Gazuar Festat

Albanians love celebrations, so Albania pretty much observes all holidays, religious and civil, and of most denominations. "Happy Holidays” seems pretty appropriate here without the accusation of quibbling one hears in the US from those who think only a hearty “Merry Christmas” will do. Korca certainly has the Christmas spirit. There are lights and trees everywhere. Parades and processions by different denominations are scheduled. The square in front of the cathedral in the center of town has a tent for loud rock music, beer, and dancing. There is a temporary, outdoor ice skating rink next to that, several booths for the holiday market, and a stage for the planned musical and dance performances that will go on until the 7th of January, which is the big Christmas day for the Orthodox Church which predominates here.

For the secular (Albania was officially an atheist state under the 40 year communist rule), there are a fireworks in store for New Years Eve. Lots of kids have firecrackers and they pop with increasing frequency as the big day approaches. Albanians love things that blow up and many people say that was a principle motivation for the anarchy that wrecked the country in 1997 when, in response to an economic collapse, young men looted the armories and had great fun with grenades, rockets and automatic weapons. Happily, current explosions are limited to the variety sold at the legal fireworks stands in Idaho around the 4th of July. Maybe Idaho should consider adopting this tradition, since the rain, snow and cold of winter makes the corollary Idaho “tradition” of accidental forest, grass, and structural fires unlikely.

Speaking of wanting to blow things up, I was supposed to attend a course on project design and management in Durres a couple of weeks ago. I had heard from several sources that this training is particularly good. Unfortunately, my counterpart, Jani, who was supposed to attend with me, developed kidney problems that put him in the hospital the day before we were to leave. The Peace Corps staff person in charge of the meeting reached me by cell phone as I was on the bus and told me not to come without my counterpart.

I was initially miffed, because I had cleared my schedule, arranged coverage for my classes and really wanted the training. I have already had one grant application for a small grant for equipment to do worksite environmental monitoring turned down. Dr. Isufi enlisted my help with a grant application to the Vodafone Albania Foundation to help get a disabled ski program going at his ski area. This was only shortly before the application was due and he was a little unclear of what he wanted to do with the money, but it was also not helped by my lack of expertise. Others at the Directorate of Public Health have also asked for assistance. Since I am the only volunteer left in Korca, I feel an obligation to do what I can. The next training session is not until June which will leave less than a year left for me to do anything. Not enough time. So when I got back to my apartment, I downloaded some training materials on grant writing and then took a later bus to visit with some volunteers that have written successful grants. This was very instructive. Nothing makes me want to learn something more than being told I can’t.

Even though I have written grants in the past and participated in research projects under other grants, writing for social projects seems quite different. The amount of money involved is much less than I have dealt with in the past, but the people administering the grant making programs seem to act like pashas approving funding as though it were out of their largesse rather than an integral part of achieving the goals of their organizations. Yet, I realize I am more likely to be productive if I just learn what hoops to jump through. If I were in charge, I would get those people out of their shiny Land Rovers with the organizations’ insignias on the sides and hold them a lot more accountable for outcomes. Even over the time I have been here, I have seen a lot of fancy equipment purchased with grant money lying broken and idle. Nevertheless, I am not in charge and if I want to do anything I am going to have to get with the program.

A few of the volunteers from other towns in the region are coming to stay at my apartment so they can attend the festivities in Korca. We plan to share a traditional dinner as best as we can assemble it from the available ingredients. Some of them are pretty good cooks and adept at substitutions, such as using high-fat yoghurt called “salce kosi” for cream cheese. My own cooking ability would need a Christmas miracle to make it palatable, so I will probably limit myself to helping out where I can, like washing dishes and trying to keep the place warm.

This has been a challenge. The double layer of plastic which is held in place by masking tape so as not to damage the paint keeps blowing off in the draft that comes around the window frames. I was going to put a curtain across my door frame, but the neighborhood dog, Ilky, likes to sleep in front of my door on cold nights, probably because of the heat leaking out, as well as the slices of bread I give him whenever I bring home a loaf from the bakery (35 cents a loaf, fresh baked, 24 hours a day). I did buy a small bag of dry dog food to give him as treats (I haven’t found real dog treats in stores here yet), but he refuses to eat that stuff. He’d rather ransack the trash for edibles. I’d invite him in but first, it is not that much warmer inside than outside, and, second, that would also entail inviting in all the fauna that infests Albanian dogs, which, for the most part, live outside, whatever the weather.

I know that the ski season finally opened back in Idaho the weekend before Christmas. Not to be outdone, I headed to our local ski hill on Saturday with Dr. Isufi. As I walked over to meet him at his office in the early afternoon, it began to snow heavily. I figured we would cancel our trip and, maybe, just go for coffee. I was wrong. In retrospect, I realize that the roads in Albania are so bad that drifting snow weighs little in the decision to make a trip.

His son, who has a car, was recruited to give us a ride to the ski hill which is usually about a half hour drive. He drove slowly, a bad sign since Albanians almost never drive slowly. We only got to the village of Boboshtica, about half way, before his car lost all traction. We helped him get his car turned around and, as he drove off back to Korca, Isufi pointed up the hill and said, “We walk”.

We trudged up the 10-15% grade as the blizzard blew in our faces. We passed four wheel drives that were off the side of the road. Isufi thumped his chest and said, “Ah, fresh air”. After about an hour, we saw Maca’s old, beat up, white Mercedes van emerging from the cloud up ahead. He had chains on the rear tires and I thought he might be heading home. Wrong again.

We helped him turn the van around and drove up the last few miles to the ski area. It was slow going. We stopped several times to adjust the chains and to help other vehicles, including a Jeep wagon that had gone into a ditch. This helpful, community spirit was partly due to traditional Albanian traits, but also due to the fact that it is barely a one lane road and if you don’t help the car stuck ahead, you don’t go either.

At last we got to the ski area, Bigel, near the village of Dardhe. As we warmed up in front of the fireplace and drank hot, mountain tea, I saw that Kristof and Fredi and a couple of others I didn’t know were busy finishing various projects and getting the place spruced up to open for business. Isufi asked me if I wanted to ski, but it was getting dark, it was still storming outside (there was lightning and thunder and it had begun to hail), and I didn’t want to be playing while the others were busy working. There was a lot to do.

We worked for several hours. The day lodge looks pretty functional and it will serve for the season, but there are obviously a lot of future projects. Credit Suisse can never pull the plug on this ski area like they did at Tamarack in Idaho, because this is a strictly pay-as-you-go construction with lots of sweat-equity and recycled materials. Whether or not he gets his grant, I have no doubt that Dr. Isufi will make it accessible for local disabled people, although transportation seems problematic.

I assumed we would camp out in the day lodge for the night and return in the daylight, but suddenly, the tools were put away, the fire was doused, the floor swept up and we got into the van for the drive back to Korca. As Maca carefully maneuvered the van down the steep, icy road in the dark, they began to sing traditional ballads for which Korca is renowned. They all know the words by heart.

Out of Site

Jani, one of my counterparts at the Directorate of Public Health, tells me that it always snows in Korca the first week in December. The last Wednesday of November, however, was unseasonably warm and sunny, as I headed to Tirana for a medical appointment, a meeting at the US Embassy and Thanksgiving dinner at the Ambassador’s home the next day.

The security officer for the Peace Corps, had visited Korca on Tuesday. I met with her after class and was briefed on concerns regarding demonstrations in the capital over continuing disputes regarding the election last June. She spent the night visiting her family, so I was able to hitch a ride with her to Tirana. Two other volunteers also came along. It sure beat the bus.

I got to Tirana about noon, tried to get the key for the room I had rented through the internet with a family near the Blocku district. I was told to come back later, so I walked across town to the Peace Corps office to have an ear infection checked out by the PA who is our Medical Officer. Then I walked to the US Embassy for a meeting. After that it was back for the key. On my way, I passed the 16th Annual International Trade Fair that was being held in the Palace of Congress building, sponsored by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Energy. It was lit up in the evening, there was music coming from inside, and there was a fair size crowd outside among all the new Mercedes, Audis and other cars on display. I paid my 100 lek entrance fee and went inside.

Inside hundreds of corporate exhibitors displayed their products in booths on the 4 floors of the hall. They were from within and around Albania and promoted everything from high tech machinery to wedding dresses. It was not something one would expect in a country with a large contingent of serving Peace Corps volunteers, although I realize that this is the engine that produces real change in a developing country.















The next day, Thanksgiving morning, there was a touch football game between the volunteers and the Marines from the Embassy. The Marines trounced the PC team. We all agreed we would have been discomfited had they lost. Late in the afternoon I walked to the “Ridge”, where the American diplomats have their homes in a secure, manicured community. I was let in and shown to the Ambassador’s residence, where I joined Ambassador Withers, 5 other volunteers and a few Marines and Embassy staff for a traditional dinner. Albania has turkeys, but they look like the wild ones back in the foothills in Idaho, and are mostly dark meat. Our bird was obviously American and perfectly cooked: served with mashed potatoes and gravy, bean casserole, cranberry sauce, carrots and broccoli, stuffing, and assorted pastries for dessert.

