Today marked another key milestone in pre-service training: the implementation of our community projects.
During the last several weeks, we’ve received some classes about project planning, needs assessment, and IRB (“intentional relationship building,” or the polite way of saying making friendships that are first and foremost for your benefit). We originally planned on doing a hike, but ending up changing our plans out of practical consideration. Apparently, some parents might not want their children wondering off into the mountains with strangers from another country. Hiking isn’t the easiest sell here either considering the forced activities in the mountains during communist times.
As volunteers, we have our Albanian lessons at a local high school. During practicum, we also taught at the same school. In an effort to give back to our host community and get to know the students better, we opted instead for an activity day at our school.
There was quite a bit of planning involved and we put a lot of thought into what we would do. Luckily we had the support of the school director and translation help from our teachers which made our work a lot easier. We settled on a date and took care of all the arrangements. In the end, we took 60 of the best students and did two hours of activities. We broke the students up into groups and set up different activity stations. After twenty minutes at a station, students rotated to a new station with a new activity. We did face painting, martial arts, English-language games, musical chairs and a balloon toss. The director supplied us with some plants that we planted together.
I was in charge of having students trace their hands and write things about themselves in English. I have sixty hands in my room right now until we try and figure out what we will do with them. They make great reading because they inspire me about the work I will be doing in the future. Afterwards, we did a scavenger hunt. Although we laughed about it in advance, one of the items on the list was 'something living.' We assumed that would mean a leaf or something. Two minutes into the hunt, a few students started chasing chickens. A few minutes after that, the students brought me a stone, a leaf, a flower... and a chick. A live one. I guess they were right when they told us to give very clear instructions during our technical training sessions.
The hard work is now behind us as the weeks of training continue to wane. In some ways, it seems like it has flown by. In other ways, time has dragged. Next week we will go to the capital for a conference. We will meet our future counterparts at the conference, then we will go to our future sites and spend a few days meeting stakeholders and students, teaching classes, and starting community assessments. I can’t wait.
I am very pleased with how our group has performed as professionals and as language and culture students. I was nervous about how the community project would turn out, but I think it’s safe to call it a success. The students are receptive to us. For the most part, they are eager to learn. Although I will really miss my host family, there is a large part of me that is getting antsy to get in the classroom.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Out of the frying pan
On Thursday, I completed my two-week practicum. I taught in three different schools and to several different classes. I also observed a lot, too. I felt relief once the practicum was over considering that we planned classes, taught lessons, and then had language classes all afternoon. It was incredibly tiring. I’m glad that we got the opportunity to do it but I’m also happy it’s over so I’ll have time to focus on other things.
As a group, we were exposed to a lot of different situations that could be our realities once we get on-site. Between the four of us, we taught a few lessons without having the books, without knowing what lesson we were going to teach until we got to the class (meaning we had about five minutes of preparation), minor inconveniences when it came to class planning and communication, and general confusion. Like so many things in life, you plan and plan and then something completely different ends up happening. The other day in language class, our teacher told us an Albanian saying: “God laughs when we make plans.”
But it’s not all negatives. The practicum and the hurdles we had to jump to keep things running as smoothly as possible make me certain that I will be able to do well here. It’s just nice to have some reassurance.
I had a great conversation with my host parents completely in Albanian. It’s hard to express the frustration of having so much to say and having such a limited way of saying it, but sometimes there are just moments of clarity where it seems like you understand everything and can say exactly what you mean to say. It was just one of those moments and I ran with it. It was nice to expand the conversation into something a little deeper. I asked them more about themselves and they asked more about me and my family. I could explain in more detail about my parents and about what my plans for the future are. I could answer their questions about what my expectations of Albania were. They suggested that I stay here in Albania, find an Albanian husband, and teach English in Tirana.
They asked me what is different here than at home. At this moment, I can honestly say I haven’t had to make many adjustments on an epic scale. It goes back to expectations. I don’t even remember having much of a picture in my mind of what it might be like. The first day or so, I was a little shocked because it was all so new. Now it is all normal. The only thing that is really that different is that sometimes we don’t have power or we won’t have hot water. These are incredibly minor things. I’ve been lucky to land in a great family, first and foremost. Although I am tired almost all of the time and too busy to really think about anything outside the professional realm, all of my needs are being met and I’m doing the things I need to be doing.
