to the capital of Macedonia [Skopje], I assumed there would be pretty frequent buses between it and Tirana…seeing as they’re both capital cities and all. However, when I arrived at 7 am to Skopje, the bus to Tirana wasn’t until 7:30 pm that night. So I ended up on a bus headed for another border crossing closer to Lake Ohrid. I ended up getting dropped off close to the border with 2 polish backpackers also trying to cross into Albania. The 3 of us got a taxi to get across the border.

The drive was only 5 km and should have only taken about 5 minutes. About 2 minutes into the trip, our driver hits dead-on a stray dog running towards our car [not even an attempt to swerve as to try and miss it]. Sadly, I’m used to this occurrence…but the 2 Polish guys in the back yelled “ohhhh fuck man!! …what are you doing!?” They were certainly shocked! About 30 seconds after this, our engine starts smoking. The driver pulls over and realizes that his car is overheating. So he proceeds to grab a plastic bottle from his car and fill it with ditch water and dump it inside the steaming engine. We start going again, but about 50 yards down the road he stops again to dump water on the engine. We do this about 4 more times [by now we’ve been in the car 20 minutes], until finally all of us get out on the side of the road and try to stop any car that’s going past us headed to the border. Finally, another taxi returns from the border and our driver gets him to take us there.

After getting there and crossing over to the Albanian side of the border, I used the most disgusting Turkish toilet I have yet to use in this country! Think unmaintained Turkish toilet…upwards of at least 6 months! It was disgusting!!...and smelled like dead babies! Ugh!
After this, we’re pretty much stranded on the Albanian side of the border waiting for anyone to drive by us headed in our direction. The 2 Polish guys were ridiculous (and very funny) and proceeded to try and hitchhike for us with the most ridiculous poses…think cheerleaders…or yogis…but instead 2 Polish guys with beards hoisting out their thumbs. Most Albanians drove past us laughing…and a few gave us thumbs-up for looking like fools! Finally, a mini-bus came by and got us on the right track. I parted with the 2 Polish guys as they were headed a different way and I continued my 7 hour journey down towards Gjirokaster in the south of the country to experience part of the folk festival!

However, I couldn’t help but laugh about my cliché arrival back into the country…broken down cars, awful toilets, wild animals, and a considerable amount of waiting on the side of a road [story of my life in Albania]. Mire se vini ne Shqiperia!!

Reflections on Turkey

It was especially nice to be in a city welcoming of tourists and to not feel awkward wandering around with a huge pack on. In Albania if you’re walking around with a travel pack, people usually stare or say rude things making you feel super self-conscious. It was nice to not feel so ostracized and to just fit in with the loads of foreigners there. I forget what it feels like to be normal…or at least not to stand out so much.
It was interesting being in Istanbul and seeing the parts of Turkish culture that are still prevalent in Albanian culture…and also to realize the huge differences. Some of the vocabulary is similar. Beyond that, some of the mannerisms and body language are also similar. Certainly in the bazaars it was easy to see the Turkish influence on Albanian haggling and bargaining and the aggressiveness of the sellers sometimes. In Turkey, as in Albania, there’s usually a person out in front of the shop/bazaar stall that tries to charm the customers walking by [such slogans as “oh I have missed you long time,” or “hello beautiful girl, where are you from?...”]. It’s almost a competition to see who can be the most charming…in the abrasive sense, of course. They also love yelling prices at you or picking up and showing you everything that you have no interest in.
It was extremely interesting to me that while Turkey would seem to be more conservative…there are at least more people openly practicing Islam…it was socially more liberal. What I mean is this. In Albania, while the country is technically around 80% Muslim, the majority of these people are only culturally so and do not practice the religion. You would think that if they have lost the ties to the religious aspect of Islam, their social standards would also be somewhat different. However, the social code is very conservative…women work at home and stay at home most of the time. The men frequent the bars and go to the cafes and play dominoes. Even if couples are married, they rarely go out together and VERY rarely display public affection. In Istanbul, it was the opposite [not to say that the rest of Turkey is like this…I imagine they would be more conservative not being in such a major metropolitan area]. There were certainly more women covered in long dresses and head scarves practicing Islam…but they would be walking down the street holding hands with their boyfriends or out to dinner or something. It was just SO nice to be back in mixed-gender company and not be the only woman out after 8 pm! It was nice not to be so special for once [I’ll probably get back to America and wonder why I don’t get all the attention any more ;) ]
Lastly, I realized after being in the Peace Corps for a few months, my standards for hostels have gone down the crapper. Pretty much anything seems nice to me! After sleeping on numerous questionable surfaces…visiting Albanians, sleeping over at other PCVs houses, using wool blankets that looked about 100 years old and hadn’t been washed for maybe that long, etc…where sometimes I’d be lucky to have a blanket, pillow, or sleeping surface besides a floor, anything is an upgrade from that! I realized my perceptions had changed when a friend I made came to meet me at my hostel and commented that his was so much better! Oh man! …I thought I was at the 4 Seasons! Sharing a room with 8 people where I actually got my own bed, blanket, and pillow! …and there was running water and electricity all night! ….what can I say, I guess my standards have changed :)

Trip to Turkey!