Because Albania has a series of holidays at the end of November (Little Bajram- a Muslim commemoration of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son at God’s command, Independence Day and Liberation Day), I had the next 5 days off and toured around southern Albania, staying with other volunteers. This network of hosts is one of the great perks of Peace Corps service. In Albania, they are mainly from my cohort that began service together almost 9 months ago at staging in Philadelphia, but I understand it is available in any country with an active Peace Corps program.

My itinerary took me to Tepelene, with its mineral springs and water bottling plants; Kelcyre, which has ruins from an Illyrian village; Gjirokaster, with its steep cobbled streets winding up the hill to the Ottoman castle; Saranda, the Mediterranean resort city with hundreds of new hotels lining the shoreline; and Butrint, the ancient Greek, Roman and Venetian port city. The weather was mostly sunny and pleasant. The roads wound through the mountains, through the vineyards along the whitish-teal Vjosa River near Permet and Kelcyre, the persimmon trees among the rock strewn hillsides along the green Drinos River near Gjirokaster and the orange groves among the limestone hills along the coast near Saranda. The mountain ridges rise 2000 ft above the valleys. A group from my cohort tried to bushwhack across two of them between Gjirokaster and Permet (about 10 miles) over the weekend. They got lost in the snow, but were saved by a villager who led them to safety, although far short of their goal. Many of you are probably surprised I was not with them.


Butrint was the highlight of the trip and not just because my hosts in Saranda made banana pancakes for breakfast on Monday. It is a national park that has extensive, partially excavated ruins as well as a large nature reserve around a lagoon with a variety of birds, especially in the winter. Since this is the off season, there were not many people. We walked for hours along the self guided path through the ruins and on a trail along the water. That night we had dinner at a popular local seafood restaurant in Saranda to celebrate several birthdays among my cohorts. We had dessert and coffee at a café on the bay with the lights of Corfu on the other side of the narrow strait between Albania and the Greek island. We could see the boot heel of Italy in the distance across the Ionian Sea.

When I got home on Tuesday a stiff cold wind blew gray clouds across the valley. I saw my landlord’s son and learned his father had suffered a heart attack the day before and was in the hospital. I put on a heavier coat and walked over to visit. He was resting, with his family around him. They do not have a CCU at the hospital in Korca. He shared a room with two other patients. There were no monitors, no electric beds. It reminded me of the hospital where I had my tonsils out about 55 years ago. He had two IV’s going and I did not recognize the names of the medications that were written on the sides of the bottles. As I headed back up the hill to my apartment, a light rain began to fall; the temperature dropping as the twilight turned into night.

Europe on 30,000 Lek a Day

It is a 10 hour bus ride from Korca to Athens, that plus at least an hour at the border crossing. You have to get out of the bus in the cold and wind and stand beside your open luggage while the Greek customs officers inspect. My American passport gets me a warm welcome and my bag a cursory glance. The Albanians get a scowl and a thorough hand inspection. There are many confiscations. The Albanians shrug this off and get back on the bus. They all know this routine, yet no one asked me to help them get anything across.

As soon as you cross the border you notice things are different. While the vegetation is the same, the houses in the towns are in better repair, particularly the roofs which have few broken or missing tiles. There are few buildings standing partially constructed awaiting further funds to restart work. The roads are in good repair and there is much less roadside litter. The most striking thing, however, is the absence of the concrete bunkers which are scattered everywhere throughout Albania, particularly in border regions.

The first rest stop a couple of hours into the country reveals another glaring difference. Prices are in euros and not lek, the Albanian currency, and they are not cheap. Coffee costs 3 euros (about $4.50) not 50 lek (about 55 cents). Dinner at a moderately priced restaurant is 30-40 euros, while the best Albanian restaurant is only a fifth of that. A hotel room costs more for a night than I pay for my apartment for a month.

Yet Albanians wait in long, slow moving lines at the Greek consulate to obtain a visa and willingly endure the scorn of the border guards. This is because there is opportunity in Greece that is non-existent back home. One of my Peace Corps cohorts explained to me that her landlady in Albania could make 40 euros a day cleaning houses or hotel rooms in Athens compared with 5 euros a day in Albania, assuming she could find work. Her Albanian house is large and well furnished, but in Athens she lives in a room of a hotel under construction (presumably she had either contacts with or paid off the construction crew- maybe both) so she could save as much money as possible. My friend made the mistake of visiting her landlady while in Athens. This was a mistake because her landlady insisted on taking her out for dinner, and, being Albanian, also insisted on treating. I am beginning to think that one needs a signed note from a doctor to avoid being fed by Albanians, but I am not sure that would suffice.

A group of volunteers took part in the Athens marathon. This was on the course of the original marathon 2500 years ago when an Athenian soldier ran the 26 miles to announce the Greek victory in the Battle of Marathon. That soldier died from his effort. While none of the volunteers succumbed to that fate, most were hobbling the next day with blisters, bursitis, tendonitis and muscle ache. I provided some therapy and my usual sympathetic ear, and then went touring with some of those who were still able to walk.

It was brilliant sunshine and about 70 degrees. Athens is the San Diego of Europe, except instead of the historical culture being Spanish a few hundred years in the past, it is Greek and a few thousand years old. The photo with this post is of the Acropolis as seen from the Temple of Olympian Zeus. That temple was built by the Romans, who occupied Athens when the ancient city was as remote historically from them as the Crusades are from us. No doubt Roman teenagers complained about having to study Greek because it was so much “before their time”.

The museums in Athens are amazing. The New Acropolis Museum is particularly striking. It is built amid an excavation. Open areas and glass floors incorporate this into the design of the building. The display of art and architecture gives a real sense of the Acropolis and the Parthenon, in particular, and is a strong argument to the British to return the Elgin Marbles.

The walk to the top of the Acropolis was awe inspiring. There were lots of tourists, even in the off season. There were plenty of guards, too, to keep them on the approved paths and mind their behavior. It was such a contrast to Albania, where you wander on your own and knock on a door down the street to get keys to historic structures. I doubt if Athens was that unsupervised even in Roman times.

Athens is beautiful and clean and has all the modern amenities. Most signs are in English as well as Greek and it is easy to find your way around. Public transit is particularly impressive. An all day ticket is only 3 euros and covers buses, trams and a metro (subway) that is one of the best I have ever seen. Its construction required extensive archeological excavation, much of it displayed throughout the system making it seem more of a trip through a museum than a ride to a destination. We watched the changing of the guard, as they high stepped in their skirts and tasseled shoes (the traditional uniform from the Greek War of Independence from the Ottomans almost 200 years ago), at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, adjacent to the Parliament building. We walked through the National Gardens among flower blossoms and orange trees full of ripe fruit, the old open markets, the chic neighborhoods, and, then, in the late afternoon, rode the metro to Piraeus, the seaport of Athens. As the sun set over the Strait of Corinth, we strolled along the circular quay admiring the hundreds of yachts at berth.

The bus back to Korca left at 6 PM. I slept well during the ride through the night in spite of the music blaring on the PA system. I was awakened at one stop by a Greek policeman wanting to see my passport. He smiled when he saw it and told me he had friends in Texas, although he could not remember which city. He asked me why I would want to visit Albania. I explained that I was a volunteer with the Peace Corps assigned to Korca. I didn’t bother to tell him that I was happy to be back among people who spoke Shqip and where clarinets and ballads in a Balkan rhythm lulled you to sleep.

Language Refresher Training

My Peace Corps group had a mandatory meeting in Pogradec last week. Pogradec is a city on the southwest shore of Lake Ohrid, about an hour bus ride northeast of Korca. This is an incredibly beautiful mountain lake between Macedonia and Albania. If Lake Tahoe was surrounded by cities and villages with Mediterranean style tiled roof buildings it might look like Lake Ohrid.

It was sunny, but cold and windy. The space heaters in the rooms didn’t work too well, but that is pretty much the case throughout Albania. I have broken out my long underwear and down sleeping bag and have covered the windows in my apartment with a double layer of plastic sheeting. I plan to put a heavy curtain over my door frame since you can see around the frame and the wind whips right on through the cracks. My landlord gave me another space heater that runs on either electric or gas (God bless him). At the hotel in Pogradec, I sat near the heaters and wore sweaters and my coat at times (something I don’t remember having to do at any hotel around Lake Tahoe).

In the evening, after the day’s session, we walked in a tight group along the stone promenade on the lakeshore to a one of several good restaurants in Pogradec. The owner seemed very happy to see us, maybe because business is slow in the off-season or because he had lived in Michigan for a number of years. He offered us a discount “American steak” dinner. It was about $8, not bad for a t-bone. My group treated an American missionary from Pennsylvania who has worked with the Roma (gypsy) community in Pogradec for decades. She talked to us about the problem of human trafficking, not the most cheerful dinner conversation. Guilt is not my favorite side-dish.

