Balkan Winter

It was a bit of a shock getting back into the winter routine after nine days on the equator. Day after day of grey sky, cold, rain, snow, or sleet, with only the occasional peek at the sun and blue sky. I just about live in my expedition weight long underwear. It takes forever for clothes to dry and I am not about to go without them for as long as it would take to get them back into service after washing. I will probably personally add to the olfactory experience on a furgon by spring. I have also come to greatly appreciate my down sleeping bag that I bought in Gart’s basement in Denver more than 40 years ago for about $30. My dark green Eddie Bower Gore-Tex coat that I got as a very considerate present about 25 years ago is also serving me well.

Strong winter winds blow through the Korca valley. They suck the plastic sheeting out of the masking tape. Keeping the windows insulated is a continuing task. Ilky camps out by my door almost every night and tries to sneak in as I leave or enter. He still gets treats but no admittance. My electric heater is pitiably ineffective and, to make it worse, the electricity always seems to go out during the strongest, coldest storms. The gas heater is better, but I am not sure if it is really approved for inside use and I wonder about carbon monoxide exposure. I can always look on the bright side. Maybe my approaching senile dementia will be covered by workers comp.

Yesterday I went with the guys to Bigell. It was a relatively warm day, and it was raining hard even at altitude. The road was muddy. In spots, the old van just barely made it through. We set up for business and about 40 hardy Korcans showed up for recreation. Most hung out around the wood stove in the day lodge, smoking, drinking and eating. Except for the smoking part, it was a lot like a rainy day at Brundage or Bogus Basin. I have to admit, though, that the conversation I had with one man about the 20 years his father spent in prison for opposing the communist regime is not one I would have had in Idaho. A few hardy souls donned the ski suits (provided with the rental and lift in the all inclusive price) and did a few runs until they were completely soaked and came back in to dry out before hitting the slopes again. My Gore-Tex and fleece outfit let me stay out a bit longer, but eventually I was also soaked and had to go in. Just a couple of kids kept skiing until about 5 pm. They have a switch by the window in the lodge and when there are few skiers, the rope line is turned on only when a skier arrives for a tow.

Sunday morning was much colder and it was snowing hard in town. Titi, my neighbor and the father of one of the kids I tutor in English, invited me to go to the first soccer game of the New Year. We met up after lunch and walked briskly across town to the stadium. Titi, of course, insisted on treating. The scrum at the ticket booth was particularly vigorous and even if Titi had accepted my offer to treat I doubt that I could have purchased the tickets without serious injury. Titi is a veteran, however, and I was impressed with how, with hardly a scratch, he skillfully worked his way to the front of the gaggle, shoved his lek in the face of the attendant, and quickly returned with the tickets. We got into the next gaggle that led to the entrance gate where police took our tickets. A couple of kids asked if they could come in with us, since they are admitted free with a paying adult.

The field was a swamp and the players warming up splashed as they ran and were covered with mud. There was a pretty good crowd of a few thousand standing with umbrellas in the stone bleachers. It looked like a snow globe with the Alpine village diorama replaced by a soccer field. A few minutes after the game was supposed to start the teams went into the locker rooms, but, as the weather worsened, they did not come out again. After about half an hour the line judges came out to announce that the game had been cancelled. The crowd hurled invective and plastic water bottles at them. They all felt that the opposition team, from Elbasan in the lowlands, were a bunch of weenies and if they had played against another mountain city, like Bilisht, it would have gone on despite the weather. Of course, the language they used was a lot more colorful. There’s lots of opportunity to expand your shqip vocabulary at soccer games.

There are no rain-checks or refunds given at soccer games here. There is supposed to be a free make-up game tomorrow, but Monday is a working day and I doubt if I can attend. From the attitude of the fans, it seems, despite the large rate of unemployment, many others will be unable to make it.

As we walked home, the sun came out briefly, but then the snow started again. We stopped for coffee and Titi, after prolonged insistence and protest, even let me buy. This was a tremendous indication of acceptance and friendship. It felt like a major triumph. I can’t say when I enjoyed a coffee more.

In three weeks the next group of Peace Corps volunteers will arrive and begin their pre-service training in Elbasan. I have been told that 52 have accepted the invitation to serve in Albania. This is a big increase from the 33 initially in my group. I have been asked to do some of the sessions and also to host a couple of them for the volunteer visit in early April. I hope that it doesn’t conflict with Easter weekend since I will have a crowd here. That is a big holiday in Korca. There is a midnight, candlelight march from the cathedral that is supposed to be especially beautiful. This year Easter coincides on April 4 for Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant traditions (last year they were a week apart, which is more often the case). Perhaps that will cause it to be an even bigger event. I am looking forward to seeing it.

April is also when spring reliably comes to Albania. I am looking very much forward to that, as well.

First World on Steroids

I planned a vacation from the ice covered cobblestones of Korca for a 9 day visit with my niece and her husband in Singapore. He is working there for two years on a temporary assignment from New York City and she is teaching at an international school. I thought it would be nice to spend some time with them and the fact that Singapore is on the equator with average temperatures in the mid-80’s would provide a pleasant mid-winter opportunity for me to thaw out. There was a week at the end of January when my students would be having exams and classes would be cancelled, so I called the Peace Corps office to tell them of my plans. There was a mandatory in-service training conference planned in mid-January so I booked my flight.

