My 15 year-old host brother Alkys and I don’t have a ton of things to talk about. After careful observation, I see that he’s most passionate about Dragon Ball Z, his handheld PSP and the internet. He likes science shows, too. That’s about all I’ve been able to gather after my time here. Unfortunately, his entire vocabulary is something foreign to me. Whenever he talks, I can barely follow along with what he’s saying. That happens sometimes when you are learning a language in a country, coming into contact with different speakers. Some people, like my host mom, you can understand perfectly. Others, like my brother, make it seem like you know no Albanian at all.
The things we’ve bonded about are pretty random. One day, he was asking me about something that, surprise, I couldn’t understand. I finally figured out that he was talking about Ebay. The Albanian pronunciation sounds completely different from the English. Anyhow, it’s lead to some interesting conversations. Alkys wanted me to bid on some throwing stars (too much Dragon Ball, perhaps?), which in turn lead to a discussion about why I couldn’t have them shipped here. We had a general discussion about how many sellers don’t ship to Albania and the lack of credit cards here. However, I spared him a political analysis on Meg Whitman.
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