Should You Join the Peace Corps?

After "How was it?" and "Are you happy to be home?" the most frequently asked question is, "Are you glad you joined the Peace Corps?" This is usually meant as passing conversation. They are usually not looking for a complex answer. "Yes" or "No" will do just fine. Since there is intrinsic satisfaction in completing something you decide to do, I can honestly answer in the affirmative without confusing and unwelcomed qualifications. If you are reading this and would rather not have any elaboration, please feel free to log off now.

If you are still with me, here is the long answer.

Would I do it again? I don't know. The Peace Corps did not seem very adept in using the expertise brought along by an older volunteer, but I was able to find and develop projects that did. In all fairness, the program does encourage that. I think if I had just stayed in my primary assignment, I would have wound up pretty frustrated. Two years was a long time and I don't think it was used as efficiently as it might have been. Many professional organizations, including some that I belong to, offer volunteer opportunities in developing countries. These are much shorter term than the Peace Corps. Most likely, however, it would be at a university in the capital. There wouldn't be the chance to live in a village or smaller city, to get to know a cross section of the people of the country, to learn the language and the culture, and to feel a part of the community.

I met a professional from another country who actually has less experience than I do. He worked in the captial with the appropriate national agencies. He lived in a four star hotel. He ate most of his meals in restaurants. He was picked up each morning and driven to his workplace. He didn't speak the language. He gave me his business card. I didn't have any business cards, so I wrote my name and cell number on one of his and gave it back. I never heard from him.

With the Peace Corps, I walked everywhere in town and took buses or furgons for longer distances. I ate most of my meals at home or with my local friends. My language skills weren't stellar, but I could get by well enough. I'm not sure my accommodations rated even one star, but they were ok, especially compared to the people I worked with. I don't need that much. Anyway, the countryside is much prettier, less crowded and more interesting than the capital. I didn't envy him at all.

Also, in addition to the opportunity to get to know locals, there was the interaction with the younger volunteers. It is not often that oldsters get to know young people as peers, rather than as friends of their offspring. I didn't have to pretend to be in my twenties and didn't participate in all the group activities, but there were many things we did together that I found both interesting and enjoyable. That opinion is independent of meeting Catherine.

One big down side, however, was the care of my place back home in Idaho. Younger volunteers haven't accumulated the big possessions in life. This presents another challenge for an older volunteer. I have a place in the city. It is comfortable and convenient, so I didn't want to sell. Initially, good friends stayed in it while they built a new home outside of town. I am sure they took great care of it, but they didn't need it for the full 27 months. Eventually, it was rented out by a property management company. Most of the shrubs in the small back yard ended up dead and they made interior modifications that I didn't authorize or appreciate. At least it didn't burn down and it was left clean. My main home is in the mountains. Living there is a bit complicated, so I didn't want to rent it out. Unfortunately, the friend who stayed there didn't understand or get help with the water system and the iron staining that resulted is daunting. Too bad, because it could have easily been prevented. Back up plans for other friends to look in on things apparently fell through. Also, moving out was delayed by complications, and I guess it seemed easier to impose on me than insist that the place they were moving to was available on time. I did arrive a bit earlier than I anticipated because of cancelled travel plans after Catherine's accident, but it is going on beyond that. It is awkward for all of us, but I am not happy being made to feel like a visitor in my own house.

I suppose I will have to accept that it is too late to do anything about all of this now. One should not expect that anything you do not sell or put into secure storage will end up to your personal standards for maintenance by the time you get back home. Friends will undoubtedly help a lot and make service much easier, but Americans lead busy lives and don't have time for things that are not their personal prioritites (and hardly have time for those). 27 months is a long time and one is almost sure to be disappointed. Maybe that is another lesson from Peace Corps service. I'll come around to accepting whatever has occurred. Things can be repaired or replaced. Normal routines will be slowly reestablished. At my age, I'd much rather lose possessions than friends. Even so, I would recommend that older Peace Corps volunteers consider disposing of all of their possessions before they leave home. It will make homecoming far less problematic.

The sum of Catherine's injury and subsequent rehabiliation in a far away city, readjustment to the pace and complexity of life in the US, negotiating bureaucratic hassles, and reorganizing and repairing a life and its accoutrements has made the post service period much more difficult than I had anticipated. It has been more difficult, in fact, than Peace Corps service itself. Nevertheless, it is hard to say whether it would have caused me to change my plans had I known it all in advance.

According to Garrison Keillor, "Sometimes good fortune lies in not getting what you wanted, but what you ended up with, which is what you would have wanted had you only known". Surely the short time since I have returned home is too soon to make any kind of reasoned judgment about the relative worth of my Peace Corps experience. Ask me again in five years.

Should you join the Peace Corps? There are probably as many answers to that question as there have been volunteers (about 200,000) and countries of service (about 130) in the 50 years since the Peace Corps was founded. Of the current 8000 or so volunteers in 70 countries around the world, only about 6% are over the age of 50. Even so, speaking for the few hundred of us "senior" volunteers, I know I can't give any kind of valid answer to that question. That, of course, has never stopped me in the past, so here goes...

If you are looking for a mission, I think you will be disappointed. If you want an extended vacation to an exotic locale, in spite of the remarks you might hear about the "Posh Corps", the odds are greatly against a "Club Peace Corps" assignment. You will most likely go to a village, small town or city in a developing country. Because of potential health problems, the Peace Corps does tend to keep the older volunteers away from the more remote and isolated assignments. Still, it is unlikely to be really comfortable. As far as I know there are no Peace Corps volunteers assigned to Monaco.

Finally, experience has taught me that I have almost never been happy with a decision I made for the reasons I made it. Long after I have forgotten exactly why I decided to apply to the Peace Corps, something will arise which will make me really happy I served, or, perhaps, really regret that decision, or, more likely, some combination of those sentiments. Life is like that, whether or not you choose to add Returned Peace Corps Volunteer to your resume. I learned a while back that the magic in life is not volitional. So I figure that unless you are a Buddhist, you only go through life once. If you can spare 27 months, accept the bureaucratic hassles, adapt to the difficulties, deal with the disappointments and focus on the positives, then...what the heck, for good or ill, you'll never know unless you do it. I wish you the best of luck.

