This week, the Austrian specialists are at our school once again. Tomorrow I’m going on another field trip to our partner school to see them make some cheese. Not having had the experience of growing up on a farm, I take a real interest in what the Austrians instruct. I always learn something new and interesting when they are here.
One of my favorite things in the whole world is anything that has to do with dairy. I pretty much love it all, and since I’m 5 years old, chocolate milk is my absolute favorite. Anyhow, imagine my surprise working at an agricultural school and living in Albania when I learned about the milk process here.
Anyhow, one thing that interests me is milk production here. As a Westerner, I’m blown away when I leave for school in the morning and see a 1.5 Liter plastic Coca Cola bottle filled with milk sitting by our gate. Those two things rarely go together where I’m from. What usually happens is my host mom strains and boils the milk, then uses it to make homemade yogurt.
When I first got here, my first host mom asked me if I liked milk. I replied with an emphatic “Yes!” But I was disappointed when the milk had a scab on the top because it had been boiled and when the taste was very different from what I was used to. Top this all off by seeing that it is sold on the street in a cola bottle and my dairy buzz was quickly killed.
In the meantime, I’ve gotten used to the taste. Luckily I have access to “milk in a box,” a phenomenon that is rapidly becoming more popular. For the longest time, “farmer milk” (or rather, “milk in a cola bottle”) has been the standard. It is “fresh” and inexpensive compared to boxed milk. Traditions are also hard to break, considering that people have their own ideas about what is best.
But the problems are also numerous. Unlike boxed milk, the average Albanian can really only guess about where farmer milk comes from. What are the cows eating? Are they healthy? Are they on any medication? How long has this milk been sitting? Was it chilled properly after milking to eliminate bacteria? And what about anything that is in the milk that can’t be seen with the naked eye? There is no set way to assure quality control. Current television commercials in favor of boxed milk frequently site these issues and do their best to label farmer milk as “unhealthy.”
At this point, maybe I’m going too in-depth about Albanian milk, but it’s part of a much larger picture. Albania is on the road to the European Union and will certainly get there at some point in time, perhaps within the next ten years. The most important thing about the European Union is its laws and organization. As I learned today, agriculture is a very difficult area for countries entering the EU given the extent of laws and procedures that the EU requires of its member states. The EU has laws about how to milk cows, specific temperatures for cooling milk, the number of microbes allowed in parts per million, etc. So the laws, extensive and strict, become costly if they aren’t followed.
Where does this leave Albania? One thing I’ve seen in some of my interactions with Albanians, as well as the Austrians’ interactions with them, is sometimes a difficulty in the idea exchange process. Sometimes, expert advice isn’t considered if it flies in the face of tradition and other cultural practices, which is a huge developmental problem. The Westerners here might not have all the answers, and we certainly have a lot we can learn from Albanians, but part of the reason we are here is to help the country develop. To do that, a country not only needs outside help but it needs the will to do so (including the desire to consider other methods and procedures of doing things). Development is a long process that includes a change in mentality, not just a change in things you can measure like living standards and GDP. Those of us working here try our best to do what we can with what we’ve got, but the process is not without its challenges.
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