Thanksgiving, I tried to leave out the graphic pictures!

Albanian neighbor helping me take out the insides, the part I wasn't so sure about?

Turkey: No head.

Seth holding the turkey before he spazed out!

Turkey: with head, 8.5 kilos

Weather, Makedonja (how they spell it in shqip), and Halloween.

Desert Rat, not anymore! I have never seen so much rain, wait…let me rephrase, water in my entire 23 years. Not to say that 23 years is a long time or that I have had much experience (more precisely, zero experience) living in climates other than the Sonoran Desert, but it rains a $h!t ton in Albania! I know most people who read this realize my situation but for those of you are just perusing the interwebs, I am from Tucson, Arizona where rainfall is a seasonal “phenomenon” we call monsoons and only lasts, if we are lucky, up to three months. I have never owned an umbrella before I came to Albania and I am almost positive no one in my immediate family even knows where to buy such a contraption. Anyways, it rains a lot here and I just love it. I am tired of the sun, blasphemy I know, and couldn’t be happier about the Mediterranean weather in winter. There are a few drawbacks to such fantastic weather. First, I wash my clothes by hand so I can only bring myself to expend enough effort for about one load per day (which translates to about half of a one gallon bucket). In the rainy season (which I am told lasts from about mid-October until the end of February) it takes my clothes about 5 days to dry completely. This means that I haven’t been washing my clothes frequently. Not a huge problem (and understand I live in a less-developed country) because I wear most of what I own until the garment can move on its own, excluding socks and skibies of course. I am mostly kidding here by the way, mostly kidding! Second, I have had basically a consistent cold. I enjoy the weather so much that at first I naively refused to wear adequate clothing. I hate being hot, so when the weather first started getting cold in Albania I was still in shorts and T-shirts. This has since changed because I got a wicked fever and missed a week of work. The third and final drawback to the cold and wet weather is travel. I first assumed that since the weather was getting cooler, that furgon (mini-bus or basically a big van) and bus travel would get more tolerable. I figured people would smell better, the heat and subsequent sweaty ass syndrome would cease to exist, and the roads would be safer due to less traffic. Boy did I hypothesis that incorrectly. Instead, people are too cold to shower and in turn smell worse. Compound this with the fact that the vehicle is now void of fresh air because it is cold and wet and they refuse to roll down a window, the result being an incubator for transmission of sickness and smells worse than a football locker room after an Arizona summer practice. I exaggerate a bit but you get the basic idea. I no longer generate symptoms of sweaty ass syndrome but the roads are definitely not safer. They may actually be safer statistically, but I don’t feel safer. Driving methods do not change in the wet weather. There is less tourist traffic but no regard to the possibility of ice on the road or reservations when it comes to puddles or flooded streets. Other than these minor factors of inconvenience, travel is better. Walking long distances across towns or cities in order to find the next mode of transportation is easier now due to better (colder) weather, although other PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) may protest this statement. Enough about the glorious weather, now let’s hear about the work situation.

Last month I started to get really excited about the prospects for work in the coming months. This has faded recently. The Bashkia, with my help, is working on creating a Foreign Language Computer Lab at the local 9-year school (this is years 1-9). I came into the project during the initial stage and before really knowing what was going on I assisted in writing a budget with Chuck (the previous Rubik COD PCV, maybe I will write an acronym guide because a bureaucratic entity like Peace Corps uses a lot) that was sent to the French Embassy in hopes of funding. Now that the project has been partially funded by the French, I cannot for the life of me find computer programs for teaching Albanian speakers foreign languages. The original plan was this; we went to a language computer lab in Tirana who teaches students English with computer programs and an instructor with knowledge in the English language, they agreed to provide us with the program names and supplier that they use, we were then going to purchase the programs and computers, and then I was going to set up the lab, network the computers to a server, and teach the two foreign language teachers at the 9-year school how to operate and administer the lab. The problem has materialized this week. The two contacts in Tirana who said they would help us acquire the language programs, French and English, have not been helpful. The French institute now claims that they only teach with books and knowledgeable teachers, and the English institute gave me inadequate information and now fails to return my emails. I went to Tirana last week to drop in on the English teaching facility and the two contacts I have there were, reportedly, unavailable. There are plenty of English and French teaching computer programs out in the world but I can’t seem to find any that cater to native Albanian speakers. Not a big deal, I will find something and everything will work out, I just thought the purchasing part of this project would be over by now…oh Albania. Other work related news is not too good. Today I was informed that the only English speaker and the Bashkia’s only translator got a job in Tirana with an American law firm and is quitting. The best part is that she is tight with the Mayor so he agreed not to replace her until her probationary period with her new job is over. That means that the Bashkia will not even begin looking for a replacement until January. Great!!!! Guess I will have to kick my Shqip into high gear or I will have nothing to do at work, or at least I won’t understand anything they give me to do, for a while. Also, the ideas I have to present to the Mayor about improving the transparency and efficiency of the Municipality will have to wait until I can accurately articulate them in Shqip. That could be quite a while, considering how I can barely speak my own native language, hahahaha. Other than that I have a few things in the works right now but I’d rather not jinks myself quite yet so I am just going to keep those things close. I am also teaching an information technology class at the community center, which is actually going well considering that my students range from ages 17-52 and none of them speak English. Outside of work, I had the pleasure and relief of leaving the country.