Coming Home

The local elections held throughout Albania a couple of weeks before my close of service date could not have been closer. The counting went on for more than a week, and even that took prodding from the American ambassador and representatives from the EU. The closest count was for the mayor of the capital, Tirana, which is by far the biggest and richest city in Albania. The incumbent, a socialist, is also the head of the opposition party and had run against the current prime minister two years ago in a highly contested election. Protests against that result had lead to shooting deaths of marchers in February, which had affected my departure on my visit home. Now, with the initial result of this election a win by the current office holder by only 10 votes out of about 300,000 cast, a painfully slow recount was conducted, live on television. It seemed to go on forever, although Albanians throughout the country watched intently. I suggested that, to make it more interesting, they might bring in celebrity counters, sort of a “voting with the stars”. My Albanian friends have learned, as my friends back home already know, to ignore me.

Protests were held in the center of Tirana. I was afraid that I would end up being evacuated from the country as I was in the midst of my close of service processing. Fortunately, they remained peaceful and we only had to avoid the large gatherings in the center of town. As of Wednesday, May 15, I became a former Peace Corps volunteer. I took a bus to Kukes and spent the night with a volunteer in my group who was still in for a few more weeks. The next day I took a furgon across the border into Kosovo. I went to visit another from my group who had closed service a couple of months back and now lived in Prizren. Kosovo is off limits for volunteers without special permission. Given the turmoil surrounding the election, it actually seemed safer.

I visited the museum that marks the League of Prizren formed in the waning of the Ottoman Empire to work for the independence of the Albanian people. The buildings were demolished by the Serbs during the Kosovo war in 1998, but have been carefully reconstructed. Prizren, in general, was quite beautiful, with most buildings restored, with the exception of Serbian homes and churches scattered along the hillside, whose owners had fled when Kosovo went for independence. It was interesting for me to see the contrast after more recent destruction than that seen in Albania following the anarchy of 1997.

Early Saturday morning I took an express bus back to Tirana to meet up with my friends Lawrence and Nicole and join them for a road trip through Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia. When they turned back to return to Korca, I caught a bus from Dubrovnik to Zagreb. I then took the train to Vienna, Prague and Berlin. From there, I flew on Air Berlin to JFK, visited friends and relatives in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, before flying on Southwest Airlines non-stop to Phoenix, where Catherine is in outpatient rehabilitation at Barrows Neurological Institute.

After two nights back in the States, I drove a rental car in 16 lanes of traffic to Philadelphia. Even though I was driving ten mph above the speed limit, cars passed left and right, cut in front of me and across three lanes to gain a couple of car lengths in the stream. I visited a couple from my Peace Corps group in Saranda. They had returned in November for her to have surgery on her knee. She is finally scheduled to have it in a week.

We talked about the after service experience. We discussed the pace, the aggressiveness, the fiscal difficulties (he had only recently been able to find a job, having been greatly limited in his search by the need to stay with family while awaiting the surgery and she couldn’t take a new job only to take medical leave), and the daunting array of choices for almost everything. We drove downtown, past the statue of Rocky Balboa by the Art Museum. I was reminded of the heroic statue in front of the library in Korca, only that one honored the partisans who struggled against the Nazi occupiers during World War II rather than a mythical boxer who trained on the steps of the museum.

In other visits, I told my stories about Albania. They seemed to flow out to the general boredom of my listeners, and even though I tried, I don’t think I listened enough to their experiences in the past two years. I have to keep reminding myself that there is a limit to their interest in the Peace Corps and Albania.

Catherine met me at the airport in Phoenix. She was with our good friend, Kristine, who was with our Peace Corps group in Elbasan. She is studying in the critical languages program at ASU in preparation for her FBI exam. If you thought the Peace Corps was full of volunteers in tie dyed shirts, sitting in circles, singing kumbaya, you are misinformed, but even among the generally impressive young people in my group in Albania, Kristine stands out. I am glad she is in Tempe, close to where Catherine has her apartment for the duration of her program at Barrows. I could not wish for a better person to have close at hand, if Catherine needs help or just someone who knows her to chat.

We joined Kristine and her friend Chris and their dogs at the dog park in Gilbert early Saturday morning. Kristine brought her adopted dog, Albie, back with her. He is turning out to be a great dog, and is now learning English and Spanish in addition to his native Albanian. The dog park in Gilbert should be on the map for any dog loving tourist. It has a pond and an obstacle course and even a fenced area for timid or disabled dogs, not something one would ever see in Albania.

We went to a gigantic shopping mall near Catherine’s place and caught the new Woody Allen movie in the 24 plex theater. The mall was more than overwhelming. The heat of Arizona drives the locals into the air conditioned space so there were throngs of shoppers. We bought a coffee maker for Catherine’s apartment, even though her doctor limits her coffee intake (very un-Albanian). There were way too many choices. We finally settled on a percolator model similar to the one she had in her apartment in Permet, probably as much for reasons of nostalgia as utility. We can use it for camping after Catherine finishes her program. On Sunday, we drove the rental car to Sedona and hiked among the towering red rocks.

On Monday, we met with Catherine’s doctor and I was able to watch her in therapy. It seems like a good program and there is no doubt she is progressing rapidly. They could use a social worker, however, to help with problem solving and counseling. I hope Catherine isn’t tempted to take a job with them after she finishes, although I am certain she would be a terrific asset to them. I am pretty sure she has no intention to be a permanent resident of Phoenix.

