So Close to Europe

Two older, women volunteers, who had completed their service, were touring the Balkans and came through Korca. They stayed with another volunteer in town, but we got together for dinner at one of the best places in town, Vasili’s. It was a cold, rainy night and the downstairs dining room has a fireplace. We sat nearby and enjoyed the specialty dishes; lemon soup, grilled vegetables and an egg dish they call kanaloni, but is more like an Albanian version of huevos rancheros. Of course, the conversation was mostly about the Peace Corps.

First, we played “my country is poorer than your country”. One woman served in Romania. There is no way Romania is poorer than Albania. I was there last summer. It has good roads and a functional rail system. The electrical and water systems are reliable and the factories actually make things like cars and diesel fuel and people have real jobs. It’s a member of the European Union, for pity sake, and Romanians don’t need visas to travel or work throughout Europe. There may be areas of poverty, but the fact that there are places in Romania where poor people predominate doesn’t mean the country is poor any more than poverty in Mississippi makes the US part of the third world. The other volunteer had worked in Moldova. This is the country that makes Albania the second poorest country in Europe. She described infrastructure and villages that she said were typical. Albania seemed pretty advanced in contrast.

I don’t know if all PC volunteers do this when they meet. It would not surprise me. I am not sure it is very useful. How does one compare Togo to Paraguay or Cambodia to Tonga or Kazakhstan? Which is a better indicator of poverty; a thatch hut, a tin roof or a communist bloc apartment? Are you worse off if you are exposed to mosquitoes in the rainy season, or frostbite in the winter? Some volunteers complain that they expected to be in a more rural setting, while others that the lack of an internet connection makes them less effective. Maybe like the kids in Albania seem to think things are better in any country but their home, PC volunteers think things are easier in any country but the one they are serving in, or at least trying to. “The challenges are always greater on my side of the border”. My own experience has been that the most difficult impediment to my effectiveness is me.

We also talked about some concerns particular to older volunteers (not of much interest to the younger volunteers, who sat there politely, probably bored to death). One noted that Eastern Europe is a preferred assignment for our age group since it provides ready access to advanced medical care even if the in-country care is a bit substandard. I suppose this is a reality for older volunteers. Two in the Albania group before mine had to be sent home for health reasons, however in my group all of the medical terminations have been among the youngsters. One of the visitors, who had a lot of work experience in project management, complained she had been assigned to a remote, rural village where her skills were not of much use. She had taken it upon herself to travel around her country and help other volunteers with their projects.

Volunteers drawing on their individual expertise and helping their cohort is not at all unusual in my experience in Albania, and not just among the older volunteers. Many young volunteers are much better with technology and the internet and some have advanced degrees in engineering, environmental science, teaching and architecture. I think it would be great to get more direction and support from the PC administration, but maybe that is part of the intentional design of the Peace Corps program. It would have been helpful had this been stated explicitly in the orientation meetings or pre-service training, but maybe I am just slow on the uptake. It has been evident to me for a long time that if I need advice or support, it is better to turn to other volunteers. I have tried to contribute my share when I can.

The volunteer from Moldova said that she had heard that the PC was looking at how they use their more experienced volunteers. There is a special response program in the Peace Corps where older volunteers, who have previously completed the usual service, participate in short term projects in countries that have specific needs for their expertise. She said the PC was considering changing the requirement for previous service for older volunteers for this program. One idea that I have had would be some sort of pre-service grant application so that volunteers with special expertise might bring more resources for projects they might have particular qualifications for, rather than trying to develop this only after they get to their site which is not always successful and has an inevitable time lag. It takes a long time to get into the Peace Corps and this might be a useful activity. Lining up help from your contacts at home would be a lot easier while you are still there rather than from thousands of miles away. Also, it takes time to find your footing in your service site and the grant application process takes time. Time has to be available to complete a project. Complications and delays are likely to occur. Not everyone wants to or even can extend for a third year of service. There is really only a short window to pursue such support even within the 2 year term at a site. There is an Idaho association of returned PC volunteers, as there are in many states and some of the larger metropolitan areas, and most countries have “friends groups” of volunteers, their friends and families to stay involved with their country of service. I look forward to discussions about these topics and other activities within these groups.

The women planned to visit Butrint and then head up along the “Albanian Riviera”, to Vlora, and then to Shkoder, into Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and into Hungary and the Czech Republic. That is a route I hope to travel after I finish my service, so I gave them my e-mail address and asked them to update me on their progress, and, especially, to give any advice they might have from their tour.