I took a brief trip to Istanbul towards the end of September, and while I had been planning on doing the trip for a while, it ended up being perfect timing for me taking a little breather from Albanian culture. I spent about 5 days there but even with the short amount of time, I love the city! I met up with another volunteer friend for the first few days and then flew solo for the last few days meeting new people and making new friends.
After finally making my way out of Albania (after 2 mini-buses, a taxi, another bus and getting to a city where the info I had found on-line about a bus to Istanbul was incorrect…so I had to get another bus to Skopje—the capital of Macedonia—where there was actually a bus!), it was about a 13 hour bus ride from Skopje to Istanbul. Unfortunately, I confused many members of the Macedonian Muslim community because I was traveling on Big Bajram (end of Ramadan)…and since I was speaking Albanian with them, they couldn’t understand why I was by myself on such a big holiday and kept asking if my mom and dad where back in Macedonia because everyone spends Big Bajram with family. Nope! They are definitely back in America!...
I got into Istanbul at about 6 am and wasn’t meeting up with my friend until 3 pm that day. So I went to the touristy area (by the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya) and watched the city wake up. I always love seeing cities as they come to life. I will admit that my first official stop after getting in on the bus was a Starbucks! No shame! But after 6 months of mediocre coffee with no variety in Albania, I was ready for my hazelnut soy latte! And crazily enough…in the Starbucks I frequented I found 2 other Peace Corps volunteers serving in Azerbaijan. They actually are serving with one of my dance friends from college—Evan! Small world!
My first day in Istanbul I spent wandering around the city. Istanbul is HUGE and gorgeous! I spent quite a bit of time in the Taksim area which is probably the most westernized part of the city with its more youthful population and its excess of western stores. It was nice to go shopping after 7 months! It’s also the place for nightlife! Somehow we ended up going out 3 nights in a row until at least 4 am! Every night I said I was going to get to sleep early…but somehow I ended up out dancing […once I get dancing, you all know I can’t stop]. However, it was nice to be able to go OUT again…since at my site in Albania everything is closed by 9 pm now. And I certainly can’t go out dancing! Dancing highlights included a Prince tribute (requested by myself) and I got into a dance-off with a 45 year-old man! He’d been dancing up on the stage all night like he was hot shit…dressed all in black, mustachioed, and wearing …none other than a doo-rag! It was slightly amazing! [in the ridiculous sense, o f course!].
Otherwise I did most of the touristy things—I went to the Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar, the Aya Sofya, shared a hookah with friends, ate fish sandwiches by the river, drank Turkish coffee with Turkish delight, drank apple tea, and ate some FABulous mezes! (like tapas, but Turkish style) I also ended up taking a cruise up the Bosporus to the Black Sea. I did not take a Turkish Bath nor did I see the Asian side of the city…but like I say…always leave something to go back for. I think my favorite things I did were the spice bazaar (shocker of the year…I could have probably spent 3 days there), and the Aya Sofya. The Aya Sofya was originally built as a church but then was turned into a mosque and now stands as a museum. It was just crazy walking into a place that was juxtaposed with so much religious imagery it almost brought me to tears. Scripts in Arabic juxtaposed next to a mosaic of the Angel Gabriel, etc. It was awesome!
My other favorite thing I did was the last meal I ate. A newly-made American friend and I went to an area that’s full of outdoor restaurants strung with lights. We determined that we were not going to go to a restaurant if the waiter accosted us to eat there [frequent occurrence in Turkey is for the waiters to compete to get customers by basically charming you and grabbing you and seating you and forcing you to hear the menu]. So we ended up at one where no one had said anything to us, and they didn’t even have a menu outside and it was full of a bunch of older Turkish m en. It ended up being the perfect meal with amazing food! We even received a free round of raki and grapes from the table beside us because one of the men heard me say something in Albanian and he had spent some time there. We ended up going back to our hostel area and met up with people and went to a hookah bar and I learned how to play backgammon! And then we went out dancing!! A PERFECT last night out of the country if you ask me!
Overall, it was a great trip out of the country. I had forgotten how much I love travelling and exploring new things and running into other people and making travel buddies!

Exploring Albania

As I have been living in Albania for a little over 4 months, I have to say that I have probably visited more places in Albania in 4 months, than most Albanians have in their entire lives. I have been trying to visit various volunteers around the country so that I have a better idea of the cultural differences within the country and so I know where to take you all when you come to visit!

The beaches here are definitely gorgeous! So far I’ve been to Durres, Vlore, and Shin-gjin all along the coast. Some of the bigger beach cities certainly have more to do in terms of entertainment and night life, but the beaches are a bit dirtier and the water sometimes less sanitary because they are so populated and don’t have the infrastructure to support large-scale public works when inundated by tourists. So I’m hoping to explore some of the smaller beach towns or places where you can camp on the beach as the summer progresses.

