Mirupafshim (Farewell) Elbasan

Next Thursday is the ceremony for completion of Pre-Service Training. The US ambassador to Albania is attending and the host families are invited. It is being held at the Skampa Theater, just outside the castle wall in Elbasan. I hope it is air conditioned because it has become incredibly hot and humid in the past 2 weeks, and, of course, it is scheduled for mid day and I am supposed to wear a suit.

Elbasan is not known as a tourist destination and, in fact, is the butt of much Albanian humor (eg. “How many Elbasani does it take to change a furgon tire?”). However, I have not met better, harder working, more honest and generous people. I plan to return to visit my host family later this summer or early autumn.

Yesterday, I took a break from studying to visit the ethnographic museum in Elbasan. It is housed in a two hundred year old Ottoman house and shows the crafts of the many guilds that were in Elbasan at that time. Wool production and weaving, silk and felt production, wood carving, pottery, tobacco and pipe making, gun, copper and silver-smithing were all active in Elbasan and the exhibits at the museum were instructive. The house itself has a sturdy elegance that even though it is in need of some restoration gives a sense of the rich life of the middle class of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans.

Nearby are the castle wall and the clock tower. The wide cobbled street to the west is closed to traffic and is popular for the early evening “xhiro” (pronounced “geerow”), a slow promenade of the citizenry for socialization and a bit of exercise as the heat of the day gives way to the cooler Mediterranean evening. The Skampa Theater is at the south end of the street, a modern building which houses a hotel and an auditorium that shows intermittent movies, plays and travelling productions.

Inside the castle walls, which are more than a ½ mile square, are numerous buildings, including churches, a mosque, homes, schools, businesses. There are also ruins that go back to Roman times. There is an elegant restaurant, the Real Skampa. It is set on a tiered deck that overlooks a grass courtyard and a small amphitheater. This space is popular for weddings and is used by some of the local schools for class productions of songs and dances in traditional dress and dramatic readings of Albanian poetry. I had the chance to see some of the younger children, who were especially entertaining. It reminded me of my own grammar school pageants long ago.

Albania, in general, is a hiker’s paradise. The hills and mountains have myriad dirt roads and paths that lead to incredible vistas and small villages. Most of the “traffic” on them is cows or sheep being walked to pasture or the occasional donkey cart. One of the prior volunteers is working on a “Bunker to Bunker” trail project of hikes between the some 750,000 concrete bunkers that dot the countryside (constructed under the 40 year communist dictatorship to protect from foreign invaders). I walk up behind Thane most evenings. It’s hard to imaging better hiking than in the hills around Elbasan. Volunteers at other sites in the area all say the same.

About 10 miles outside of Elbasan on a road that turns off from the road to Thane is the village of Llixha (pronounced “leejah”). There are regular buses from the center of Elbasan. They are clearly marked LLIXHA on the sides and the ride cost about 50 cents. “Llixha” is Albanian for “spa”. The town smells mildly of sulfur from the hot springs. There are several hotels along the creek that will rent rooms with small soaking pools. I was told there were natural pools further up the creek. I hiked up a ways but my curiosity dissipated in the heat of the day. For those of you familiar with Idaho’s hot springs, it’s not as fancy Lava but it’s not as dilapidated as Murphy. They are working on the town, paving streets and putting in colored concrete paver sidewalks. It has potential. Some of the hotels have gardens and I sat on a bench among the roses and ate my lunch of fresh olive bread and fruit that I had bought in Elbasan. I looked across the creek to the rolling, orchard covered hills and the mountains beyond that still have a bit of snow on the summits.

That’s my short tourist guide to Elbasan. I am sure there is more; however I have been kind of occupied during my 10 weeks here. If you’re not the type that is enamored of disco bars and hotels on the beach, Elbasan has something to offer. It’s not the typical buffed up European tourist destination, but it has an honest, exotic feel that I appreciate. It may be a bit tattered, frayed around the edges and a little worse for the wear, but if those were reasons not to like something, I wouldn’t have any friends.

First Impressions of Korca

After the two day counterpart (the person I am assigned to work with, at least initially) conference in Tirana, I got on a furgon for the 5 hour trip to Korca. My counterpart’s husband had accompanied her. He drives a taxi and they had driven in that. They had to leave early because their 18 month old was sick at home, but they were nice enough to take my huge duffle bag. This looks and feels like a body bag (I mention that only so that a certain friend of mine from McCall with sinister suspicions about the Peace Corps might find this blog if he does a web search) and contains about 80% of my stuff. This will make my move to my permanent site in 2 weeks much easier.

