Montenegro

This is me at the Madonna concert in Montenegro. This was quite a while ago, but I'm not always the best at getting things up especially pictures. The most that I can say about Montenegro is that it was a long bus ride to see about half of a Madonna concert. The border wasn't really prepared for the thousands of Albanians and a few random Americans who would descend upon it at the chance to see the Material Girl. So much so that most of my pictures are from the border not from the actual concert. But it was fun to be with friends.

We had a good time on the bus, there were a handful of PCV's and when we all started to get rather hungry at hour nine of the bus ride, we jumped off the bus and ran into a local shop and grabbed some cookies and crackers for the group. It was my only cultural interaction.

But it was an experience and as they say, half the fun is the journey.

 

 

Guilty Pleasures

I visited the nicest grocery store in Durres and they had avocados. Fast forward one hour. I had delicious homemade guacamole. We ate it on potato chips, but it was still melt-in-your-mouth amazing.

In the Time of the Scorpions

This was originally written for Hajde Hajde, our newsletter so you might not get all of the references, but I thought you would still get a kick out of it.

One fine autumn afternoon, I was sitting on my bed enjoying an episode of Gossip Girl when I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was a scorpion taking a stroll across my bedroom floor. Now, I know I joined the Peace Corps. I know that somewhere in the recesses of my brain, I expected to run into critters from the other side, but scorpions?!? Shouldn’t the Peace Corps warn us about such deadly animals? Maybe provide us with some sort of defense. I grabbed my available protection: a plastic bucket. Tragically, my bucket was filled with sand, so I couldn’t use it to trap my fearless foe.

And so alone, sitemateless, I sat, facing the dreaded challenger. And then, I did what any self respecting Pennsylvanian would do. I screamed, stood on my bed, and called someone. This PCV, who shall remain nameless because he’d just edit it out of HajdeHajde anyway, managed to convince me that scorpions get a bad rap and that my desert stinger wouldn’t actually hurt me. In fact, it would be better to be stung by a scorpion than by a bee.

Armed with the most dangerous weapon of them all: knowledge. I decided to confront my roving rival. My action plan: strategically sweep it out of the bedroom and out the door. Obstacle: all appropriate footwear was conveniently located outside. Creative Solution: Three inch heels.

The scorpion was indeed a cunning opponent. In a fit of bravery and daring, it grabbed the tines of the broom with its mini pinchers and held on for dear life. Inspired by its courage, I let it live another day. I left the broom outside and by the next morning, my clawed friend was gone.

Since this epic battle, I have learned some interesting facts about scorpions. They can be killed using a book (alternate uses for your two volume language set?) They like indoor wood piles so watch out you wood stove owners. Being born under the sign of Scorpio does not give you immunity to scorpion venom. Scorpions are not mentioned in our health handbook, although centipedes and millipedes are. And the name for scorpion in Shqip is akrepi which is also the name for the hands of a clock. I haven’t the foggiest idea why.

Adventures in your own Backyard

Here is an interesting little story about Kavaje which I actually read in a travel book. And then confirmed with a bunch of friends who seemed confused about why all of this interested me so much.

Back during the Communist times (pre 1991), Kavaje was quite the industrial center. There was a rug factory, a glass factory, and several other plants. Unfortunately with the communists the factories went too. In a clever use of passive voice, my friend says, "The factories were destroyed because we thought democracy would build us new ones" Democracy didn't live up to its end of the bargain and as a result there are several massive, broken down factories scattered throughout town in various states of destruction.

Meanwhile, there was a mosque that didn't have a place to say the call to prayer from (I can't remember the word for this, the one I always use is actually something totally different) So a group of people decided to put loudspeakers and a silver top to one of the old factory smokestacks and voila. We have a new definition of recycling.

Preview of Coming Attractions

1) A dramatic story about scorpions
2) My adventure in Montenegro in which I saw Madonna in theory, but not in reality
3) The most wild adventure you can imagine in Macedonia. (Technically, I'm leaving for Macedonia on Thursday, but here's hoping that I will have a wild adventure.)

Albanian Fun

The lemon trees in my front yard. I love em and hate em.

