Freedom of Travel

It is the time of year that one thinks, however briefly between the barbeque and the fireworks, of the good fortune to be born an American. What activity better epitomizes “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” than the freedom of travel? I can pull out my magic passport and go to Greece or Romania at a whim, while my Albanian friends are limited to their own country and Macedonia, unless they smuggle themselves to Greece or Italy for work. When I tell them it will soon change with the easing of visa requirements as they move towards membership in the European Union, they are skeptical.

I have traveled a lot in the past two weeks. I had a meeting in Permet to plan summer health education activities. Summer is often a down time for work at the district health departments where most of us have our primary assignments. The meeting was well organized and productive. It was just before the Festival of Wines, so I got to see a bit of that as well. It was a bigger event this year, but not well advertised, so they appreciated the eight Peace Corps volunteers that came for the meeting. The music and dancing were great with local groups and others from as far away as Kosovo. I don’t drink, but the other volunteers told me that the quality of the local wines has noticeably improved in just the past year.

After the meeting, I joined other volunteers in Saranda for a weekend in Corfu. A 45 minute hydrofoil ride to Corfu town brings one back to the first world organization and functionality of the EU. I have heard and read about the problems of the Greek economy, but it was certainly not evident in Corfu. Dozens of ferries and cruise ships lined the port. The warren of narrow, cobbled streets of the old center of town was a delight to wander. It is clean and well maintained. There were hundreds of stores and restaurants, historic buildings and museums from Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian, Italian, Austo-Hungarian, and English eras. The beaches are immaculate. The waters were clear, deep blue and signs indicated they all met the high EU environmental standards. The island was crowded with tourists and it wasn’t even high season yet.

Monday morning we got in line at the terminal for the trip back to Saranda. There were several bus loads from the cruise ships for a day excursion to Butrint, the world heritage archeology site south of Saranda. After they passed through customs, they boarded their own ferry for the short ride up the narrow channel. In Saranda, a fleet of modern tour buses awaited them by the dock. I have heard they are warned by their guides to be wary of Albanians. As far as I can tell this is mostly for effect. It probably increases the tips the guides receive for protecting their charges. From what? As far as I know, the main risk is that an Albania might chat with them briefly and then insist on treating them to coffee. I suppose this could be hazardous if you were not sleeping well on the boat or you were LDS.

From Saranda, I traveled back to Permet and then on to Tirana for another meeting (the Peace Corps is a US government organization, after all). This was the annual warden conference. I got an earful on the problems of volunteers in southern Kyrgyzstan escaping from the recent outbreak of ethnic violence, and also had the opportunity to meet some from the new group of volunteers. They are all bright, and eager and capable, and … so young! I feel like I am slipping further into geezertude with every encounter.

On Friday, Lorenz, my fellow teacher from Preka, picked me up in his old Mercedes and we drove to visit a Maltese priest friend of his that lives in Mamurras, north of Tirana. Lorenz loves to travel and had invited me to go along. This was an opportunity for me to see new parts of Albania and I eagerly accepted, even though it would keep me away from Korca for a few more days. He kindly changed his plans a bit to give a ride to a couple of the wardens from Shkoder, a historic and cultural center in northern Albania.

Lorenz is a member of a Catholic lay society so the trip to the north was especially meaningful for him since north Albania is predominantly Catholic (as the south is Orthodox and the center Muslim). We visited the large cathedral in the center of Shkoder. The communists used it as a gymnasium for sports and as a meeting hall for rallies. Even on a Friday afternoon there were many sitting in prayer. One woman came up to us and offered to show us around. On one side were photos of 47 priests, monks, nuns and a few lay Catholics who were killed by the communist regime because of their faith. They were all beatified a few years ago by the Pope. After that we walked through an old part of town, past some beautiful Italianate buildings to the Franciscan church and monastery. We were given a tour by one of the monks. The church had been used as a movie theater. Its frescoes had been painted over. Its altars and sculptures either destroyed or put in a communist museum set up to ridicule religion. The bones from a shrine to a martyr had even been dug up and cast into the Drina River that flows through the city. The frescoes are now being slowly restored. The pieces that survived only because they were on display have been returned to their rightful places in the church. A few bones from the spine and the hand of the martyr washed up from the river and a new shrine was built. Finally, we walked over to a convent where there had been a special prison just for clergy. There were two floors of isolation cells. There were manacles on the wall which were used to try to get the priests to give up information to the security police that the priests had received in the confessional. Some were tied to a tree near the church and left to die in public. What amazed both Lorenz and me was that this did not occur hundreds of years ago during the inquisition, but during our lifetimes. Neither of us remembers hearing a word about it.