We stopped twice for smoke, coffee or food breaks and once for a water break at a natural spring that poured water from a hundred taps along both sides of the mountain road that switch-backed between the Shkumbin River (Elbasan’s valley) and Lake Ohrid. We were also stopped three times by the police to check papers as the furgon had Shkrodra plates and there is a traditional distrust of northerners by southerners in Albania and vice versa. They are separated by roughly the same distance as McCall and Mountain Home (about 140 miles, which in Albania is a 7 hour drive and longer in traffic or other worse than usual road conditions, hard as that is to imagine), so this is probably not completely unreasonable.

Lake Ohrid is at the eastern edge of the valley. It is a huge, rift lake surrounded by high, snow covered mountains, on the border between Albania and Macedonia. It is more than 1000 feet deep and undoubtedly has a Balkan relative of Sharlie (McCall’s lake monster) in residence. The road between Pogradec, a small city at the southern end of the lake and Korca is surprisingly good. We sped past small towns, well tended fields and orchards in a wide valley with high mountains on either side. Soon we were in Korca (pronounced “korcha”), the main city of southern Albania, where I will live and work for the next 2 years.

Many Albanians I have met have identified Korca as their favorite city. It has a very European feel with many cobblestoned and tree lined streets, restored 19th century buildings, large parks, museums and an impressive Orthodox cathedral in the city center. There is even an American library here with a large English language collection, a big plus for someone who likes to read.

I stayed at the apartment of another volunteer, from Alaska, who has been here for 3 years and is leaving in a couple of months. She is also in health education, working mainly in grammar and high schools, with a more traditional Peace Corps repertoire in the areas of life skills, sex education, and hygiene. I have watched her teach a few classes. She is very energetic and relates well with the children. I hope I can be half as effective.

There are three other volunteers here. A Texan about my age who works at the city hall in community development and hangs out at the “Dallas” local in the center of town. He is a fan of the Confederate Air Force and has a large picture collection on his computer. He is also leaving in a couple of months. The other two are a young, married couple from Chicago and Florida. He works in community development, mainly with an NGO, and she teaches English at the university. They will be here another year, and there are also volunteers from my group in smaller cities within an hour or so, including Pogradec, Bilisht and Erseka. Most enjoy the outdoors, so I should have some company for my initial exploration of trails and archeological sites in the area.

During my three day visit, I had the opportunity to meet with several people I may work with and live among in Korca. I visited the pazar (the market) in the center of town and was introduced to the favored fruit and vegetable vendors. Korca is a potato growing region. I have sampled them and they are good. Of course, I gave the vendor an Idaho spud pin. Korca is also known for its apples, but it is too early for this year’s crop. We visited a small grocery store and the owner, who is very interested in geography, wanted to know all about Idaho. I showed him some pictures and gave him another pin. I forgot myself as one should never get in a giving competition with an Albanian. I received a huge container of local plum preserves, very tasty. Welcome to Korca.

I visited my counterpart at the Public Health District Office and met her coworkers, including the director. We had coffee. One is a doctor doing a project on iodine in salt. This is a great idea as goiter is a common problem here. She is also responsible for water testing and other environmental issues (Korca appears to be in the forefront on this in Albania). Another has collected data on traffic accidents and is also interested in work injuries. This is all processed by hand, but they anticipate getting computers soon.

The Public Health Director, who is technically my boss, took me to meet the head of the hospital. He expressed an interest in setting up a therapy clinic at the hospital with the one therapist, two orthopedic surgeons and the nursing school to work with me to build a sustainable program. He was so anxious to get started that he wanted us to go downstairs and see the room. We had other visits to make, but I am very encouraged by his attitude. There is an NGO clinic in town that works with disabled children. There is a home health program that works with what sounds like hospice and burn patients. I can understand Korca’s reputation as a progressive city.

There are English language programs at the American library, and that may be a good place for my aviation interest club. I may need to get some books donated as their holdings in that area are almost nonexistent. The building has a large central hall which appears to be perfect for paper airplanes. Unfortunately, the person needed to approve any plans was away. I will be back in two weeks and I have two years, though even now, it seems it may hardly be enough.

