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)