Macedonia is also a Peace Corps country but things are much different there. They have a good road network, intellectual property rights enforcement (which meant I got to eat a Big Mac), and…get this…a bus system with schedules and actual bus stations! Although it was really nice to get out of the country and see a little of the Balkans, I really missed the culture of Albania. The first night we were in Macedonia, we couldn’t find our hostel. We kept on asking people, taxi drivers, and various hotels for directions or even to point us in the right direction. Either the taxi drivers would quote us some ridiculous amount of money or people would just say they didn’t know and continue on their way. If this were to happen in Albania you would get a hand on the back of your arm or a forceful “hajde” and the Albanian would either guide you to the door of the place you were looking for or would find someone who would. The people in this country really know how to treat other people , especially foreign people.

When we finally arrived at our hostel in Shkopje, the capital of Macedonia, we were greeted by an excellent proprietor. He first made sure that we weren’t over charged for the taxi we eventually had to take and then asked us about ourselves. We told him about what we did in Albania and instead of charging us per person like in all hostels; he reduced the price and just charged us per room. He then set us up with a similar deal in Ohrid, which is where we were headed next. Macedonia is an extremely pretty country and we had a great time. We spent most of our time just enjoying the break from Albania and the nice atmosphere, so we didn’t really see too many of the sites, there is always next time. I will keep the rest short.

After Macedonia we went straight to the Language Refresher, which is a Peace Corps conference that takes place for all volunteers during the first 6 months of service. I honestly think it is a bit of a waste of time and money. It may be a great conference for some, but in my particular situation, learning how they speak in the central and southern portions of the country is not a real big help. Dialect and accent are such a big deal where I am from that I didn’t get much from the conference. It is also a huge bureaucratically organized event. After the conference I headed to Elbasan where we did our Pre-Service training for the Halloween party at a group 11 volunteers house. I was surprised, dude has an awesome place, I say surprised but I mean jealous. The party was pretty fun; people have to make all of their costumes so it was interesting. I went as my Turkish toilet, printed out a picture of the thing and attached it to my shirt, also made a shower head that I wore from my hat. Well I am way behind on posting to this thing so I will leave it at that. Hopefully I will be able to write something about Thanksgiving and the turkey slaughter soon!

Just some Pictures, I'll explain later!

Albanian Folk Festival in Gjirokaster, got a ride with the group from Kukes. Really fun and they played music the hole ride, they also had a spontaneous dance at a cafe we stopped to rest at.

The Kukes group performing at the Folk Festival. The event only takes place every four years and is held in the Gjirokaster Castle. Really cool cultural experience.

Crossing a foot bridge across the Shkopeti Lake near Burrell on our way to camp.

The foot bridge and the place we camped at, upper left corner in the small clearing.

Macedonia-Albania border, notice how the road starting in Macedonia gets suddenly nice!

Hike in the mountains west of Rubik on our way to the 5000 year old overhang drawing, in the rain. (Me, Seth, Tauschia, and Alex)

River near Shpella e Pёllumbas, absolutely GORGEOUS!

Shpella e Pёllumbas, cave near Tirana with Polis University students and Chuck (the tall one), possible collaborators for the Bunker Trails Project, www.bunkertrails.org

I realize these pictures probably make it seem like all I do is travel and have a good time. This is somewhat true, I do spend a lot of time traveling around the country but only on the weekend. I do spend my weekdays in the office doing actual work but who wants to see a bunch of pictures of me sitting in an office giving advice or explaining to my counterpart something on the computer. Also, Albania is a beautifull country that doesnt get enough credit for being a great travel opportunity...hope some of these pictures encourages interest.

Finally some work!