Wild horses and bunkers. On the beach.

In case you think I work to hard. This is the Albanian Riviera

Pictures, Pictures

My neighbor kids. They love my guitar and especially the orange trees in my front yard

Kids at our end of the year party

A group of last year's students

I'm Alive

Check out this new Albanian tourism link. It will make you want to come visit me.

http://www.albaniantourism.com/

Amf 08

Yesterday, I decided to go to the store. As a good PCer, I am trying to participate in the viral campaign to not use plastic bags at the grocery store. But this time I forgot, so I decided to stick my purchases in my purse.

About half way home, I thought I felt something like water droplets on my leg. It hasn't rained on the coast in about a month, so it wasn't rain. Couldn't see anything, so i ignored it. I walked another 50 feet and felt more drops. I realized it was coming from my purse. So i moved my purse from the back of me to the front of me to investigate.

I had bought a container of kos, which is Albanian yogurt. Some volunteers hate it; I love it. But the container's lid wasn't sealed properly so i had been dumping the entire one liter container of kos into my purse, down the back of my leg and now that I had moved my purse, it was all down the front of my leg. I just kept walking as quick as I could.

I got back to the house and realized that my key was still in my purse. Now the canvas material had acted like a filter, so what had been dripping down my leg was mostly water. I had to shove my hand into the curdled milk. Past my ruined notebook and money bag and squish around in there until I found the key.

I unlocked the door, kos on my pants, kos half way up to my elbows, kos drying in the key hole, and leaking all over the floor. I had to laugh... just another day in Albania

Since I have a little bit of time with free internet, I've been browsing the blogs and catching up on the ones i don't read to often. i noticed a theme. everyone said what their fourth of July plans had been. So here is mine...

Albanians don't really celebrate the fourth. Their independence day is in November and interestingly enough is two days long. One is for their independence back in the twenties and one is for liberation from the Nazis. You would not believe how long it took me to figure that all out. They do, however, get very excited that it is a holiday for us and I was kissed, hugged, and gezuared all day.

For my fourth, I headed up North to a town called Lexha. Its on the coast and the city of Skanderbeg. We had a big bash at one volunteer's house and it was great. Hamburgers, hot dogs, salad, pies. It was amazing. The hostess even tried to make homemade hamburger rolls. They weren't much of a success, but everything else was delicious.

A fun event was that we ran into British people who were cycling from England to Istanbul and had arrived in Albania and needed a place to crash. Of course, being kind Americans, we invited them to stay and then proceeded to have an anti-British fest. They were very nice about our patriotic spirit and didn't mind at all that we teased them all night. It was a lot of fun and reminded me of home. I miss you all and wish i could have enjoyed the day with every single one of you.

Love Ain't a Stranger

Here's a quick update.

It's summer time and it is hot in Albania. My students all just want to spend time at the beach. So when in Rome... I've been hanging out at the beaches near my house a bit. Recharging my batteries. Checking out a few Albanian historical treasures. And really enjoying my days off.

I am teaching a little bit at the private school and a course in my house. It's been a great few weeks.

Extra points if you can identify what movie character I am

Special thanks to the Matt Trifecta, Kenji, and Andrew for making this special moment come true

Can we pay for this in Euro?

It’s official. I’ve finished my first year as a school teacher. It was a long, strange trip to say the least. The last few weeks, my students have been obsessed with this song by Timbaland, called Apologize. I don’t know if it’s popular in the US, but it is crazy popular here. I can’t tell you how many people (young and old) have asked me what hanging off a rope or apologize means in Albanian. So as a goodbye present, I printed the lyrics for each of them and we played it on my iPod.

Now I have to admit, this is not a favorite song of mine. Maybe it’s because I hear it being played on the cell phones every day in class, maybe because it is crooned to me at every restaurant in town, but I have a great amount of hate for this song. So I spent my last five classes of the school year listening to my students sing along at the top of their lungs. It was a great moment for the kids, but by the fifth time it was played in one class. I gotta admit. It was definitely too late for Timbaland to apologize.

School's Out for Summer!

Getting my hair cut. Always an adventure!