Probably my favorite trip so far this summer was to Pogradec to celebrate one of my friend’s birthdays—she was turning 60!! [so for those of you that have been telling me that Peace Corps was something that you’d always wanted to do, it’s never too late!] Pogradec is located in the south on Lake Ohrid right across from Macedonia. The lake is huge and is right in the mountains, so it’s gorgeous! The beach has plenty of activities like paddle-boating/row-boating/kids rides, etc. It almost felt like I was back at home in Virginia Beach—getting to go the beach every day! We did rent paddle boats a couple days in a row and one day I was convinced that we could see Enver Hoxha’s (former Communist dictator) former palace on the lake. However, apparently his palace was nowhere near the lake and was actually on the river feeding into it…so I guess in actuality, we almost paddled our way into Macedonia. Under the Communist regime there were people who tried to occasionally swim across the lake and into Macedonia under the cover of night….so it was kind of like we were doing that…except in a paddle boat, drinking beers, in the sunshine. Hmmm.

In the evenings the xhiro didn’t start until 10 pm. (reminder…xhiro is the tradition in Albania where everyone puts on their finest and walks around the city at night…usually on 1 main road from around 8-10 pm) This was a nice change compared to Burrel where everyone is pretty much at home and inside by 9:30. However, Pogradec is a tourist destination for Albanians as well (supposedly it’s the city for lovers) so people are on vacation and on a different time schedule. We found an awesome place that had live Albanian music and there was much circle dancing going on. It was sort of like an open beer garden, and there were actually people of both genders and all ages out until midnight! (not very common in other places in Albania) So we circle danced every night, and then found a disco right across the street that was open even later! Needless to say, I definitely got my dancing fix for a little while! Overall, a fabulous vacation filled with beach, boats, beer, good food, and dancing!

This past week I just finished up teaching at school so I have a break from teaching during the month of August. I’m hoping to make it around to a few more places in Albania…there is still much exploring to be done in this amazingly beautiful country!!

Feeling American in Un-America

So I know I haven’t written in a while but despite what I’d heard about the summer in Albania and having adequate down-time, I have been staying busy with all of the classes I’m teaching, settling in, and trying to travel as much as possible. Luckily, for the 4^th of July, I did get to celebrate American style! The American embassy in Tirana put on a party at the Wilson School (school for children of international workers). There were many Americans, internationals, and Albanians there. As a reference point, there are a little over 300 Americans in the country. Considering that Peace Corps is almost 1/3 of these, it’s kind of crazy to think how small of a population that is.

In typical Peace Corps fashion, we weren’t offered a ride on the embassy shuttle, so we trekked through the woods to get to the school and showed up hot, sweaty, with mud on our nice shoes, and with our huge backpacks. …I think that will probably be the story of my life here—lost, sweaty, and with a backpack [the other day I was trying to get back from another city and I didn’t realize the furgon didn’t go back all the way to Burrel so me and my sitemate literally got dropped off on the side of a dirt road by a swamp in a mostly abandoned town. Under normal circumstances, I would probably have freaked out being abandoned on the side of the road in a ghost town after 8 pm…but we both just laughed about it while waiting to hitch a ride…and clearly, made it back ok!].

The party was a nice little slice of America…I actually ate a hamburger for the first time in about 2 years. There was plenty of free beer, a pool, live music, and fireworks—not too different from the 4^th in America. We ended up going out in Tirana afterwards, and somehow stayed out until 5 in the morning (just know that there was much dancing involved..and since I am pretty much always the last person dancing…not too hard to imagine)! Me and a few friends caught the 5:30 am bus to Lushnje where some volunteers got together for the extended 4^th of July party. So our friends were pleasantly surprised when we showed up looking like death at 7:45 that morning after being out all night and taking the bus for 2.5 hours. I can’t say that I’ll be doing that again—but it certainly was a fun night to remember! And that night we celebrated again with some other awesome American food-ness (potato salad, fruit salad, tuna casserole, etc.) and setting off our own fireworks! (you can buy them at the grocery store in Albania…love this country!)

So my first 4^th out of the country was a success! Celebrated with friends, fireworks, and fabulous food! Seems pretty American to me! And a side note and final thought—I think being out of America has made me more of a patriot then when I was living in America. There are certain trivial things that I miss…like access to variety of food choices or being able to go out at night after 10 pm…but there are other values inherent in our culture that just don’t exist here—like our work ethic or critical thinking in the classroom. It’s a continual cultural dialogue here, and it’s great because that’s about 2/3 of the reason why I’m here!

