Sunday, April 18, 2010

Paradise Here I Come!

I have finally found out where I will be living and working for the next two years! I will be living in a small beach town by the name of Himarë. It is located in the south west coast of Albania on the Ionian Sea. The town is south of Vlorë and north of Sarande. Apparently, the tall Llogara mountains steeply cascade down to the beautiful beach and sea. How much better could it get? I have the mountains and the beach/bright blue sea!

This small town has been occupied and ruled by the Greeks, Italians, Germans, Austro-Hungarians, and Albanians and dates back to antiquity. It seems like this town has tons of history and that there will be lots to see there. The piece of information that most interested me what the language that is spoken in this town. The language of Himarë is a dialect of Greek. Can you believe this?!?!? Once I read this information all I could do was laugh. I have been frantically studying Albanian and have been worried about how I will be able to communicate with the locals in the area that I will be living in and now I find out that they don't even speak Albanian!! I guess I will have to switch my efforts to learning Greek.

There, I will be teaching at a 9-year school and high school. These two schools are joined together, which is not very common for Albanian schools. I have learned a little about my counter-part and she seems like she will be a great person to work with as well as a great resource. I am pretty excited about my assignment. I mean, it can't get much better than living in a small beach town for the next couple of years.

I guess that now I (and now all of you) know where I will be living for the next 2 years I should be expecting visitors.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The Real Work

The past few days have been super busy and stressful. We have had a lot to accomplish, lots of confusion, and frustration with my novice language level. At the end of this week we will all find out what site we will eventually be living and working in for the next two years. It will be great to finally be able to learn more about our living situations and our working conditions.

Learning the Albanian language has proved to be quite a difficult task. At first, I was doing well with the language and now I am able to create simple sentences and communicate on a basic level with my host family and various Albanians. The first 10 weeks of being in the Peace Corps is devoted to training, and part of the training includes learning the language. The goal is to master the Albanian language in 10 weeks. We will see how that goes...

My host family believes that because I have been in Albania for about 4 weeks I should be fluent and able to communicate about pretty much everything they want to talk about. The biggest issue with speaking and communicating with my host family is that they speak in a village dialect. Many small villages have their own dialect of the Albanian language. Because my host family speak in dialect it is frequently difficult to understand them and for them to understand me. But overall, communication in Albania is becoming easier and easier each day.

As a volunteer, I will be teaching English as a second language (TEFL). Part of testing you and your knowledge of the Albanian classrooms and education system is a two week long practicum where you teach and observe 14 classes. Therefore, next week and the following week I will be teaching English to various grades/years. I have begun to start to prepare for these lessons. It will be interesting to see other volunteers in a more professional setting.

Current volunteers have assured me that training is the most stressful and busiest you will ever be in the next two years. It is nice to know that I won't want to go to bed at 9 pm every night for the next 2 years.

Singing in the Rain


The day before yesterday, yesterday, and today it has been raining. Traveling to and from the "big city" (Elbasan) and back was messy and difficult and walking to and from town has been quite an adventure. The roads to and around my home have completely turned to mud. Not only is there tons of slippery and suction cup like mud everywhere, but there are huge holes that are filled with water. I don't know if I have mentioned it or if you already know, but Albania has a serious trash problem. There is trash everywhere, very very few landfills, and by taking out the trash people simple walk to the river and throw their bags of trash into the water. Great for the environment huh? In the small farming village I live in people have cows, horses, sheep, chickens, turkeys, and dogs in their front yards, backyards, roaming freely, and along the side of the roads. You add all the rain, trash, dirt roads, and all kinds of farm animals and I am sure you can imagine the smell of my walk home from school. No worries, I have a picture of my road I will be posting (once I can) so you can see a visual. This morning I was alone on the road and making the 30 min. trek to school. It was as the sun was rising, the rain was falling, and the mud suctioning my feel to the ground, I finally felt like I was experiencing what I thought the Peace Corps was going to be like. It was pleasant, nasty, and adventurous all at once. In a way a kinda enjoyed the experience.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Rreshen

Since I have been in Albania I have not heard very many positive things about the north. Mostly that It is very cold, it is difficult to travel around up there, and that it is one of the more dangerous areas in the country. Last week I had the chance to visit a current volunteer and see what life is like once you are done with training. I was to travel to the north to the small town of Rreshen. At first I was a bit disappointed that I would be going to the north, rather than the south, but once I experienced Rreshen, my feelings about northern Albania have completely changed.

