Sunday, August 29, 2010

My First Animal Slaughter

Baktashi is one of the three sects of Islam. This specific sect can only be found in Albania, Northern Greece, and very few parts of Kosovo. The Baktashi tekke is at the top of Mt. Tomori, Albania's second tallest mountain. A tekke is a building that is usually round and is used for spiritual retreat and character reformation. The Baba (which literally means "father") lives in and is the head of the tekke as well as, has the authority to give spiritual guidance. Near the tekke there is a long, stone walkway that leads to an area for prayer, a small cemetery for previous Babas, and at the end of the path is where animal slaughter takes place. A festival is held each year during August/Ramadan and is when the Baktashi ask for peace and luck in the new year.

All along the newly cobblestone walkway there are small herds of sheep. Each family picks a sheep to buy and sacrifice. A sheep costs about the equivalent of $100 US dollars, which is a lot of money for Albanians. Once the sheep has been chosen it is taken to the slaughtering area. When approaching the slaughtering area one can see two long rows of butchers butchering sheep one right after another. It really is quite a site. The way the sheep are killed for this specific sacrificial festival is by slitting a sheep's throat then allowing the animal to die by all the blood spilling out of it. Once the blood begins to seep out of the sheep, it is customary to put a bit of the sheep's blood on one's forehead while reciting a prayer. After the blood has left the animal, the butcher hangs the sheep up by it's hind legs and begins to prepare the sheep for eating.

One of the most interesting things I learned, while observing the slaughtering process, was that all the insides of a sheep are bundled together in a ‘bag’. The ‘bag’ contains all of the organs and is neatly packaged up inside the animal. This bag looks exactly like a white, GLAD, plastic garbage bag. The fact that all the organs and everything else are in this ‘bag’ it makes butchering a sheep a quite easy and a pretty fast process. No offense to my dad, but it took these butchers about half the time it takes my dad to gut and fillet a fish. It's pretty unbelievable!

Once the sheep is ready to be cooked, the owners take it to an area where there are numerous spits. The spits are low to the ground and are manually rotated. The entire hillside was covered with people roasting sheep. Not only was this experience very interesting and unlike any I have had so far in my life, but all the meat was really good. For lunch and dinner that day I ate lamb/mutton shish-ka-bobs. And they were awesome!!

The festival lasts for 10 days, but most families only go up for a day and a night, which is what my group did. All the Albanians were interested in why we came to the festival and were very welcoming. It was fascinating to see a religious animal slaughter with my own eyes. It was definitely an unforgettable experience!

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Beer and Albanian Bumper Cars

The Paris of Albania. That is what Korçë is considered to the rest of Albania. It is a larger town on the Eastern boarder of Albania (next to Macedonia). The streets are clean and there are well kept parks and green areas all around town. There is also a big, beautiful Greek Orthodox church in one of the main intersections in the town. The town is also home to the first school in Albania. Korçë not only has beautiful parks and historic buildings, but is also has tons of small neighborhoods that can be found on small side streets and in between the larger/main roads. These neighborhoods are composed of small dirt roads (almost trail-like) with home made of stones that have been white washed with a paint made from limestone dust. The homes also all have flowers and/or vines growing on top or on the sides of the buildings. Most Albanian towns or villages do not have distinct neighborhoods like Korçë does.

Just getting to Korçë was quite an adventure. A small group of volunteers from various areas of Albania met in Elbasan. From Elbasan we rode a train to Pogradec. It was an absolutely beautiful ride, but it was also painfully slow. What was so unbelievable was that it only cost 120 leke (about $1.20), which is pretty cheap for a ride from the middle of Albania to the Eastern boarder. Once we arrived in Progradec, we had a nice lunch and then continued on our journey to Korça in a furgon (small van). We got to our final destination around 2:30 or 3:00 pm. It was a long trip, but the experiencing the train was really fun. We were able to start celebrating a friends birthday, as well as see some pretty spectacular views.