Speaking of “downers”, we have lost about 10% of my original group of volunteers to early termination (Peace Corps speak for going home before completing the two years of service) due to illness or personal reasons. I don’t know if this is high or low or about average for a Peace Corps group, at this point in the 27 month term of service, although I have read that overall about 1 in 3 ET. Some were good friends from pre-service training, and I miss them. One was a pre-med student from Virginia who had put off medical school to serve in Albania. She had hoped to work in a rural area, but had been assigned to one of the bigger cities and wasn’t happy. Another was an engineer and my go-to person for computer and other technical problems. She had taken ill and went home to recuperate. I have heard she wants to return, but may not be allowed. Also, the couple from the group ahead of mine who were serving in Korca, recently left for medical and personal reasons and I am now the only Peace Corps volunteer in my city (when I first got here there were 5). I was looking forward to getting to know them as they seemed interesting, as people, and effective, as volunteers. She is from Chicago and taught English at the university. He is from Florida and did community development with the Korca city hall.

I was very impressed with the language ability of some of my cohort. They already seem to have mastered the Albanian language. One was even able to do Hamlet’s soliloquy in Shqip! I try to study regularly and almost daily read the Top Chanel-Shqip news on-line, referring to my Oxford Albanian-English dictionary. Sometimes, though, the words just don’t stick, and I have to look up the same word more than once for the same article. We were divided into groups based on our level. I am in the middle group, meeting the requisites of the Peace Corps, but not much more.

Some people have a real flare for languages, but not me. I am thinking of asking some of my counterparts who speak English with me to talk more in Shqip and may also post language learning material on the walls of my apartment (at minimum it will provide some insulation). Maybe I should put a language text under my pillow so I can learn by osmosis.

I am not sure how much I got out of the 4 day, intensive training in terms of increased facility with the language. I did enjoy seeing the members of my service group, especially the ones who are assigned in the north who I have not seen since pre-service training in Elbasan. It was exciting to hear about their sites and activities and commiserate about plumbing, heating, scorpions, bedbugs, cracks in the walls, leaks in the ceilings, and adventures in cultural misunderstanding.

They also helped me by trying out my new board game, “Furgon Driver”. You can probably guess where the inspiration came from. I drew the game board with crayons on a piece of cardboard. I cut the playing tokens from a hazel nut branch. Someone gave me the deck of cards which I wrote on to customize it for the game, and I cut the “perk” and “hazard” cards from computer paper. The only thing I paid for was the die, which was about 25 cents. I envision the game coming with a CD of regional Albanian music to be played in the background. Since anyone who has spent much time in an Albanian bus or furgon, already has that running in his or her head, we omitted that detail. The game played reasonably well and I got some good ideas for improvement. If I ever get it made, you know what your “crummy souvenir” from Albania is likely to be.

Korca has had lots of rain this month as well as the cold. Just above freezing and cars can be seen around town sporting a layer of snow, presumably after driving in from the surrounding mountains. My laundry is taking forever to dry. I now string it inside to see if I can get it dry in less than a week.

I am planning my first vacation out of the country for a few days next week. A group of Peace Corps, Albania, volunteers is running in the Athens marathon and I am going along for the trip, but have no intention of running or even walking. I suppose I will be called upon to help with first aid and post race therapy. I am looking forward to touring the sites and, the weather site on the web predicts temperatures between 70 and 80.

There is a very modern coach service on Albatrans direct to Athens from Korca. It only costs 35 euro and leaves several times a day. With my American passport, it is so simple and easy for me to make a reservation and go. Like most Americans, I take it for granted and rarely consider this right of American citizenship that allows me to travel without difficulty to so much of the world. My Albanian friends have to wait in long lines at the Greek consulate to get a visa. There is some irony that Albanians, once a part of the Ottoman Empire which issued some of the world’s first passports to its taxpaying citizens allowing travel throughout the Califate and abroad, now face hurdles to travel almost anywhere out of their country. With high unemployment and some towns with almost none for its young people, some resort to illegally sneaking into Greece or Italy to find work. American visas are granted by random selection of a limited number from the thousands of applications. Albanians call this “winning the lottery”. I have been told there are well trod paths marked by cairns through the mountains on the Greek border. I wonder what the border crossing will be like on the bus.

Funeral

Late Tuesday afternoon the nurses of the health education unit asked me if I would help them with a project. That is my primary assignment so, of course, I quickly agreed. Wednesday was National Mammography Day. That morning they had received materials from Tirana; posters, flyers, pamphlets, pink ribbons with safety pins, t-shirts and a large banner. They wanted to organize a march downtown to promote mammography and breast cancer awareness. I’m a mammal, men can get breast cancer, too, (although I have heard it said that the screening machine would be less vise like if men had to endure it), and this is what most Peace Corps health education volunteers are supposed to do. I may be old, but I was on it.

It might seem like this was late notice, but in Albania things usually get planned at the last minute. In the early evening I walked over to the house where the Preca Society lives and asked the head of the school if some of the students could be excused from class for about an hour to join in. I also phoned the health education Peace Corps volunteer in Bilisht to see if she would help. She comes to the Preka School to teach exercise and supervise community activity service that is part of the curriculum. She said it was right up her alley and she would be happy to help.

I walked to Dr. Isufi’s clinic where I work on Wednesday mornings and figured I would leave a bit early to attend the midday rally. When I got there the metal garage door was pulled down over the entrance. At the home adjacent there was the top of a casket by the door and a hand written sign with Dr. Isufi’s father, Hasan’s name on it. I had known that he was mortally ill and he had died during the night. I walked back to my apartment, put on a better shirt, a tie and a dark pair of pants. Then I returned to the Isufi home to pay a condolence call.

I went into the sitting room where the men were seated. I shook hands around, told Dr. Isufi how sad I was to learn about his father’s death and sat down next to the man I had met in the village we had walked to when we went on the lake excursion. Women were seated in a different room, but, after a while, Mrs. Isufi came in to greet the men. I stayed about half an hour, then left to make room for others waiting in the hall and yard to pay their respects. Dr. Isufi asked if I would come back at noon.

I walked over to the post office to pay my electric bill. The line was 10 deep with people out to the street. After a few minutes the lady at the window got up to take a break, so I gave up for the third time in two days and walked up the street to the cathedral steps where the march was to assemble. It was 10 minutes before the scheduled time and no one was there.

I walked inside to visit with the older man who supervises candle sales in the lobby of the cathedral. I had been introduced to him by a previous volunteer, and, even though we can’t converse very much, he has a very pleasant demeanor. I bought a couple of candles and lit one for Dr. Isufi’s father and one for a couple of friends back home who are fighting serious illness. When I walked back outside into the sunlight, the Preka students were walking up, right on schedule, but still no nurses.

Not to worry, counseled the volunteer from Bilisht. She had done something with an NGO a few weeks prior and they were an hour late for the event. Sure enough, a few minutes late, but pretty prompt in Albanian terms, the nurses walked up and passed out ribbons, t-shirts and flyers. Some pictures were taken, a couple of the nurses bravely strode out into the traffic and the march was off.

We walked about ½ a mile to where the banner was stretched between lamp posts by the old national bank building. Flyers were passed to women we encountered as we walked. At the front of the bank, more pictures were taken, a camera man from Korca TV showed up, and the event was complete. The students walked back to school and I headed back to the Isufi home.

More than 200 people were gathered in the street outside. There were three buses and several cars. I was hailed by Maca and Kristof, from the ski hill project, and I rode with them in Maca’s car as we followed the hearse to the cemetery. The large, crowded Korca cemetery is just south of the city. We walked to the center where a new grave had been dug. The cleric, a baba, said a few words and threw in a handful of dirt. Other men and women did likewise, then the grave diggers filled in the hole, and, led by the family and baba, we all walked over to a large restaurant near the graveyard.

Apparently nothing significant takes place in Albania without eating. Everyone attending was served a 4 course, sit down meal. Typically, it was much more than anyone could possibly eat. Although there were bottles of raki on every table and bottled water and soft drinks, there was no beer served. I am not sure why this was. Maybe beer is considered inappropriate for funerals. Dr. Isufi’s family is Muslim, but they are Bektashi. This is a liberal sect of Islam, based in Albania. They allow alcohol and have no dietary restrictions, and, in the same vein, put no limitations on women. I am not sure if they are the U-U equivalent in the Islamic world, but they are at least the UCC.

After the meal, the baba said a few more words, stood up and shook hands with the family. Then we all formed a line and shook hands and exchanged a few words in turn. Dr. Isufi said I should come to clinic in the morning. Walking home, past the row of stands that line the road approaching the cemetery, where they sell bouquets of artificial flowers that are preferred for memorials here, through the neighborhood of 5 story, communist-block apartments, I relished the warm, autumn afternoon sun after two weeks of cold and rain.

Trimester Report

The end of September is harvest time in Albania. In the US, the fall harvest often results in friends or neighbors leaving bags of zucchini on your doorstep, ringing the doorbell and running away. Albanian gardens seem more productive and Albanians are more direct and aggressive in passing on their excess. They bring 20 lb bags of apples to you at work. If you visit their home for any reason, plan to leave with at least two bags full of apples, pomegranates the size of large grapefruit, persimmons, grapes (green and red), figs, quince, walnuts, hazelnuts, and, of course, squash. It doesn’t matter if your arms are already full of books or papers or baggage, and, of course, in Albania it is a matter of honor.

“Please, I really can’t accept all this. I live alone and it is way too much for me.”

