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 munic
ipality 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!
ipality 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!
1 comment:
Very descriptive post, Rach - I feel like I have a better sense of where you are in your new hometown. And I'm glad your counterpart guy has a good sense of humor-that will be useful in working with you! :) Just out of curiousity, how is the population distributed - rural vs. urban - has that been changing since communism? It sounds like there's urbanization but not necessarily connectedness between cities?
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