Catherine told me that while she was spinning her wheels at her sister’s house in Tucson, waiting to begin rehabilitation, she attended a meeting for the Peace Corps Fellows program at the University of Arizona. This is a program at several US universities that allows Peace Corps service to be credited towards a graduate degree. A woman told Catherine that because she had served in Europe, she wasn’t a real Peace Corps volunteer. The premise was that unless you served in the jungle, lived in a thatched hut, used a snake and spider infested pit toilet (I guess the rats in Catherine’s Turkish toilet didn’t count), hauled water from a distant stream and brought home at least one parasite as a souvenir, it wasn’t the Peace Corps. That reminds me of the zealots who believe that you can’t be a Christian unless you belong to their particular church. I hope there is a special place in heaven reserved for people like that because, assuming I get in, I wouldn’t want to spend eternity with such sanctimonious snobs, indeed, I don’t want to spend any time with them at all. Catherine didn’t tell her the reason she was in Tucson. One afternoon, Catherine went with Kristine to a Peace Corps recruiting session at ASU. She spoke and answered questions about her experience in Albania, but didn’t mention the accident. She told me she thought the attendees seemed more interested in employment than service.

My friend Paul picked me up at the airport in Boise and drove me to his hangar in Caldwell where he had kindly let me store my car for almost two and a half years. He had taken it off the blocks, disconnected the trickle charger and made sure the tires were properly inflated. It started right up. He then asked if I wanted to fly with him in his Husky tail dragger to a back country strip to drop off some equipment. He has befriended the young son of a caretaker family at Sulfur Creek Ranch on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in the Frank Church Wilderness. It was a cool, clear evening and there was plenty of daylight left for the trip. We flew low and slow over the snow covered mountain tops and meadows verdant with snowmelt and spring rains. We met some French pilots who were buying light sport aircraft made in Idaho. They were spending the night at the rustic lodge adjacent to the strip. They had a guide from the manufacturer introducing them to Idaho Mountain flying in aircraft like their new ones. We chatted briefly and then took off on the return flight. The angle of the sun set the mountains aglow and cast deep shadows in the valleys. We flew over a few rafters enjoying the high water of the early float season. We scanned the terrain for moose and elk that are most active at twilight. It was good to be home.

Close of Service

If one could die from overeating, I might not have survived my last two weeks in Korca. Friends and coworkers insisted on taking me out to eat before I left. This meant huge meals at lunch and dinner almost every day, and when I complained about my inability to keep up, they replied, “How about breakfast?” Also, I was trying to keep presents and keepsakes as light as possible, since I planned a bit of traveling before I got home. Ultimately, I had to mail a box home. It was a bit expensive, there is the possibility it will be rifled in transit and one risks life and limb in a post office line, but it was well worth it. Who would want to drag a chipped, plaster wall hanging of scenes of Korca, signed by the nurses at the public health department, among other souvenirs, through the great capitals of central Europe?

On Friday morning, I started walking with my backpack and bag toward the furgon stop for Elbasan. I walked past a neighbor who asked if he could come along. Then I visited the office of Dr. Isufi to say goodbye, and picked up more escorts. Then, Jani showed up on his bicycle, grabbed my backpack and rode away. At first I was pretty angry since I thought I would have to track him down to get my things, but Isuf explained that Jani just wanted to carry the bag for me and would meet us at the furgon stop. There were eight of us by the time we got there. They all wanted to take me to coffee. The last thing I wanted to do was to drink coffee before a 3 hour furgon ride, but Albanians have a deep seated need to buy you coffee as a gesture of friendship and respect and refusing this is a great personal affront. I solved this by having them buy each other coffee in my honor. This seemed to settle my social difficulty but left them to haggle with each other about who would get to pay. I have told several disbelieving Albanians that one of the differences between America and Albania is that in America, we argue about who has to pay.

In Elbasan, I stayed with a friend and fellow volunteer from our group. She and Catherine are especially close since they roomed together in many of the initial trainings. There were also a few other friends from our group there making connections for travel or presenting pre-service training sessions for the new group. We got to hang out together a bit and have dinner. The dinners were light since most of us were also visiting our host families in villages around Elbansan and had to recover from meals eaten there. It was very good to see them, share stories and exchange post-service plans and contact information.

I took a bus to Thane on Saturday to visit with the host families there for the last time before I left. I was also able to give my laptop to the older boy in my host family, as I had planned. He was thrilled to get it. I had him promise to help Catherine’s host family talk with her on Skype. We went over it together while his brother and cousins watched and his mother whipped up lunch. This was, of course, more than anyone could possibly eat with chicken, noodles, homemade bread, homemade yoghurt, hand churned butter, fresh cucumbers and tomatoes and scallions….

Early Monday morning, I caught the furgon to Tirana for processing out at the Peace Corps office. This involves three days of paper work, exams, and exit interviews with various staff. It seems I neglected to submit one of the required reports at some time along the way. I had not been notified about it. I might even have done it, but I had cleaned my computer of any extraneous files before giving it away and so I had to complete the report again. You can just imagine how thrilled I was at that prospect. I may have set a record for the most superficially completed government document, but, who reads that stuff, anyway.

The interviews covered a few routine areas. I was asked a few times if I had any suggestions. Being me, of course I do. I think it would be beneficial for the oldsters to have their own language group to improve language learning, since our style tends to differ significantly from the youngsters. I think a mentoring system would be more useful than volunteer visits during PST. This would entail having a successful volunteer in the same discipline visit the new volunteer in site for a week or so, to help solve initial problems and then keep in touch as an ongoing resource for the new volunteer as they settle into the new routines of work and life in Albania. I have a lot of suggestions for the Peace Corps in Washington about how they handle significant injuries. Their case management leaves a lot to be desired. That explains a lot of the bad press they have had recently. It is not only a disservice to the volunteers, but ends up producing worse outcomes and increased costs. I am willing to offer my personal expertise for improvement, but I doubt if it would be accepted. In any event, it is a separate matter than providing feedback to the country staff, which is quite apart from headquarters in DC.