“What? How can I bear to face my family if you do not accept? Please, take two more pomegranates.”

“It is very generous of you, but I can hardly walk. Please, no thank you.”

“I cannot show my face at home if you refuse. Would you have my children be fatherless? Do you insist that they be left destitute? (…pause for effect as my ignominy sinks in) Here, take another bag of grapes? Do you like jam? Homemade from our black fig tree, this jar is too small, take two. Do you drink raki?”

Luckily, another Peace Corps volunteer lived nearby and I was able to struggle to her house. She was at home, but not feeling well. While she was resting, I left one of the bags in her kitchen. It was sneaky, but it was a matter of survival, and I was certain she would have done the same to me.

As I trudged up the hill to my apartment, I met a neighbor family with whom I am friendly. I was very grateful that they would accept two pomegranates, which probably weighed 2 lbs. a piece. When I got home, I put the ripe stuff in the fridge and what needed to ripen on the table. I have found that when I am a guest at meals, if I just say I am too old to eat so much or simply that “I am not Albanian”, it gets both a laugh and me out of a heaping refill of my dish. So far, I haven’t figured out a way to comfortably and effectively decline the bags of produce. Maybe I should just learn to can.

The end of September also is time for the first Trimester Report, required of all Peace Corps volunteers. You probably think I am on some kind of extended, low budget, government sponsored vacation, but I am actually expected to do some work, and not only that, to report my activities three times a year. The Peace Corps does many things to help developing countries around the world, but in Albania the activities are in three areas: community development, teaching English and health education. Each volunteer is assigned to one of these. Even so, we are encouraged to work in other, secondary areas if we have time and the opportunity presents itself. In addition there are four initiative areas: HIV/AIDS, information and communication technology, women and gender development, and youth development. Finally, in addition to helping development by developing local capacity by training individuals in countries where the Peace Corps has been invited, there are two additional goals: to help Americans learn about the people of the country where you are assigned, and, to help the people of the country where you work to learn about Americans. To some extent, this blog is part of my work on the first of these additional goals.

My work activities have developed over the first couple of months in Korca. I showed up at 8 AM, the first Monday, at my primary assignment with the health education nurses in the Directorate of Public Health for the Korca region. There are 4 young women in this group, mostly nurses, who teach a variety of lessons on health topics, rotating through the local schools, primary grades through high school. Some of the younger volunteers with this type of assignment go along with the nurses and help teach these classes. At my age and with my background this would be a poor fit. Volunteers are allowed quite a bit of leeway as to their specific work, so after a couple of awkward weeks, we mutually agreed to limit our work to few mornings a week of translating health education materials which I have access to on the web (through my prior work) from English into Albanian . As we do this, we discuss the topic, so it becomes kind of a seminar on the various topics. It also serves to help the nurses learn English. Some of the nurses have an interest in Spanish, and since I have some ability in that language, we work on that as well. Of course, all this translating also helps me with my Shqip.

One day a week, after I finish with the nurses, I work with a physician who works as the hygienist/epidemiologist for the department. He is interested in work and environmental topics, something more up my alley. We did a project for an EU photo contest of work site safety, visiting work sites in the Korca region and taking pictures. We submitted an entry, although it was unofficial since Albania is not yet a member of the EU. After that, we worked on a grant proposal to try to obtain equipment for quantitative work site environmental testing for respirable dust particles, temperature, humidity, air flow, light, noise, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide and combustible gases. This would greatly increase his capacity to do meaningful inspections and gather data to help meet work health and safety requirements for EU membership. The first shot at funding was submitted a week ago and we should hear a response in a couple of weeks. Whether or not we get it, we are both going to a Peace Corps course on project development and management in December that will be held in Tirana.

Two days a week, I work with a group of lab technicians, mostly on learning English, although I do try to incorporate related health topics when I can. I have two other students for English, local teenagers who were tutored by previous volunteers who asked me to continue with them. One is a 17 year old boy with a congenital visual impairment, the other the 15 year old daughter of one of my neighbors.

Two other days, I work in a rehabilitation clinic with Dr. Isufi, who I have previously mentioned. He speaks some English and has internet access, so I have been helping him get connected and identify resources as well as working directly with patients. The other clinic I work with is run by an NGO, initially started by the Anglican Church, but now with sponsorship from a number of Christian denominations, mainly from the US. They work with the physically disabled in the region through a therapy clinic at their center and home health visits. I do a seminar with the nurse/therapists on relevant topics once a week at the clinic and often go with them on home visits or see patients with them in their clinic.

I also work in a Maltese missionary school that teaches at the high school level in English. While this is a private school, it is much less expensive than the usual Albanian private school, has no special deals to get admitted, is scholastically demanding and has a great record of placing graduates in good universities in Albania and around the world where they have done well. The society runs schools in Albania, Poland and Cuba and does other projects in developing countries. It is called the Preca Society, founded by St. George Preca, of Malta. It is a lay society, although its members live communally and take a vow of celibacy. I teach the required life skills class to the 88 kids in level one (tenth grade). I also have offered an elective in the “scientific method” which will consist of learning how to do science projects. If all goes according to plan, the school will host the first science fair in Albania next spring.

Finally, two afternoons a week I work with the Aviation Interest Club at the American Library in Korca. This is a group of about a dozen teens who want to learn more about airplanes. It has been adopted by a chapter of the EAA from Albuquerque and has also received support from pilots and friends of mine from Idaho and Nevada. The library undoubtedly now has the best aviation collection in the country where most kids have never seen an airplane up close. We have a flight simulator program on a computer in the library, and since flying involves learning English (which is the language of international flight control) and most licensed pilots have to pass a medical exam and maintain good health to continue to legally fly and the majority of the teens are girls, we cover most of the initiative areas as well as have fun.

I try to be active in the community, meeting many of my neighbors and people around Korca. I help pick up trash in the yard around my apartment building. I give treats to my neighbor’s dog. I shop in the local markets, where I know several of the merchants and speak well enough to converse a bit. I am a regular at concerts and exhibitions at the cultural center in Korca, and, as I have previously mentioned, do my morning constitutional walks up the mountain with my fellow Korcans, go on excursions with Dr. Isufi’s patients and help out with maintenance and construction projects at the local ski area. All that, plus my continued relationship and visits with my host family and others back in Thane, help with the third Peace Corps goal.

So that is what one, of the almost 8000 volunteers worldwide, is doing in one placement, in one country, of the 76 where the Peace Corps currently works. I hope that dispelled your suspicions. By the way, do you like pomegranates?

Voskopoja

In the early 1300’s, about 150 years before Columbus sailed to the Americas, the town of Voskopoja was established in a high, fertile mountain valley. After 400 years, it had grown to the largest city in the Balkans, bigger even than Athens. Its 35,000 inhabitants had built 24 churches, a monastery and an academy training artists and architects. It was famous for its frescoes and icons and beautiful basilicas. Fires, earthquakes and invasions have taken their toll since then. It is now a remote, though tidy and scenic, mountain village of a few hundred people whose orchards and fields hide the ruins of its former glory.

A couple of former Peace Corps volunteer were touring through Korca as they traveled through Albania in a rented 4WD. They had served in Fiji in the 1980’s, but had continued their love of foreign adventure and each year chose an exotic destination to visit for a couple of weeks of vacation, often in countries with current Peace Corps activity. There is a bond of shared experience among former and current volunteers, and I had heard through the grapevine, that they were about. I was happy to show them around Korca. I even offered them a place to stay, although they have real jobs and opted for a hotel room instead.

I showed them churches and museums, coffee shops and stores around Korca. We had dinner at Vasili’s. Most locals identify it as the best in Korca. This includes my counterpart at the Public Health Department who is in charge of inspecting restaurants. A good endorsement, indeed, although by any standard, it is an excellent restaurant. Their specialty, lemon soup, is amazingly good. This was followed by a grilled assortment of vegetables (egg plant, peppers, cauliflower, beans, beets and squash), toasted bread, fish, beef, and sugar-cake (a local dessert) and fresh grapes. My friends drank a carafe of local, red wine which they said was good. At about $9 a head, it is more expensive than most places in Korca, but well worth it.

We joined the stroll along the boulevard in the pleasant fall evening. When we returned to their hotel they said they were planning to drive to Voskopoja the next day and asked if I wanted to come along. I did not have to be asked twice.

I have wanted to visit Voskopoja for awhile. Many of the most beautiful icons in the icon museum in Korca and in the National Museum in Tirana are from Voskopoja artists. We had a bit of trouble finding the road, and I was glad my Shqip is now functional enough to ask directions. The drive took about an hour on a winding and frequently unpaved road (what else would one expect in Albania) and the 4WD was useful in places. There were crews working on it and someday the road will be good, although a dump truck lying on its side off a steep drop indicated how formidable a task this is. We parked the Toyota in the center of town and set off on foot.

It was a fresh, early autumn day with small puffs of cumulus clouds in a bright blue sky. The fruit trees were laden with plums, wild pears, and thane fruit (a red, olive sized fruit with a slight acid tinge to its sweetness that is sold in cups on the streets of Korca). Blackberries and rose hips were thick on bushes along the paths. Locals worked in their gardens or tended sheep, goats or cows in the fields. They waved to us as we passed.