With an American passport, it is so easy to travel around this region and there is so much to see. In mid-October, I went with several of the volunteers to Istanbul for the marathon. 16 of the 27 in my cohort traveled to Istanbul for the event. One volunteer met his mother there and toured around a bit with her and some of her friends. Then after taking his LSAT exam, he ran the marathon on the next day. He is also interested in the Foreign Service. This kid is a high achiever.

I went along mainly to provide therapy to the survivors. Personally, I don’t see a point to jogging along a scenic route with a few thousand people, who, except for the super-fit few, seem to cramp up or throw up along the way and suffer a lot of pain in the aftermath. Then again, there are those who are not interested in flying a small plane to some remote mountain airstrip, hiking along a wild Idaho river, catching and releasing a dozen or so trout, huddling around a campfire and then waiting for the frost to burn off in the morning before launching for home. It takes all kinds to make a world. I knew that even before I joined the Peace Corps.

Istanbul is a beautiful and fascinating city that honors and displays its deep and varied roots. The people seem very friendly, the food was fantastic, and the museums and monuments are incredible. We walked for hours up and down the cobbled streets of the old city (at least those of my friends who could still walk), touring immense Ottoman mosques or Byzantine churches or endless bazaars or serene parks and tea gardens with vistas of the Bosporus that divides the city and Europe from Asia. I was impressed. Definitely a place I would like to visit again.

Most of the group flew back to Albania, but a few of us took the train to the ancient city of Thessaloniki in Greece where there is a bus back to Korca. The train travelled along the Aegean coast and pulled into the city in the late morning. We then walked around the bustling city of more than a million. We toured its museums and monuments, which ranged from the stone-age to the twentieth century, but emphasized the Macedonian, Roman and Byzantine eras. The modern archeology and Byzantine museums are nicely laid out and, although the collections are relatively modest, they compare well to the museums of Athens or Istanbul.

In the evening, we boarded a crowded Alba-Trans bus bound for Korca. We departed from a store front across the street from the train station. A Chinese lady, who spoke Albanian, hawked mechanical toys to the men. I assume these were presents for their kids back home as they returned from work in Greece. The trip along a Greek highway took less than three hours to the Albanian border. There, the bus driver had heated words with passengers whose papers were not in order, since that delayed our crossing by more than an hour and looked bad for the driver, who apparently was ultimately responsible to the authorities, as the bus company is not supposed to let on board passengers without valid passports and visas. There was also a problem with the paperwork for some of the cargo. Strangely, once we got through the Greek station, the Albanian side went quickly, although I did notice one man walking up and down the aisle with a large wad of Albanian money, exchanging bills with some of the passengers. Whether or not this was a factor that facilitated our passage, I can’t say.

As we drove along the road from the border towards Korca, a man in the back of the bus began to sing an Albanian folk song, but was soon drowned out by a Hollywood, action movie shown on DVD in the front of the bus. The film was a violent epic set in LA. It was about a personal vendetta between a police officer skilled in martial arts and a Chinese hit man, and had all the usual explosions, machine guns, sword fights, car crashes, etc. I didn’t need to be awakened when we drove into Korca late at night.

All the politicians here talk about easing visa requirements for Albanians to travel outside of the country. This seems inevitable to me and a good thing, but Isufi pointed out something I hadn’t considered. Workers abroad are more likely to have their families join them than to send remittances back home. For poor countries that rely on these funds for a significant part of their economy (about 25% in Albania) that would be catastrophic. Also, currently the unemployment rates in Greece and Turkey are high and they are not welcoming foreign workers, so things are not likely to change at the border crossings anytime soon, and Albania will remain an underdeveloped enclave for awhile longer.

Saturday night there was a classical flute duet concert at the Kultural Palace. There is also a banner across the street announcing the “Korca Prize”. I think this is a painting competition that the mayor told me about when we met at a photography exhibit a few weeks ago. He said that artists were being invited to Korca from around Albania. They would paint scenes of the city, with a prize to be awarded to the best, but that each artist would leave one painting to enhance the collection of the city art gallery (the “Guri Madhe” in the Kultural Palace). There is a lot of activity, fixing cobblestone streets in the older parts of town and repairing sidewalks along the boulevards. Many older buildings are being restored and there is new construction throughout the city. There are plans to restore the bazaar. Korca is another city with deep and varied roots. It is working towards being a beautiful and fascinating European city, well worth visiting again.

