Today my host mom came into my room and changed my bed sheets. I laughed when I saw the mattress sheet, because it was adorned with a giant rose and the words, “Happy forever wishes!” I’m not even sure what that means, but I thought it was funny. Oh, the collection of improper English I’m going to have by the end of these two years…
This entry will be mainly about lighter and/or funny things, because there have been a lot of them. One thing I really love about my family is how much they laugh. It seems like they are always laughing! And my host mom has one of the best laughs—she’s just this petite little woman, but she’ll rock back and forth and almost cry with laughter. It’s very contagious.
First off, my host brother helps translating things. He was talking about a fest, which he translated as a party. I said that a fest can also be called a “celebration,” depending on what time of party it is. At this, my host mom asked my brother if I said “Sali Berisha,” since the name sounds so similar to the English word “celebration.” This caused my host family to chuckle: Sali Berisha is a well-known politician up for re-election this summer.
Living in this village is like living in a fishbowl, which is perfectly fine with me. It’s just different. Everyone knows that you are American just by looking at you, and most people know what family you “belong to” in the village. I always try to be on my best behavior because I don’t want anything to reflect badly on my family. Word travels like lightning, especially since so many people have large families and are often related. But when you are foreign and don’t speak the language well, and you’re in a group of foreigners, you end up unintentionally looking like a moron much of the time. For example, one day after school we were all starving. The six volunteers in my site all wanted to go for food. So what do we do? We walk a little ways down the road, then cross it. The whole time everyone is watching to see what we are doing. We cross the road and enter a place that was both a bar and a restaurant. Mind you, this was after five minutes of standing outside trying to decide where to go. We walk into the “restaurant” and sit down. When it comes time to order, we are trying to think of the names of any food items we know. When we ask “rice?” with our voice intonation going up as to indicate a question, since we had no idea how to form a proper one, the waiter says “no.” We ask for “meat?” and he says “no.” After exhausting our rather short list, we figured out that this place was just a bar and not a restaurant. Too embarrassed to leave after they had turned on the lights and pulled two tables together for us, we resigned ourselves to ordering a coffee before doing the walk of shame across the street to the other restaurant in the village.
Thirdly, people are very keen to learn English. This results in us being a type of rock star, added to the fact that we unintentionally stick out like sore thumbs. A local school allows us to use one of their rooms to learn Albanian. Oftentimes, however, the local students’ curiosity gets the better of them. In the middle of class, we’ve had many students who push the doors open, stick their hands in the door, wave through the windows or simply stand close to them and listen to our lesson. It’s rather funny. I imagine that since we are foreign and since our interactions have been limited, they are just curious about us. One day when we came back from lunch, the lock on our door was closed and we couldn’t get in the room. When we waited in the hallway for our teacher to come, we were practically mobbed by a sea of students. It was great. They had all kinds of questions for us, including one of the most common you will here in Albania: “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” So here we are, six of us, standing out in the hallway as the students gather around us and give us a real interrogation. And I couldn’t have been happier interacting with them. The day afterwards, a group of us were on the furgon coming home after a day of training. There was a group of school girls on the bus. After everyone else got off and I was the last one left, they all moved to sit next to me and asked me questions in near perfect English. It was only too bad that we could only talk a few minutes before my stop.
Fourthly, we were leaving our lessons and walking to the restaurant that we always go to when we saw a person with a live turkey in a plastic bag. He was just standing there, for what ended up being about thirty minutes, just chilling on the side of the road. We didn’t know quite what to make of it because we had never seen it before.
I’ve also enjoyed experimenting with food. Food safety and butchering techniques are definitely different from at home, so there is just a bit of a learning curve. I had thought about telling my family that I was a vegetarian, but I kind of adopted the attitude of “If you get sick, you get sick.” I wouldn’t want a few bouts with sickness to scare me away from jumping head first into the culture. So far, I’ve eaten a lot of veal, one rooster and a giant piece of sheep. And all of them were very good (although admittedly, the sheep was a lot fattier than I would normally like).