Saturday we drove north a bit to within view of the Albanian Alps. This is an area of high forested peaks and winding rivers and lakes. Peace Corps volunteers are not allowed in the far northern districts of Albania. This policy is changing as the north evolves from a wild, lawless area of blood feuds to a major tourist destination. If I don’t get there during the next year, I plan to travel through on my way home after I complete my term of service. On the balcony of a coffee shop which overlooked one of the mountain lakes we struck up a conversation with a local who was building a camp ground nearby. We learned that the north is still not safe, as he insisted on buying us coffee even as we had not yet finished the cups we had ordered. I wonder how many tourists will die of caffeine overdose before this area is fully pacified.

I am not a great fan of driving, but Lorenz loves the open road, probably because there are not many opportunities for long, highway drives in tiny Malta. In the afternoon we drove along the modern, new four lane highway that goes from the Adriatic Sea, across Albania to Kukes, a city on the border with Kosovo. It is as advanced a road as anything constructed in Europe or the US. In less than two hours we were in Kukes. Before the highway the trip took 10 hours or more. The road includes a six mile tunnel straight through the mountains. Giant turbines blow air through the tunnel to avoid accumulation of carbon dioxide. Other roads like this are either under construction or are planned around the country. Someday the trip from Korca to Tirana or Saranda will take just a couple of hours. A drive from Elbasan to Tirana will be less than 45 minutes.

On Sunday, we drove to Burrel and Bulqize. It was not a highway, but the road was pretty good. It followed narrow canyons, along the hillsides and ridges above rivers and lakes and valleys and whitewashed stone farm buildings with red tiled roofs and hay stacked in the fields in conical bales. We stopped in Ulza, a tidy town with a lovely, small church which stands above a central square. The town is on a hill on the side of a reservoir above a hydroelectric dam. We attended mass and, afterwards, the man sitting behind us took us and a group of Slovakian nuns for coffee at his restaurant, which is set in a garden overlooking the lake. The setting reminded me of the patio at Shore Lodge back home in McCall, overlooking Payette Lake and the surrounding mountains. Someday, I will chat briefly with strangers in McCall and insist on taking them for coffee on that patio. It will probably get me arrested.

After a rest at Mamurras, we drove back to Korca. I felt badly because the Peace Corps does not allow me to drive in Albania. I am glad Lorenz likes to drive, but I think he could have used some relief. I have not driven a car in more than 15 months and the roads and traffic and driving in Albania can be pretty daunting as it is very hard to predict what other drivers will do, let alone pedestrians, horse carts, motor bikes, bicycles, trucks, buses, vans, tractors, sheep, goats, cattle, etc., that share most roads. Perhaps it is because of that restriction that we made it safely back to Korca. Preka is planning an outing for the teachers on Tuesday in Macedonia, but I need to do some work, so I won’t join them. I am leaving for Romania next week.

The Albanian Uncertainty Principle

I must be getting comfortable here as I am starting to revert to type. I went hiking up a canyon to the south of the mountain on Saturday morning. I went early to beat the heat of the day. It is now typical summer weather with highs in the upper 80’s in Korca and close to 100 in Tirana or Elbasan. I hiked in a narrow canyon along a stream full of snowmelt from the surrounding peaks. The trail, such as it was, crossed the creek several times. I leapt from rock to slippery rock. I lost my footing and ended up in the water.

I quickly got out of the cold water. I inventoried my parts; some bruises and scrapes but nothing broken. How many times have I done something like this in Idaho? Too many to count, sitting up after a slip or fall thinking that if I had broken something major or hit my head they would have found my body next spring. But here I didn’t even have a dog for company.

The worst part was that as I washed off the blood and pulled some gravel out of the scratches, I remembered that, while I had left my wallet in my apartment, I had dutifully carried my cell phone, as I am required by the Peace Corps to do at all times. I pulled the wet phone from my pocket, shook off the water and noticed a bubble of water under the display.

I limped home in the warming morning. By the time I got home my pants were almost dry. I took the phone apart, placed the pieces in a bowl, buried them under some dry rice (a remedy I found on line) and set it in the sun. After 48 hours, if I am lucky, I will have a phone again. Meanwhile, I was supposed to meet a fellow volunteer who was transiting through Korca. I knew what time her bus was to leave, so about the time I figured she would arrive, I walked over to where the furgons let people off. I waited about an hour and about a half hour before her departure she arrived in Korca. She asked me why I hadn’t responded to her text messages and, before she had to get on her bus, I explained over coffee my morning misadventure.

