The Coldest Warmest Winter Ever

We are behind, almost two months since our last post, and we do apologize. When you can see your breath and have to wear your winter coat inside your apartment, you just don’t feel like typing too much. Now that being said, I doubt it has dropped below 40 degrees more than twice in the last two months but with all the rain and buildings with no insulation, if it's 45 or 50 outside it's 45 or 50 inside. Also, it seems we have not been upto too much since our trip to Italy. The pace of life slows down a lot during winter here, there are less vegetables to buy in the market, less buses to take to other towns and did I mention that it is cold? Lauren currently is in her last week of break from the University, the winter semester finished up mid February with exams and the spring semester will begin March 8th and, no, she does not know what she will be teaching yet. In the mean time she still has her 4 English community classes, one of which she split so that I could take the more advanced students. So now I have my own English class of nine 14 -16 year old girls. They are not completely sure what to make of me, but they seem to enjoy the class. I am also still doing some health classes with the hospital.

February was Dental Health month, so we went to two schools to do presentations on proper teeth brushing and flossing as well as talk about the importance of visiting the dentist. I was able to show them some games that made their presentation more interactive and hopefully more memorable. Albania is in the odd position where it is so close to being “developed” in that they have access to so much, like dental care and information on dental health, yet still so many people fail to access the care or take heed of the information. But I guess that is why they have Peace Corps Volunteers here, to try to move people in the right direction. We also had our Mid-Service training in Durres at the end of January. It is hard to believe that in just 17 days we will have been here for an entire year. So far there are 52 new volunteers coming in mid march. The training was ok, I think the most useful skill I picked up was how to open a wine bottle with my boot. It can be done.

We have been able to get out of Saranda a few times in January and February. We got to visit a village right outside Sarande with the nuns. They go out to Shendelli twice a week to teach a Catechism class, and we went along just for the ride. This village is comprised of people who came from the North of Albania, they relocated there in 1997 in hopes of finding work. The North is predominately Catholic so the nuns are very well received. Some of the villagers even send their kids to live with the nuns so that they can attend school in Saranda.

Village life is very different from Sarande, lots of horse drawn carts, cows, pigs and chickens, unpaved roads and a much simpler way of life. This Village is close to the Greek border with views of snow capped mountains and of lake Butrint. We even got to take the pulley bridge, where you drive your car on to a raft and then they pull you across the river. We also went to another village with our English friend Richard, who is a missionary here, he took us to one of his favorite places to walk. Again with great views of the snow capped mountains and out in what is more like the “real” Albania. While Saranda is no US town, it is pretty advanced for Albania, with hotels and apartments popping up everywhere, internet cafes on every street it is light years ahead of where it was just 10 years ago and light years ahead of the villages that are just 10 minutes away. Richard is always great to chat with, he has been here for 15 years, so he always has a sound perspective and good advice.

I also took a trip to Tirana to get my ankle looked at. It is still causing me some problems. So the Peace Corps set up an MRI for me at the private hospital in Tirana. It was only $250 to get an MRI, which sounds cheap for us, but it is a month’s salary for an Albanian. The Peace Corps paid for me, well I guess that means that all of you and your taxes paid for me, so thanks! I still have some swelling and some torn ligaments, so for now I need to take it easy, and do some exercises that I got from a friend back home. Albania has not jumped on the Physical Therapy wagon yet so I have to do everything myself. If it is not better in a couple of months they will do more x-rays to see if I need surgery. Hopefully that will not be the case. We also visited some other volunteers in Delvine, which is the next big town over, about 45 minutes inland from Saranda and it's nestled up in the mountains. There are two volunteers there, and one was having a birthday. So almost all the “southern” volunteers met up for some excellent enchiladas and rocky road cake.

In late January there was major flooding in the Northern part of Albania, 3,000 people were displaced and many lost their homes and live stock. The nuns did a raffle to raise money, so we helped them sell tickets at the schools. It was very interesting. The teachers and principals all told them it was fine to come and sell the tickets but when we got there, each told us to come back on another day or at a later time etc. None of them realized what a good learning opportunity it could have been for their kids to be taught about civic engagement. Lauren and I had 50 tickets to sell and I think we ended up buying 28 of them and just giving them away b/c the kids didn’t want to buy them, (they were a dollar each) despite the very cool prizes of a bike, MP3 player and a play station. It was yet another lesson in how hard it is to do things here. The American values of helping your neighbor and giving anything you can to help others is lost on a lot of people here, especially the younger people. Communism demanded working together and volunteering, so now that it's gone these ideas are seen as part of the old way of doing things and everyone is left on their own. This is why people are not sure what to make of us, “volunteers”, going around offering services for free.

On a less happy note we have been fighting a war with mold in our apt, example below and despite fighting dirty (chemical weapons) the mold seems to be growing stronger, so much so that it has made an alliance with an unlikely bed fellow, coakroaches. While pulling out our refrigerator the other night, it seems to stop working every other day, I noticed about 20 roaches crawling all over the back, where incidently more mold was growing. They suffered heavy casulities but I can't be sure some of them did not get away where mold could protect them. It is of note that Lauren was of no use during this battle, in fact I am sure that she let the commander of the roaches walk right by her while she screamed and refused to step on it b/c she was only wearing socks. So we all live on to fight another day.

Well happy March everyone, we were excited to see spinach and broccoli  and blood oranges (they're tangy) back at the market (we know we live a simple life) and the sun is out today which means I am writing this without my winter coat on just a sweat shirt! Below are some pictures that we took to highlight Saranda for a website I am making for a local guy who is opening a hostel. If you are really bored and want to check on my progress and see the other pictures you can find the site at: http://sites.google.com/site/backpackersrthebunker/ 

          This is the beach right below our apartment and one of a local butcher shops, and yes, that is a dead skinned sheep hanging outside their door, which puts a whole new spin on window shopping.