Hello everyone, it has been quite a long time since I have written in this so I guess I will have to consult my calendar to remember just what the hell I have been doing with my time. It has been a busy month and pushime is officially over which is great. Recently I have been working on several projects, with and without my primary agency.
Work with the Bashkia: This month my Bashkia sent in the report for our familiar tourism project. Rubik is surrounded by 11 villages that are incorporated within the Bashkia’s jurisdiction. My counterpart started an initiative to increase the economic base in two of these villages by housing foreign tourists with villagers. We have been visiting, evaluating, and discussing with these families on their capacity to house and entertain tourists. We are currently building relationships and getting the proper documentation to write grants for guest homes for several of these families, so far we have established 3 families which I have mapped their location and evaluated their homes. The evaluation part was my favorite. Since I am the only foreigner that the Bashkia has access to, I was taken to the three homes two months ago to have lunch at each home, meet the families, and evaluate the accommodations. I wrote about this experience a few entries ago but at the time I didn’t fully grasp what I was doing there. My language is slowly getting better but I still have constant misunderstandings.
I am also working with my Bashkia on a project for a Foreign language lab that would be located in the 9 year school here in Rubik. Some of you may recall me sending out an email about this. If anyone would like information on how you can assist the municipality of Rubik with this project please contact me at monsbm@gmail.com. Ow, I guess I better explain this. So, in order to gain entry into a University in Albania you must speak a foreign language proficiently. I am a little fuzzy on the details because we haven’t actually started writing the project yet since we are still looking for funds but, I know that in order to get into a public university in Albania, which means it is free, you must pass an English language exam. This is huge for youth in Rubik. We only have one English teacher for the first 9 years and one teacher for the last 3 years of school for the entire town and the 11 villages which accounts for about 7,000 people…I am not sure how many students that is at the time, one more thing to add to the list of information to gather. Anyway, with my site mate and myself added, the town only has 4 people that are qualified to teach English and since that is not my primary or secondary interest in Rubik I have yet to teach a student. The goal of a foreign language computer lab is to prepare the youth of Rubik for the language exams they will have to take to get into college. The lab will be complete with language programs for English, German, French, Italian, Greek, and possibly Spanish (the number of languages depends on funding). These programs will be paired with headsets that are capable of instructing the youth on speaking and comprehension. I have seen the programs work at a private training center in Tirana, but the courses are far away and cost too much money. I won’t bore you anymore with the details of the project but we are looking for possible fundraisers back in the states. If anyone is involved with a philanthropic organization or knows someone who would be willing to donate please let me know and I can have the appropriate materials sent to them. Part of the process is to generate interest so contacting me will not result in expectations on my part of participation. Enough talking about that.
Secondary work: I still occupying my free time with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) work. We are still meeting contact from the previous volunteer who ran the project and this week Tauscha (a group 11 PCV) and myself will be meeting with a University class to explain the project, which will hopefully result in me teaching a class in how the process works and a hike with the students. PC is all about building the capacity of host country agencies and people so the eventual goal is to hand this entire project over to Albanians, the University is a great place to recruit interested parties. We are also meeting with a Director of Environmental and Geographic studies at a European university, a Minister of tourism for the National government, and a guy who has a Geographic consulting company. I am really excited. This is all within the same days as a COD (community and organization development) conference; this is the sector of PC that I am in. The other work I have been doing is consulting the Qarku of Kukes, Qarku is the regional council (Albania has 12 regions) on their process of drawing property rights to be put in a digital data base. I am in no shape or form qualified to do this type of work in the United States but here I am helpful to a country that is experiencing a slight brain drain (educated people can make more money abroad, so they leave). It is a little overwhelming but the people that I am helping in the Qarku are extremely bright and hard working.
Per qejf (for pleasure): This month has been great. Three weeks ago we went camping on a lake created by two damns that were built by the Chinese a few decades ago. The lake is called Shkopeti. We made camp on the other side of the lake from the road to Burrell, near a small collection of homes belonging to subsistent villagers. In order to get to the camp we crossed an awesome “Indiana Jones” type bridge that was mostly made of wood and had several missing planks, it was great…especially when some friends I went with got half way across and then had a near breakdown!!!
I also went to a Folk festival in Gjirokaster that is only held every four years. This was awesome. Two of the PCVs in Kukes, James and his wife Jen, got us a ride to Gjiro on a bus with the Kukes folk band, the ride to Gjiro round trip costs about three days worth of allowance so it was great to get a ride, and plus they played music and sang for the entire 8 hour drive. In Albania, people aren’t really used to driving long distances and the roads tend to be winding and rough, so the drivers often stop every hour or so for a café break, and for the young people to throw up!!! This was pretty fun cause at one place where we stopped, the band got out and played for twenty minutes while the kids, who are also part of the group, did the dance they were going to perform at the festival. Albanians are probably the most hospitable people I have ever met. The director of culture in Kukes insisted on paying for everything. For the whole trip, both ways, we must have stopped at least 10 times to have a café (which is always accompanied with a raki), a beer, or lunch. Albanians take great offense if you try to pay for your own drink or food if they invite you. Even if you invite them for a café they take great offense if you pay for it so I have learned not to even try, I have even been told not to thank them. Just yesterday I had some friends come up for a hike that got rained out. When Alex arrived I met her at a locale because we were on our way to meet Seth, Tauschia and the others up the hill. It had been raining all day so furgon traffic was slow but a driver who was going to Lezhe, about an hour and a half west of Rubik decided to drive Alex to Rubik…for free…just because she is American (and partly because she is a girl). I insisted on paying for the drinks (Alex paid me back of course but it is shume torpe, very shameful, for a female to pay for things) and he had a bit of a hissy fit, little of which I understood, which mostly consisted of him yelling at me about respect. I love this country. Where else is it an insult to buy a drink for a guy who just drove an hour and a half out of his way, during working hours, for free. Fantastic!!