And in closing, they told us that it’s not uncommon for Albanian women to weigh themselves on a scale in the supermarket. So on my second trip to the store, I saw this in action. I was encouraged to hop up there, too. I did it because I don’t really care. Most of the Albanian women I’ve seen are pretty skinny, so skinny that I’d never weigh as much as them (nor would I want to—we know my opinions on this). So I hopped up on that scale and took one more step on the road to maybe not sticking out quite as much.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Welcome to Albania
I have already passed the one week mark, but I’ve had very little opportunity for an update. Luckily, our flights went off without a hitch. We were all incredibly tired of moving our bags and afraid that we’d go over weight, but it ended up going pretty well.
After an 8 ½ hour ride to Munich, we had a three hour layover before flying to Tirana. Afterwards, it was a two hour ride to our training site. We spent the first three days in a hotel attending various introductory training sessions. On Saturday, we all piled into the furgons (vans that serve as public transport) and were shipped off to our new host families. We were all pretty nervous since we had bare bones information about our family on a computer print out.
I couldn’t have gotten any luckier in terms of host families.
We live in a smallish village twenty-five minutes outside of the main training city. My house is almost right next to the school where we have daily language lessons, when most of the other volunteers are at least twenty minutes away. I spent five hours each day between Monday and Saturday learning Albanian. Two days out of the week I travel by furgon to the PC training site in the city for additional lessons pertaining to community service, safety and pedagogy.
My family is really, really great. I have three host brothers who are 8, 15 and 16. They help me a lot with the language, especially since the two oldest ones speak English passably. My host mother is a hairdresser and my father works for the local government. They also own a store and a salon which occupy the lower level of our house. As for the house itself, it’s beautiful. I have my own room with a bunch of leather furniture. We also have a western toilet (as opposed to a Turk), digital cable with hundreds of channels, and even the internet (not very common just yet). Though the PC warned us that we will be making adjustments in standards of living, there isn’t much of a difference. Sure, we have the normal water outages but even those have occurred far less frequently than I had initially expected. I don’t think we represent the average Albanian family, however. There is a vast spread in this society and I believe we are towards the upper end. For example, one of the volunteers out of our group went to a family without running water. Even in our assigned accommodations, you can see the variety of standards here in Albania.
We also eat very well here. Albanians are extremely hospitable and might name this hospitality as their best national asset. I am usually relieved once I know that no more food will be coming because I’m usually stuffed half way through the first dish. I am getting all the dietary properties that I need. We eat meat (usually veal), some fish, and lots of vegetables and fruit. One of my favorite parts of Albania is the coffee culture. First off, they drink REAL coffee (a.k.a Turkish coffee) and they take a while to do it. It’s great to have a chat over an espresso.
Overall, most of the volunteers are adjusting very well. Many of us haven’t had to make many changes. The hardest part so far is the cold. It’s been in the 50s, but the houses keep it much colder. The cold just seeps out of the walls. But I figure if our only complaint is the cold, we have it pretty damn good. Another potential issue is the perception of personal space. As Americans, we are perfectly fine with dining together and then going to our rooms and separate spaces. In Albania, if you do that too often, people think you are depressed. A lot of this first week has been about getting to know each other and finding a balance. I do as much as possible with my family because it is such a great way to learn. In these first couple weeks, I am here to observe and learn and being close to my family is the best way to do that. I am very grateful for the hospitality they have shown me so far and I look forward to getting to know them better as my linguistic skills progress.
After an 8 ½ hour ride to Munich, we had a three hour layover before flying to Tirana. Afterwards, it was a two hour ride to our training site. We spent the first three days in a hotel attending various introductory training sessions. On Saturday, we all piled into the furgons (vans that serve as public transport) and were shipped off to our new host families. We were all pretty nervous since we had bare bones information about our family on a computer print out.
I couldn’t have gotten any luckier in terms of host families.
We live in a smallish village twenty-five minutes outside of the main training city. My house is almost right next to the school where we have daily language lessons, when most of the other volunteers are at least twenty minutes away. I spent five hours each day between Monday and Saturday learning Albanian. Two days out of the week I travel by furgon to the PC training site in the city for additional lessons pertaining to community service, safety and pedagogy.