I was also asked what accomplishment I was most proud of. That’s a hard one. I know I could have accomplished a lot more. But that is more of an epitaph than an answer. I did a lot of things. How useful they will prove to be, I don’t know. I ran into a few of the kids from my Life Skills classes a few days before I left. They told me how much they appreciated what I had taught. I had the same experience with the home care nurses. I am not sure that anything I did at my primary assignment at the health department will make much difference. The work most likely to make a difference is my work with Isufi and the Shoqata. He is already independently and appropriately using the equipment I brought back and trained him on. I am especially hopeful for the recent grant which will enable collaboration between therapists in Korce and therapists in Boise. It has surely been done before, but it has potential to improve services in Albania. It cost hardly anything to set up and our tests of the system went well. I have to pray some irreparable virus doesn’t consume his computer.

Another question was what I had gotten out of my experience. Again, I’m not sure what will prove significant. Certainly, I now know a lot more about Albania than I did before, which was mainly where to find it on a map (more than some of my friends who thought it was in Africa). I have lots of new friends, both Albanian and other volunteers. The main thing, though, I think I can best express by the analogy of a record needle stuck in a groove. Before I came here I was in a bit of a rut. A very pleasant rut to be sure, with good friends, a good job, a comfortable home and lots of fun activities to keep me occupied, but a rut, nonetheless. I think that spending two years in Albania has nudged the machinery. I am not sure what comes next, but I am looking forward to hearing how the record ends.

Just today, I had an email from a group of pilots from England who are planning an aviation adventure flying light aircraft along the Dalmatian coast. They had some questions about Albania. I really wish I were going to be here when they come through and would love to facilitate a landing at the grass strip near Korca. If I were here, I would organize a team to clean up the strip, put up a wind sock, mark the perimeter and welcome them properly. As it is, I gave them what limited information I have and referred them to the main, and only, airport in Tirana. I gave them the phone number of an Albanian who might help them. It is time for me to head for home.

Circle of the Peace Corps

On Sunday afternoon I received a phone call from Tirana asking me to host one of the new volunteers from Group 14 for his site visit. This is the few days allowed to see your future city or village and meet with your counterparts in your assigned work before the end of pre-service training and swearing in as a full-fledged Peace Corps volunteer. I was happy to comply, but it did seem a bit unusual. I was only two weeks from leaving Korca and would not even be in the country when he started work at the end of the month. Also, he is an English teacher, while I am in health education. Then I learned the two other volunteers from Korca were at meetings in the capital. I was the only volunteer available.

Late Tuesday morning, he sent an SMS that he had arrived. I was not expecting him until the afternoon and was in the middle of talking with a young woman who had just been given a probable diagnosis of a terminal disease. I gave him directions to the main hotel in the center of town and asked him to wait in the lobby until I could get away. I hope the woman did not feel rushed and that I answered all her questions despite my limited language proficiency. I am not sure she understood how dire her prognosis was. Maybe she could allay some of her fears by attributing them to miscommunication. In any event, I excused myself from the clinic for the rest of the day and walked over to the Hotel Grand Palace.

We took his large bag over to Dr. Isufi’s office to leave it until the other volunteers returned, so he could store it until June. Then we walked up the hill to my apartment. I made some lunch and then I showed him around the city. I bought some fresh veggies and some bread at my favorite bakery. For dinner we had a stir fry. We walked up the hill to the cross the next morning and then he went off to the University where he will work and I headed to Isufi’s. That afternoon I took him to meet Iris. I am hoping he will continue with her and keep her tutoring unbroken since Group 6. That evening he went to the championship soccer match between Korca and Elbasan and I was taken out for another going away dinner.

Thursday morning was rainy and I didn’t go up the mountain. My guest slept in and I headed to a conference, where the nurse educators I work with were presenting their report on a series of round table meetings held in the region on the health needs of women and children. This had been done through an EU sponsored program. In the afternoon, I helped some people from the Public Health Department watch a lecture on an air pollution and health study done at the Beijing Olympics. We were able to watch it live on the internet from the University of Rochester in New York. It was a good lecture and a topic that my counterparts are very interested in, but, unfortunately, the webcast had many features that required more bandwidth than is available in Korca, especially in the afternoon when the teens get out of school and hit the internet cafes for Facebook and gaming. The lecture stream was frequently interrupted and had to be reloaded. Fortunately, I had downloaded the slides previously and translated enough of them for the small group to follow pretty well.

After that, I had my last meeting with the Aviation Interest Club of Korca at the American library. The kids had done a flight plan as a project and flew it on Flight Simulator on the computer which had been previously donated to the library, but is not used much. To my amazement, the “flight” was flawless. They found their check points and navigation aids. The destination airport appeared on the screen. The descent check list was completed, the airplane was slowed to approach speed, the flaps and landing gear lowered, the plane touched down and came to a stop on the runway. I was so impressed I felt like tearing their t-shirts off them, writing their name and the date on them and posting them on the library wall. This is the traditional commemoration of a pilot’s first solo.

That night the other volunteers had returned and we got together at a favorite pizzeria. I was not feeling well, probably from overeating the night before, and headed home early. They went out to orient the new volunteer to some of the night spots in Korca. There was a huge political rally going on in the square in front of the theater, complete with bands, search lights and fireworks, that went on longer than the celebratory fireworks that followed Skanderbeu’s, Korca’s soccer team, championship victory the night before.

Friday, the weather was better and we were able to walk to the chapel on the hillside and return through Mborje, the village just east of Korca, a scenic loop of a little over an hour. I went back for the second day of the conference and at the coffee break helped the new volunteer move his bag to one of the other volunteers who will still be here when he returns. Isufi was at the conference although the discussion groups didn’t cover any topics related to disability. One point he did make was that the Association for Physical Benefit was able to do many things for itself and he thought this was a good model for improving healthcare in other situations by empowering the patients and not wasting resources on the usual top down bureaucracy. This idea was not well received. After all, the conference was sponsored by the EU and run by the Public Health Department. He was probably the only private health care provider in attendance. A doctor from Azerbaijan represented the EU. She works in Tirana, administering the program in Albania. She told me she had previously been a Peace Corps medical officer and was pleased to see someone from the Peace Corps at the meeting.