AAAAHH, Summer!

Korca Beer Fest in the rain, glad I came prepared! (Tyler, Alex, Phoebe, Myself)

Wedding in Miredite (Rubik Tourism Day)

View from Beach camp

Wedding in Miredite

Rubik, My site

Staff of Youth Volunteerism Project

July 17-September 1, 2009

Pushime is the all encompassing word for a nap, a weekend, vacation, or basically anything that requires no work. Albanians love it and take it extremely seriously; I think this is a good thing in a certain respect. I will start with the end of my last blog. The last time I wrote on this thing I had just finished visiting a small village that is very old (hence the name katund i vjeter, old village) and was actually on a main trading route during the Middle Ages. The next day after my trip to Katund i Vjeter I was given several documents that had been prepared by my counterpart and were then translated by the one English speaker in my Bashkia who is the English translator. Schools in Albania do not teach students how to write professionally, critically, or even creatively. I have met countless Shqiptares who have finished three to five years (they call it the Belgian system, I don’t really know what that means) and have never written a paper with entirely self generated content. The longest paper that a person with a “master’s degree” had written was 7 pages long and she admittedly had taken a good portion of it from resources. Plagiarism is also a huge issue in the schools here. Anyway, the documents required a large amount of, I will say, adjustment before they were sent out. The documents were invitations and itineraries for foreign guests at a Tourism Day the Bashkia of Rubik was planning for the following weekend. The event was funded by the French embassy in order to stimulate and advertise touristic amenities in the municipality of Rubik (that’s where I live if you don’t remember). The documents that I was to “adjust” were given to me on Thursday, July 16 and I returned them to my counterpart on Friday. The invitations for the event were sent out via only email on Monday, July 20^th for an event that was taking place on Saturday, July 25^th. If you follow, that means that during the summer in Albania, during the first weeks of serious pushime, my bashkia sent out invitations for an event that had been in planning since before I was in Albania 5 days before the event took place. This is a great example of Albanian culture in the workplace, especially in government. We sent an invitation to various international entities including the French, Dutch, Swiss, Austrian, and American embassies, along with the Peace Corps. SDC (the Swiss equivalent of USAID) was the only foreign organization that came to the event. The rest of the participants were people from the area and surrounding areas, not the point of the event. The French, who paid for the day, did not even come to the event. This is just one small problem that occurred during the planning of the event that I hope not allow to happen next year when I will hopefully have a bigger hand in the process. Other than a long list of suggestions that I have for the Bashkia the day was excellent. The day included visiting various points of interest in the Municipality including Vele; a beautiful and natural looking village with a interesting church, Rubik; which consisted of driving through the main street and then riding up to the 950yr old church, then giving a briefing on its history and significance, and finally finishing in Katund i Vjeter for a lunch and mach Mirditan (I live in the region of Mirdita) wedding. The drive is on village roads so we took a caravan of “Relly Albania” (pronounced Rally) 4x4 vehicles which was great and the participants really enjoyed it. The lunch was fantastic and the wedding was also great, although I had problems that I will discuss with the Bashkia about the presentation of these items to foreigners. The day after the event I traveled south to Pogradec, a city on Lake Ohrid near the border with Macedonia, for Connie’s 60^th birthday. Connie was in my training group and I think I have mentioned that during the training my group became fairly close. I met Alex and Rachel (also in my training group, Seth canceled last minute due to a bowel issue) in Pogradec and we went to the beach, cooked Connie dinner and then took her out for music and dancing. Pogradec is beautiful, and during the summer it is fairly crowded with tourists from Macedonia and Albanians who normally live in other places in the world. We met and made friends with many Albanians who currently live in the United States and are home for the summer to visit family. The weekend was great except for one incident with a middle aged Albanian man that I won’t get into. I returned to Rubik where work was even slower than before I had left. My counterpart and Mayor were basically M.I.A. for the remainder of the month and all of August. In fact I just saw my counterpart today, he just returned from France where he participated in a Cultural integration event with various other countries, who told me that I am off for the rest of August and that I can choose whether to come to the office or not but he will not be there. Luckily I am still working a couple of days a week on a Youth volunteerism project with World Vision, UNV, CAAP, and Ndrryshimi Fillon Nga Ty (translates to change begins with you, it is a NGO started by the 2008 winner of Big Brother Albania named Arber who used his winnings to start a non-profit to encourage youth to volunteer throughout Albania). The goal of the project is to recruit several groups of youth in three regions in northern Albania and training the youth on what volunteering is, the benefits, the costs, and finally how to change their community through a project. The youth will be assisted in writing a proposal for funding that will be presented to a panel of their peers during a “Grant Event” that we are also in the process of planning. The project is a great idea and is concentrated on three regions; Shkoder, which is the 3^rd or 4^th largest city in the country depending on who you ask, Lezhe, which is also a fairly large city on the beach, and the region I am helping with which is Kurbin and consists mostly of small villages and a few towns. The youth groups I have been helping to arrange and train are in Milot and Frushe Kruje, about a 20min and 45min ride, respectively, from my town. My primary group is in Milot and we had one of our last meetings before the event yesterday where we planned to decide on a project and begin writing the proposal. I had prepared methods on how to engage the youth and determine which project would be best for their community and the available budget, I had also called Arber (who is a big celebrity in Albania) to join the meeting, youth are usually more motivated and focused when he is around and he would translate for me. We waited an hour and a half drinking coffee with Arber and his father (who is a former Albanian Ambassador to Cuba, Mexico, and Italy) and no one showed up, one week before the event and no group, at least I am not a complete failure, I did help with the planning of the project and grant event (I will also attend the grant event as staff).

