You are sending us where?

On Friday we found out where our permanent site will be. Albania is the size of Maryland so when you think of it that way everything is generally close, but the roads and the transportation make it seem the size of Texas. Many of you have a general idea of the Peace Corps and what the average conditions are like, so you might be a little taken aback when you google, Sarande, Albania.

Sarande

When we tell Albanians where we are going they all say the same thing: Shume, Shume Buker! which is not the response others are getting about their sites, especially when they are up North. According to them, the North is Keq, bad. Despite the size of the country many Albanians do not travel that much so even though they have never been to the North they know they don't like it and therefore neither should we.

So we ended up in what many would say is the most beautiful city in Albania, it is where Albanians go to honeymoon and more and more Europeans come to vacation. I will be working at the Health Education and Promotion Unit while Lauren will be teaching at the new satellite University of Tirane, which was just started in 2006. We both have counterparts who we will work with and who will help us get settled into our roles. Mine does not speak any English, while Lauren will have a much easier time. The Peace Corps has not put anyone in this site for several years and Lauren and I both will be the first ones from our sectors. We already have a lot of people who want to come visit us, especially since there is daily ferry service from Sarande to the Island of Corfu, Greece. We will be going on a site visit some time in May and hopefully we will see our apartment as well as meet our counterparts and get a better idea of what we will be doing.

Other than the site announcements, things are going about the same. We continue to have Albanian language classes 6 days a week with some technical stuff thrown in, and these next two weeks we have to start putting our training to use. Lauren will have to teach several classes at the University and I have to give 3 health classes to local schools and at a health center. When that is over we will only have three weeks of training left.

This last Saturday we did have a cultural day, where we invited all of our host families from our town to come to a party. The Americans made American food and they made traditional Albanian food and we learned about about each other's cultures. Lauren and I made apple crisp which went over very well, especially with our American friends, while others made grilled cheese, french toast, pierogies, and jumbalia. None of us could find all the ingredients that we needed, but we all managed. For the most part our host families seemed to like our cooking, at least they did once they figured out what is was. Our host mom especially liked to watch me cook. A very uncommon site here. We also did some famous circle dancing, which as you might imagine involves dancing in a circle, over and over and over again. When we got home I helped our host mom turn over the soil around all the olive trees, she and our grandmother were very pleased, they kept telling me bravo, Ben, bravo!

Circle Dancing, Lauren with another PCV's host mom, and traditional Albanian food.

Shume e bukur!

Last Saturday we went on a "Volunteer Visit", which was our first chance to see a volunteer in action who is working in our respective sectors. For our visit we got to go to Vlora which is a beautiful city on the Southern coast, or as the Albanians say about it, "Vlora eshte shume e bukur," Vlora is very beautiful. Vlora is very big, so it was quite different from our little village and it was a good chance to see the variety of issues faced by volunteers who work in the bigger cities.

The Volunteers that we met and stayed with were very friendly and great hosts. They took us to the beach (still too cold to swim), all the good restaurants (meaning that they had Tabasco available), and made a very good Mexican dinner for us. They also scored us an invite to a local teacher's house to have a fish dinner. There are 3 volunteers currently serving in Vlora, one for each sector. They all teach at least one class at the university, so we both got to see what-

Lauren will be in for over the next two years. The classes were very large, up to 160 in the lectures, and about 30 or 40 in the seminars. As with any class there were some students who were very motivated and others who were disruptive. Some of the students spoke English very well while others were struggling to understand the concepts of the lesson.

The volunteer there had also set up a meeting with the director of the Health Center, but at the last minute, she was called to the capital, Tirane. From talking to many of the health volunteers, it seems that this sector is the most undefined assignment. Depending on your permanent site, a health volunteer could be doing any number of things including even teaching a class at the university. Speaking of site placements, we will find out this Friday were we will be going to live for the next 2 years. The only thing we know for sure is that we will be in a larger city, because only a larger city would have a university where Lauren will teach.

Since we got back on Tuesday we have been back at school trying out best to learn Shqip. Lauren is well in the lead now. The family will ask me a question and when I take more than 5 seconds to respond they turn and look to her. Lauren is very good about just talking even if she does not make any sense while I think too much and take far to long to get out my sentences. This usually evokes the response that Lauren speaks shume shqip while I speak pak. I think people forget that we have only been learning this language for three weeks now! Last Saturday we had language simulation stations in Elbasan, where we were split up into groups and had to go around the town to practice our shqip. We went to the coffee bar, high school, Orthodox church, and to the market. While I was supposed to be asking people how much things cost I got some good pictures of the market and the outside of the church.