My family is really, really great. I have three host brothers who are 8, 15 and 16. They help me a lot with the language, especially since the two oldest ones speak English passably. My host mother is a hairdresser and my father works for the local government. They also own a store and a salon which occupy the lower level of our house. As for the house itself, it’s beautiful. I have my own room with a bunch of leather furniture. We also have a western toilet (as opposed to a Turk), digital cable with hundreds of channels, and even the internet (not very common just yet). Though the PC warned us that we will be making adjustments in standards of living, there isn’t much of a difference. Sure, we have the normal water outages but even those have occurred far less frequently than I had initially expected. I don’t think we represent the average Albanian family, however. There is a vast spread in this society and I believe we are towards the upper end. For example, one of the volunteers out of our group went to a family without running water. Even in our assigned accommodations, you can see the variety of standards here in Albania.
We also eat very well here. Albanians are extremely hospitable and might name this hospitality as their best national asset. I am usually relieved once I know that no more food will be coming because I’m usually stuffed half way through the first dish. I am getting all the dietary properties that I need. We eat meat (usually veal), some fish, and lots of vegetables and fruit. One of my favorite parts of Albania is the coffee culture. First off, they drink REAL coffee (a.k.a Turkish coffee) and they take a while to do it. It’s great to have a chat over an espresso.
Overall, most of the volunteers are adjusting very well. Many of us haven’t had to make many changes. The hardest part so far is the cold. It’s been in the 50s, but the houses keep it much colder. The cold just seeps out of the walls. But I figure if our only complaint is the cold, we have it pretty damn good. Another potential issue is the perception of personal space. As Americans, we are perfectly fine with dining together and then going to our rooms and separate spaces. In Albania, if you do that too often, people think you are depressed. A lot of this first week has been about getting to know each other and finding a balance. I do as much as possible with my family because it is such a great way to learn. In these first couple weeks, I am here to observe and learn and being close to my family is the best way to do that. I am very grateful for the hospitality they have shown me so far and I look forward to getting to know them better as my linguistic skills progress.
The Eagle has Landed
This entry is my first in-country. There’s so much that I don’t really know where to begin at this point, but I at least know where to start.
Although we were not informed about it and it was in no way addressed, as I’ve learned at this point, the world of the Peace Corps is small. Even without constant connection to the internet, we found out that a volunteer was killed in Benin shortly before the end of her service. I only mention this incident in case you’ve already heard about it and are now worried about my status. Details are filtering in and we will see in the coming days, but many crimes committed against volunteers are random and usually involve petty theft. What is left is for the Peace Corps and African authorities to conduct an investigation to determine whether the volunteer was killed because she was an American or a volunteer. There is a difference between a crime of opportunity and a planned, targeting killing for political reasons. This is why it’s important to differentiate: a crime of opportunity could happen anywhere, not just in a foreign post serving in the Peace Corps.
We have had and will continue to have countless safety and security lessons. Volunteers and staff continue to identify risk and work to eliminate it or minimize its effects. To this end, PC Albania encourages us not to travel at night. It is an unfortunate reality of the Balkans that any travel can be extremely dangerous and potentially fatal. The main reasons are poor roads and lax driving regulations. Knowing the risks, we make sure to travel in groups and during the day. Peace Corps works on creating policies that benefit safety of all.
In addition, the dangers and hardships of service here are very different than those in Africa. It is like comparing apples with oranges. Albania may be one of the most pro-American countries that the Peace Corps goes to, especially given the recent history of US support in issues like Kosovo’s independence. Elections will take place in June and experts and policy makers will watch them closely. A free and fair election makes the distance to the EU that much smaller, although there are still so many things that need to change to meet standards. Uneventful elections would be a step in the right direction. The Peace Corps has an emergency action plan in place for any emergencies, whether it is an earthquake or civil unrest that causes a disturbance.