After Pogradec, I hung out in my site for a while but became very bored. During the summer months Rubik is even more less-populous than it normally is. This town is smaller than the High School I graduated from. Due to the utter lack of work we planned to go camping at a beach. Chuck, the guy who I took over for and who has decided he likes Albania so much that he extended a third year, Alex and Myself went camping on a beach north of Shingjin and south of Velipoja. The place was absolutely gorgeous except for the trash that had washed up on the shore (the beach was in between two rivers that both flow from northern cities and carry trash with them). We were almost alone during the day and completely isolated during the night. I will try to attach pictures to this entry. We sat there on the beach and thought, so this is Peace Corps huh? Don’t get me wrong there are a great many of difficulties that we all face each day but this is not what I thought it was going to be like, no better and no worse, just different.

So I am convinced that many people in Rubik think I am quite strange. I cook for myself, wash my clothes in a bucket (almost everyone here has a washing machine but no dryer), enjoy running and sometimes walk great distances just to sleep outside on the ground. My favorite part about living in such a small town and being one of two distinguishable outsiders is the rumors. Due to the difficulties of traveling in this county and the restrictions put on PCVs for safety reasons we all sleep on the couch of fellow volunteers fairly frequently. Combined with the fact that I have a female site mate some people in my town have come to the conclusion that I am sleeping with all of them. Not necessarily a bad thing as far as culture for a male to be accused of, but still extremely false and ridiculous. Chuck had heard from a neighbor of mine that I stay up very late at night, he mentioned I wasn’t loud or disruptive just that he had noticed. Why would you tell someone that? Who cares? About a week ago I was having a drink with an Albanian friend and another PCV at a locale on the opposite side of town from me, about a 4 min walk, and after we departed we decided to have one more beer before we went to bed at another locale next to my palati (apartment). My Albanian friend somehow heard that we were at this locale after we had left him and he proceeded to interrogate me on why we didn’t want to drink that other beer with him. It was nothing against him, we just thought the night was over, 9pm, but decided last minute when we saw another locale was still open. How he heard about this is beyond me, but this is a small place and I kind of stand out. There have been things recently that either reminds me how much I love this country or how happy I am that I am only here for two years!

