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!