Yesterday I was feeling pretty sad. Aside from the murder in Benin, one of our volunteers has already left for the United States. I felt bad about it because no one really knew what happened and many of us are left wondering. Today in school, a student asked me why this volunteer went home and I couldn’t really be much help. I found this volunteer on a Facebook group and sent her a message about Albania, so she was the first person I “knew” from this group. All I will say is that life abroad affects everyone differently. It is sad that she won’t experience life here and for that we are all sorry but certainly respect her choice.
Although we were not informed about it and it was in no way addressed, as I’ve learned at this point, the world of the Peace Corps is small. Even without constant connection to the internet, we found out that a volunteer was killed in Benin shortly before the end of her service. I only mention this incident in case you’ve already heard about it and are now worried about my status. Details are filtering in and we will see in the coming days, but many crimes committed against volunteers are random and usually involve petty theft. What is left is for the Peace Corps and African authorities to conduct an investigation to determine whether the volunteer was killed because she was an American or a volunteer. There is a difference between a crime of opportunity and a planned, targeting killing for political reasons. This is why it’s important to differentiate: a crime of opportunity could happen anywhere, not just in a foreign post serving in the Peace Corps.
We have had and will continue to have countless safety and security lessons. Volunteers and staff continue to identify risk and work to eliminate it or minimize its effects. To this end, PC Albania encourages us not to travel at night. It is an unfortunate reality of the Balkans that any travel can be extremely dangerous and potentially fatal. The main reasons are poor roads and lax driving regulations. Knowing the risks, we make sure to travel in groups and during the day. Peace Corps works on creating policies that benefit safety of all.
In addition, the dangers and hardships of service here are very different than those in Africa. It is like comparing apples with oranges. Albania may be one of the most pro-American countries that the Peace Corps goes to, especially given the recent history of US support in issues like Kosovo’s independence. Elections will take place in June and experts and policy makers will watch them closely. A free and fair election makes the distance to the EU that much smaller, although there are still so many things that need to change to meet standards. Uneventful elections would be a step in the right direction. The Peace Corps has an emergency action plan in place for any emergencies, whether it is an earthquake or civil unrest that causes a disturbance.
Yesterday I was feeling pretty sad. Aside from the murder in Benin, one of our volunteers has already left for the United States. I felt bad about it because no one really knew what happened and many of us are left wondering. Today in school, a student asked me why this volunteer went home and I couldn’t really be much help. I found this volunteer on a Facebook group and sent her a message about Albania, so she was the first person I “knew” from this group. All I will say is that life abroad affects everyone differently. It is sad that she won’t experience life here and for that we are all sorry but certainly respect her choice.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Goodbyes
My parents and I are now in Philadelphia. We just got back from a fabulous dinner at Buddakan(thanks Ellen!). Dad had pork barbecue, mom had steak and I had lamb. Throw in a couple zen-grias (peach schnapps, pinot grigio, ginger brady and sake) and there were many smiles going around.
I'll check in tomorrow for "Staging" at 1.30. It gives us an opportunity to really understand what we are committing two for the next two years and gives us one last chance to walk away before anyone gets in too deep. It's a serious commitment to the program, your host country and to your own country. I can't imagine what it would take for me to leave before my two years or up, but one never knows what to expect. At this moment, I don't have the slightest of cold feet, even though I know that it's not going to be easy.
I've spent the last two weeks trying to finish my packing. It's been incredibly stressful. I've packed before but this time around was a lot more difficult. They tell us that you can find anything in Albania that isn't notecards or thermal underwear, but that didn't help much. I packed, re-packed, unpacked and rip most of my hairs out in the process. I got so tired of this process, and I already ripped out several large bags of potential items to take along. I don't know how accurate the scales are at my house, which also made it difficult. So in the end, I tried my best although I'm almost certain I'm going to be over. I have two carry-ons, and one is pretty large. I've been obsessing and obsessing about packing and having too much weight, but I reached a point where I really felt so overwhelmed that I couldn't spend one more second thinking about it. Instead, I just put the rest of my things in my suitcases and decided: "If worse comes to worse, I'll have time to get rid of any REALLY unnecessary items, and if I can't clear the weight, I'll just pay." I'm not made of money by any means, but I feel that if I do have to pay for extra weight, it will probably be worth it. Only time will tell. It might very well be the case that all of this stress, panic and inner turmoil will have been for nothing. I've flown with an even larger carry-on in the past and never had any problems. Time will tell.