As January approached, the dates for the conference moved later in the month and, when finalized, overlapped with my departure date. I was told my leave would not be approved. At first, I was pretty angry. I am a volunteer, after all. However after some consideration, I went to the Turkish Airline office in Tirana and paid the fee to change the ticket. I wasn’t happy about that either, but, I figure if I divide the cost over my term of service it is less than 10 cents a day.

The meeting in Durres, the Adriatic port city for Tirana, was actually pretty good. It was held in a hotel that used to be a children’s recreation center under the communists. It has beautiful grounds and the food was good. It’s always good to get together with my cohort and hear about their activities. I got some good ideas for classes, projects and potential funding sources.

I took a bus to Tirana and then another to the airport. I arrived with plenty of time, actually more than plenty of time as my departure was delayed about 6 hours. I was facing a long wait at the airport in Istanbul, but as it worked out I just made my connection for the long flight across South Asia.

Singapore is impressive. Most American cities look underdeveloped by comparison. It is a crowded, Southeast Asian city, but is clean and safe with well maintained infrastructure, and, despite its exotic multicultural population, almost everyone speaks fluent English. I ate Indian food off of banana leaves, Chinese noodle dishes, Indonesian, Thai, Malay, and, even American specialties. Nice break from the healthy, but relatively bland Albanian diet (I still can’t taste the difference between lakror and byrek- but, then, I still can’t hear the subtle difference in the pronunciation of the “u” sound of an Albanian “y” and the “u” sound of an Albanian “u”, although my efforts at producing what sounds identical to me continue to confuse my Albanian listeners).

I walked along the river walk and crossed the pedestrian foot bridge to the Asian Cultural Museum. It was fascinating, and the West Asian section had special relevance for the Muslim heritage of Albania. They use computers to effectively augment the experience. I especially enjoyed the “virtual guides” that “waited” on monitors around the museum. You were even able to ask them questions about themselves. I took the bus to the Botanical Garden which is immaculate. There are even specialty gardens within the large park for orchids, rain forest, evolution and more. I then walked down the trendy Orchard Street shopping district to the international school where my niece works and got a chance to read with some of her 3rd grade students. There are almost as many languages as students in her class.

Just strolling through the various neighborhoods of Singapore is fascinating; Little India, Chinatown, Downtown, Arab Street, etc. Old churches, mosques, old Hindu, Chinese and even Jewish temples, and colonial buildings contrast with the hundreds of high rise office and apartment buildings that locals call the “concrete forest”. Singapore has more shopping malls and restaurants than any city I have visited. Escalators and stairs go over and under streets connecting one to another. You can almost walk across the island city without leaving a mall.

My hosts have a large circle of ex-pat friends. We met a couple from England and Canada to go bicycling in East Coast Park that fronts the waterway between Singapore and Indonesia. It was filled with bicycles, skate boards, roller blades, and pedestrians. Picnickers sat on the grass or barbecued and ate in gazebos. There are lots of restaurants along the strand (you can buy a “Megaprosperity Burger” at the McDonalds to help celebrate the Chinese New Year). A large pond with an overhead tow ring pulled wake boarders rapidly through the water. There were hundreds of cargo ships among which a few sail boats tacked in the breeze, under blue skies and cottony puffs of cloud, in the Straits of Malacca.

I had the opportunity to visit Singapore General Hospital and talk with a few of its doctors. It is more than a thousand-bed, modern, multispecialty hospital that provides everything from heart-lung transplants to traditional Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture. All Singaporeans all covered for health care for about a fifth of the cost as a percentage of the economy compared to the US (which, of course, still leaves 40 million uninsured). Maybe Singapore would consider sending health educators to America.

A few of my Albanian friends had asked me to buy things for them in Singapore. I went shopping (not my favorite activity) but was lost among the malls and the prices were not as good as we anticipated. The cell phones and cameras they wanted are actually less expensive in Tirana than Singapore. I was especially reluctant to buy cell phones since, if the connections don’t work, there is no way to return them.

My last day there was a special treat. The Singapore Air Show, the largest in Asia, was open to the public. There were aerobatics and static displays. There were lots of military and large civilian aircraft, but only a few small planes. The Singapore Youth Flying Club, which is for high school students and is subsidized by the government, had their Piper Warrior on display. There were several members in their sharp, navy blue jump suits standing around it. I talked with them about their training and activities. I wish the kids at the Aviation Interest Club of Korca could have been there.

The ex-pats told me that the reason Singapore is so safe and clean is that it is essentially governed by benevolent, conservative, one party rule. Sounds a bit like Idaho. They cane violators for minor infringements of the law. That is something I am sure would appeal to many of my friends back home.

The late night flight back to Albania also went through Istanbul. Turkish Airline offers free city tours for passengers with long layovers, but delays, weather and lines conspired against that again. I spent a night in Tirana so that I could meet with Peace Corps staff, some people at the Ministry of Health and also with Frederiko Tashko, head of the National Aero Club of Albania. I really enjoyed talking with him and will tell more of his story in a future post.

I finished my meetings earlier than I expected and was able to catch an afternoon furgon back to Korca. I chose a newer one with good tires since I had heard the road over the pass to Lake Ohrid was worse than usual with snow and mud. The trip was long, but uneventful. I am getting accustomed to it and, jet lagged, I slept most of the way home.