Ties That Bind and Fray

NPR had a story about how the internet was changing the Peace Corps experience. Instead of volunteers being dropped off in the jungle with sporadic communication with the outside world for the duration of their two years of service, daily communication with home is now possible with e-mail or even video with Skype. Country directors complained that if any volunteer was unhappy they would hear about it from the parents, or worse, from their congressional representative’s office. Google even has a free service (until the end of the year) through g-mail which allows phone calls to any number in the US. I have used this several times to call friends and family (especially appreciated to use for calls to elderly relatives that don’t have computers). I even have made it available to my neighbors to call relatives in the US using my laptop and a DSL I have through my landlords’ phone and a wire strung out his window and into mine.

My landlords, who live upstairs from me, came over last Sunday and were able to talk with a niece who lives in Worcester, Massachusetts. This city has a large population of Albanians and is a center of Albanian culture (there are also large numbers of Albanian immigrants living in Milwalkee, Detroit, New York and Chicago). Many of my Korca friends have family living there. I plan to visit there on my way home next June since it is not far from the home of some of my family. It will be a nice days outing from Rhode Island and I will be able to introduce them to some Albanians and sample byrek or lakror or some other Albanian specialty.

They talked for almost an hour and couldn’t believe it was free. The niece lives with her husband and children. If I understood everything she is a bookkeeper and he is in construction. They were both crying by the time they finished as they went through a long list of relatives to exchange information on how each was doing either in Albania or America. I expect that in the next week or so I will have a line by my door of other neighbors in my building.

Families here seem so very close and sentimental. It is one of the real contrasts to the US. However, I went to a meeting on trafficking last weekend and the presentation was hard for me to reconcile with my experiences with Albanians. It was held at the home of a nun who works in Korca. She is from Ireland and has a graduate degree from Fordham University in New York. She is on committees for the EU and the UN and spent three weeks this summer in New York City attending hearings about women’s rights in Europe, Asia and South America. Several PC volunteers from the Gender Development Committee came from around Albania to attend. Four stayed at my home. I had no other plans so I went along with them to the meeting.

There were the three nuns who live in the house (the Irish nun and one from Sri Lanka and one from Lebanon), an Albanian who had a public health degree from London and worked a European NGO, and a woman attorney from Korca who works in family law who presented. It seems that most girls are trafficked by relatives who promise them jobs abroad or are courted by young Albanian men who promise marriage, only to force them into prostitution when they arrive in other European countries such as the Belgium or Italy.

I know a family with five daughters that live in Thane. I met them during pre-service training. The father watched them carefully and at night he locked the gate in the wall around the house and garden. I had thought he was overly protective due to tradition, but now I see it from a different perspective.

One volunteer in my cohort who is very active in the GAD committee gave me a copy of a picture book, “Two Small Girls, A True Story” (“Dy Vajzet e Vogla”), that illustrated what happened to a young girl from the city and another from a village. It is supposed to be used for education, although I am not sure what age would be most appropriate. I plan to show it and a video disk that goes with it to the nurses in the Health Education Unit at the Directorate of Public Health where I work and see what they think. November includes a “World Day Against Violence Against Women” and is also international “Anti-child Abuse” month, so maybe we can put together a presentation as part of that and go around to some of the schools in the region.

Maybe an Albanian Mafiosi would stoop so low, but the idea that a relative would sell a girl into prostitution seems very un-Albanian to me. I would have thought they would vigorously defend their families (first offense, shoot out their knees; second offense, aim higher). I was walking in a village the other day when I came upon an older man who recognized me from my visit to my landlord when he was in the hospital after his heart attack last winter. You would think I was his long lost cousin. Of course, I was invited into his home, and talked with him and his wife as they served homemade walnut raki (I had to decline since I don’t drink alcohol, but I was forgiven this rudeness and provided a glass of wonderful spring water to go with the sweets that were served). The house was a beautifully crafted, stone cottage. It had a large American made woodstove, apparently brought back by his father who lived in America for 30 years early in the 20th century. He must have made enough money to furnish his home in style, with overstuffed couches, thick hand-made carpets (an Albanian craft that rivals Persia), wood paneling and fine paintings of mountain scenes. It was like a Victorian parlor, more like a restored North-end craftsman home in Boise than a house in a village in Albania.

I was surprised it had made it through the war and communism, but I guess bad mountain roads make it hard for visitors, whether they are tourists, conquerors or despots. Would they also deter predatory relatives? I hope so. What self-respecting Mafiosi would want to have to walk his unsuspecting victim out along a rutted mountain track, back to his shiny new Mercedes left parked on a roadside in the valley below? He might get sheep or cattle droppings on his expensive leather shoes. Even the totally corrupt must have their standards, or how could they look at themselves in the mirror in the morning.