Korça Beer Fest. I guess it was two weeks ago, we went south to Korça for their third annual beer festival. The festivities started on Thursday and lasted until Sunday but I only stayed until Saturday because I had a meeting with my youth in Milot (who didn’t show up by the way). The festival is like a mini-October fest with music, food, and yes BEER. Korça brewery makes two kinds of beer; i bardh and i zeze (blonde and dark) and is by far the best quality beer in the country. They had live bands that played mostly covered American pop music from the 90’s and before, IT WAS GREAT. The PCVs from the group before mine had a mid-service training in Korça that same week so it was really good to get to know other PCVs that were not in training with me and talk about projects (failed and successful) that they have done in their first year. The first two nights of the fest I slept on the floor of a volunteer’s hotel room and the third night about 5 people in my group camped on a hill behind the fest. Although it seems like I have very little work to do, most of the group 11 volunteers say they didn’t have any work their first six months, none. After the fest I headed back to Rubik for a night and then to Milot the next day where no one showed up for our meeting, this is when I had coffee with Arber and his father. This was a Monday and I made some calls to support in the area who arranged another meeting with different youth from before for that Friday, only three guys showed up. Due to the fact that only three young men were slightly interested and the proposal would have been due in two days we decided to thank them and scrap Milot from the project. It was a huge bummer and a shame for the community who really could have used the money and the rest of the benefits that go along with volunteers.

The Gant Event. Tuesday was the Grant Event. Even though I didn’t have a group who would be presenting I did help with the planning of the project as a whole and I was helping to chaperon the 150 youth that attended, so I went to the event. The day was great and I wasn’t completely useless. One of the presentations from Lezhe could not load their presentation properly and no one could figure out why their pictures would not load either. So, with about 15min before the presentations started I got everything in order and their presentation turned out to be one of the most logically organized of the group. The presentations were in the morning, then we took a bus up the coast to Shingjin were there was to be a beach party and the award presentations. We had lunch and then some activities for the youth to participate in. Albanians can dance for hours and have the best time doing it. I danced for a little while and then noticed some of the younger boys were not interested at all, possibly a little shy, so along with another PCV we took them to the beach and played futbol (soccer). The day was a lot of fun and considering that we had 150 youth participate and only about 20 people for staff on a crowded beach, the day went extremely well. We decided in preliminary meetings that we would operate the tutorials in a way that it would seem that the money would be given only to groups that presented a well organized and thought out proposal but in reality we planned to fund all projects in a TBD (money wise) sort of way. What I mean, is that on Tuesday of next week we are going to meet again to look at the proposals and try to shave off some of the budget in each proposal for things that they either don’t need or could possibly find somewhere else, limiting each project to about $1500.

Other than that I am still just working on the Bunker Trails project and we are slowly putting things together to make the site more functional and increase the inventory of hikes, which only has one posted so far. We now have a tentative agenda on hikes that we are going to do in the next two months. This weekend I am going on a camping trip with a fairly large group of PCVs, they do it every year in Puke (pronounced pook-ah) and it is kind of the end of summer trip. Hopefully work will start to flow in within a few weeks. Hope everyone is doing fine and feel free to shoot me an e-mail anytime, I love to hear from the other side of the world. Owe and HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM (Urime Ditelindje)! Shi femi!

A good week!

I wrote this on July, 14 2009

I have the best job in the world, granted I poop/shower over a glorified hole, wash my clothes in the same bucket I use to flush my toilet, don’t speak the language very well, and live on the 5^th floor of a building that may crumble at the slightest tectonic plate shift…I couldn’t be happier! Of course there are plenty of days when I just want to go home, play with knuckles, hang out with family and some friends, look Sarah in her eyes, and just not be in Albania…but today was one of those days that makes “service” worthwhile.

Today was fantastic. No, this entire week was fantastic. The 3 goals stated in the Peace Corps act are; to help the people of interested countries in meeting their needs for trained men and women, to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served, and to help promoted a better understanding of other peoples on the part of all Americans. Any of these goals that are achieved are considered work for me, that’s right, if I just be myself around Albanians and write home with stories of my day to day, that is considered a commendable days work. I personally believe that I am doing a prodigious job at the latter two objectives. Sure I do not do work much at the actual agency (Bashkia Rubik) I am assigned to (currently, my mayor says I will have more work than I know what to do with come September), but it is also summer time in Albania and few Shqiptares do any work either! Did I mention I had a good week!

I guess I will start with the beginning of my week even though today was probable the best day I have had (skip ahead if you are so busy you just cannot stand to read my ridiculously in depth description of how I spend my time)