Cleaning up in Fushe Kruje

the Ampitheatre of Durres. Those Romans were amazing

Skanderbeg's a Hero

This is the main square in Tirana. And the oh so famous Skanderbeg, a war hero in Albania. Google him.

A BEAR on the BEACH

Do not let my nephew see this

The Americans Will Fix It

Things I’ve learned in Albania

1. Bidets are the perfect foot washing station
2. Sleeves are not good pot holders
3. Albanian
4. Central heating/shower curtains/wireless internet/Netflix are the greatest inventions ever…I miss them
5. I’m better at reading emails than replying
6. How to write a haiku 5/7/5
7. How to play (extremely basic) guitar
8. How to make Turkish coffee
9. Don’t leave eggs boiling on the stove. (This rule also applies to perogies which is a lesson I learned in Harrisburg)
10. That I don’t miss CNN’s up-to-the-minute scroll on the presidential race.
11. Okra is a delicious vegetable that the North has somehow missed out on.
12. How to make a burrito. Mediterranean style.
13. What meta grammar is
14. Arrested Development is a really funny show
15. Skanderbeg is a hero
16. My nephew is cuter than any kid in the whole world
17. Phrasal verbs are evil.
18. Kosovars are ethnic Albanians
19. Albanians are truly the most hospitable people I have ever met.
20. Three espressos in one day is too much espresso
21. Chickens really do run when their heads are cut off and what a lamb led to the slaughter looks like
22. The verb tenses of English. At the end of this year, I will have been living in Albania for two years…future perfect continuous.
23. That the History of the Peloponnesian Wars is a good book in theory, but not in reality
24. “Are you done that book?” is some sort of Philadelphia expression that people from the Midwest/south just don’t understand
25. I can direct a play
26. I love Albania

The Quest is Over!!

This Saturday (update: this was actually a while ago, I just forgot to post it), I had a really interesting experience. I went up to a historical city outside of Tirana with a group of Albanians and Americans. We were there to do a clean up at a local school. We met a group of Albanian students and distributed bags and plastic gloves and set to work picking up trash from the school yard. The students got really into it and a bunch of other children from the town also pitched in. I got to talk to two girls Ana and Renisa (rhymes with Denisa, my Albanian name.) We ended up picking up about 15 bags of trash from the school area.
Then we headed up the mountain to see the ancient city. It’s an unexcavated site that was built by the Illyrians (the original people of the area) and dates back to the 5th century BCE. Right now, most of it is uncovered, but you can see the tops of the walls and the remains of a number of city gates. It was a beautiful walk and we ate pomegranates off the trees. They also were picking a berry that we later identified as myrtle, but I didn’t try any of that. I wasn’t 100% sure what it was and wasn’t too keen on experimenting with wild berries. We were followed along the way by about 20 boys from the town. We were definitely one of the more exciting things that had happened to them lately. A funny moment was when one of the boys found a dead snake and showed it to me and very seriously told me not to eat it. Maybe he was confused by the pomegranates, but believe me I had no desire to eat a dead snake.

Adventures in Teaching

This post is dedicated to my nephew Bennett who is 51% Canadian.

Like a trendy film, I will start with the end. One of my students looked at me and said in confusion… “Canadians drink blood?”

So how did I get myself in this situation? One of the things that I do here is speaking exercises with the various classes at the private school. And there is only so many things that I can talk to with a bunch of 14 year olds. So I came prepared with a map and we were talking about the world and the countries that speak English. I mentioned that my brother in law is Canadian and one student asked why there was a leaf on the flag. I jumped on this and brought up that they make a lot of maple syrup in Canada. But then comes my problem, how do you explain what maple syrup is too a bunch of kids who have never eaten a pancake?

So I said it was really sweet and it came from trees. They all smiled and said… like cherries. Back to square one. Maple syrup is not like cherries. So I said… No, it’s not a fruit. It’s sap. Blank stares. Sap is not a word they teach in Basic English courses. I attempted to draw a picture… No go, it just looked like squiggly lines on a tree. So then, I came up with a metaphor. Sap is the blood of trees. Which led to the now infamous question. At this point, I realized I had to give up. They still have no idea what maple syrup is, but I did clarify that Canadians DO NOT drink blood.

