Separation Anxiety

So the last couple of days of PST have finished up and they have definitely been jam-packed with a lot of information about what to expect and what we will be doing in the next few months of training as well as once we get to our permanent sites. Unfortunately, I think the guy at the front desk of the hotel got very annoyed with my roommates and me because we kept having issues with our hotel room. The first night it had been ridiculously cold and we thought it was just because our heater was broken. So we ended up walking down with the heater remote and shaking it in front of him (…don’t quite know how to say “the heater is broken” in shqip yet) to hopefully imply that we needed help. He hesitantly came into our room (Albanian guys are ridiculously freaked out by being in the company of women…let alone American women…and let alone 3 gorgeous (heh) American women!)…and I was totally concerned that there might be bras and underwear hanging out everywhere because we hadn’t really thought about it. …and while he did look like he wanted to run out immediately, he did fix our heater.

So after he came to fix it, we get a phone call to our room. I jokingly answered the phone with a hearty “pershendetje” (hello in Albanian) thinking that it was one of the other guy volunteers from upstairs trying to utilize their minimal Albanian that we’d learned. But then the person actually responded with a “pershendetje” back, followed by “mir” (good). Then I was confused because it didn’t sound logical saying “good” after saying “hello.” Then he responded with “condition?” and I realized it was the front desk guy making sure our heat was working. I must say it was adorable.

So we thought that it was finally working, but just in case we forced Phoebe into using a really thick lice blanket that we found in the closet (…not really lice…but it was pretty sketchy since we weren’t sure how long it’d been in the cabinet). Well we woke up the next morning (to snow!) and it was FREEZING. And that’s when we realized that the window was open and completely broken so it wouldn’t close at all. Unfortunately, we had a really bad storm all day long with A LOT of wind and snow…and by the time we got back to our room after lunch, the window was broken off by everything except 1 hinge and tilted at the perfect angle so that snow was being directly funneled into our room. So our curtains were soaked and there was a big puddle under the window. So we had to change rooms our last night…where Katie and I then managed to break the overhead light (…I mean the light bulb had just burnt out so it wasn’t actually our fault)…but we did have to call front desk boy again. …in retrospect…perhaps he just kept breaking things on purpose.

Last night we also had a trainee discotec and ended up learning some traditional Albanian circle dances as well as a few other moves and watched our language teachers bust some moves on the dance floor. During the day we also had a panel of current volunteers that were able to answer a bunch of our questions about service and about living with a host family. I was already forewarned that apparently the women of my family will demand to weigh me at some point…and apparently on a pretty regular basis…so to not be concerned when this happens. Apparently one of the current volunteers was weighed at a seed store on her first day. So I’ll keep you updated on my first weigh-in! We also learned about the truly affectionate nature of older Albanian women (and their desire to rub arms, bellies, chests, etc.) so I was prepared for that as well. It will definitely be weird to not be around 35 people anymore. We’ll see each other twice a week, and then 4 other days during the week we have language classes in our satellite village (I am in the village of Gostime with 4 other people). But I’m excited to learn more of the language and culture as I get away from the crutch of being around English speakers.