Wednesday is basically when my week started. I had a meeting in Tirana for a project I some of us in the north are helping with in association with World Vision, UNV, Vodafone, and the winner of big brother Albania (how exciting, a Shqiptare celebrity, kidding of course.) After the meeting I went to Fruse Kuja with Alex because her host family (she is one of two PCV who live with a host family because she had some problems with her first land lord 1 week into service) had invited us to go to the beach near Lezhe and I would never miss an opportunity for a free ride to the beach. Alex somehow has the luck to attach herself to excellent families. Her new host mother housed a PCV two years ago and spent 6months in England so she speaks some English. She is probably the most progressive Albanian I have ever met. She and her husband are like a teenage couple, they have been married for 20 years. This is extremely unusual in Albania, members of her community tell her that she has “shume torpe” (a lot of shame) because she holds her husband’s hand and kisses him in public, not in a gross way, but shit they are married. They don’t care and relish at the chance to hang out with Americans. I had a great time just hanging out at the beach and taking in the scenery. We went to a beach that is outside of a small village so it was basically undeveloped. Sitting there on the beach, drinking a beer and eating a nectarine, Alex and I couldn’t help but laugh about the fact that we signed up for Peace Corps in order to suffer a little bit, and here we were sitting on an awesome beach on the Adriatic Sea, what a great job!! Like I have said before things are not exactly easy here, we are thousands of miles from home in a strange country with broken infrastructure and a culture drastically different than our own. My point is that, I guess I expected something different.

Sunday of that week, I was invited by the summer camp that is conducted at the culture center in front of my house to attend a field trip, to help. The field trip was to a village close by that has an artificial lake that is made possible by a communist era 1957 damn. I don’t have many details on this day, but it was great. I hung out with about 18 15year old kids playing games and swimming in the lake. Stephanie (my site mate) and I introduced the group to peanut butter, which had mixed reactions. The kids are probably the best in my town and deserved some R&R since they had been helping with the younger kids at the camp, all of them speak some English and it was great to get a chance to hang out with some really good kids. Of course most of them are girls because the boys here (quna) are treated like princes and for the most part are little bastards. In any event I think we recruited some participants for our Outdoor Ambassadors club and maybe even for my youth volunteer group. Yes, hanging out with good kids at a beautiful lake playing games and swimming in a lake counted as work for me!

I am currently fixing a Shqiptares computer and that is as frustrating as dealing with French people (I like most French people but they are not very nice to foreigners, something that many people in America are starting to adapt, so the writing in this may be shit.

Today was great. I had the choice of either going to Tirana (the capital city) where a fellow PCV and I had two meetings; one with a professor of Geographical Information Sciences/Systems and another with a minister in the national government about a project that was started by a now COSed (close of service) PCV who started an adventure tourism project that maps hiking tours throughout Albania using GPS and GIS software. The project is Paul’s baby, but now that he is no longer a PCV it has been left in the capable hands of Tauschia and myself (along with a few supporting PCV actors). Not to bore anyone too much, but the project in a nutshell is; we search out and take a GPS on various uncharted trails throughout the Albanian countryside that conclude at a destination (a castle, ruin, city/village, something of aesthetic/historic/cultural significance, etc.), process the data into a usable GPS trail with points of interest (water sources, views, homes of people we met, places to sleep/camp, etc.), write a description of the trail and post it on the project website for use (www.bunkertrails.org). Not to toot any type of horn but this is not easy, the best maps of Albania are hard to get and come from either the military or more likely the USSR. We work by word of mouth from local people and garner information from other PCVs in their respective sites. We are currently applying for PC committee status which would greatly improve the effectiveness of the project because we would be able to capitalize on PC committee funds, less restrictions on time we spend out of site, PC support, and the ability to better improve the capacity of Albanian counterparts who are involved in the project. Well, I just got a little excited about the topic but back to the point. I was going to attend these meetings with Tauschia because I am the GIS technician/treasurer for the committee, but I had some site specific work. This was abnormal, the one day that I really want to be involved in something I can’t because this is one of two days (in a month of service) that my host agency actually has some work they need my help on.