First Days in Burrell

So in the first couple of weeks that I’ve been here, I’ve been trying to find structure and potential project ideas as I meet a ton of new people and put my roots down. I’ve had more coffees than can be imagined (and thank goodness “coffee” doesn’t mean I actually have to drink coffee…just the act of going is “coffee” and I can drink juice or water if I want to….or else I prob would have had a heart attack from the record 6 coffees I managed to go to in 1 day). I am working partially at an alternative school and partially at the Bashkia (Albanian version of city hall). Surprisingly, I find myself teaching A LOT more English than I ever would have expected. I am teaching about 7 classes now, and it will be 10 once I start English classes at the Bashkia. And I’m also teaching 4 computer classes a week at the alternative school. While I don’t feel fully equipped to teach English (not what my training was in for the last 3 months), it is good for me now to have structure and something to do in the summer when everyone else sort of takes a big break from work. Though none of the classes will continue in August because I think the whole country goes on pushime (“break”).

The alternative school is like a vocational school and is an alternative to the high school. Since students aren’t required to attend high school, they can go to the alternative school and learn a useful skill such as cooking or sewing. The school is part of a larger NGO based in Tirana that is called Useful to Albanian Women. My first week here I got to go to their first graduation which included a fashion show. The students made both traditional Albanian and modern Albanian clothes. This gave me a chance to see the cultural palace (insert your own air quotes since it’s a great rendition of communist architecture), which I’m hoping will be a potential venue for many projects and community events and hopefully provide an opportunity for me to teach some dance classes in the future.

Otherwise it’s been kind of crazy for the election that is coming up on June 28th. My city is definitely majority Democratic which is in support of Sali Berisha (current Prime Minister). The other dominant party is the Socialist party under the leadership of Edi Rama (current mayor of Tirana). It’s kind of typical election hype…both Berisha and Rama have made it to Burrell in the last week. And almost every day there’s a DP for the PD (my abbreviation for “dance party” for the “party democratic”). Everyone always asks what party I support and I don’t support any since I’m supposed to be non-political in the Peace Corps. …though I am considering revising this to “I support anyone who is of the dance party.” But I honestly don’t know enough about Albanian politics anyways to make an informed decision. It’s just frustrating because neither party really has a party platform except “change for Albania” but no other major divisive issues or obvious differences. And both parties blatantly use America to garner support when America doesn’t officially support either party (seriously…American flags are flown alongside the Albanian one and the EU flag). It’s also frustrating when people ask me if I’m a democrat in America and I say yes because here the democrats are more like the Republicans in the U.S. and the socialists more like the American democrats (but people here don’t understand that).

It’s been fun getting to explore the city…which mainly means staking out grocery stores and good coffee spots. Me and my site mate Kristen (who is an English teacher) have been cooking wonderful meals since we’ve been here! We both LOVE to cook and we’ve already had some interesting experiments with food! I’ve also gotten the chance to make chocolate chip cookies, cherry cardamom scones, pesto grilled cheese, and soynut butter and banana sandwiches for my office (they didn’t quite understand the last one…they don’t do bananas on sandwiches here). I’m hoping to also teach the cooking kids at the alternative school how to make various ethnic foods…Mexican, Indian, Thai, etc. in the future.

Time is already flying by and I can only imagine that these 2 years will pass like nothing.

Swearing In and Leaving Host Family

After the busyness of traveling to Tirana and my future site, taking final language exams, and preparing to leave my host family, the last week with my family flew by!! I couldn’t even mention leaving to my host sister Eliza or else she would start to cry. Somehow I ended up volunteering myself to be 1 of 2 people to give a speech in Albanian at our swearing-in ceremony where we officially became volunteers. I haven’t given many speeches in my life…let alone in a language I’ve only been speaking for 3 months. But it ended up being really fun…and hopefully I got some of the humor across to the audience (which included host family members, Peace Corps staff, mayors of various towns, and the U.S. Ambassador). They did laugh at the places that were supposed to be funny…so I guess that’s good! The other guy who spoke actually went to William and Mary as well. Way to represent Tribe Pride!! At some point it will probably be on YouTube (I’ll post the link when it is)…but until then, if you want a copy (in English, of course!) let me know and I’ll send it to you! We also ended up being in the national news that night! …as we were walking back into our favorite bar in Gostime all dressed up in our finest, right as we were walking in the news spot about Peace Corps came on TV. …impeccable timing!

Otherwise, the last week I spent hanging out with the sitemates drinking beers at our favorite spots in Gostime, and spending time with my host family. If any of you come visit I will have to take you to my favorite restaurant in Gostime…the couple that owned it always made grilled vegetables especially for us and it was FABulous! There’s also another favorite guy of ours that we called the “peanut guy.” When we got beers there, he would bring free peanuts on the first round, free cheese on the 2nd round, and various things for the 3rd round including cherries, walnuts, and hard-boiled eggs that were usually an odd greenish color. Just a slight insight into the Albanian hospitality that we’ve received since we’ve been in the country. They LOVE Americans! …which can’t be said very often in other countries in the world.

The 2nd to last night in the village the site mates and I did a “pub crawl” of our favorite lokals in the village. We ended up at Seth’s host family for a little while, and per usual, his parents cooked all of us dinner and we had a dance party to follow! (his family was a trip…3 brothers + Seth to make 4….his host mom would always be jealous to find that I had a sister in America and just girls in the fam. I told her I would take Albi, the youngest brother back to America with me. And I just might…he’s an adorable 12 year old and the best dancer of the bunch!…and considering how much they all love to dance in his family, that’s a feat! …or a feet!) I do have to admit that I certainly won’t miss walking back home around 10 at night in the pitch-black street with scary dogs and large ditches on both sides of the street. However….I will miss Seth to walk me home at night….though he probably won’t miss walking me home!

