Three Lessons from Thane

Look beyond the garbage is the first lesson from Albania and for much of the third world. The detritus of the first world has landed like a tsunami on the third word. When there is no system to adequately handle solid waste, litter piles up everywhere, on river banks and along the road sides. Plastic bags are blown upon fences, trees and hedges. The locals know it and they don’t like it either. Many remember before and people here prefer clean, let me assure you. The home of my host family is spotless and everything is put away after use. It is a matter of pride and about the worst thing one can do in Albania is to reflect poorly on your family. Peace Corps volunteers have to watch their dress and deportment and we have been advised that we are in the Peace Corps 24/7. I suppose I should be concerned about how my actions and appearance represent America, but, in reality my principle concern is for my host family in Thane where I will live for the 10 weeks of pre-service training.

After four days in Elbasan, we boarded a furgon (an Albanian mini-bus, a main means of cheap transport around the country) and the 33 members of PC Albania, group 12, split up into the small groups we will work in for the majority of our training. Thane is a village of about 1200 people, just outside of Cerrik which is a reasonably sized town for the area (Cerrik is about the size of Emmett, Idaho, for those of you familiar with that place). It is 16 km (ten miles) from Elbasan, but that is at least a 45 minute furgon ride.

Classes are 5 1/2 days a week, about 8 hours a day. They are mostly held in the local K-9 school in Thane, about a 10 minute walk from where I live with my host family. 4 days are for language and the rest for training in Peace Corps policy and procedures and techniques for our service area. Mine is Health Education. Others in Albania are Teaching English and Community Development. I also work about 2-3 hours a day on homework. There is a great deal to read in the Peace Corps library and, of course, there is always language to work on. I have a game I made up with the family called Tjeter (pronounced “teyeter”- means “other”), where we try to name as many things in a category that we can. For example, we named animals around Thane in one session. Elephant was not accepted, but scorpion was ok. The youngsters seem to especially enjoy it, but everyone around plays. I have given the regulars some of my Idaho Potato Commission pins that I brought along, so now there are a group of kids running around Thane sporting plastic spud pins that say “IDAHO”.

My host family consists of a father, a builder, his wife who is a housewife, his mother, who is a pensioner and has diabetes, thyroid problems and high blood pressure, and two teenage boys, ages 13 and 17. They all could not be nicer. I think they may be even nicer to me than my real family, although that is not meant as a criticism, of either family, just a cultural observation. In fact, everyone I have met here is just incredibly friendly, tolerant of my ignorance and mistakes and generous to a degree that is downright embarrassing. People here almost come to blows over who gets to treat for coffee or meals, and this is in a place where coffee costs maybe the equivalent of 50 cents and a good meal, maybe 2 dollars. Another thing is that in Albania there is great respect given to both age and being male, a very good deal for me. Some of the other volunteers seem resentful. Tough luck, children.

Towns here are compact, since travel tends to be by foot, bus or furgon. There are lots of cars, but not everybody has one. My host family does not. The residents walk to the bar, café, school, clinic and to the fields which surround the village. The fields are well tended, although I am not clear on the ownership. Most homes in Thane have large gardens with apricot, peach, apple, pear, and orange trees and grape vines, and chickens and turkeys wandering around, and a cow in a shed. Many have a horse or a donkey. Horse carts are still a common means of transportation, even in cities, and donkeys are used to carry fodder down from the meadows in the hills around town. My host family also has rabbits. The elder son tends the cow and the younger the rabbits. Much of the food is home grown. Surplus is picked up by vans that come around each morning and presumably taken to Elbasan. We have fresh milk, butter and yogurt every day. Bread is baked fresh at home almost daily. It is spread thick with homemade grape preserves (one has to watch out for the seeds which are often left in). Chicken or turkey is the common meat (one also has to watch out for bone shards since the animals are almost always butchered with an axe). I had to make a point that I was too old to eat so much when they put huge portions in front of me and kept trying to feed me more. They also sit me closest to the wood stove which heats the kitchen, the only heated room in the house, and feed me first, although I have been able to get the father of the house back in his usual seat of respect, a gesture which he seems to appreciate.