The buildings were stone with tile roofs, surrounded by low stone walls along narrow cobbled streets. The heroic, communist era monument in the center of town seemed out of place. It had graffiti on it and was broken in places. We found the Church of St. Nicolas, but it was locked and workers nearby said the priest was away in Korca and no one else had the keys. We climbed to a raised yard and along a fence and got a good view of the frescoes on the outside wall. We sampled a few of the yellow and red plums on the trees.

We walked across town to another church and encountered a teenage girl who spoke some English and told us she could give us a tour if we wanted. She was born in Voskopoja, but commuted every day to Korca to attend high school. When she graduated she planned to join her sister and go to university in Tirana. She led us along paths through fields to ruins that we never would have found on our own. One church had frescoes that had been defaced on the outside and on the inside when the communists had used it for storage. There was a large graveyard on the hillside by the church going down to the creek. Some graves were recent and some headstones were hundreds of years old. More recent ones had photos of the departed. Alongside were empty bottles of wine or raki, incense holders and dried or fake flowers. Albanians frequently visit graves of relatives on weekends and holidays.

Our guide pointed us towards the center of town and headed home. We then drove towards the monastery. We made a wrong turn and ended up at a small military base. The soldiers were friendly and pointed us in the right direction. We drove up a hill to the monastery which is an EU cultural site, according to the sign on the wall. No photos or cameras were allowed. A caretaker wandered about outside and let us into the church. The wood carving and icon painting inside were remarkable. We left some coins in the box by one of the icons and offered the caretaker something to compensate him for his trouble, but he refused politely. We walked around the buildings for a bit and then headed back to Korca.

We stopped at another church in Mborja. We waited outside while an old man passing by went to tell someone at the store up the street to bring the keys to let us in. This church is small but its frescoes from the 13th century are well preserved and show scenes of the final judgment and the apostles.

We then drove back into Korca. We had a late lunch at the beer garden adjacent to the Birra Korca brewery and near my apartment. My new friends gave me a recent New Yorker magazine, a recently published paperback novel and a bag of M & M’s. We said our goodbyes and they drove off the Pogradec and Lake Ohrid. They planned to spend the night in Lin, a town on a peninsula in the northwest corner of the lake, which I’ve admired from a bus window and heard good things about, but have not yet been able to visit. I walked back home to my apartment, across the litter strewn dirt yard between the blocks, past a recently collapsed brick wall, up the alley and into the building, and got back to work.

Trashegohet

I went back to Elbasan for the first time since Pre-Service Training. I stayed with another volunteer and we attended the wedding of the middle of five daughters of one of the Thane host families. It is apparently quite an honor to be invited to a wedding in Albania, and traditional weddings, like this one, are very big deals.

Our arrival at the house was heralded by an Albanian combo (drum, clarinet and accordion). We were welcomed with handshakes and hugs and air kisses to both cheeks (traditional greeting for good friends and family). We were seated on a couch next to the father (the most honored seat), served raki to toast the day, and given small bags of cookies and candy. We sat and chatted for a while, then went outside to make room for arriving visitors. The band played for the arrival and departure of each group. People in the courtyard did the traditional line dance to the music and money for the band was placed in the drum.

After about an hour and a half, we went to a room above one of the Thane lokals which had been recently remodeled. It has large open windows and ceiling fans for cross ventilation which was really needed for the stifling, humid weather. Because it was held in a village, it had to be during the daytime because public transportation stops at about 6 PM and the guests needed time to get home. In cities, wedding parties are usually in the evening, to avoid the heat of the day, and go on most of the night. We were seated with more than 100 guests, in groups according to family relationship (we sat with the sisters and brother of the bride’s mother and their families). Sons-in-law of the two older sisters managed the bar and younger sisters and cousins handled food service under the supervision of the youngest brother of the father. Food had been prepared by the family, excluding the mother of the bride who got the day off. Being Albania, of course there was a lot of food, but that hardly describes it. That is like saying there is a lot of water in the Pacific Ocean.

The combo from the house was joined by a drum and keyboard. They had amplification which was set just below feedback, most of the time. My ears will ring for a week. The bride was seated at a small table on a dais at one end of the room under an arch of flowers. People waited until everyone was served and the father gave a toast. Then the guests began to carefully pick at the huge plate of meats, cheeses, and vegetables in front of each person, and the baskets of fruits and bread and bottles of water, soft drinks and beer on each table. They knew this was only the first course. One has to pace eating at celebrations in Albania. Traditional line dancing commenced. Each table would get up to do the money dance. People put bills in the hands of the lead dancers with a competition to see which group raised the most money for the couple.

After 2 hours, the groom and his family arrived. The bride’s family formed a reception line. The males of the family came first and were greeted with handshakes, hugs and air kisses. The women were next and were similarly greeted. Then, finally, the groom, who was escorted to the head table and seated next to the bride. The groom’s family was seated at their own table. Line money dancing then resumed and, this time, with the groom’s family joining the competition. They had critical expressions on their faces, apparently judging the quality of the party and the feast. How could it not pass? For the first time at the party, I saw the parents of the bride smile.

After 3 more hours and courses of soup and several kinds of meat (there is an Albanian proverb, “dasme pa mish nuk ka”- “there is no wedding without meat”, i.e. nothing comes without some sacrifice), a cake was brought out. It had several layers, sparklers and fireworks on top and when they were set off, confetti and spray snow were showered on the couple as they cut the cake. They then led the traditional handkerchief dance. They passed it back and forth and then both held on as they danced under arches of raised arms and joined hands of the other couples.

After the bridal pair returned to the head table, the groom’s family stood up, left the party, and took the groom with them. There was another receiving line. Each was given a large bar of chocolate with a picture of the newlyweds on the wrapper. The party then continued for another hour or more. The following day, the groom will drive to the bride’s home and take her to his village where there will be a similar party, with the roles reversed. After that, the bride and groom will move into their new home, living with the groom’s family. Imagine the thrill of a new bride being welcomed to her new home by her mother-in-law.

This was a modest wedding. It only lasted three days (there was another party the day before that we missed). Some Albanian wedding parties go on for 6 days. This does not count the similar big party held for the engagement, usually one year before the wedding. Rings are traditionally exchanged by the couple at the engagement.

It is very rare for a couple, once engaged, not to go on to marry. This is a great dishonor, particularly for the woman. It is almost as bad as divorce, which is rare in Albania. This may be because few families can afford more than one wedding per child (which requires years of saving). In spite of that, broken engagements and divorce are increasing in Albania, particularly in the bigger cities, like Tirana. In traditional villages, like Thane, it would be hard to show your face after either. I wonder what they think of me with two counts against my past. It is an indication of their tolerance and affection for Americans that I can be an honored guest at this occasion.

After the wedding, the father of the bride and many other relatives will return to Greece or Italy or elsewhere to resume their migrant work. He is gone for 6 months a year working in orchards. He feels lucky to have a work visa no matter how much he misses his family. It is that work that paid for their house and this wedding. The groom similarly worked two jobs in Wales for four years to save up enough money to return home to marry. He is a hard worker and smart. He is fluent in English and Greek. He wants to start a construction business with his brothers. It might work out as their village is only an hour or so from the big growth area between the capital and its seaport, Durres. Also, I noticed several new buildings in Elbasan as well as new stores and cafes. Even so, once the new couple is settled in, he will likely have to leave again for work. His new wife is a skilled seamstress and will probably run a business from their home as she will be left to manage home and family, just as her mother ran a byrek stand, tended the cow, chickens and garden, and took care of 5 daughters while her husband worked abroad.

By the way, “trashegohet” means “to enjoy a happy life with one’s family”. In the optative mood (used to express desires or wishes) it is the traditional Albanian greeting of good wishes given by guests to the family at a wedding. I said, “Trashegohesh!” to my hosts as I entered their home, the band played, and I was greeted with the genuine warmth that seems characteristic of most Albanians. I meant it.

Warden Training

So, I am traveling on a bus back to Korca, winding over the mountain road between Tirana and Elbasan, pitching side to side as we pass dump trucks, and motorcycles, hay carts, old ladies walking their cows, herds of sheep and goats and even a couple of Germans on a bicycle tour. Clarinet music is playing to a syncopated Balkan beat over the bus speakers. I am gazing out the window at the deep valley far below the cliff edge of the pavement which has a 104 degree haze lying over it. The little boy in front of me pukes his breakfast over his mother. She puts her head down, as does the old lady in her traditional black dress and white scarf across the aisle. When the young girl who is sitting on her mother’s lap in the seat next to me starts to look a bit green, I pull a plastic bag from my pocket and hand it to her mother. She accepts this gratefully and passes it to her daughter. The bus conductor (most every bus in Albania has a conductor to take fares and help with baggage) opens a roof vent which helps a lot. What strikes me then, is that none of this seems particularly remarkable to me. I am suddenly made aware of how much I have accepted as normal things that would have amazed in their strangeness a few months ago. Humans, even old ones, adapt quickly. I go back to looking out the window, dozing off occasionally on the long trip.