I had my last class with my visually impaired student. He is in college now, and probably doesn’t need to continue. Even so, I had previously introduced the new volunteer to his family. His father is now teaching at the University and should be a good contact for him.

Local elections are being held around the country tomorrow. The candidate of the ruling national party has spent a lot in Korca, with multiple offices in each neighborhood, lots of posters and banners, and young people driving cars around town as they wave flags and honk their horns. A sound truck with Tirana license plates drives up and down the streets carrying large billboards and playing a recording promoting the candidate. This has not been matched by the other candidates and I am a bit worried by the imbalance. The safety officer has asked volunteers to steer clear of the offices and rallies and to avoid travel around the country on the day before and after the election. I hope the elections go smoothly and that observers from the EU, the US and elsewhere can certify a free and fair election.

I am spending Election Day with Iris and her family on a hike and picnic in the mountains; another event in my continuing going away partying. I made brownies to bring along as a contribution, but I am sure they will be superfluous. This being Albania, I wonder how we will be able to carry all the food. We are meeting at 6 AM in front of their home to begin walking.

Peace Corps Potlatch

As I rode the furgon to and from Tirana this week, it seemed that about half the streets in Albania are torn up and being repaired. The new pocket park in the empty lot between apartment buildings near my home was recently finished. Water and electricity service are noticeably more reliable. It is no coincidence. Local elections are scheduled of the first week of May. I asked a friend if he thought it would be good if they could have elections year round. He said they had to pay for all of this after the elections and that the increased spending also meant increased payoffs through the various levels of corruption. He didn’t think it was so great.

I had to go to Tirana to have my eye seen by a doctor. I had tripped on the stairs at the nursing school where I teach a class. I did a face plant at the bottom. There was a fair amount of blood and lots of bruises on my face, chest, left arm and right leg. They crowded around, but I was able to get away from the surge of helpful students. I limped home and stopped the bleeding with a butterfly bandage and some pressure. I sat for awhile with ice over my eye. Ibuprofen was pretty effective. Nothing was broken and my vision seemed ok, so I got on with my work. I took it easy for a couple of days, but then the eye began to show signs of infection.

Pilots tend to be pretty cavalier about their health, but anything that might potentially ground them sends them running to the nearest clinic, preferably one that does not keep good records. Luckily, I don’t have to worry about the FAA on this one, as there was no abrasion of the cornea and the infection seems to be clearing with the prescribed antibiotic drops from the Peace Corps medical officer. Maybe I just did this in sympathy with Catherine.

I asked the country director if he thought the older volunteers were more fragile or more accident prone. He said no and that he had just had to send one of the young new volunteers home from pre-service training with a broken leg. All of the volunteers in my service group who are over the age of 50 have had health issues or injuries. Half have been medically separated from the Peace Corps.

I think the problem is that as we age we get used to our routines and supportive environment in our home community. Youngsters are not so enmeshed. Also, the Peace Corps medical services are very centralized in the country of service and the world, so any need for care pulls the volunteer out of the community and sometimes out the Peace Corps. In that, the treatment philosophy is like the military which relies of quick medical evacuation of wounded troops for comprehensive care. Unfortunately it is also the most psychologically stressful. Proximity of treatment and the maintenance of routines are techniques which the military has evolved to try to avoid secondary problems from “battle fatigue”. The Peace Corps does not seem to understand this and some of the problems I have heard of in the treatment of volunteers who have been medically separated and seen with Catherine’s care and other volunteers from my group may be a result of this. In her case, the disruption of waking up in London and then being plunked down in Tucson with an uncertain status and without a structured plan of treatment has been almost as stressful for her as recovering from the injury itself.

For me, my neighbors and Albanian friends called frequently and came by to visit. They brought gifts of food and probably would have brought raki, as well, if I drank alcohol. Actions of that sort seem to be reflexive among Albanians. Of course, I had to serve coffee and cookies to my visitors. Luckily, I have a pretty good stock in my pantry and my wonderful drip coffee maker allowed me to make coffee despite my physical impairments. I had to retell the story of my injury many times as my listeners intoned, “Bo, bo, bo, bo”, which is the shqip expression of sympathy. We would shake hands, hug with air kisses to both cheeks, and they would wish me “te shkuara” as they left. I would head back to my sofa and ice pack for a few minutes before the next group arrived at the door. I was also offered all manner of folk remedies, but I think I will limit the treatment of my eye to the prescribed eye drops, thank you.

Both before and after my misadventure, I have had visits from other Peace Corps volunteers to put dibs on my stuff. It is embarrassing how much I have accumulated in just two years, but a PC tradition is to pass it on to those remaining in the country. I wanted to give the volunteers in Korca first pick. One, from a previous group, who has returned to live in Korca because of an Albanian boyfriend, even recognized some of her stuff among my belongings, although she admitted a few items had been passed to her from her predecessors. The coffee maker will go to a volunteer who frequently has multiple houseguests passing through Korca. The matching dishes (service for 6) will go to another volunteer who likes to cook and entertain. Markers and crayons, and, especially, 3 by 5 cards are valued for teaching project. Good books are always passed around. I have some board games; Monopoly, Risk, Scrabble, and Twister. No one was particularly interested in Furgon Driver. There is not much novelty in something you live with every day. My oven thermometer, sewing kit, iron on patches for jeans, feather duster, and my large roll of duct tape elicited anticipatory cries.

My worn clothes will be given to the Catholic sisters for distribution in their work with the Roma community, although my coat, gloves and ski hat will go to Isufi and Macha for use at Bigell. My computer and associated paraphernalia are going to the older boy from Thane where I lived during PST (sadly, the boys never did get to Korca for a visit). I plan to travel pretty light on my way home and I hope not to have to ship anything.

The swelling on my face seemed to subside pretty quickly and the bruises almost look like a port-wine birthmark. People in Albania are very tolerant of abnormalities of appearance. They rarely seem to have benign growths removed from their face or neck. Large goiters are common. Noticeable limb abnormalities never seem to evoke a second look. I have been told it is part of the culture to accept “God’s will”, but maybe it is also because many are relatives or from large enough families that any disrespect would be avenged. I continued with my usual activities and even used my injury as a visual aid for a first aid lesson in my high school life skills class.