The very last night I spent with my host family. The day was actually very reminiscent of my first day with my family as they sat in my room and watched me pack up all of my stuff (the very first day they sat and watched as I unpacked all of it). It ended much as I will remember most nights with my host sister Eliza. We ended up taking about an hour walk around the village talking arm-in-arm and upon returning to the house we played cards for about another 2 hours while eating a ridiculous amount of cookies. She is an amazing girl and I will definitely miss her smile and laugh and her amazing ability for charades when I had no idea what she was talking about! I’m excited to return to visit frequently and am still SO blessed that I had such an amazing family!

…on to new adventures in Burrell where I can finally call a place home for the next 2 years!!

Time for the Dipstick (a FABULOUS poop story…not for the weak stomachs)

So the first couple of days that I have been at site in Burrell my site mate Kristen has been staying with me because she doesn’t have an apartment yet. My apartment is a wonderful 5th floor walk-up in a communist block apartment complete with mostly cement floors and a Turkish toilet/shower combo (for those that do not know what a Turk is, it is a squatty potty…or a glorified hole in the floor). Since I’ve been in Albania, I haven’t had a problem with flushing toilet paper down the toilet in any circumstance. At my host family we had a Western toilet that flushed and most other places have Western toilets with power flush (meaning that you just dump a bucket of water to flush everything down…not sure exactly where the “power flush” name came from), Turks that flush, or Turk with a power flush.

So Kristen and I had been using the toilet for about 5 days and noticed that it had started draining a little slow. It’s kind of hard to tell from what…since the shower water drains into the same hole, it looked like there had been remnants of paint and plaster dumped down the toilet hole, and dumping a bucket of water down a hole to get rid of your poop really doesn’t have any “flushing” mechanism. Since neither one of us had spent a significant amount of time with a Turk, we weren’t sure if there was anything else we were supposed to do, or if it was just draining slow (since I’m on the 5th floor), etc.

So my landlord stopped by to check up on things and to bring back my refrigerator that had been broken. He asked if everything was ok, and I asked him if everything looked alright in the bathroom (without specifically mentioning the toilet). He walked into the bathroom to take a look and made sure the water heater was plugged in and the water was turned on, etc. Before I could specifically ask about the toilet, he was already headed towards the door to leave and I couldn’t think fast enough in Albanian to figure out what to ask him for the toilet.

Luckily, he returned after an hour to check to make sure the refrigerator was cooling correctly. This time I made sure to specifically mention that the toilet was really REALLY slow and the water was getting really close to the rim of the hole. I’m not sure if Turks can overflow, but I certainly didn’t want that happening! He took a peek down the hole and started groaning Albanian style (which basically sounds like “oh ba ba” repeatedly, followed by fake spitting sounds), and saying “shume gabim”…meaning “really big mistake!” Apparently, we were not supposed to be putting any toilet paper down the toilet. No one mentioned this to me when I moved in at the beginning and since I had used Turks with a bucket flush before and had no problems putting toilet paper down, I didn’t think anything of it. My landlord went into my extra bedroom where there is a bunch of stuff from the previous renter and found a metal rod that he used as a poop stick. If you don’t know what a poop stick is, you have never lived with my college roommates. It’s a stick used to give your poop a boost to help ease it on down the toilet in case of a big poop and lack of good plumbing combo. However, since I think the hole of my toilet is basically a straight shot down and there’s really no way to get a poop stick that long (there’s no such thing as go-go-gadget poop stick), he started pulling toilet paper out of my toilet with the stick and putting it in a plastic bag.

Now to picture this fully, my landlord is a 65-year-old white-haired Albanian man who is retired and wears the typical Albanian sports jacket with a newsy cap who is squatting over my Turk with a metal rod pulling poopy toilet paper out. I forgot to mention that that morning I had taken a ginormous poop due to 2 nights of Mexican food. I asked him if he wanted me to do it instead, and he said no. So I retreated to the living room with Kristen because there’s nothing more awkward than watching your landlord pull your poop out of your own toilet. We couldn’t help ourselves from giggling uncontrollably (silently, of course) as we heard various noises and splashes coming from the bathroom accompanied by the groans of my landlord and the aroma of poop slowly wafting into the living room.

To make things better, during training in Elbasan our training manager had always given us these brief little check-ups at the end of long days when we were all ready to leave our training site and return to our villages. They were always at inopportune moments and we all hated doing them, but every time she would hand them out she would say “it’s time for the dipstick!” So as my landlord is bringing new meaning to the poop stick, Kristen says “it’s time for the dipstick!” …this phrase now has a new fabulous meaning!