I was in Tirana again for two days of Warden Training. I am a warden for the Korca region. This involves responsibility for safety and security and an intermediate role in the Emergency Action Plan for Peace Corps Albania. This is not a abstract exercise. The Peace Corps had to evacuate from Albania in 1997 during civil unrest that followed the collapse of Ponzi schemes that evaporated most of the assets people had from distributions following the collapse of communism a few years earlier. There were riots, fires, shootings, road closures, etc. (I wonder how Americans would have reacted had the malfeasance of Madoff and Stanford had as broad an effect on our economy). Eight of our current volunteers were evacuated from Georgia after the Russians invaded last year. They could hear artillery from where they were staying. If you are evacuated from an assignment before completing enough of your term of service, you are offered placement in another country, based on their need and ability to absorb additional volunteers. A few went directly from Georgia to Albania and began service following abbreviated pre service training in Albanian language and culture. Three in my group went home for awhile before returning this year to start again. Albania is also an active earthquake area and, during a drought a couple of years ago, large forest fires raged nearby in Greece.

I am supposed to keep track of the 8 volunteers in my region and be ready to assemble them and keep them at my apartment for awhile, and evacuate them safely through Tirana, if communication is maintained and that this advised or, on my own initiative, to either Macedonia or Greece, if communication is lost, the situation meets established criteria and I decide it is a good idea. At training we reviewed policy and procedures and did some exercises with various scenarios. I am glad there are only 8 volunteers in my region and I would guess that some would proceed on their own across the border, since Pogradec, where there is one volunteer, is only a few miles from Macedonia and Bilisht, where there are two, is walking distance to Greece. Other regions have a lot more volunteers and, if the one airport or ports were closed, might have a long and difficult trek to the border.

The election in June was very close. It took weeks to get the result. The current, right of center government had to make a deal with a leftist splinter group to continue in power. The left of center opposition has not been happy with this, but it seems the election was generally fair and the results have been accepted. International monitors were positive in their assessment. All this seems hopeful to me. It is hard for me to imagine bands of heavily armed factions fighting it out in the streets of Korca, burning public buildings, blocking roads, and pulling people from their cars, as happened in 1997. Perhaps the worst consequence of that was the large migration of educated professionals from Albania as engineers, doctors, nurses, and teachers left en masse; a severe setback for a poor country trying to emerge from more than a generation of communist dictatorship.

A few of the people at the NGO’s where I do some of my work were here through that period. They acknowledged being uncertain and scared at times, but say they kept their heads down and got through it. Korcans I have talked to about it say they stayed inside and away from windows, lay on the floor if they heard gunfire and had problems keeping kids occupied when schools were closed for months and they couldn’t play outside. Food and other supplies were difficult at times, but friends and family helped each other. That was a time when steel doors and bars on windows were put on apartments and concrete block walls with steel gates were built around homes. Some people are able to adapt to a lot more than wild bus rides.

Ekskursion

Once a month, Dr. Isufi organizes an outing for his patients. He hires a larger furgon to take them and a few family members to some scenic place near Korca. He invited me along on a recent trip to a lakeside park.

A basic, 15 passenger furgon (deluxe models have additional features like shocks or brakes) was filled with 24 people. In typical Albanian fashion, the aisle was filled with plastic stools for extra passengers. Since I was an honored guest, I got a plastic chair in the front of the aisle. The bus was a bit hard to start, so the driver had to work on it and get some water for the radiator. Eventually we were on our way heading northwest from town.

After a short ride we pulled into a private park with grass among large trees by a lake with swans and ducks. There were rowboats for hire, but these were being used by wedding parties for photographs of brides and grooms rowing on the lake and feeding the swans (we are in the thick of Albanian wedding season. I will write more on this later as I am attending a wedding back in Thane at the end of the month). Our group sat on blankets and laid out a typical feast of roast chicken, pilaf, cheese, bread, fruits and vegetables, sausage, beer and raki. Being the guest, everyone made an effort to feed me. Luckily, Dr. Isufi invited me to go walking while I was still able to stand.

We walked to a nearby village where a friend and former patient of Dr. Isufi runs a small coffee bar. Dr. Isufi pulled his hat low over his face and had me walk up to the elderly man, who was sitting on a chair in front of the small, empty store, and ask for directions. He then pulled up his hat and surprised his friend, who was obviously delighted at both the visit and the prank. They shared a beer and I sampled some water from a local spring, and his son and grandson came from the house behind the shop to join us.

We took a short cut through fields back to the park and the patient group. Most of them were still eating, although some were walking along the lake and waving at and well wishing the wedding groups in the boats. After a few hours, we loaded up and headed back to Korca. Each person paid about $2 for the trip.

Dr. Isufi spent 5 years after medical school working as an emergency doctor at a small city near the lake. After communism fell, he returned to his home town of Korca to work as a sports medicine doctor for the local soccer team. After a couple of years, the owner of the team wanted to charge Dr. Isufi to continue the relationship, so Dr. Isufi built a small gym and clinic in front of his parents home, where he also lives with his wife and children, and continues to run his rehabilitation and sports medicine practice. According to a friend of mine, it is the only one of its kind in Albania. He has been here for more than 20 years and is largely self-taught in his specialty.

The clinic is pretty different from anything I have ever encountered in the US. Patients seem to come in without appointments, often walking in on another patient undergoing evaluation or treatment to ask their own question. I have not seen any record keeping or consent forms, although the doctor does make a ledger entry if there is any payment, although this seems infrequent and is rarely more than a few dollars. His diagnoses and treatments seem pretty reasonable for the most part. Most of the patients seem to being doing well, although many have been coming to the gym for years.

Dr. Isufi does not have a car and gets around town on his bicycle or on foot. His parent’s home is near the center of town, so he does not really need a car. He even is able to make house calls on patients who cannot get to the clinic. In typical Albanian fashion, these involve sitting and drinking coffee (or sometimes raki) with the patient and family and chatting about everyone’s family including the doctor’s and mine. Eventually the discussion gets to the patient and their problems.

On the weekend Dr. Isufi likes to work on a ski area of which he is a part owner. It is in the mountains nearby. It is not Sun Valley. It is not Soldier Mountain (a small Idaho ski area owned by Bruce Willis). It is much more like a small ski hill that was set up by a group of Boy Scouts as an eagle project in Cambridge, Idaho, using a washing machine motor to operate a rope tow. Dr. Isufi would like to have a disabled ski program there someday.

One of the other owners owns a bakery in Korca has a van. One Sunday four of us piled into it with bags of cement, shovels and picks, and three steel posts scrounged from somewhere. I was among the youngest of the group and the oldest, who they call “The Commissar” (which he was during communism, but now it is just a nickname), is 78. Two years ago they built a day lodge and that day we dug a trench along the hillside on the northeast corner of the building and built a stone foundation for a kitchen extension. The steel posts were put on concrete footings and set vertical with a level. There were no plans, and, as far as I could tell, none were used for the day lodge either. We worked hard all day long, but did take about an hour for a typical Albanian lunch, complete with the feed the visitor event. I had bought a loaf of corn bread and some fresh vegetables from a small store before we set out, but the others shared homemade sausage, cheese, sardines, beer, bread, and summer apples. They told stories and jokes over lunch. Dr. Isufi speaks a bit of English and tried to translate some of it for my benefit. After a short rest, we were back at work. I was pretty beat at the end of the day. On the way back we stopped to admire a used snow grooming machine they had acquired from Italy that was stored with friends in a village and a building that was being built by some friends at another village along the way.

Dr. Isufi’s wife would like to move to America. He could probably make orders of magnitude more money working as a family doctor in some rural area of the US where most of the doctors appear to be foreign medical graduates. They could have their own house and cars and a second home at a ski area. Dr. Isufi would be a lot better than most of these doctors I have met, but his heart would not be in it. I think he would find American medicine a high pressure, money machine with little time to talk with patients and their families. He would find it strange that there are insurance companies and lawyers that can dictate how long and in what manner he can treat his patients without seeing them or even talking with them or him.

There are lots of problems with medical care in Albania. It is very centralized in Tirana and a patient with any degree of complexity to a problem usually must make the long and difficult trip. Many Albanians do not trust their doctors, who may have bribed their way into medical school or a hospital or clinic position. Complicated, modern equipment, given by a foreign donor, may not be adequately maintained or used appropriately. Many health professionals have emigrated, as Dr. Isufi’s wife urges. In spite of everything, medicine is often provided by doctors to patients humanely and effectively. The same, I think, is true for America.

Fitness

This seems a strange topic to discuss right now as I am recovering from about 2 weeks of some ailment. I awoke one morning with fever and chills, muscle aches and feeling as if someone had kicked me in the stomach while I slept. When I tried to stand I came close to passing out. I had to miss a work day for the first time in decades.

The next day I was able to resume a limited work schedule, but felt weak. I slept a lot and drank a lot of tea. When I didn’t improve after a week, I talked with the Peace Corps medical officer and decided to try Cipro. After a couple of more days, I felt a bit better, possibly due to the antibiotic, possibly not. Some of my Albanian friends and neighbors came by to check on me and give advice. Herbal tea, bananas, hard boiled eggs and well cooked cabbage were recommended. I also got advice through e-mail from friends back home. They recommended different teas, vitamins, chicken soup and against bananas and cabbage. I am not a believer in “single case studies”. As one of my professors used to say, “given any disease in any patient, he will either get better, get worse or stay the same, and just because you are waving your arms around when he gets better, does not imply cause and effect”.