The only down side was the housing. The Peace Corps has placed me in a communist era, first floor apartment a long way from the center of town. The balcony can be easily scaled from the street level so security is a concern. The other windows in the apartment have bars on them, but if they also bar the balcony I would have more safety concerns than I already do. It is a four story brick building in an active earthquake area. There is a large, horizontal crack visible in the central stairs which are in front of the door. The outside, un-reinforced walls appear to be intact. I would not want to be caged in my apartment in the event that a building collapse might leave me capable of crawling out the open balcony (and maybe add that to my “why am I still here” list).

Previous volunteers have been assigned there, however, of the last three, one “ET’d” (left the Peace Corps early, for personal reasons) and the other two rejected the apartment for security concerns. Yet, I do like to walk and I can turn down some of the offered teaching assignments that are unreasonable to access on foot. Also, it is clean and relatively well furnished, and, it has a French, as opposed to a Turkish, toilet, which is a big plus. Although it may be very cold in the winter and hot in the summer, it is far from a mud hut in Botswana and not atypical of the homes of many Albanians. I have insurance (there is a company that specializes in insurance for Foreign Service personnel which is offered as an option for volunteers) if there is a break in. I have done lots riskier things than live in an old, brick building in an earthquake zone, and I can let my heirs and the Peace Corps deal with the legal matters if there are any seismic consequences. So, if alternatives arise, I will explore them. For the time being, this is home.

Communication

I have seen Mormon missionaries on the street in Elbasan. They were in Vlora and I have been told they are in most cities in Albania. They will have a tough sell here. The coffee culture in Albania makes Seattle look like Idaho Falls. People here like to “pi kafe”.

You can hardly meet someone before they invite you to have coffee. The coffee bars constitute about every 3rd shop in Elbasan (I estimate it is only about 1 in 5 in Seattle). Of course, I fit right in to this as I was a morning regular with the “Geezers” in McCall (best regards to any of you who are reading this). Coffee here comes as espresso, macchiato, cappuccino and Turkish. Turkish coffee is like cowboy coffee back home, where you mix the grounds with the hot water and strain it out with your mustache. They like lots of sugar and fresh cream in their coffee, but I can get it without, which I prefer. I usually hand the sugar packets right back to the waiter so they don’t end up as waste.

One difference in Albania, however, is that the main point in having coffee is to chat. Albanian for having a chat is “bej muhabet” and I can testify that the emphasis is on the habit. Going for coffee with friends or colleagues less than 3 or 4 times a day is unusual. I have not seen anyone with a cup of coffee on a table or desk while they are working. So, we go out to talk and, of course, I am still at the “me want cookie” stage of my developmental language skills. This is frustrating for both me and my Albanian friends.

Did you know Albanian verbs have 3 conjugations in 19 classes with 16 tenses and 6 moods? This includes one just to express surprise, disbelief or emphasis. There is also one to express wishes that is used for the myriad of Albanian “blessings” that are used socially (like wishing a long life for the children of a family you have just met, or blessing the hands of the cook after a meal you have eaten). There are additional irregular verbs that don’t follow a pattern. Also, the non-active form of the verb “to eat” means “to quarrel”, which I think derives from “competitive feeding” of guests which is big in Albanian culture. However, what I really find confusing is the declension of nouns and adjectives with five cases, and forms, definite, indefinite, plural and singular. Then there are the pronouns which have clitics, little extra words thrown in just to make things interesting, it seems, sometimes used, sometimes not, sometimes used instead of the pronoun, etc. There are also short forms and phrases that are commonly used but make no sense in literal translation. I think all this is the reason Albanians are famous for the use of gestures in their communication and you are considered rude if you do not use at least some when you talk. Language competency testing starts in less than 2 weeks. Wish me luck, but remember to use the optative mood.

Tom Lehrer said, “If people have trouble communicating, the least they can do is to shut up!” This sentiment is not prevalent in Albania. Just because I can’t speak the language doesn’t stop people from having a conversation, on the furgon, on the bus, on the street, in the coffee shop and especially with the family at home. The extended family comes and goes, daily. They all engage me in conversation. This seems ingrained in the Albanian psyche. I have noticed that almost everyone over the age of 15 has a cell phone, but I have not seen one with an I-Pod or MP3 player plugged into their ears.