In fact, morale is so high that during my mid-training interview/review, I was actually told that my “positive attitude” has really been appreciated. At that moment, I had to cover my mouth to hide a grin that could have easily turned into a chuckle. Or an outburst.
As a group, we were exposed to a lot of different situations that could be our realities once we get on-site. Between the four of us, we taught a few lessons without having the books, without knowing what lesson we were going to teach until we got to the class (meaning we had about five minutes of preparation), minor inconveniences when it came to class planning and communication, and general confusion. Like so many things in life, you plan and plan and then something completely different ends up happening. The other day in language class, our teacher told us an Albanian saying: “God laughs when we make plans.”
But it’s not all negatives. The practicum and the hurdles we had to jump to keep things running as smoothly as possible make me certain that I will be able to do well here. It’s just nice to have some reassurance.
I had a great conversation with my host parents completely in Albanian. It’s hard to express the frustration of having so much to say and having such a limited way of saying it, but sometimes there are just moments of clarity where it seems like you understand everything and can say exactly what you mean to say. It was just one of those moments and I ran with it. It was nice to expand the conversation into something a little deeper. I asked them more about themselves and they asked more about me and my family. I could explain in more detail about my parents and about what my plans for the future are. I could answer their questions about what my expectations of Albania were. They suggested that I stay here in Albania, find an Albanian husband, and teach English in Tirana.
They asked me what is different here than at home. At this moment, I can honestly say I haven’t had to make many adjustments on an epic scale. It goes back to expectations. I don’t even remember having much of a picture in my mind of what it might be like. The first day or so, I was a little shocked because it was all so new. Now it is all normal. The only thing that is really that different is that sometimes we don’t have power or we won’t have hot water. These are incredibly minor things. I’ve been lucky to land in a great family, first and foremost. Although I am tired almost all of the time and too busy to really think about anything outside the professional realm, all of my needs are being met and I’m doing the things I need to be doing.
In fact, morale is so high that during my mid-training interview/review, I was actually told that my “positive attitude” has really been appreciated. At that moment, I had to cover my mouth to hide a grin that could have easily turned into a chuckle. Or an outburst.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Getting my hairs did
I’ve already mentioned that the main floor of my house is a store and a salon. “Salon” is really a loose term since there are only two chairs, but still. In my third week here, my host mom and her students highlighted my hair. But they didn’t want to stop there: my host mom wanted to dye my hair grey. Apparently it’s pretty popular here, but my Albanian isn’t good enough to explain that to an American, grey hair is indicative of age. Today in class, my language teacher told me that my mom really wanted to do it but respected my repeated nos.
There have been a few washes, blow dries and manicures this whole time, which can really spoil a person. I’ve also used the salon blow dryer because the idea of using my American hair dryer with an adapter is terrifying to me. In a country with somewhat fluctuating electricity (there are surges and outages, although they have occurred far less than I originally thought), the last thing you want to do is plug in an appliance from another country that heats up. I’ve already heard stories of some sparks and some really, really bad smells when fuses blow.
For the wedding we went to on Sunday, my host mom’s students used tiny curling irons to practically perm my hair. Then they sprayed more hair spray on my head to hold the curls than all the hair spray I’ve ever had collectively in my life. Should be interesting to see how it washes out later tonight!
Oh, and one more thing: when I was at the salon one morning, one of the customers came up to me and told me I was very white and that it was beautiful. So that’s for all you haters over the years who made fun of me because I was too busy studying to do weird things like go out in the sun.
There have been a few washes, blow dries and manicures this whole time, which can really spoil a person. I’ve also used the salon blow dryer because the idea of using my American hair dryer with an adapter is terrifying to me. In a country with somewhat fluctuating electricity (there are surges and outages, although they have occurred far less than I originally thought), the last thing you want to do is plug in an appliance from another country that heats up. I’ve already heard stories of some sparks and some really, really bad smells when fuses blow.