At this point, I am happy with the effect and could care less about the cause. It is good to be back to full activity. I appreciate the concern and help from the Peace Corps staff, my Albanian friends and counterparts, and from my friends back home. Most volunteers have bouts of illness during their service, especially early on as strange foods and situations, cultural and language confusion, new schedules, time changes, living situations, etc. take their toll. I remember about 6 weeks of GI distress that started about a month into my time on the Navajo reservation about 30 years ago. My friends and coworkers at the time laughed and said that was normal. Maybe my most recent illness was a case of “Skanderbeg’s Revenge”.

Usually, however, I am pretty healthy. My only regular medication is a multivitamin. Except for the usual changes of age (eg. hair and vision loss), I am pretty fit, especially compared to others of my age. As with most of my life I have been pretty lucky with natural inclinations so that I don’t have to apply much self discipline. I don’t like heavy, greasy foods. I was inculcated with a love of fresh fruits and vegetables by my farmer grandfather. I don’t watch television (I believe that snacking while watching the tube for hours on end is a major cause of obesity and deconditioning). I like to walk, hike, camp, ski, bicycle, etc. I find starting my day with exercise gives me more energy and helps me sleep at night. I can’t tolerate alcohol and I gave up smoking years ago so I could give health lectures on the evils of tobacco without being too hypocritical.

When I joined the Peace Corps, I figured I would not have access to gyms or exercise equipment. I decided to work out a routine that would not be dependent on equipment or even a lot of room. I thought back to exercises that were in a pamphlet I read long ago in the Air Force on recommended exercises for prisoners of war. There is some irony in using that for my Peace Corps service. Anyway, the isometric exercises described seemed like something I could do anywhere. There is the added advantage of warming you up in the winter before you crawl out of your sleeping bag.

Unfortunately, isometric exercise is particularly boring. It is pretty easy however to work out a routine that exercises most muscle groups starting with the neck and going down to the feet. I do as much as I can make myself do on a regular basis, figuring that the best exercise is the one you actually do. For me this is holding a position for a count of 20 seconds and repeating it 5 times alternating opposing groups of muscles. I also work in some stretches for my shoulders, back and hips and a short aerobic routine of either jumping rope or jumping jacks.

Afterwards, I usually head up the mountain to the East of Korca for the daily “Folks March”. The road has been recently paved to the two hotels and restaurant on top and there is a large cross (like the one on Table Rock in Boise, but with lots less controversy) and an old, small Orthodox church. There are lots of foot and donkey paths crisscrossing the mountain as well. About a 100 Korcans will walk or jog each morning, and more on weekends. Not all go to the top. Many, like me, are older. We form a kind of community and the regulars greet each other with a hearty “mengjesi” (roughly “top of the morning”) and a smile. I am sometimes asked where I am from, since my boots, t-shirt and R&M Steel Company Aviation Building Systems ball cap are obviously not Albanian. They often respond to “from America” with a hearty “Bravo”. It takes me about 1 ½ hours to get to the cross and about 45 minutes to come back down. There is a spectacular view across the valley with Korca at the foot of the mountain surrounded by villages and farms and of the mountains that form it rising more than 6000 ft above the valley floor. I leave about 5:30 AM to avoid the heat of the day and the sun is warming the ridge where the cross is perched by the time I get there.

This is in addition to the exercise I get walking around town to the various places I work or visit for errands or socializing. I only take a bus or furgon when I head out of town. Evening activity is often joining the Korca Xhiro after the heat has dissipated and the townsfolk come out in thousands to slowly walk the boulevards, meet friends, drink beer or coffee and eat qofta (meat balls) or grilled ears of corn sold by street vendors. I often go for an ice cream cone which is about 25 cents for soft serve or 60 cents for three small scoops. Maybe that counteracts some of the exercise, but it sure helps my mental fitness.

The Fourth in Tirana

The American Chamber of Commerce in the capital hosted a Fourth of July party at a private school in Tirana. All the Peace Corps volunteers were invited and many came from all parts of Albania to join the celebration. They charged us each about $6 to attend, but it was well worth it. Hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, brownies, cherry pie, éclairs and ice cream along with beer and wine and soft drinks were provided. To my surprise I found that my stomach is no longer used to American food, even though I ate moderately and I don’t drink alcohol. I guess I have become used to the Mediterranean diet of Albania, and I didn’t feel well the next day. That’s was ok, olives, feta cheese, roast chicken and yoghurt, fresh tomato, cucumber and pepper salad is just not appropriate for a 4th of July picnic. The fireworks display was grand and we all sang the national anthem, although I think I was the only one who knew all four verses.

Saturday, I stayed in town to visit the National Historical Museum in Skanderbeg Square. There is a large communist era, heroic style mosaic on the façade. The history starts with the stone-age and documents an unbroken line to present day Albanians. Albanians are very proud that their culture has survived repeated invasion and conquest. The history documented ended with the ‘”war against the fascists”. Albania was able to liberate itself from the Nazis (with some help from the British and Americans), and never sent Jewish or Roma (gypsy) citizens off to the death camps (also, apparently Albert Einstein escaped to America through Tirana in 1933).

Enver Hoxha, the communist dictator, who ruled Albania for 40 years after WWII is only mentioned as a partisan leader against the fascists. Albania is not yet sure how to deal with the long isolation and grinding poverty that characterized his reign. People are angry that they were denied their rightful place in Europe since at the beginning of the 20th century, an independent Albania emerged from the Balkan Wars and WW I for the first time since the 15th century and was at least as developed as many parts of Europe such as Italy and Greece.

Many locals came up to me and asked me if I was American. When I confirmed their suspicion (yes, it is obvious), they shook my hand and wished me a “happy birthday America”. Some also gave condolences on my loss of Michael Jackson. In Albania, it seems almost everyone is known to one another, mostly because they are related. I guess they assume that even though the US is much bigger than Albania, given our advanced communication and travel systems, that must also be true for us. My opinion is that we will have to live as a people in America for at least 3 or 4 millennia to achieve this. I would have explained that even though I liked his music and we share the same first name, I was neither related to nor a personal friend of Michael Jackson, and, being a male of my vintage, I was probably more personally effected by the loss of Farrah Fawcett. Trying to be polite and having limited language skills, I shook their hands, thanked them for their kind thoughts, and yes, I was good, and yes, my family, other than Michael, were good, and, yes, I would pass along their condolences, etc.

Tirana is a bustling, modern city, although the water still goes out part of the day. Walking through the large, Blocku section of town on Saturday night reminded me of parts of New York City, with hundreds of street cafes, art galleries and shops, and a vibrant night life. One startling difference, however, is the graffiti one sees by the university. “America- Freedom, Peace, Happiness” is not one I remember ever seeing at Berkeley. That is understandable because it is hard to appreciate American liberty and tranquility until it is seen through the eyes of an ancient people that has know little of either. Maybe we should sing the last verse of the national anthem at ball games to remind ourselves that we are “blessed” and “heaven rescued” and are pledged to the “just cause”.

I don’t think the younger volunteers have much interest in this sort of musing. They were just happy to be in the Big City and enjoy the urban scene that is absent in most of Albania. It was good to reconnect with my cohort and share tales of our adjustment (many involving plumbing. My electric shower was nowhere near the worst), but I was glad to head back to Korca.

On Sunday, the five hour furgon route went over mountain passes and through river valleys that were steep and narrow, broadening occasionally into pastures, corn and wheat fields and orchards of ripening fig, olive, plum, peach, apricot and more, through the large cities of Elbasan and Pogradec, and smaller ones of Librazhd and Malic, past dozens of villages and along the shore of Lake Ohrid. There are many abandoned and decaying factories and stark communist block apartments (although I have been inside many that have been beautifully remodeled) but also many new businesses and new homes going up where migrant Albanian workers have invested some of their earnings. Many families were picnicking along the river and men were fishing in the rapids of the Shkumbrin River or selling their catch from Lake Ohrid along the roadside.

I would ask a favor of those of you who read this. If you know any Albanians, on November 28, please be sure to shake their hand and wish them a “happy birthday Albania”. Don’t forget to ask them about their family.

A Small Problem

This past weekend I took a bus to Permet for the Balkan Music Festival. I decided to go there rather than to the big beach party in Durres that most of my younger Peace Corps cohorts were attending. Permet is about 38 air miles from Korca which would be about 20 minutes in a Cessna even allowing for climb and descent over the mountains, but the winding, narrow, mostly paved road that rises and descends from the steep valleys and craggy, pine covered, hills takes about 5 hours by bus. There were frequent stops to serve the small villages along the route, to allow traffic to pass (including backing up a few times to accommodate the semi trucks that also use the road), for herds of sheep or goats across the road and once at a roadside spring to allow a young girl and the old lady next to her to clean up after the girl lost her lunch in the hot, crowded, airless interior.