Asking personal questions of people you have just met is common. They want to know about your family, your home town, your job, your religion, your politics, how much money you make (if you are interested yourself, Peace Corps volunteers’ taxable income here is about $85 a month), your age, even how much you weigh.

One day, in the kitchen, I was talking with the mother of my host family. She was trying to tell me about her experiences in Greece as a refugee from the civil unrest in 1997. Apparently she walked with her family from Girokaster, near the border, for 3 days. Once across the border they were beaten by the Greek military. She thinks of that even as she is applying for a visa to let her work temporarily in Greece. She is concerned about the recent killing of the deputy head of an opposition party, with elections coming up in less than 6 weeks. I missed a lot of this conversation. She said she looks forward to our discussions when I have become fluent. So do I.

Another time, I was sitting in the room of the grandmother. This is where the TV is kept and which also serves as a living room. The popular comedy show, “Portokalli” was on. Portokalli means “orange”, but that is also the color of the warning light on a traffic signal, so it has shades of meaning. One of her sons, a laborer in southern Italy where he lives with his family, was visiting. He was gregarious, partly due to the raki (homemade Albanian brandy) that was consumed to celebrate his visit. We talked about many things, mostly in Albanian and partly in his Italian and my Spanish. One of the running gags on Portokalli is a skit on an English language class called “Follow Me”. I am starting to get some of the humor. I don’t need a looming exam to motivate me in my study.

Practicum

It was not a total disaster and for that I should be grateful. We have completed our three practice health education lessons in Thane. One for the community, a poster presentation on carbon monoxide exposure from wood stoves, one for the 7th grade on hearing protection and the last for kindergarten on coughing into your elbow to prevent the spread of colds.

The Peace Corps has compiled a pretty good technical resource program and presents it as part of pre-service training. It is a little strong on acronyms for my taste (I have always thought that insider use of abbreviations only serves obfuscation and elitism. This is probably because I have trouble remembering them), but the material is extensive and I have learned quite a bit from reading through what has been provided and attending the class sessions. Not surprisingly, it stresses getting to know your community, establishing personal contacts and building on those by mobilizing community assets towards its own goals. Language training and living in and with the community is part of that approach.

So as part of the pre-service program we pretty much ignore all of that as we do our practice sessions ("practicums") and a community project. It all has to be planned and accomplished by week 6. Our language skills are still marginal and we have been so busy with classes that our community contacts are still pretty much limited to our host families and their relatives.

I suspected that the intent of all this was to demonstrate how not to plan and execute community educational programs and projects. Yet somehow, at the last minute, the lesson plans were translated with the help of our program staff and, depending on what we were allowed to do amid the politics of the clinic and the school in Thane, the programs were presented on blackboards and flip charts, and, thanks to the sympathies and efforts of our host families, they were fairly well attended.

I am sure the session on carbon monoxide was not nearly as interesting to the clinic crowd as the preceding session on birth control and sexually transmitted disease (the Peace Corps health education program is big on that, stressing the use of condoms. It is also big on the environmental message to avoid using plastic shopping bags which contribute to litter. Since condoms are essentially plastic bags with the added features of bio-hazardous contents and indestructible wrappers, I am not clear how people in the third world are supposed to dispose of them in a safe and environmentally conscious manner, but I digress). I am glad they were our "opening act". Improvised hearing testing with cell phones and making ear plugs out of candle wax and cotton balls went over well with the 7th grade, and the kindergarten class sang "Kur Une Kolle" ("When I Cough"- a ditty I wrote to the tune of "This Old Man") with gusto, while I accompanied them on my harmonica.

I still wonder how I can effectively modify behavior with health education in a country where I am an outsider, barely speak the language and have limited cultural understanding. The response to my efforts with my cohorts that I mentioned in a prior post, has been very negative. I have been told that "they are under a lot of stress" and that "only a small percentage of the volunteers smoke and they are not the health educators". I guess it is ok for Americans to educate Albanians, but we should ignore our own. If they were being shot at instead of smoking cigarettes, would the analogous rationale be "they’re only hitting a small number of us so there is no need to try to pull them out of the line of fire"? I hope that in the discussion I will learn something about health education that will be useful in my Peace Corps service.