To make things EVEN better, apparently that night after my landlord left (he didn’t fix the situation, but made it worse and there was poopy toilet water sitting in my Turk and we couldn’t use the bathroom at all that night), he called my Albanian counterpart at the bashkia. He told him that there was a big problem, but he couldn’t tell him over the phone and they would have to meet for coffee the next morning. So when I got into the bashkia the next morning, George said that he had heard about my problem from the landlord. He said he thought of me as his little sister and wanted to help me get things figured out and not piss off my landlord. But apparently my landlord had told him that he was pulling things out of the toilet that shouldn’t have been down there (…not sure why poop AND toilet paper don’t belong in a toilet). So nothing like knowing that my landlord and my boss were talking about my poop over coffee. And apparently George told the other girls that work in my office about the situation.

So…everyone at the town hall knows about my big poops and my dummy American sense of putting toilet paper down a toilet. I told George that things like this happen to me all the time. However, he thought I meant that I clog up toilets all the time and he looked shocked that this is what he was going to have to deal with for the next 2 years while I’m here. I clarified though, telling him that what I meant was ridiculous things like this happen to me all the time…as all of you can attest. …and not just to me, but I think to all members of my family.

The toilet got fixed the next day (by a plumber who literally brought this small bag that looked like a purse with one rusty instrument in it that didn’t look very big or powerful and took him 5 minutes). My landlord bought me a trash can to put my toilet paper in…and literally went into my bathroom, sat the trash can next to the Turk, and motioned via charades that after I poop, to throw the toilet paper in the trash can…3 times he repeated it.

For those of you that know my affinity for poop stories, you can only imagine that this cross-cultural poop experience made my day! …only because I wasn’t the one scooping it out of the toilet with a dipstick did I enjoy laughing about it…and will continue to laugh about it for the next 2 years!

Conference in Tirana/Site Visit in Burrell

The week after our community project we all headed to Tirana (capital of Albania) to have our counterpart conference. Our counterparts are Albanians who are assigned to work with us at our host organization. Having not really spent too much time in Tirana since I’ve been in Albania, I was a little disappointed that our conference ended up being at a hotel that was outside the city center. The conference was centered around us getting to know our counterparts and talk about what Peace Corps is and how we fit into our prospective communities. My “official” counterpart couldn’t actually come, so another girl from the tax department at the municipality came. The couple of days were filled with meetings, swimming in the pool, and Albanian dancing…nothing too eventful or exciting except getting to hang out with all of the other volunteers.
After the conference we all headed to our future sites. My site is in the middle of nowhere…it’s literally in a region that even Hoxha (former Communist dictator) must have deemed to be insignificant based on the lack of bunkers in the region (the whole of Albania is studded with concrete bunkers that Hoxha built during Communism in case of an attack/bombing from Western nations…there’s some ridiculous statistic that I think says that for every bunker built, a family of 4 could have been housed). The surrounding area is certainly beautiful and filled with lakes/rivers/gorges and mountains. But it’s a long, winding and BUMPY road that leads to Burrell and not for the weak-stomached. It’s not uncommon on the trip here to see some car pulled over to the side of the road with someone squatting on the side of the road vomiting. And since the current Prime Minister Berisha is completing a road from the city of Durres to the city of Kukes across the northern part of the country into Kosovo, it is unlikely that the roads around us will be fixed since this new road bypasses us by a slight margin. But still…YOU SHOULD COME VISIT ME NO MATTER WHAT THE ROAD CONDITIONS!

My site mate is another volunteer Kristen who is from New Mexico and is teaching English at the high school. We arrived in Burrell and after hearing pretty negative things about the city from both volunteers and Albanians, we were pleasantly surprised by the warm greeting and reception that we received from the people here. And side note—just another example that I am taking everything here with a grain of salt. Albanians sometimes haven’t even traveled that much around the country to give an informed opinion on how a city is…and most people don’t consider a city worth visiting unless it’s on the coast with the Adriatic. Burrell is the major city in one of the poorest regions of the country and we are pretty isolated because of poor road conditions. It’s about 2 hours away from another volunteer and about 3 hours from Tirana. Considering that Albania is about the size of Maryland, it still amazes me that traveling in this country can take up to 10 hours to get from top to bottom.

I ended up staying with one of my colleagues that works at the Bashkia for the few days I was in Burrell. Surprisingly, there are quite a few single women in their late-20s here (a rarity in wedding-crazed Albania). We had some interesting discussions and she certainly wasn’t shy about asking many questions about Americans. We talked a lot about cultural differences, which was great—part of the reason why I’m here. I also met my official counterpart who is head of the Development and Communications department at the Bashkia. He’s an interesting guy who has lived in Germany for a few years, England for about 4 years, met his wife who is Brazilian while living in London, lived in Spain for 2 years, and then came back to Albania to take care of his parents (always the job of the youngest son once the parents get older). His birthday also happens to be the day before mine! He’s a little counter-cultural (clearly, marrying a Brazilian!), or at least can view his culture from a different perspective and loves to joke! I also love his wife!! She works at a center for disadvantaged and Roma children that provides free lunches and teaches a few classes and I already know we’re going to be great friends!