Elbasan, Cerrik, Thane and other towns are set in the wide valley of the Shkumbin River. There are snow capped mountains on either side. It is really quite beautiful especially when one applies lesson one. The spring weather has been variable, between sleet and warm, often on the same day, much like McCall. If they had central heating it would be downright pleasant.

As it is, it is freezing in the morning and warm in the afternoon, tuning cold again as the sun goes down. Central heating is a great rarity in Albania and so is insulation. The house is very cold at night. I am glad I brought my old down sleeping bag, and, although I have years of experience from Idaho with layering, I find that I am really a rank amateur at the technique. I am sure I will be a pro by the time I return home. Either that or I may lose a toe or finger to frostbite. It does make me wonder what winter will be like.

Lesson two come about here: everything has consequences. That maybe a corollary of lesson one, since the trash situation makes one very mindful about using every Kleenex and paper towel. I never take a plastic bag when it is offered at a store or fast food place because I can look anywhere and see where it is likely to wind up. I drink water from my water filter or from the tap (see lesson three) since there are lots of plastic bottles scattered about. I carefully return the bags of sugar which they give me for my coffee, since I don’t use it, it is expensive and I don’t want to just pass it into the waste stream. I also have to be careful about accepting the constant generosity of people I have supposedly come to help. It will only be acceptable if I can return all the favors. Being a “mooch” would not only bother my own conscience, it would reflect poorly on my host family.

I don’t really want to dispel any myths about the Peace Corps, but I have to admit that my host family’s home is a long way from a mud hut. It is a substantial house of about 2000 square feet, and not unusual for Thane. It is masonry with a red tile roof (every building here seems to be made of blocks and concrete covered with plaster- and many buildings are under ongoing construction since about a quarter of the work force works out of the country, remitting funds. Construction here is on a pay as you go basis). There is a solar hot water heater as electricity is very expensive. Warm showers are just when the sun shines. The rooms are large. There are 4 bedrooms and two baths, complete with bidets. I share the upstairs bathroom with the boys. The parents and grandma are on the ground floor. There is a balcony around 3/4ths of the upstairs. I have my own room with a door that opens to a wonderful vista. When it warms up in the afternoon, I pull a kitchen chair onto the balcony and sit on the leeward side of the house. It is a great place to read and do homework. The floors are covered in beautiful marble tile, which I think is native from the Albanian mountains. There are not many pictures or photos on the walls. Bare light bulbs hang from wires from the ceilings. Obviously, there is electricity, but power outages are frequent and I am glad I brought a good flashlight. Even my cell phone has a built in flashlight (everyone seems to have a cell phone, although land lines are relatively rare- and, I am learning to text message since that is much less expensive than voice calls here).

People here are very stylish and not at all casual in their dress (whenever I am outside of class I am wearing a tie a lot more than I ever did in Idaho). About 70% of the population is Moslem with its tradition of modest dress, especially for women, but it tends to be quite secular and not at all segregated among the minority Christians (Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox), Roma (gypsies), Jews and others. For example, my host family is nominally Moslem and reads the Koran at home, but has a Christmas tree in the hall.

My host family has a large extended family in town and lots of friends, although I am not clear on who’s who as yet. We often spend the evening sitting on couches in the kitchen where we take meals and coffee and watch TV.

This brings us to lesson three: be aware of how you are seen by others. Again, this may be a corollary of lesson two with my concern about reflecting poorly on my hosts, but my point here is a bit different. Albanian television seems really foreign. The morning news consists of a reporter reading the news, but instead of standing in front of video illustrations of the news, there is an ongoing MTV video in the background. These are, of course, mostly from the US and in English. The violence, sexual content, crime, gangs, materialism and foul language are startling, especially since it often out of context with the program. Movies on TV seem to always cover the same themes. The most popular TV program in Albania is “Big Brother-Albania”. I have never seen this program in the US (my host family was taken aback by the fact that I don’t have a TV in my home in Idaho). There is lots of sexual innuendo, the women are scantily clad and there are lots of tattoos and weird hairdos that one hardly ever sees among the general population. Everyone watches this stuff, kids to grandma. I have not figured out my family’s take on this. I hope they realize this is just “entertainment” and does not represent real American lives and values. They all seem to have a very positive attitude towards America and Americans. Bill and Hillary Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama are almost universally popular among Albanians. Maybe they are able to see beyond our garbage, as well.