Alright, so I didn’t get to go to Tirana and promote the project. Instead I had probably the best day thus far in Albania. I had goal 2 covered no problem today and this entry counts as goal 3, so in my opinion I have worked genuinely hard today. Having said that wait tell you hear what “work” consisted of. I woke this morning at 5:45 (I thought my counterpart had said we would meet at 6:30 but he actually said 7:30, I get the two confused, damn this language) and went to a café where I would wait and we would eventually meet. We were driven to a nearby village by an employee of the Bashkia in order to collect information for a tourist brochure (and verify possible locations for a tourism promotion day, “Rubiku Touristik 2009”) that the Bashkia is putting together with financial backing from the French Embassy (I think the French at least). I am apparently a photography and tourism expert in terms of Albanian city government so I was the authoritative figure on the trip, don’t really know what the other people on the trip were saying but when I said, “wait, this is a good spot for a picture,” or “write this down as a point of interest, westerners will love it,” they listened, a perplexed look was given because most of the time no people were in the picture, but who wants to look at a picture of a natural scene with some bloke in the way of the view. I am not an artist so if by chance anyone actually reads this blog, has some artistic knowhow, and wants to help a LDC (Less Developed Country) let me know and I will send you the pictures or the website address I am creating and you can give me some “constructive criticism.” The village is gorgeous. The area is tucked in the mountains (coming from Arizona I would consider them hills) behind Rubik which have a “clean, fresh feel, vaguely reminiscent of sheets lifted from a tumble dry,” (taken from a description of an unrelated area in Europe by Bill Bryson, but it is what I thought of instantly when I first drove into Katundi i vjeter.) As we drove through the village, I would instruct the driver to stop periodically in order to take photos of a church or a collection of homes that stood out. The goal was to collect pictures of the area and visit homes of families who had expressed interest in housing tourists who would like to visit, a way to boost the economy and attract guests to the hospitable country. Our first stop was at the home of a family which housed three generations. The property was fairly large which matched the number of its inhabitants. We were treated in true Albanian cordial fashion with coffee and raki. After a period of wandering around the property taking pictures of the various subsistence activities that were taking place, the oldest of the children in the household guided us on a hike to a plain on the top of the mountain behind his house. Keep in mind I am basically just along for the ride, I had no idea what the day had in store for me because I have an incredible time understanding my counterpart, or anyone else in Rubik for that matter (they speak a dialect in this portion of the north that people in the south can’t even understand.) We walked along a breathtaking path for about thirty minutes and soon arrived at the top, here lay an amazing plain where I could see Lezhe and Shingjin in the distance. Those are coastal citites, I had no idea I was going to be able to see the firkin beach from up there. I sat in utter aw for some time and took about 50 pictures, none of which did the site justice (I had heard of a goat trail that connected the village with Lezhe but I never realized it would be so…beautiful. We were then guided down a separate trail that led to the opposite end of the family’s property; I was surprised that this was even more of a fantastic hike. The trail led beside the family’s water source, a small creek which fed a man made reservoir. When we arrived back at their home, we were led into the back room, a modest living room with sporadic seating, a couch and a coffee table. The table was strewn with various fares that were all produced on the property. The items included the typical Albanian items, all which are fresh as can be; tomatoes, cucumber, djathe e bardhe (a white cheese that slightly resembles feta), pork, beef, garlic, pickled peppers, cabbage and onion, and of course raki (made from grapes). Unbeknownst to me, we had other places to visit and Sander (my counterpart) soon pulled me away from the feast where we said our goodbyes and were escorted back down the hill in the owners 4X4 SUV. Before I left America there was a lot of talk throughout the country and in the media about fears that America would eventually (if not already) be taken over by China, India or rising powers in South America. I am by no means an authority on the topic, but as I rode alongside this simple yet incredibly happy villager in his Ford Maverick, listening to Queen on his stereo, watching him smoke countless Winston cigarettes and taking a look at the massive scare from his triple bypass surgery done at an American hospital in Tirana, I couldn’t have been more proud to be an American. This happens to me fairly often, in daily conversation or meetings on the streets people from this post communist country who have been subjugated to many hardships, dream of life in America. No place is perfect but I am incredibly lucky to have been born where I was born and anyone back in America who thinks that the country is on a downward slope or even ashamed to go abroad and tell people you are American; travel to a LDC anywhere in the world, spend three weeks living with its people, and I guarantee you will come back with greater pride and constructive attitudes about change in the country instead of just complaining.

The next three stops were at various homes where we met the owners, their families and took pictures. The last stop of the day was at a house that must have been built before the communist era. I say this because it was actually insulated and sturdy. The property had a creek that ran through the front yard with water so cold and clean, I thought I was in a different place. The day had been extremely hot and I had drank lots of raki (wouldn’t want to be rude to hospitable people of course) so I asked for some water. I usually don’t drink much of the water straight from the tap here in Albania but I was up in the mountains, it tasted great (like mountain spring water from a bottle), and I just couldn’t help myself. Then I realized that there is no sewage system up in these mountains and the water comes from various wells in the area…I will probably have giardia, great. Anyways, I was introduced to the grandma of the house who told me I reminded her of her grandchildren who all work abroad as laborers. As we sat at a table outside and sipped on raki (this time made from Thane berries) I couldn’t help but wonder at the scenery. I guess I kind of slipped into a daydream because the next thing I know there was an incredible amount of food placed out on the table (I counted ten plates heaped with food, for only three men and me). I will add a picture. After that meal I could barely move and Sander and I decided it was time to head back to Rubik and take a nap.

When I arrived back in Rubik, the parnari (owner) of the duqan (small market) came running out after me and requested that I fix her computer which had shut down due to viruses she had acquired in who knows what manner since they don’t have internet available. This has so far taken me a solid three hours, but who else would do it, for free? So that is where I am now…Naten i mirё!