On Friday evening there was a string quartet recital at the Kultural Palace. They were from Tirana and played works by Mozart and Debussy. It was quite good and I noticed two things that were new to my experience in Albania. First, no cell phones went off during the entire performance. There were still noisy interruptions, however, as young people in cars, with political party flags flying, raced up and down the city streets, honking horns in support of their candidates. Second, after prolonged applause from the audience, the group played an encore.

Potential

Just a couple of weeks into their pre-service training, the new group of volunteers that arrived in Albania in mid-March were sent to visit current volunteers throughout the country. Three came to Korca. They all will work in community development, so they were placed with the two volunteers in the city who work in that area. I joined them for dinner one night.

They are all young, eager and well educated; typical Peace Corps volunteers. I think there are only two over age 50 among the new arrivals. They all had the usual reasons for volunteering. They all seemed happy with their host families around Elbasan. They all seemed a bit frustrated and confused with the language and culture. After dinner they went to a new recreation center for young people. It was recently opened by the city government in the upstairs of a restored 19th century building. I checked it out, and they had done a nice job fixing the space, but it was loud and crowded. I left before my ears were too painful.

I offered to show them the trail to the top of the mountain, but they thought my usual 7:30 am start time on weekends was a bit too early, so I headed up the road to the cross by myself. There were lots of people out since it was a fine spring morning. I saw many of the regulars and we exchanged greetings.

It has warmed up considerably recently. We have had sunshine a few days in a row and temperatures have climbed into the upper 50’s. Daffodils and dandelions are blooming and fruit trees are in blossom; seems like it happened overnight. My neighbors across the alley from my kitchen window have spread out a large collection of shoes and sneakers which they are offering for sale (one seldom sees used household items or furniture, but used clothing is for sale everywhere in Albania). Several families came by to try on a pair or two and I could overhear lively discussions as to price and desirability. I don’t know how long this improvised shoe store will continue. The little general store which my other neighbors ran in their modified garage for years, recently closed when the government mandated that all such stores had to have electronic cash registers that could automatically calculate sales tax (20%). Most of shops like this only make a few dollars a day, and can’t justify the expenditure of a few hundred dollars for the required machine, so there has been a spate of closures around town. I have heard that in other cities, where the enforcement has been lax or the officials more readily paid off, this has not yet occurred.

My Peace Corps experience is limited to Albania, but I have worked in missionary projects in Vietnam and Mexico and have seen the same thing. When a market opens up, entrepreneurial people will jump at the chance to participate. It is only when it is closed by corruption or safety concerns or limited by transportation or other infrastructural needs that it fails to flourish, and even then, there is usually some attempt at commerce.

It seems to me that the best thing we can do for a developing country is to provide market opportunities. Isn’t that really what has helped China develop? Much of the West has provided markets for goods produced by inexpensive Chinese labor and the US Navy provides security for ocean transport. I sometimes think that providing money to a corrupt administration just incentivizes that element of society that finds it easier to steal than to create. That money can come from foreign aid, or from exploitation of natural resources, or from trafficking in drugs, women or children.

The Peace Corps, of course, gives young, eager, well intentioned and, mostly, inexperienced volunteers to do…what? It seems we hang out among “the people” for a couple of years and teach English or health topics or write grants (at least that is the menu in Albania); nothing there to motivate the kleptocracy that rules much of the developing world. I am not sure exactly how it fits into any model of foreign aid. Some projects I have seen do seem to have potential, like the cross border project between Macedonia and Albania to stimulate a garment production industry. The community development volunteer in Korca has been busy with that and seems to be accomplishing something.

The effects of my projects seem more nebulous. Dr. Isufi is making great progress in his training. He is a quick study and eagerly reads through any material I provide. Our course is frequently interrupted by people just barging into the clinic room where we work. One day it kind of got to me, but Isuf just shrugged his shoulders and said, “It is Albania”.

Work with the environmental test equipment at the public health department has been slower. One day we spent an hour learning to turn the apparatus on and off. There is a button on the gadget that is pretty clearly marked as a power switch, but I had difficulty getting that concept across. After we finally achieved consistent performance, we all went out for coffee to celebrate. Later this week we will tackle storing data and downloading it to a computer for analysis. I am working hard to figure out how to present this. Given the problems we have had, I am not optimistic we will accomplish much except consuming prodigious amounts of caffeine.

My life skills class at high school is going ok. My co-teacher is away in the US, having a baby there to procure the child an American passport. I am not confident she will return. There may be another teacher to take the class when I leave, but it will likely revert to the passive pedagogical practice that characterizes the system here. I doubt that the more active curriculum I developed last year will persist in any form, so this time I am doing lesson plans that conform more closely to the textbook. I am also being stricter with the kids if they are disruptive. Isufi has told me repeatedly that when I go home I will be part Albanian. Perhaps he is right.

Catherine continues to spin her wheels in Arizona. Really, except for her evaluations she probably could have done her rehab here in Albania and received a more active program. Fortunately, her clever nephew had the idea to look up computer programs used by the VA for returning Iraqi and Afghan war vets with brain injury. The two of them went down to the local computer store and purchased a couple for Catherine to work on. He works at a Walgreens, and I know Americans often go to the drug store to inquire after over the counter remedies. Catherine is also going to a local gym to participate in an exercise class. Maybe “do-it-yourself” rehab is what the PC had in mind all along. At least there will be no impediment to her continuing this when she heads back home to rural Oklahoma.