On my way home, I realized what I should have said. It’s like honey, but it comes from trees. Live and learn.

Break a leg

So what have I been up to? A lot of the same things. Teaching, doing a whole bunch of PC stuff. But i did just finish a really fun project.

I had a group of students who put on a short version on Romeo and Juliet. We did the play on Valentine's Day and they did a great job. i was really nervous because the practices just before the play were terrible, but somehow in the 20 minutes between the last rehearsal and the actual event they got it together.

They were so incredibly cute. They remembered all of their lines and delivered them with all the drama they could muster. and at the end, they were so proud of themselves. It was great to see them smiling and congratulating their success.

Who knows what else is next... King Lear??

Some old pics for you to enjoy

my mom and i in apollonia

my summer kids

Fresh Vegis, Fresh Meat

My country director recently asked me to write up a couple of vignettes about my experience here to send to the Director of the Peace Corps who is doing some stuff with my alma mater, Messiah. I decided that you might enjoy it as well so here goes.
In March 2007, I joined Peace Corps, Albania. Albania is a small country in Eastern Europe which lived under a communist dictatorship for 50 years and was considered one of the most closed countries of the world. It is now an emerging democracy and is opening its doors to the world. I live in Kavaje (pronounced Kavaya) which is a small city on the Adriatic Sea thirty minutes south of Durres, the second largest city in Albania. I am a TEFL volunteer and teach English at the high school in Kavaje.
My experience so far has been incredibly rewarding and challenging. Teaching a group of 47 Albanian students is not easy. During my first week of school, a group of boys lit a fire in my class. I knew a rough road was ahead of me. But fortunately, I am blessed with a great school director and Albanian co-workers who have helped me regain control of the class. These same students who couldn't speak a word of English at the beginning of the year can now hold brief conversations in English. Albanians are incredibly generous and helpful people. They have bent over backwards to help me even when I butchered their language. In my first few months I kept getting the word for little girls and eggs confused. Imagine their shock when I told them I like to eat little girls for breakfast.
One of the most interesting projects that I have worked on recently is a production of Romeo and Juliet in modern English. An Albanian English teacher and I have been working with a group of 20 students with excellent English skills. To begin this project, I rewrote Romeo and Juliet into modern English. It's a strange experience to rewrite Shakespeare. "Romeo, Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo" becomes "Romeo where are you?" At some points, I feel like it loses its magic, but it’s much more important for them to learn modern English than Shakespearean English. It's also interesting to determine what translates cross culturally. Almost all of the funny lines from the nurse and the amazing speeches by Mercutio had to come out because they would require translation skills that I don't have. Also interesting is that Albania is over 80% Muslim. So when it came to the part of Friar Lawrence there were some challenges. I offered to change it to Imam Lawrence. They didn't like that idea, but at the same time, none of the Muslim students wanted to play the part of a priest. So we searched the school for an Orthodox Christian student who could speak enough English to do the role. After asking his priest's permission, he agreed to do it. Interestingly enough, he is studying to be a priest so he will be wearing his priestly robes for the performance. Another challenge is the lack of budget. In Kavaje, they don't really have extra-curricular activities, so my co-worker and I have chipped in to photocopy the script and buy "swords" (wooden broomsticks.) To help the audience differentiate between the Capulets and the Montagues, the students are wearing different colors, but they'll still be wearing their usual school clothes. Finally, when I agreed to help with the production I forgot just how romantic the script truly is. Albania is much more conservative than America and male and female students don't interact as much. The students playing Romeo and Juliet have really struggled with their embarrassment of saying such romantic things to each other. I tried to convince Romeo to kiss Juliet's hand when he says "with this kiss, I will leave." But even that is a little too much for them. As a result, we will be putting on a "kissless" play, but it's Albania so that's OK. It's been really rewarding to watch them develop their English skills and see the natural leaders have a chance to shine. One of the things that is much easier here than in America is getting the students to memorize their lines. As a result of their years of schooling using rote memorization, these kids have an incredible ability to memorize even in a foreign language. I am really looking forward to Valentine's Day, when I can tell my students to "go break a leg." And then I'll attempt to explain to them what this goofy English idiom means.
I've been here for a year and its been an incredible cross cultural experience. I will always have special place in my heart for Albania and its people.

