Stuck in my craw

If someone forced me to name something I don’t care for about living here, only one thing comes to mind. Certainly there are daily inconveniences that come with living in a country that is undergoing a lot of development. These things are perfectly acceptable because they are a form of growing pains that are necessary to improve life in the country now and in the future (outages, sporadic road construction, etc.). There is one thing that I have a hard time tolerating: price gouging at the hands of furgon drivers.

Let me first explain about furgons, because they are a foreign concept for Americans: they are privately owned minivans that function as a form of public transportation. It should also be noted that they vary tremendously in quality of machine, quality of driver and overall safety. They usually hold around nine to ten passengers depending on size and are faster than buses. Unlike buses that state their prices up front, furgon drivers can charge whatever they feel like. Usually this number is linked to either the size of a group if you are traveling in a group, or by time and distance. Most of the time we don’t have any problems. Sometimes, and it’s usually at the worst possible time, drivers will try to overcharge us. And not by just a little, but by 200 – 300 percent. It is enough to make you scream. I can understand why they do it, since many Westerners in Albania are working for foreign aid associations, have money to spare, and limited Albanian skills. As a volunteer serving to help a country that has requested my help, it can sometimes be a very frustrating experience when I’m asked to shell out significantly more than a host country national for the very same ride. When I told my first host family how a driver wanted to charge us 500Lek for a 100Lek trip, my mother said, “Albanians are very bad.” I said, “Not Albanians, just some. Maybe like one or two.” And that’s exactly the case. It’s frustrating, and we tolerate it… while all the while we know that they are by far the exception to the rule when it comes to the character of the Albanian people. When you find yourself in a verbal altercation with a furgon driver and feel your pulse racing, it’s important to remember that we’ve seen the best of what the Albanian people have to offer us as well starting from the moment we first arrived.