In spite of this, I still think she has the potential for a pretty good, if not complete recovery. Unfortunately, it will not be in time for her to return to Europe for our post PC travel plans. Right now I am not confident she will be able even to do the US part of our plans, so I have checked into changing our tickets to shorten my travel time alone and get myself home to Idaho. It is amazing how little credit the airlines give you when you have to change your travel plans. The US portion of our tickets actually cost almost twice as much to change as to buy entirely new tickets with another airline. Europe is more regulated, so I don’t think it will be too bad if I use the value of Catherine’s ticket to come back home a bit earlier, although I have offered it for free to any of the other volunteers in my group who is willing to pay the transfer fee.

This is not the finale I had envisioned for my two years of service, but, I suppose it will have to do. I have been working on my “Final Site Evaluation” document, one of many that is required at end of service (I have learned of this piecemeal, since I missed the classes on this held at the Close of Service conference when I was in London). There are four categories for projects: finished, unfinished, abandoned, and just an idea (never started, but has potential). I have had my share of all of these, and for a lot more in life than just the Peace Corps.

Old Woman Days

I remember hiking in the mountains a while ago with another volunteer, who remarked how dry the winter had been. I reminded him that a few months prior most of the country had been flooded to the extent that several of the volunteers had to be evacuated from coastal cities. He replied that yes, but since then it had been very dry. It was a day that was sunny, but cold. The snow underfoot had a dry, crunchy feel. He often comes out with proclamations of this sort and I know from experience there is no point getting into a discussion on the topic.

Anyway, I have thought about that more than a few times the past couple of weeks. It has been consistently cold and rainy. Each morning when I look up at the mountains to the east with the thought of a walk towards the cross, I am put off by the fog, clouds and virga swirling along the route to the top. I crawl back into my down sleeping bag for a few minutes extra sleep before I force myself to get up and do my exercise routine. I carry my umbrella as I walk around the city and may actually get to use it if the wind isn’t blowing too hard. Otherwise I pull the hood up on my Gortex shell over my Polartec jacket. Since the inside of an Albanian building may not be any warmer than outside, I am grateful for modern textiles.

I mentioned that the weather was not very spring-like and Isufi explained that these cold, wet days were called “dita e plaka” (old woman days) that come at the vernal equinox as a harbinger of the good weather to follow. He suggested drinking raki as an antidote to the cold. This was not a big surprise since raki is widely prescribed by Albanians as a panacea for all things internal and external. Since I don’t drink, I guess I’ll just have to rely on layered clothing.

Catherine, in Tucson, has complained about the heat and aridity. I try to be sympathetic, but I’d bet it sounds feigned. She is finally undergoing evaluation at Barrows. She sat around without much direction for almost a month and it is progressing so slowly that even if everything comes out perfect she is unlikely to be able to complete it before I finish in Albania. I have delayed my planned close of service date by about a week and I will have to figure out what I will do with the plane tickets that I already purchased. I have some friends from the high school where I teach who are planning a trip to Montenegro and Croatia and I will likely go with them, continuing on by myself to Slovenia, Hungary, Austria and Germany. The flight from Berlin to New York leaves mid June.

There are several things that need to be done before I leave Albania. All volunteers have to write a Description of Service report. The hardest thing for me in writing this will be selecting among all the various activities I have engaged with in Korca. This is supposed to be an important document for returned Peace Corps volunteers to be used for future employment or grad school. I am not looking to go back to grad school yet again (I have had plenty, thank you) and I doubt that my Peace Corps service will be much of a factor in my prospects for future employment. I am thinking of going back to at least part time work, since I think I would be bored just sitting around and there are some things I talked about with some folks when I was home visiting that sounded interesting. I also know there are plenty of volunteer service needs back home in Idaho.

I am fortunate in that. Some of the young volunteers are pretty scared about the job market back home. Friends of mine, who left Albania early because she needed “emergency” knee surgery, have been in limbo, still waiting after months for authorization for the surgery and not able to leave their family to widen the employment options for him and she can’t start a new job and then be out for extended physical therapy. It seems like sending people home after illness or injury without any direction or support is a Peace Corps pattern. That was one of the complaints voiced by the former volunteers in the television piece about dangers of Peace Corps service, and another volunteer I know, who went home after emergency abdominal surgery in Albania, also has complaints about the medical follow up provided for her. I don’t understand what the Peace Corps’ problem is with this. It really isn’t that hard to do a good job and it saves money in the long run, not to mention avoids embarrassing publicity. Maybe it is just another sign of inherent bureaucratic incompetence.

As is apparently a typical experience for volunteers, some of my counterparts have reacted to the sudden realization that I am leaving soon by thinking up lots of new projects they would like to do before I leave. I have politely declined most of the suggestions and have made clear for those that I have accepted that I am leaving in less than two months, no matter where we might be in these activities. I also have things I will need to do in preparation for leaving, and those will get priority. I would bet that they will have to be reminded of this when I pack up and pull out. They have already asked me who is coming to replace me. I don’t know. That is, as we say, above my pay grade. I am just a volunteer after all.

That is not to say that I will not miss my many Albanian friends. Every day a dozen or so walk up to me and ask about Catherine and ask me to give her their good wishes. The other volunteers in Permet have told me that they cannot walk down the street without being stopped repeatedly for the same reason. The documents from the close of service conference talk about readjustment problems for return Peace Corps volunteers. One that I read mentions volunteers feeling special and loved by a service community and that young volunteers miss that feeling when they return home. However run down or trashy your neighborhood might be, it is home with a daily routine that one has grown accustomed to. At this point, it is no longer stressful and it is the prospect of the high speed, high stress pace of American life that is daunting. It will probably be easier for an oldster like me who does not face prospects of a difficult economy or grad school that the youngsters do.

Also, among the conference documents is also a close of service check list. It is pretty long and I need to get started if I am to get through it in the seven weeks I have left. That seems like hardly any time at all. First though, I am looking forward to the promised good weather to resume my daily morning walks up the mountain. It really helps me keep things in perspective and focus on the tasks at hand.