Gezuar Cubed

During the few days between Christmas and New Year’s, I decided to head to Athens. It was a great time! I would truly recommend it. This is the second time I’ve been to Athens and I wasn’t sure if there was enough to keep me busy, but believe me there is so much to see in that city. The only thing that I did which was the same was go to the Parthenon and watch the sunset from this certain hill which is really pretty. Other than that everything was different.
And by the way, I love Greek food. We had KFC, McDonald’s, and Applebee’s. Before you judge me too much, please remember I live in Albania. I do really like Albanian food, but I miss American food. And Greek food is really similar to Albanian food. We did go out to a Greek restaurant one night and it was great. About half way through dinner, these two guys came in. One played the keyboard and the other the bazooki which is some sort of Greek guitar. We were almost the only ones in the restaurants so we had a great private conversation and got to talk to them a little bit. It was a very cool cross cultural experience.
When I got back, I got ready for the biggest holiday in Albania. NEW YEAR’S. I don’t think words can really describe what it is like here on New Year’s. On the days leading up more and more fireworks arrived in Kavaje. They were selling them everywhere and I’m not talking about sparklers, I’m talking about big fireworks that shoot high in the air and explode. Eight year olds were buying them. So all day fireworks are randomly going off, but about 10 minutes before the ball drops they really start going. None of the fireworks are sponsored by the city or anything they are just shooting them off randomly from people’s homes and the main square. So the whole city is just lit up. My next door neighbors were shooting them and I felt like they were going to come into my house. At some point, the fireworks set off a small brush fire near my house. So I watched my neighbor attempt to put it out with a hose. He was hampered by the fact, we had no water at the time. So once his reserve was out, he had to just watch it burn. Eventually some fire fighters showed up and put it out. This year, I observed this all form the comfort/safety of my home. Maybe next year, I will go crazy and wander down to the square. I will never forget New Year’s 2008.

Because of the holidays, I’ve been in a very reflective mood. I’ve been thinking over my life in the last year and how much it has changed. Because of a random set of circumstances, I quit my job last year on my birthday. So I kind of view that as the beginning of this crazy year. Last year’s Christmas was filled with me drinking up the last bits of family time. Then in March, I headed here. It’s been a great experience so far. I’ve done things that I never imagined possible.
School at the high school is going really well. It took a few months for me to get into the swing of things and for the students to get used to my broken Shqip/English conversations and I teach differently than they are used to. But I have mastered the use of the register (the teacher’s grade book) which is way more difficult than you would imagine. And I think some of the stuff I’m saying is getting through to them. And I taught them the phrases TGIF and bling, bling. So clearly they are better off knowing me.
The private school has been great. I teach a beginner class and team teach an advanced class. The beginners are getting to the point where we can have brief conversations in English. The school decided to have a New Year’s party and it was a really great time. Each different class worked on a presentation in English – a song, a story, a dialogue or poem. I taught my class Jingle Bells and they did a great job singing the song. I was a bit worried that my class wouldn’t be as good as the other classes so I pulled a favor and brought a guitar playing friend which ensured that ours was the best. Another highlight was the Romeo and Juliet scene. Two kids asked me to pick out a scene in Romeo and Juliet for them to act. I suggested that I translate it into modern English and they agreed. So I picked the balcony scene. I did forget how ridiculously romantic the play is and I definitely had some fear of screwing up Shakespeare. Especially the really famous lines. "Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?" It was a bit nerve wracking. But they memorized the whole scene and really brought down the house. The party ended with circle dancing and some hip hop. And the party ended at 11:30 am so all of this went on before lunch!
So in summary. I don’t think that I’ve ever had a New Year where I felt that my life had changed so much, but it all has been for the best. I’m enjoying my time here, meeting all kinds of great people, and hopefully making a bit of a difference here.
Hope you enjoy the pic of me shaking it up with my students.