Probably my favorite story from the few days was during one of the many coffees that I had meeting new people in the workplace and around town. I was being introduced to the director of the tax department at the municipality and when he said his name I repeated it back to him to make sure that I had heard it correctly. My other co-workers laughed a little bit, but I just assumed that was because I was butchering the language and mispronounced it so badly that it sounded awful. Later that evening when I was staying with Ilda, my co-worker, she mentioned the situation and asked if I remembered it happening. She said “Rachel…earlier today when you said the name of the man….you called him what happens when a man and a woman have a baby and they’re not married.” You can imagine my shock when I discovered that somehow without even knowing the word beforehand in Albanian, I managed to call my colleague a bastard!! I REALLY had not even heard this word in Shqip, let alone used it!!! So who knew…in trying to repeat a name I managed to say “copille” which is bastard in Albanian! The even funnier part of the story is that apparently the man I called a bastard is the guy known at the bashkia who tells dirty jokes and uses all of the cuss words…so everyone else was laughing that I had called him a name he uses frequently. I guess karma’s a bitch! …he probably never expected to be called a bastard by some American girl he’d just met! …leave it to me!

Community Project Day

So I know I haven’t written in a while, but I will try to update you by the order of events that have happened. A few weeks ago the other volunteers at my site and I did the third part of our community project in our village. We had been playing games with the kids in our village every Sunday at the church as a way of meeting kids and forming relationships. …we spent much time trying to explain Ultimate Frisbee and found out that apparently Albanians LOVE freeze tag! (just for future reference in case any of you ever end up working in youth development in Albania in your near future)

The second part of our project was to teach typing classes at the local high school. We went in 3 days a week and took the kids through a typing course that actually got them in the computer lab and typing on an actual computer (instead of the “keyboarding” class they’d been using out of a textbook). We had been forewarned that it’d be impossible to hold the attention of Albanian students in a classroom, but I think they were so fascinated with actually using a computer that we didn’t have any problems. Our biggest problem was trying to translate random words like “home row” and “space bar” and “index finger” into Albanian. Luckily the teachers at the school were super helpful and helped us the first few classes with the Shqip translations. We were also able to teach the teachers how to use the program since it was in English.

After hearing various good and bad things about working at/with schools in this country, I have to say that our overall experience was great! The director was super supportive and willing to help in any way he could, the teachers were great and would take turns stopping in to make sure that we weren’t having any translation problems, and the students were super focused and really excited to have class with the Americans.

A side note on Albanian schools—students in this country are required to attend the 8-year school [the government actually just changed this law to require that students attend school until the 9th year]. After this students may or may not attend the gymnasium (equivalent of high school in the US). Many of the boys in the country leave after the 8-year school to work in either Greece or Italy (usually in the construction or restaurant industry). And occasionally, girls don’t attend the gymnaz because they stay at home and do housework (though this is VERY rare…though one of the other volunteer’s had a host sister that wasn’t allowed to attend high school). Sometimes the directors of different schools in a village might be of a different political party from each other or the mayor. This causes tension if a school wants to do something and has to get approval from the mayor…or if you’re a naïve volunteer and don’t follow the hierarchy in who to ask to get a project started/completed.

Anyways…long side note…but we luckily didn’t run into any of these problems and our interactions with the schools in our village were great!

So after meeting kids through play days on Sundays, teaching at the high school, and attending school at the 8-year school for our language classes, we knew a TON of kids in our village. So our final community event that we decided to do was a digital photo scavenger hunt around our village that ended in a viewing of the pictures from the day and a dance party! …my former InterVarsity kids out there, I am sure you will be happy to know that the digital photo scavenger hunt we always did with Freshman around William and Mary campus was a success across cultures!! Perhaps I haven’t mentioned it, but people here LOVE photos! They love taking and looking at pictures and one of the first things I did the first day I was here with my host sister was to look at all of her pictures of her and her friends and she of course wanted to see all of mine.

We probably had about 70 kids under the age of 12 show up to participate and about 70 more that were teenagers. However, the teenagers weren’t too interested in participating in a scavenger hunt, so they started the dance party while the rest of us ran around the village taking ridiculous pictures. Some of the highlights included taking pictures while milking a cow, of your team doing wheelbarrow races, jumping in potato sacks, dressed in traditional attire, of the entire team on a concrete bunker, doing a pyramid, doing cartwheels in front of the school, of the entire team in a donkey cart, and of course, someone on the team riding a motorcycle with an umbrella. I ended up on a team with about 10 10-year old boys who wanted to run everywhere. It was kind of ridiculous and all of the older people and parents in the village were wondering what was going on with a bunch of kids running everywhere.

It ended up being a FABulous day and after that weekend I literally couldn’t walk down the streets of Gostime without recognizing every kid that passed me. Good times had by all!

Language Woes

So I thought I would just briefly write a bit in Shqip just so some of you can get an idea of what the language looks like (kind of hard to explain the phonetics, but you can have fun anyways!).

