Chris in Albania

Site Visit

I went to Korça this past week.  It was good times.  All of us trainees went to Pogradec for a three day “counterpart conference”. Pogradec is on the border with Macadonia, on

lake

Ohrid

.  It is quite picturesque.  We got there on a somewhat blustery day, but that didn’t stop Nikhil and John from braving the waters.  Nikhil got in and soon after we quickly learned from a local that all of the city’s sewage comes out right next to where he was swimming.  We just got our Hepatitis-B shots a few weeks ago, so he felt a bit more brave than usual, also he was already in so the damage was done.  John, however had agreed earlier to go in, so he couldn’t leave Nikhil alone to get some nasty disease, so he got in too.  They didn’t stay in too long, and are still healthy a week and a half later, so all’s well.

Sewage in the lake aside, Pogradec is a very clean town.  There is a very long park along the lake, with many old men strolling on it and playing dominos and chess.  We strolled along the paths a few times while we were there, it was nice.

We met our counterparts, and mine was extremely nice.  She knows a lot of English, too, so it will be difficult for me to learn how to speak Albanian in my office.

We also went out dancing until all hours of the morning.  I went home at 1:30 the first night, but not until 5:30 the second.  Bad idea I guess.  The next day, I met the married couple who are in the Peace Corps group that has been here for one year.  They are extremely nice, and I am happy that they are the kids I will be stuck with for a year. Dave, the guy, said that he was going to go play soccer with a bunch of Roma kids that he hangs out with. Despite my complete lack of sleep, I decided to go along.  When we got to their place, like ten kids mauled David with hugs, they were so excited to see him.  He handed out some brownies and we went to play soccer.  It was a lot of fun, and they were so excited to be out with us. 

The Weavers were great hosts, we went out to the brewery almost every night to drink beer and eat.  It was good times.

My new host family is great.  They are very friendly.  There are two host brothers who are in their 20’s.  The younger one speaks English a little and is helpful with teaching English.  I will be living in the apartment below them, it will be nice ot have my own place.

Korça is awesome.  You will no longer feel sorry for me if you had up to this point.  Korça has a crepes shop, 50 cents for a crepe with chocolate or jelly, good stuff.  It has a very active museum with new exhibits all the time.  Next to the museum is the crown jewel, for me, of Korça, the English language library.  This library has every classic I would ever want to read.  I got a library card for one dollar and I’m set.  There can’t be more than 15 people who would use this awesome library, but I will make up for it.

I have much more to say about Korça, like my new job (Sabina is a current volunteer who will be working there for 4 more months, she’s great, and it’s VERY helpful to have her explain everything to me).  Take care everyone!

Camping

(from May 15th...)

So there is this lake that I have gone swimming at quite a few times in the past month or so.  It’s about 2 kilometers from my house (that’s right, Dave, two kilometers, you figure it out).  It’s called something like “gjel orë”, but that’s not the exact name.  I only hear the name ten times every day.  My host grandma bugs me about it everyday, many times a day.  She says, “Where were you today? Swimming in Gjel orë”?  Then she gives me this trying-to-be-harsh look and acts like she’s going to smack me.  She always does this thing with her hand like she’s going to slap you, it is hilarious.  So, apparently she grew up very near this lake and someone must have died swimming in it a long time ago, because she constantly explains to me that it is really deep, so I will die in it if I swim in it. She also thinks that from time to time, there is a whirlpool that sucks people down to the bottom. So last week she was bugging me about it like usual, so I told her that I was going to go swimming in it again soon, and it was going to be fun.  I paraphrasing her answer a bit, but this is almost exactly what she said: “You tell me when you are going and I will tell R_ to drive us all to Gjel Orë.  Then when you go swimming, I’ll say, ‘come here, come here’! (Which is “Hajde! Hajde!, a very often used word), and then when you get close, I’ll throw rocks at you”! She made the motion like she was going to throw a rock at me, and I could tell by the gleam in her eyes that she was imagining actually throwing a rock at me and she really enjoyed it.  Then she laughed a whole bunch, she really thinks she is funny.  The picture of her with the ball of yarn is her explaining to me once again the trouble I will be in if I go swimming in Gjel Orë. 

So Kaija, Brett, and I organized a camping expedition on a plateau that is between Belsch and Gjel Orë.  It took some coordination.  I asked everyone to get off of their busses early, before they arrived in Belsh, because if they were to arrive in the town proper, it would be all the talk of the town the entire day, and who knows how many boys between the ages of ten and fifty would show up at the top of the mountain with us.  So the other PCTs wrestled with their host families.  It’s quite difficult to explain what camping is, so most every just said that they were staying somewhere else that night.  It was still difficult for a lot of people.  I got to the mountain kind of early to scout out a good spot.  An hour or so later, I got a text message from Katherine saying, “You are a dead man”. I called her, a group of them thought they were lost, so I gave some directions.  About ten minutes later, I got another message from her, “Blood Chris.  Blood.”  Good stuff indeed.  The showed up about ten minutes later and the rest of the group (about 15 total) showed up soon after. We went swimming in the lake I’m not supposed to go in and then came back to the mountain.

Brett and his best Albanian buddy VC showed up in VC’s car with a bunch of firewood.  We got the fire set up, sat around with some food and drinks and lit the fire soon after dusk.  It was beautiful up there, I’ve included a few pictures of the day.  We got the fire going and spirits were high.  Then it started to rain.  So we booked it to this half-started house that is on one side of the mountain.  Of course with the wind on top of the mountain, the building gave us almost no shelter whatsoever.  Brett of course had shown up with only a tshirt, shorts, and sandals.  We gave him some of our extra clothes, but he still had a pretty bad night.  Camping passed almost without incident, the most noteworthy event was that Paul had fallen in the fire sometime in the evening.  There is a good picture of it in the photo album. 

All of us trucked it to the bus stop area in Belsh.  We certainly turned some heads.  Fifteen Americans with huge backpacks all coming down the mountain at 8:30 in the morning is certainly an odd sight here.  It has been the news ever since.  The people on Jimmy and David’s side of the lake think shameful acts occurred on top of the mountain, because there were females and males there.  My family and the people I talk to are less suspicious, although my grandma is now acting like she is going to slap me because of my camping expedition. 

So on Sunday three weeks ago, my host mom told me she was going to make a sweater for me because I am moving to such a cold city.  That was four days ago, and she finished it this evening.  It looks quite nice.  I was very happy. It was a very nice thing for her to do for me. 

Our work with the high school kids on the newspaper went swimmingly.  In the last month that we were in Belsh, we actually produced two editons of the paper.  I hope to get copies of both up in the photo album soon.  The mayor allowed us to use his office printer for the paper, but he wasn’t there when we showed up to print it.  The secretary let us print only fifty copies, but then when she saw that her son was on the paper staff, she let us print 50 more.  The kids took well to the paper, and are very excited to continue on with it.  A few of them are hoping to be journalists, and this was a good experience to help with that.  I am very happy with the way it all turned out.

Moving to Korca in less than a week

I was able to get some more pictures up, I tried to change the naming structure so that the newer pictures are all together.  I haven't really had any time free to write, but I will be catching up on what's gone on over the past month shortly after I get to Korca. 

Sam just arrived in Moldova (good luck Sam!  I hope you have as positive of an experience as I have had so far), she emailed me from her staging in Philadelphia, and it brought me back to when my group met there three months ago.  In some ways, it seems like it's been a week since then, in others, it seems like years.  I am already so close with the people in my group, Albania and the people I know here have very much become my world.  It's a very good thing.

Ok, I PROMISE I will write more soon.