Rreshen is a small village that is located east of Shenkoll. It is right in the middle of what is considered to be northern Albania. The village is up in the mountains. The views from Rreshen are absolutely beautiful. Although Rreshen is quite a small town, the town is actually pretty liberal. There are lots of young women out on the streets, even after dark. I had the opportunity to speak with a few high school aged girls and they told me that they frequently go out with their friends after it gets dark. The town is very small, but in comparison to Pajove, it is huge.

The point of my visit to Rreshen was to learn what life is like for a current TEFL volunteer. Because of this I stayed with a girl who teaches high-school English classes. She also works with students outside of school to help them study for the SAT's, TEFL exams, model UN, and various other activities. I got the opportunity to observe a few English classes at the high school in Rreshen. In comparison to the classes that I have observed in Pajove, Elbasan, and Besqim the kids in Rreshen behave very very well during class.

This visit really made me excited to finish training and to move to my site. I am so ready to get into the classrooms, become part of a community, and live in my own space. Visiting the north also made me realize that I would be happy wherever I am placed in Albania. The west and south have the beach and heat, while the north and east have beautiful mountains with lots of hiking and mountain biking trails. I am really glad that this was part of training because it got me even more excited to move to my permanent site and begin to get involved with my community.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Eggs

Eggs are a huge part of Albanian culture. They eat at least two hard-boiled eggs for breakfast. Everyone of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers show up to info sessions, language classes, and various activities with at least 2 eggs in their hands. It is pretty funny. Everyone is always trying to give away their eggs so their host parents feelings are not hurt.

Not only are eggs a large staple in the Albanian diet, but they are also used when celebrating holidays. For Easter, Albanians dye eggs, much like we do in the United States. The process is a bit different though. The eggs are placed into boiling water and while the eggs are boiling there is colored powder poured into the hot water along with the eggs. By dying the eggs this way, they come out in very bright colors and the color is pretty even on all areas of the eggs.

What is tradition on Easter is to visit all of your friends and family. During these visits children say Gazuar Pashket (Happy Easter), and then receive a brightly colored egg (much like our Halloween). Once visiting their family and friends the children gather together and play a game with the eggs they have collected. One person holds the egg in their fist with an end of the egg showing, while another hits the end of their egg on the end of the egg that is sticking out of their opponents fist. Whosever egg cracks is the loser. The winner wins all of the eggs that he/she is able to crack. It is a pretty fun game to play and it was very exciting to see all the kids in the streets playing this game last Sunday.

Most of the eggs that are eated and dyed are from the chickens that are EVERYWHERE! My family along with everyother volunteer's family has quite a few chickens walking all over their host family's property. Not only do they walk around in inclosed areas, but they are at the school, walking along side the road, in the middle of the cities, and everywhere else. One thing I have learned since being here is that roosters crow during all times of the day, morning, noon, and night.

I was walking home not too long ago and a line of chickens crossed the road infront of me. All I could think of at that moment was, "how did the chicken cross the road"....

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Please Sir, I DON'T Want Anymore

Albanians eat a lot! Food is a huge part of the culture and most people in Pajove (the village I live in) are farmers, so their lives revolve around food. The traditional Albanian dishes are: pilaf, any kind of meat (or mish as they call it), salad, and gjele. Gell is a type of soup that is served in every household in Albaina. Each gjele is different, but there are a few similarities that make gjele, gjele. First of all, gell is always an orangy-red color. I have no idea how this color is created (and I don't think I want to know), but every gell I have seen since I have been here has been orangy-red. In the colored broth there can be potatoes, rice, onions, animal fat, and meat. The meat can be from lamb to duck to chicken to beef. The Albanians really are not particular about their meat. The meat is served as a huge hunk (bones included) in the soup. The first time one is served gell it looks like the meal is going to be a war between you and your fork and spoon against the hunk of meat (they don't use knives when eating gell). And believe me, it is war! This is served just about every night at my host family. It is not that I do not enjoy it, but it would be nice to change things up every once in a while.

My host mother is very concerned about my food intake. Every time I walk in the door, walk into the room, leave the house, and around dinner time she always asks or maybe I should say commands "ha buke!" (eat! eat!) I have had to learn a lot of different Albanian phrases for, thanks, but no thanks, I am full, I usually don't eat this much, ect. Last night, my host father asked me why I was not eating very much. I politely explained to him that if I continued to eat at the pace that he and my host mom wanted me to I would gain A TON of weight. He then laughed and said, "you are not fat, my wife is fat!" no joke. (side note: being called fat in albania is not rude) Let's just say eating is a religion to these people.