Easter in Albania is not like in the USA, no Easter Egg Hunts, no chocolate, no Church services. That is a generalization, the North part of the country is Catholic so it might be different up there, and in the larger towns it is possible to find a church, but in our village and the surrounding area there are not any churches, we did find a mosque but I am not sure if it is active or not. Many Albanians define themselves by a religion, Orthodox, Islam, or Catholic but do not practice their faith at a church. As a famous Albanian author once wrote, "the religion of Albania is Albanianism."



Interesting Side Notes:

• The morning TV shows consist of people standing around reading out loud that day's newspaper with music videos thrown in every 10 minutes.

• They love Big Brother here, Albania has its own version with some very controversial characters.
  
  
• Albanians love going for coffee, which doesn't really mean that you are going for coffee, it could be beer, coke, or tea. However, if you are single and go three times it might be construed that you are dating.
  
  
  
• Older Albanians really do shake their head side to side when they yes, which causes great confusion.

• They have 10 extra letters in their alphabet, several of which sound exactly like other letters in their alphabet but they swear we will be able to hear the difference soon.
  
  
  
• They put silent e's on the end of a lot of words that are pronounced in the South but never in the North.
  
  
• We are not allowed to travel after dark. This goes for Embassy staff too.

• They really do love America here, the cafe that George Bush visited here, was renamed The George Bush Cafe, and the seat were he sat is roped off. They also love Hilary and Bill and now they are big fans of Obama. We will often hear Obama yelled at us followed by a friendly wave.

• Orange, olive, lemon, and fig trees abound.
  
  
  
• There are many superstitions and most people protect their homes from the "evil eye" by hanging stuffed animals, garlic, or scarecrow looking figures. Our house wards off evil with a very intimidating "my little pony."

Local Flower and the view from the hill behind our house in Pajove.

Market in Elbasan, and the outside of the Orthodox Chruch.






This is our "Grandfather" planting beans.

This is the road upto our house.

Beni! Beni!

We have a 20 minute walk down the mountain to school every morning and then back every afternoon. Last week and gentleman named Sabrio saw us looking at his cow and asked us to come see his house. This lead to drinks and the viewing of his photo albums and meeting his entire family. So now everytime Lauren and I get near his house we are greeted with a hardy Benny! Benny! And then he proceeds to tell me how good looking I am. He is a very nice man, maybe in his late 60's, and always wants to talk even though we only understand 2% of what he is saying.

This week has gone by rather fast, we both have colds as do most of the volunteers, but it has warmed up a tad, so no more hats and gloves in the classroom, just jackets! The classes are going well, but they throw a lot of grammar and vocab at you in a short amount of time. But our class was told on Friday that we were doing really well. We also go to Elbasan twice a week for "hub" days, where we get together with all the other volunteers for trainings on safety, health, as well as go out and observe current volunteers teach health lessons or talk to local teachers about working in an Albanian School. Today we are going on a site visit to the coast to stay with a volunteer who teaches at a university, which is want Lauren will be doing. There is also a health volunteer there who will take me around to show me what he does. So the next couple of days should be very insightful.

Things are still going well, we do lose power and water occasionally and doing anything on the computer takes forever, the internet goes in and out as it wishes, so attaching files or photos can take hours. Fortunately for us we can do it from our house. Also the food the food has been good, we have a hard boiled egg for breakfast, usually eat lunch at a local cafe, so it is either meat soup, rice or spaghetti, then dinner has ranged from chicken, veal and sausage, to salads, french fries, and tons of pasta, always with fruit afterwards. Dinner is served very late, normally around 9 or later.

The other day, we saw our host dad at the local cafe and he called us over to have some tea, he then proceed with a lot of hand gesturing to tell us that dinner was in the trunk. When we got home we saw the 80 lb. carp in the trunk! Ben was very pleased to see the dad's friend taking the fish head home with him. Little did he know he would be invited that evening to eat the fish head with Islam, and his friends at a restaurant in town. Luckily he got the cheek, and not the eye!

Beni dhe Bani (Ben and Alban)

Shelqerja and her homemade spinach pie (byrek)