For the wedding we went to on Sunday, my host mom’s students used tiny curling irons to practically perm my hair. Then they sprayed more hair spray on my head to hold the curls than all the hair spray I’ve ever had collectively in my life. Should be interesting to see how it washes out later tonight!
Oh, and one more thing: when I was at the salon one morning, one of the customers came up to me and told me I was very white and that it was beautiful. So that’s for all you haters over the years who made fun of me because I was too busy studying to do weird things like go out in the sun.
A Word about the Language
I thought for this entry, I’d talk a little bit about the language. At this point, Albanian may be one of the harder languages that I’ve learned. But I can use a lot of things I learned in other languages to help me with my current studies.
Here’s why it’s so hard (and it’s not because it has 36 letters, which most Albanians will cite as the key reason that the language is difficult):
1. Definite and indefinite. Albanian has no “a” or “the” like we do in English. Instead, you can tell by the ending of a word whether you are talking about “an apple,” “the apple,” “some apples,” or “the apples.” It’s a lot to wrap your head around. Definite nouns also apply to names. For example, you can say either Ervin (an Albanian name) or Ervinit. The difference? The second literally means, “The Ervin” and you use it for stress purposes.
2. Every other verb we learn seems to be irregular. Sometimes you have verbs that are regular in the present tense but irregular in the past. Great, guys. The think about irregular verbs is that you just have to memorize them to learn.
3. Adjectives follow nouns and match the gender and number of the noun they describe. I know that already because it’s the same in Italian, but it’s still a little difficult to grasp.
We’ve spent the last week on these two items in particular, which has lead to a lot of mind blowing in our Albanian classes. I feel like a parrot sometimes: I have memorized phrases and can respond to certain questions, but the minute conversation strays to something that wasn’t covered in my book, it’s back to the deer in headlights look.
However, most people know what you’re talking about. Here are some recent gems I made up on the fly in the grocery store: “Can buy 6 or 7 potatoes?” or “Can buy little cheese?” Or creating sentences using two words, as in: “Montenegro, good?” when I asked my host dad about his recent trip. We can’t forget the classic maneuver of using the present tense to talk about the past, as in “Today I go to school,” instead of “today I went to school.”
Although I go around sounding like a moron most of the time, using my limited language and miming skills gets me through most daily communication.
Here’s why it’s so hard (and it’s not because it has 36 letters, which most Albanians will cite as the key reason that the language is difficult):
1. Definite and indefinite. Albanian has no “a” or “the” like we do in English. Instead, you can tell by the ending of a word whether you are talking about “an apple,” “the apple,” “some apples,” or “the apples.” It’s a lot to wrap your head around. Definite nouns also apply to names. For example, you can say either Ervin (an Albanian name) or Ervinit. The difference? The second literally means, “The Ervin” and you use it for stress purposes.
2. Every other verb we learn seems to be irregular. Sometimes you have verbs that are regular in the present tense but irregular in the past. Great, guys. The think about irregular verbs is that you just have to memorize them to learn.
3. Adjectives follow nouns and match the gender and number of the noun they describe. I know that already because it’s the same in Italian, but it’s still a little difficult to grasp.
We’ve spent the last week on these two items in particular, which has lead to a lot of mind blowing in our Albanian classes. I feel like a parrot sometimes: I have memorized phrases and can respond to certain questions, but the minute conversation strays to something that wasn’t covered in my book, it’s back to the deer in headlights look.
However, most people know what you’re talking about. Here are some recent gems I made up on the fly in the grocery store: “Can buy 6 or 7 potatoes?” or “Can buy little cheese?” Or creating sentences using two words, as in: “Montenegro, good?” when I asked my host dad about his recent trip. We can’t forget the classic maneuver of using the present tense to talk about the past, as in “Today I go to school,” instead of “today I went to school.”
Although I go around sounding like a moron most of the time, using my limited language and miming skills gets me through most daily communication.
A Big Day
Friday was a huge day, probably one of the single most important days I will have over the next two years: site placement announcements. After attending several sessions at a conference for English teachers, the big moment finally came.