I am already used to the many uncertainties involved in living in Albania. I know to check my raisins for small pebbles, my chopped walnuts for shells or small spiders, my shoes and bed for scorpions, meat for bone shards, jam for pieces of stems, yoghurt that may have gone bad or grapes that may have residue from organophosphate insecticide. I know to plan that at any time the water or power may not be on, although this is much more of a problem in other parts of Albania, and the tap water in Korca is generally safe to drink. The internet may or may not work, or have much capacity if it does, depending on whether the local teens are likely to be active on Facebook or internet games, or it is raining or windy. I have more or less figured out the many idiosyncrasies of my apartment, including my laundry, the couch, my bed, my wardrobe, my front door lock, the windows, the refrigerator, the stove, and, especially, the bathroom with the problematic water heater, commode and, especially, the shower.

I know that prices may be quoted in old or new lek, so if something seems kind of expensive it is probably old lek, which are 10 to the new. It is always a good idea to ask the cost of something, because the prices seem to vary a lot and may be subject to negotiation. Products which I like may appear and disappear, even in the larger stores. Schedules and appointments are always subject to change without notice, even if you have a functioning cell phone.

How does one ever resolve the ambiguities of a new language? Age makes it more difficult as words do not seem to stick, and I forget almost as fast as I learn. Gestures can add to the confusion. Albanians shake their heads from side to side to indicate “yes” and nod with a slight click of the tongue to say “no”. I think the worst part, however, is the loss of one of the few good things that come with age that you become increasingly comfortable in your own idiom. A return to the incompetency of youth makes me feel more crumbling than challenged. It is like when I tried snowboarding a few years ago. I am a pretty good skier, but even more than the pain from frequent falls on the board, more than I had had in years on skis, was the indignity of the clumsy dismount from the lift or the struggle down the beginner slope. My Albanian still has the jerky cadence of my snowboarding as I carefully pick my way through any substantive communication. I long for the sense of assurance I felt when I put my skis back on and confidently went in whatever direction I chose.

My last classes of the school year were this past Thursday. A couple of weeks ago, the head of the school had asked me not to give a class on that day, so I combined my last two lesson plans and finished the course. Then on Tuesday, I was asked by the assistant director to give a class. I don’t feel it is in the spirit of being a volunteer to say no, so I planned a new lesson. This was on the environment, something that is within the purview of health education, but was not covered in my life skills classes. The first two classes went well, but in the last one, the last class of the school day and the school year, it was not really possible to maintain much attention. The kids wanted to take pictures with their cameras and cell phones. I invited the ones that were interested to another room to do the lesson which involved watching some videos and discussing littering, abandoned chemical plants, burning trash and landfills (riveting stuff, I know, but it worked fine in the two previous classes). The third in command came in and asked me to return to the class to maintain order and keep the noise down. I was tempted, at that point, to say, “Hey, I’m a volunteer, you do it”. I didn’t of course, but I think I have new insight as to why the CIA is able to keep killing off the third in command of Al Qaeda on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

I have a stack of finals to grade (I gave an open book, take home test which most of the class turned in on the final day of class) and I have to enter the scores into the program I worked up to do the grades on the curve (left weighted, and pretty easy. Life Skills is not a core course like math or literature, and doesn’t count for much). I am supposed to get them in by Monday.

I have done a lot of different jobs over my many years, including teaching graduate students, but I had never taught high school. It is much harder, probably the hardest grade level to teach. I also taught a class at the nursing college this year and that was much easier, even though it was in Albanian and the high school class in English. I want to take this opportunity to officially apologize to my high school teachers from so many years ago. I am truly sorry. I didn’t know.

Next week I start a series of summer travels. There is a meeting in Permet for the health education volunteers, a quick trip with friends to Corfu, the warden meeting in Tirana, the Fourth of July party in Tirana, a vacation trip to Romania where I will meet up with a group from Idaho for a tour and a visit to our partner church from back home, a visit from Canadian friends for a brief Albanian tour as they make their way home to retirement near Toronto after almost 20 years as missionaries in Papua New Guinea.

Like many countries in southern Europe, most of the working population in Albania goes on vacation for the month of August, so not much happens then. The Peace Corps is planning the mid service conference for my cohort at the middle of that month. It will be in Korca to coincide with the Beer Festival. I have a good friend from Idaho planning a couple of weeks in Albania the end of September. November and December are full of holidays. The end of January and the first week of February I am heading home for a visit and a course (my flight instructor refresher course required to maintain that license) before I come back to Albania for my last three months of service. The Peace Corps does not allow volunteers to leave the country for 90 days prior to their close of service date, and many volunteers use what vacation time they have left to tour parts of the country they have not yet seen. I figure the only full month of service I have left is October. It will likely go fast. Meanwhile, I will try to be more careful. I don’t want to be sent home early with a broken leg, or worse.