Go You!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to announce that the Outdoor Ambassador project is now fully funded. I will (hopefully) be taking a group of students to the southern town of Erseke in May. This will be my last hurrah because I will be leaving the country less than a week later.

So, on behalf of my students, a great big thank you to all of you who donated. If you missed the opportunity there are projects currently open all over the world for Peace Corps Volunteers who are doing awesome things! So check it out.

Here’s a picture of my students for you to enjoy. They are making posters about biodiversity.

Albanian Article

Sometimes it's difficult for me to remember what it was like experiencing Albania for the first time. So here for your reading enjoyment is a great article about a guy who visited Albania. I enjoyed his take on the country. Albania: The Tail Wags the Dog.

The No Electricity Blues

Today I got back from school around 3:30 and there was no electricity. Last year, I wouldn’t have blinked an eye, but we have had pretty stable electricity since last November. Sadly, we still have occasional black outs. I settled into my electricity-less existence and warmed up some vegetable soup on my little camp stove. Then I tried to get caught up on emails until the battery died on my computer. I put clothes into the washer, but couldn’t turn it on. I straightened my house and then it started to get dark. Grabbing my head lamp, I curled up under the biggest blanket you’ve ever seen and read for about an hour or so. As the darkness deepened, I noticed that my neighbor’s lights were on. Hmm. While it is possible that they recently purchased a generator, it’s unlikely. Eventually convincing myself that this was worth investigating, I left the warmth of my blanket and realized that somehow the breaker had flipped. We were not under a blackout and the rest of Kavaje had been experiencing an electric evening. Sigh.

My new website

You can now access my blog from www.denisemgreen.com. How cool is that!! I have a website. Technically, it just redirects you back to this blog, but maybe, just maybe I will add more thrilling content. Probably not till I have internet at my home though.

Side note: I have a new internet cafe and one of its most attractive features is its soundtrack. For those of you who don't know, I love that Albania loves love ballads. Since I've been here, I've heard, "Said I loved you, but I lied," the song from Robin Hood, and Total Eclipse of the Heart. I keep catching myself singing along. Those of you who have had coffee with me in Albania realize that this is true!

Happy Valentine's Day

I must admit, I do not view Valentine's Day as a "real" holiday. If you have someone special its a great excuse to tell them that and if not its a great reason to go out with a big group of friends and have an anti-Valentine's Day party.

All this to say, that I was a bit surprised to find out that not only did we get out of school early on Friday, but the school psychologist planned a disco party. The fact that the school psychologists plans disco parties says something, but I'm not sure what.

So, I jumped in a car with some of my teacher friends, followed by three bus loads of teenagers. It was fun to watch my students cut the rug. They danced. I took photos. They begged me to dance with them. I politely declined. They drank. I looked on uncomfortably. After about an hour of floor shaking, techno music, I was mercifully released to head upstairs with my teacher friends and have a nice seafood lunch. And this was all before the final bell would have rung.

Just another long, tough, day at school!

Italian Yoga Class

For the last couple of months I’ve been taking Italian classes. It’s a change of pace to be in the student’s seat. Even though it is a beginner class, they have all taken Italian courses at school and have grown up watching Italian television. Needless to say, I’m not the star pupil. It’s humbling to be beaten on your conjugations by a 9 year old.

So one day, we began learning vocabulary for activities. “Doing yoga” was one of the vocab words. The teacher translated it (into Albanian) as Chinese exercises. I laughed to myself, but let it go. A few minutes later, we had to say sentences like, “I always read books.” One of my sentences was, “I sometimes do yoga.” This caused a great stir in the class. They started peppering me with questions. “What is yoga?” “How do you do it?” “Where did you learn?”

The teacher closed her eyes and started humming. “Is it like that?” she said. Nope that’s meditation. One student started karate chopping the air and I had to say that that wasn’t it either. So after several attempts at explaining, they finally convinced me to show them.

So in my jeans, three shirts, sweater and a coat. (It was really cold that day.) I did a sun salutation for my fellow students.

Just a moment of sharing “American” culture.

Inauguration Day

I'm constantly amazed at how closely my Albanian colleagues, students, and friends have followed the election process. It seems like ages ago that I was giving endless (and confusing) explanations about the electoral college to my students and watched as their faces fell when I explained in primary after primary that there still wasn't a winner. As a people, they were early supporters of Clinton because of Bill Clinton's actions during the Kosovo conflict.

Another great moment was in my extracurricular activity - Club America. I split the kids into two sections and gave them summaries of each party and asked them to design their own political poster. It cracked me up how quickly both groups began designing smear campaigns. I quickly stopped this and declared they could only put positive statements on the posters. By the end of the evening, they could actually summarize each political party. It was great.

But the most memorable event was the morning after the election. I arrived at school (like always) and was greeted with a standing ovation, numerous double cheek air kisses, and cries of Gezuar (Cheers, in Albanian) It was a really touching moment. To top it all off, my counterpart came up to me and told me that she never thought she would see an American president who was not only African American, but the son of an immigrant. She followed it up by saying, "Americans have taught me today that democracy can work."

So to all of you out there, from my Albanian friends
Gezuar