We passed through Erseka, a tidy city with wide streets set in a spectacular alpine valley with several visible cascades from snowmelt on the Southern mountains that separate Albania and Greece. There was also Leskovik which appears to have been a fortress city built on a saddle high above two valleys. It had more varieties of trees than I have seen in one place. They appeared to have been planted, judging by their maturity, during the long communist rule after WW II, but I have not been able to find out much about this. One large tree in the town center had a spring pouring from a tap set into its trunk.

Permet is about 20 miles from the Greek border. It is set in the narrow canyon of the Vjosa River. It has been a settlement since Illyrian times but was largely destroyed during WW II and rebuilt by the communists with typical drab, block architecture and heroic monuments to the people’s struggle against the fascists.

The festival which featured lots of clarinets, accordions, lutes and tambourines and dancing in native costumes was held on the plaza in front of one of the monuments. Performances were held in the morning and late evening to avoid the heat of the day. It was well worth the trip. Flags draped across the main street included NATO and the Stars and Stripes alongside the Albanian national and Permet regional banners. A food tasting event was held on the plaza in front of the city hall. When one of the Peace Corps volunteers I was visiting tried to ask for directions to the table serving white wine, we were introduced to the mayor, given plates of bread, cheese, olives, meatballs and shish kabobs and bottles of local Merlot along with glasses of the red wine. This being Albania, we accepted all this gracefully and were thankful we were not also given instruments and costumes and hauled onto the stage.

The apartments of the volunteers in Permet make my place in Korca look deluxe. I regret my previous complaints. My landlords, who live above me, are incredibly nice and quickly attend to any problems. My neighbors are friendly, and even if it is noisy and lacks privacy, the place has a nice community feel to it. There is a small store in a garage on the dirt road in front of my window. The owner is usually sitting in front on the curb playing backgammon or working on his motor bike. Whenever he sees me he asks me to coffee.

I think I have mentioned the coffee culture in Albania. I like coffee and I especially like the sociability of sitting around with friends at a coffee shop chewing the fat over a prolonged cup of the stuff. I have fond memories of the “Geezer Group” in McCall before I’d head up for skiing or at Dawson-Taylor in Boise on 8th street which seemed to attract pilots and offered the closest thing to hangar flying in the city. Albanians take this to a new level. It seems at times that every conversation or interaction here is punctuated with a coffee. You meet someone and it is either over coffee or you then go for coffee. You should have a very good reason to refuse as it is almost an insult. I find the most common reason I have to turn down an invitation is that I already have an invitation for coffee and I am running late.

For example, I recently had to contact my landlord because I was getting a shock from holding the shower head or touching the faucet while taking a shower. This produced a tingling sensation and twitching in the arm. I think this is unlikely to be fatal or it would have been already. I can avoid it by using a hand towel and I did think about another use for duct tape, which I brought with me, or trying to find electrical tape in the Pazar. He does not speak English and my Shqip is still not very functional. I knocked on his door and left word with his wife that I needed to talk with him.

Next afternoon he knocked on my door. I invited him in. Every conversation in Albania begins with an inquiry about how you are doing.

“Good”, I say.

“Good?” he inquires.

“Yes, good, and you?”

“Good”. “Your family?”

Of course, I haven’t been home in more than three months and the internet connection is down and, anyway, no one back home seems very communicative, so how the heck would I know. “Good, I say, and your family?”

“Good.” He smiles. I see we have gotten through the mandatory, first section of any Albanian interaction. Frankly, I don’t know how people are able to get on a bus here and maintain any kind of schedule. He lets me know his wife told him I needed to see him. I tell him about the electrical massage feature of my bathroom plumbing. Apparently this is a phenomenon throughout the building, but he is sympathetic, knowing that I am a wimpy American. He promises to fix it. He waits.

I remember my manners. “Coffee?”

He smiles. We go to the kitchen where I prepare a couple of cups of Turkish coffee. We continue our conversation about the gastric virtues of Turkish coffee vs. espresso, early morning walks up the mountain, relative merits of Korca vs. the other cities in Albania, which are nice, but can’t compare with Korca. This is a sentiment I share, but I suspect every other city in the country feels the same. Back home, we have had similar conversations on the relative merits of McCall vs. Sun Valley, but in Idaho the distances are much greater.

When he comes back an hour or so later, we repeat the whole process, just in case, we are no longer good or have had late word of some family catastrophe, or have not yet had our daily quota of caffeine. I should mention that I have not seen decaffeinated coffee in Albania.

He went around the apartment with a circuit tester, checking sockets and taps and light fixtures. I was amazed at how many were “hot”. He then went outside and pounded in a new ground next to the building. It seemed to fix the problem for a couple of days. Then a New Zealand couple bicycling through Albania spent the night with me (I was very well treated while trekking in New Zealand decades ago and have a resolution to be nice to Kiwis whenever I have the opportunity) and complained of being shocked in the shower. I need to go to the store for some more coffee before I tell my landlord.

Carnival in Korca

There is a national election in Albania at the end of the month. Among the many rules for Peace Corps volunteers is a prohibition from even the appearance of involvement on politics. A cohort of mine, who works in city hall, was asked by the mayor to be a guest at a dinner speech in their town to be given by one of the national candidates. She was thrilled and even bought a new dress for the occasion. Peace Corps said no. Sometimes being in the Peace Corps is worse than traveling with your parents.

This particular rule, though, is probably for the best. There seems to be a real contest this time, and a relationship with any Western entity plays well in Albania. Everyone is so proud of being admitted into NATO and looks forward to a future in the European Union. A free and fair election will be an important step towards that. So even if I did understand enough Albanian language, culture and history to have an opinion, I would not ever want to do anything that might jeopardize that in any way. So we may grouse about it, but I think most volunteers agree with the policy.

One thing I can report without any bias is that every candidate is for change. One hears that word here even more than it was repeated in the recent US election. In spite of the old joke that “when a politician talks about change he is referring to what will be left in your pocket when he gets done with your wallet”, Albania is changing, palpably and rapidly, and, no doubt, will continue to do so no matter who wins the election.

Korca as a fairly progressive and cultured city is at the forefront of this change, and, of course the case I know best. They are busy repairing the streets and cleaning up parks. The main street I live off of is torn up. Traffic races at the usual breakneck pace, undeterred by the fact that all the traffic now uses only half the road previously available. I almost got hit by a bus that was going the wrong direction on a one way street to get around an area being repaved. There is a cross on a hill overlooking the city. A large number of Korcans get their morning constitutional hiking to the top. There is a natural spring on top. Korcans, like many Albanians. are great connoisseurs of spring water and they bring empty bottles to fill for the daily drinking water, even though the tap water here is safe to drink. They are paving the road to a hotel near the summit. This change may change the nature of the morning “Folks March” to the cross as cars are already roaring up the part that has already been paved.

This weekend was Carnival in Korca. There was a parade on Saturday night through the center of town. It began at about 7:30 PM and ended with fireworks around 10. There were traditional bands (lots of clarinets, guitars and accordions), singers (Korca is famous for serenades and ballades can be heard from beer gardens and locals almost every evening in the pleasant summer weather), dancers in traditional costumes from the region and some from as far away as northern Albania and Macedonia, and clowns on stilts, and acrobats, and lots of masks and Santa Claus and Elvis were there, too. I watched with some other Peace Corps volunteers and some people from the Directorate of Public Health and their families from the steps of the cathedral in the center of town. Apparently, such parades were a long tradition in Korca, but were banned under the communists and were only recently revived. It was a grand event, very well attended by the locals and there were even some foreign tourists.

Such events do a lot for local pride and identity, probably not unlike the Winter Carnival back home in McCall. Hopefully it helps boost the local economy as well (probably hoped for in McCall, as well) since there are towns in the region where there are almost no able bodied, working age males, since they are all away in Greece or elsewhere laboring. Even poor jobs are hard to come by here, as in most of Albania. There are lots of great local products; fruits and vegetables of all variety, a tangy white cheese from Korca that I am particularly fond of and is only available in late Spring, yogurt and olive oil and at least three local breweries. The most famous of these is Birra Korca reputed to be the best in Albania and “birra e zeze” (the dark beer) can hold its own against any in Europe. There is a beer festival in Korca in August, also a recently established event. I may have a dozen or more Peace Corps volunteers from around the country camped out at my apartment for that weekend.

Maybe someday, Birra Korca will be available in the US and Albanians will work in great numbers at the factory and in service and other jobs that spin off from production. For now, the brain drain and emigration continue. An Albanian nurse, trained in therapy by the local NGO that serves disabled children and burn victims in Korca and outlying villages, “won the lottery” and was granted a work visa in the annual drawing run by the US embassy. She has emigrated, no doubt to work in a nursing home someplace in the US. She will make a low wage by US standards, but almost unimaginable in Albania. I will help train new staff at the NGO, but I hope my real purpose is not to live in Albania for 2 years and train Albanians to work in America.

Meanwhile, I enjoy my morning walks up to the cross and enjoyed my friends and the events of the past weekend. I have classes starting over the next couple of weeks in exercise physiology and English and aviation and even a computer class. At least I know that anyone who learns computer skills from me would be very unlikely to find any related employment in the first world.