Familja ime eshte e madhe. Ne shtepi banojne babai, mamaja, une dhe motra. Shtepia eshte e bukur, por e vogel. Ajo ka tre dhoma. Dhoma ime eshte shume komode. Babai im eshte pensionist. Ai eshte i gjate dhe i shendoshe. Mamaja quhet Ana. Ajo eshte infermiere. Mamaja ime eshte zemermire, punetore dhe shume e sjellshme. Vellai eshte femija i madh. Ai eshte mjek shume i mire dhe djale inteligjent. Ai eshte i martuar. Motra ime Elda eshte femija i mesem. Ajo eshte simpatike dhe beqare. Ne shtepi une jam vajza e vogel dhe me e mire.

...this is about the family and the conditions of the house. I’m sure you can pick out some kind of familiar words in there!

There are also some words that are VERY similar…and if you don’t have the phonetics of the language down…it can get pretty tricky! Examples… (and to kind of understand these, you must know that a “j” makes a “y” sound in Albanian)…

Pule = chicken Pulle = stamp
Byrek = spinach w/phylo dough Breke = underwear (really awkward to order at a restaurant)
Vajza = little girl Veze = eggs (always awkward to order 12 little girls at the market)
Vellai = brother Vjell = vomit (don’t really need to explain that one)

Albanian Weddings

So I did finally get to experience my first Albanian wedding this past weekend. I’ve had to sit through my host sister’s wedding video (the one who is married and lives in Italy) about 3 times now since I’ve been here (…which is NO easy task because the video is 4 hours long!!). Not sure if I’ve said this yet…but Albanian weddings are a HUGE deal! Sometimes in the villages girls can get married by 16 or 17…though typically it’s in the early 20s. But if you’re not married by your mid-20s, it’s pretty much a crime.

So the tradition is for the couple to have 2 parties…1 for the bride’s side, and 1 for the groom’s. Of course, this means the bride gets 2 different dresses! I attended the bride’s party, which is the first one. Eliza and I started out by going to the house of the bride where everyone goes initially to speak with the elders of the family…grandma, grandpa, and other assortments of old people. We were served coffee (men get raki) and desserts, took our picture with the bride, and then danced a mini circle dance (with traditional accompaniment of clarinet/accordion/drums) paying our respects to the bride.

We then proceeded to the lokal/restaurant where the party was being held. Everyone arrived before the bridal party and we had already started toasting and eating before they got there (much bad beer and rake to go around). There were probably about 100 present. The bride arrived with much dancing of relatives to usher her in and was seated. The person that I initially thought was her groom was actually her oldest brother…the groom didn’t arrive until about 2 hours into the whole thing. Each group of relatives would get up and do a circle dance in honor of the bride (I guess based on their association to the bride, but I’m not really sure). If you were the person leading the dance circle (or if you were elsewhere in it and just that amazing of a dancer!), people would come into the middle and shove money into your hand. At the end of the dance everyone with money would throw it into the center to give it back to the bride to give her a prosperous start to her marriage. I have to say that I did make quite a bit of money. …and while I’m not entirely sure it was so much based on my dancing skills as it was me being the All-American girl…people did ask how many years I’d been in the country because I dance like an Albanian (and were shocked to learn only a month and a half). I also thought about making away with some of the money handed to me (to cushion my volunteer pay a little bit)…but don’t worry, I didn’t!

I had quite my attachment of young Albanian boys to keep me company throughout the event. The bride’s younger brother was quite hurt when I told him that I didn’t really want a younger man. He was super fun to dance with…and not shockingly, he is somehow a cousin of ours. After 2 hours of dancing, the groom and his attaché of relatives (about 10 in total) showed up. The bride and groom danced together, cut the cake, and then toasted each other with champagne. Unfortunately, they were the only ones to get champagne and drank 1 sip and then smashed the full glasses on the floor. A waste of perfectly good champagne if you ask me! More dancing and money throwing ensued and then the groom and his posse left. The groom’s party was the next evening where the couple would be “officially” married.

The one thing that I have to say about most Albanian brides is that they look very unhappy at their weddings. I’m not sure if this is a result of the short length of time they might have known their fiancées (…sometimes girls can be married off within 3 weeks of meeting/dating their husbands…though certainly not always the case)…or if it’s just a cultural thing that they’re expected to look stoic. I did ask my host sister and she said that they are supposed to look sad because they are leaving their family. However…the bride didn’t smile once (seriously!). And in the wedding videos of my host sister she didn’t smile at all either. Call me crazy…but if it’s your freakin wedding day, you should be slightly excited! Albanians typically look a bit more serious in photos anyways…but even outside of the photos the bride didn’t smile. I don’t get it. I asked one of my language teachers (who is getting married in Sept) if she was going to smile at her wedding, and she said absolutely! So that’s encouraging at least!
…whew! So long-winded explanation of wedding extravaganzas! Hopefully I’ll get to go to another soon so I can compare! Hope you enjoyed!