Let me preface this by saying that my only concern about placement was how far I’d be from my family. I’d say that in four weeks here, I’ve grown closer to my Albanian family than I ever did in eleven months with my previous host family. So although I tried to be at peace with whatever was in my envelope, I was worried how I would react if I would be far. In bed the night before, I tried to convince myself that everything would be fine even if I wasn’t close to them… that going through PST and moving out was just the natural progression of things, and that even if I would be far, I could always visit.
With these thoughts in mind, I opened up my placement envelope and nervously looked inside. A wave of relief swept over me when I figured out that I would be about an hour away. As I continued to read the details of my placement, I became more and more at ease. On paper, it looks great: very close to Durres, a large city; teaching at a technical high school focusing on business and tourism; close to another very cool volunteer; and a 5KM-long beach. I don’t want to get too excited, but I see a lot of potential and the ability to use my skill set to really serve my community and my students. The site has had two previous volunteers and I would like to continue with some projects that they have started. In a few weeks, I will meet my future counterparts, students and community stakeholders and see my future site. I can’t wait!
We had mid-training reviews in language and technical aspects, and they told me I might as well go home and pack my bags immediately. Kidding! They went great. I appreciate that our teachers and training managers are always giving and asking for feedback. The team has done so much work to help us learn the language, culture, and customs. Another part of the team looks for our housing and identifies placement sites, which oftentimes involves multiple visits to the sites and frequent contact with community leaders and counterparts. It’s a lot of logistics and organization and it is greatly appreciated.
On Tuesday, our teaching practicum begins. During the next two weeks, we will teach classes and observe many more in the mornings. In the afternoons, we will continue with language study and spend Fridays at the central training hub. It’s really going to start picking up around here, but I’ll try my best to update with all the news.
Today we had a cultural day where we made American food and our families brought Albanian food. The food turned into a giant dance party later. My teacher liked the pierogies I painstakingly made and gave me the “may your hands be blessed,” compliment. I’ve cooked a few things for my host family and so far they have been well-received. It’s no small feat given that I have to incredibly alter my recipes through conversion and lack of ingredients. Creativity is key! Tomorrow I’m going to a wedding with my host parents, so I’ll be getting a bite from the dancing bug again tomorrow.
Let me preface this by saying that my only concern about placement was how far I’d be from my family. I’d say that in four weeks here, I’ve grown closer to my Albanian family than I ever did in eleven months with my previous host family. So although I tried to be at peace with whatever was in my envelope, I was worried how I would react if I would be far. In bed the night before, I tried to convince myself that everything would be fine even if I wasn’t close to them… that going through PST and moving out was just the natural progression of things, and that even if I would be far, I could always visit.
With these thoughts in mind, I opened up my placement envelope and nervously looked inside. A wave of relief swept over me when I figured out that I would be about an hour away. As I continued to read the details of my placement, I became more and more at ease. On paper, it looks great: very close to Durres, a large city; teaching at a technical high school focusing on business and tourism; close to another very cool volunteer; and a 5KM-long beach. I don’t want to get too excited, but I see a lot of potential and the ability to use my skill set to really serve my community and my students. The site has had two previous volunteers and I would like to continue with some projects that they have started. In a few weeks, I will meet my future counterparts, students and community stakeholders and see my future site. I can’t wait!
We had mid-training reviews in language and technical aspects, and they told me I might as well go home and pack my bags immediately. Kidding! They went great. I appreciate that our teachers and training managers are always giving and asking for feedback. The team has done so much work to help us learn the language, culture, and customs. Another part of the team looks for our housing and identifies placement sites, which oftentimes involves multiple visits to the sites and frequent contact with community leaders and counterparts. It’s a lot of logistics and organization and it is greatly appreciated.
On Tuesday, our teaching practicum begins. During the next two weeks, we will teach classes and observe many more in the mornings. In the afternoons, we will continue with language study and spend Fridays at the central training hub. It’s really going to start picking up around here, but I’ll try my best to update with all the news.
Today we had a cultural day where we made American food and our families brought Albanian food. The food turned into a giant dance party later. My teacher liked the pierogies I painstakingly made and gave me the “may your hands be blessed,” compliment. I’ve cooked a few things for my host family and so far they have been well-received. It’s no small feat given that I have to incredibly alter my recipes through conversion and lack of ingredients. Creativity is key! Tomorrow I’m going to a wedding with my host parents, so I’ll be getting a bite from the dancing bug again tomorrow.