While in Korçë, a group of friends and I stayed in an old Ottoman boarding house that was literally in the middle of Korçë's large open-air market. The building was round and several market vendors were even set up in the center (hole) of the building. The second floor was where all the rooms were. Each room faced the center of the "circle" and opened to the outside. The rooms were quite small, which really wasn't an issue because we only slept there and spent most of our time exploring Korçë and enjoying the Beer Fest. The bathrooms, on the other hand, were a completely different story. There were two "toilet" rooms, one for girls and one for boys, on one side of the boarding house. There was also a sink/shower room next to the two "toilet" rooms. The sink did not connect with any type of drainage system so when you turned the water on, the water when through the hole in the sink and onto your feet. That was quite a surprise on my first visit to the bathroom! The "toilet" rooms each had one turkish toilet. A turkish toilet, for those of you who have not had the pleasure of using one, are fancy (if you could really use this word in this context) holes in the ground. Because of this set up, the bathroom area reeked! The whole boarding house experience made me feel like I had traveled back to Medieval Times. I am not one to complain about dirt and grime, but this place was just plain nasty! Needless to say, I will probably not be staying there again.

The actual Beer Festival part of the weekend was really fun. There were lot of people from all over Albania, as well as quite a few Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV's). It was also nice to see some of the volunteers I hadn't seen in a while, as well as, get to know a few I really hadn't spent much time with. The festival featured Albanian beers, with a few Greek ones thrown in for fun. Each beer cost the equivalent to .50 US cents. What a bargain, right? There was also great live music and group grilling out. There were also bumper cars, along with other carnival-like activities. Of course we all took part in the bumper cars. We had to show the Albanians the REAL way to do bumper cars. What is so fascinating about Albanian bumper cars is that everyone drives around and makes a huge effort not to hit each other, but while driving real cars Albanians are pretty wild and not many driving laws are enforced. Lets just say us PCV's showed them how to do it right. All and all is was a super fun weekend!

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride!


For those of you who went to Disney World as a young child or a parent of a young child, I am sure you already know about Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, thanks to my sister the Diers Family definitely knows all the ins and outs of that ride. For those few of you who have not gotten the pleasure of experiencing this ride, I would strongly recommend that you take the time to travel to Disney World specifically to experience this ride. Not just for the awesomeness of the ride, but it would also give you a sophisticated topic to bring up at those cocktail parties when you no longer see any of the over-sized coffee-table books to steal a conversation topic from.

I feel a brief description of the ride is in order, for those few who have no idea what I am talking about. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride can be ridden by small children and adults, alike. The premise of the ride is that you are traveling through Mr. Toad's magical world on a track in a roller coaster-esk cart that looks quite similar to Ford's Model-T (a really old car). The ride is full of sharp twists and turns, that absolutely tickled my sister to death! I don't think it's too presumptuous to say that this ride is my sister's favorite ride of all time. Due to this weird, but endearing, obsession my parents and I have ridden on this ride quite a few times. This is how I came to know so much about this ride and why this specific ride has had such a HUGE impact on my life.

Ok, now for the Albanian connection. As I have explained before, I live on the Ionian Coast in a small village that is smack in-between extremely tall mountains and the sea. In order to go anywhere I must travel on windy roads through the mountains. Normally, I ride a large, "normal", size bus, but on my way to Saranda a few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to ride on a short bus. Let's just say it was an experience. The driver drove extremely fast, continuously whipped around sharp curves, and I think he purposefully hit every bump and pot hole between Himare and Saranda (and let me tell you, there are quite a few of them).

The driving in Albania is, needless to say, BAD. None of the driving laws or speed limits are enforced and 2 lane roads are frequently turned into 3 lane roads, by a vehicle simply driving down the center line in-between the 2 lanes of cars. Many times it feels as though the furgon (small van) or bus drivers are playing "chicken" with the car coming from the opposite direction in order to pass the "slow" car in front of them.

After the quick trip down to Saranda, I happily got off the bus, my heart still racing and my legs still a bit shaky. I explained my adventure (if one would call it that) to a few friends I was meeting down in Saranda. This is the HONEST TRUTH, the only words that came out of my mouth were "It was Mr. Toad's Ride getting down here!" I didn't have to say any more.

The connections that Americans have with each other, no matter how obscure they are, have pooped up randomly since I have been in Albania. I really didn't know anyone in my group before arriving in Albania, but simply because we all have the experience of being American there are so many things that we just get. When you're living in a foreign country, constantly speaking a foreign language, it is so nice to say some common saying from the US and have everyone listening to you understand what you mean without an explanation.

Lesson of the Story: If you have not ridden Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, it is imperative for you to do this ASAP. What can I say? Experiencing this ride can help you bond with your future comrades.