After staging, I'll meet up with some friends in the city for one last night on the town before I leave. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for an entirely uneventful trip to Albania, but it's probably a little unrealistic.
Monday, March 9, 2009
2666
Admittedly, I don't spend much time doing research about new books as I would like. Then again, I don't have too much faith in a lot of the new arts for a few reasons that I'm not going to go into in this post. At any rate, there's been a lot of buzz for the novel 2666 by the Chilean author Roberto Bolano.
I hadn't come in contact with Latin American fiction until I took a class on the subject, at random, during my pre-junior year at university. Although I focus mainly on German and Eastern European literature, those of us who have put off Latin fiction for too long are really missing a treasure chest.
During the class, we read one of Bolano's books (Distant Star). I read Last Evenings on Earth on my own. Bolano's interesting life really made me want to experience his work. I know that I've only scraped the surface.
2666 will be a more active read at most, which intrigues me. It involves a lot of things that the average reader dislikes: an English translation tallying 900 pages, five different sections with multiple story lines, and many different but somehow connected characters. These are all things that I enjoy because they are rarely as well received as they are in this book, Bolano's final work.
I hadn't come in contact with Latin American fiction until I took a class on the subject, at random, during my pre-junior year at university. Although I focus mainly on German and Eastern European literature, those of us who have put off Latin fiction for too long are really missing a treasure chest.
During the class, we read one of Bolano's books (Distant Star). I read Last Evenings on Earth on my own. Bolano's interesting life really made me want to experience his work. I know that I've only scraped the surface.
2666 will be a more active read at most, which intrigues me. It involves a lot of things that the average reader dislikes: an English translation tallying 900 pages, five different sections with multiple story lines, and many different but somehow connected characters. These are all things that I enjoy because they are rarely as well received as they are in this book, Bolano's final work.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Taking a page out of Ted's book
Most of you that know me know the severe extent of my hockey malady. It's a season of tremendous highs and the lowest of lows, spread out over almost 10 months (if you're lucky-- if you're unlucky, then it's about 8 months). Although I don't do the sports writing that I used to, I have kept up with my reading as new blogs continue to emerge. Earlier last spring, I started following Ted Leonsis' blog.
Leonsis owns the Washington Capitals, but may be more well-known as the creator of AOL. Anyhow, I enjoyed reading his entries down the playoff stretch as the Caps made a late season push, and I found his insights as an owner and a businessman insightful. It's with him in mind that I've decided to also make this a blog about other things not limited to my experiences in Albania. The variety was something I appreciated most about Mr. Leonsis' blog.
On that note, I'd like to post this video:
It's from the movie Paris, je'taime. The film features several noted directors and writers and is divided up into short narrative segments, each taking part in a different arrondisement of Paris. This particular segment was directed and written by Alexander Payne ("Sideways") and stars the always fabulous Margo Martindale. You've probably seen her around. Recently she's been on television's Dexter and The Riches (R.I.P), where she's delivered engaging performances. In this piece, she collaborates with Payne and leaves with viewer with an overwhelming sense of pathos.
Leonsis owns the Washington Capitals, but may be more well-known as the creator of AOL. Anyhow, I enjoyed reading his entries down the playoff stretch as the Caps made a late season push, and I found his insights as an owner and a businessman insightful. It's with him in mind that I've decided to also make this a blog about other things not limited to my experiences in Albania. The variety was something I appreciated most about Mr. Leonsis' blog.
On that note, I'd like to post this video:
It's from the movie Paris, je'taime. The film features several noted directors and writers and is divided up into short narrative segments, each taking part in a different arrondisement of Paris. This particular segment was directed and written by Alexander Payne ("Sideways") and stars the always fabulous Margo Martindale. You've probably seen her around. Recently she's been on television's Dexter and The Riches (R.I.P), where she's delivered engaging performances. In this piece, she collaborates with Payne and leaves with viewer with an overwhelming sense of pathos.
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