Monday, April 13, 2009
I am learning!
We are coming up on the end of week three, almost one-third of the way through PST (that’s “Pre-service Training” to those of you not in tune with Peace Corps abbreviations). At this point, we continue to have language lessons 4 – 5 hours per day, Monday through Saturday. We have also begun our community service projects. My group would like to organize a hike/picnic/game day. So we will see how the project continues to develop. One day a week, we get to observe classes in local schools. It’s been quite an eye-opener and has given me a chance to see the rewards and problems of teaching.
This past weekend, I visited the port city of Durres. It has everything a nerd like me could need: history, archaeology museum, a Roman amphitheater, and more history. The visit to Durres was part of a larger weekend that I spent visiting a current volunteer who lives close to the city. The “volunteer visit,” as it is called, gives us an opportunity to see what our lives may be like as volunteers. My volunteer has really created a nice life for herself here. Some of her activities include: teaching at a high school, tutoring her school director and supporting teachers at a private foreign language school. We spent this past Monday following her throughout her daily activities and it has given me a lot to reflect on.
Things are really starting to pick up here as far as work is concerned. Our teaching practica start in just two weeks. During those fourteen days, we will teach, co-teach and observe each others’ classes. It’s a bit of a dry run where we can get some practical experience and some feedback. I am a little nervous, but most of me thinks that just rolling up my sleeves and getting in there is the best approach.
Family life continues to go well. I am integrating into my family, picking up more and more of the language, and I feel supported by the PC staff and by my family. This feeling of comfort has made the adjustment painless for me. I am very grateful and I always make sure to show it.
The people here are amazing. They have shown us guests so many kindnesses, from the most minute to the largest. On our way home from the volunteer visit, our volunteer told two women (a grandmother and granddaughter with baby) where we were going and to look after us. The women engaged us in conversation and lead us by the hand to where we were going when it came time to change furgons. This kind of thing literally happens all the time to us here.
I am meeting many people here, too. Most of the time, I don’t remember their names, but everyone certainly knows who I am. Today I went to a neighboring village to observe a class. A young boy knew who I was, but I didn’t know him. He then told me that I went to a party at his uncle’s house. This kind of thing also happens all the time, but when you’re one of six Americans in a village, you aren’t usually surprised when it does.
This past weekend, I visited the port city of Durres. It has everything a nerd like me could need: history, archaeology museum, a Roman amphitheater, and more history. The visit to Durres was part of a larger weekend that I spent visiting a current volunteer who lives close to the city. The “volunteer visit,” as it is called, gives us an opportunity to see what our lives may be like as volunteers. My volunteer has really created a nice life for herself here. Some of her activities include: teaching at a high school, tutoring her school director and supporting teachers at a private foreign language school. We spent this past Monday following her throughout her daily activities and it has given me a lot to reflect on.
Things are really starting to pick up here as far as work is concerned. Our teaching practica start in just two weeks. During those fourteen days, we will teach, co-teach and observe each others’ classes. It’s a bit of a dry run where we can get some practical experience and some feedback. I am a little nervous, but most of me thinks that just rolling up my sleeves and getting in there is the best approach.
Family life continues to go well. I am integrating into my family, picking up more and more of the language, and I feel supported by the PC staff and by my family. This feeling of comfort has made the adjustment painless for me. I am very grateful and I always make sure to show it.
The people here are amazing. They have shown us guests so many kindnesses, from the most minute to the largest. On our way home from the volunteer visit, our volunteer told two women (a grandmother and granddaughter with baby) where we were going and to look after us. The women engaged us in conversation and lead us by the hand to where we were going when it came time to change furgons. This kind of thing literally happens all the time to us here.
I am meeting many people here, too. Most of the time, I don’t remember their names, but everyone certainly knows who I am. Today I went to a neighboring village to observe a class. A young boy knew who I was, but I didn’t know him. He then told me that I went to a party at his uncle’s house. This kind of thing also happens all the time, but when you’re one of six Americans in a village, you aren’t usually surprised when it does.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Happy Forever Wishes!
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.
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.
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