Fshati

It seems that most of my friends in Korca have some attachment to a village (fshat) somewhere in the region. They may still have relatives living there or even own an old house and a garden. They prize the apples or figs from their trees and opine that the wine or raki, made from their grapes or berries, is the best in the country. The air and water are better there. Palo and Moza, my landlords, go to Dardhe. Fehmi has a place in Kapshtica, outside of the small city of Bilisht. Isufi has Bigell. I go to see my host family in Thane.

I had promised Catherine’s host family and my family that I would visit as soon as I could after I got back from London. It was the only way to stop them from phoning constantly. Last weekend there was snow and ice on the road over the Qafe e Thane, the pass over the mountain between Lake Ohrid and the Skumbin River that flows from huge springs under the Qafe e Thane through the center of the country, including Elbasan. This weekend warmed up a bit and the road was dry. I took the bus on Saturday morning.

Monday was also the Muslim Dita e Veres, summers day and a national holiday. Elbasan is predominantly Muslim and has a festival that draws a crowd from all over the country. There was a stage set up on the boulevard in front of the castle in central Elbasan. Music- traditional Albanian, rock, rap, Brazilian and more blared over the loud speakers. There were so many people pushing and shoving in the throng that surged around the stage that it felt like what passes for a line at the post office. Ballakume, the traditional cookie for Dita e Veres, were on sale everywhere. Over the weekend the price dropped from 110 lek to 80 lek.

On Saturday night, a large group of volunteers, mostly from Group 13, but a couple from my group 12, met at an Elbasan volunteer’s home for green curry rice and vegetables. Albanian food is wholesome and fresh but tends to be pretty bland. One of the volunteers had received the curry spice in a care package from home. It was a welcome change.

Sunday morning I took the old Udhetari (travelers) bus that I rode so often during PST out to Thane. My host mother was working in the carrot patch in her garden as I walked up to the house. Her older son was sleeping up stairs, the younger son was playing with friends, her husband was working in Greece and her mother-in-law was visiting her son who works in Italy and lives there with his family (the recent easing of the visa requirements for Albanians to visit eurozone countries has let her go there twice since November).

She called her older boy down. He has been studying English at the Turkish college he attends in Cerrik, a small city just beyond Thane. He is actually getting pretty good. The younger boy has filled out a lot and is still very athletic. He had been playing soccer with his buddies and had been called home to see me. She served coffee and fruit and then went to work making homemade ballakume with fresh eggs from her hens, hand churned butter from cream she milked from her cows that morning, and corn meal from her harvest last summer. The sugar was from beets grown elsewhere in Albania, although I suppose she could have used honey from her hives as a sweetener instead. In less than 20 minutes they were served hot from the oven and were much better than any I have eaten previously.

Her sister and her two young daughters came over from next door. Jesika, who is now 9, was the one with whom I played “Tjeter” (other) to find words for various categories of nouns when I was first learning Albanian. Her younger sister, Vanesa, has also grown a lot. I was pleased that she remembered me, although I had been told that she frequently asked where I was when I left for Korca after PST. We all chatted easily (my Albanian is not as good as some of the younger volunteers who by now speak fluently and are hard to distinguish from native speakers, but I can carry on a conversation). They asked about Catherine, of course, and talked about the volunteers they had from group 13 and the new ones they expect next weekend as Group 14 is due to arrive to begin Pre-service Training on Wednesday.

Liri, Catherine’s host mother stopped in as she had heard that I was in the village. I assured her I was coming there next. My host mother insisted that this would be after dreken (lunch). She served meat and vegetable soup, salad, yoghurt and homemade bread to us all. A short time afterwards I headed a few blocks away to visit Comeri and Liri and their family.

Of course, coffee and homemade ballakume were served. I had to argue forcefully that no, I did not want to eat lunch again, and was having a hard time getting down yet another ballakume, no matter how good they were. That seemed to satisfy Liri, although she did give me a few to take with me. I apologized to Comeri that he had not been shown the respect he deserved when he had come to the hospital in Tirana to see Catherine. He seemed to accept that and appreciate the apology, which, in itself, was a sign of respect. This family was not having another volunteer stay with them, although this was attributed to an upcoming wedding for the next daughter who had recently been engaged and not to any hard feelings towards the Peace Corps.

We talked a lot about Catherine as they are very close to her. Aldi, the older of my host family’s boys, offered to help them Skype with Catherine from a village lokal that has internet. I thought the coffee shop in Thane had really progressed when they stopped butchering cows in the middle of the room while you were drinking your coffee, but now they have a computer with a web cam. Things are changing quickly in Albania, even in Thane.

I walked back over to my host family’s house. Several people from the village came outside to say hello, including Beni, my host family’s nephew who looks like the Fonz. I enjoyed talking with him, although he is not working and spends his days hanging out at the lokal. I think my family is not happy with him. He tried to sneak into Greece to get work, but was caught and sent back. Apparently, he has not done much since.

I did extract a promise from my host mother that she would send the two boys to Korca for a couple of days next week. There is a school holiday for Sultan Nevruz. I have off from Preka as well and would love to show them Korca. They have never visited there before, even though it is less than 100 miles from Elbasan. I had given them money for the furgon ride before and next week would be a great opportunity as there is also not a lot of farm work right now. They were excited at the prospect, although their mother complained that she would be lonely without them. One of their neighbors is a furgon driver between Elbasan and Korca and she plans to send them with him. I think they may actually come.

Besides Dita e Veres, Monday was my two year anniversary in the Peace Corps. Although the term of service is technically 27 months and my official close of service date is May 27th, volunteers in my group can leave early with the permission of the country director. This is usually related to school or job opportunities. Some in my group are starting graduate programs. A few are going to teaching or training programs in Europe or Asia. Sometimes health issues are involved. One couple is leaving for graduate school and she is pregnant. Even if she has a speedy and full recovery, as we continue to hope, Catherine would not likely be allowed to return to Albania as a volunteer. What is not clear at this point is whether she will have a medical discharge or just close her service in the US. She is scheduled for an evaluation at a well respected treatment program in Phoenix and we are hoping, at least, for answers to our many questions regarding recommended therapy and prognosis.

I have not yet set a close of service date. I have enough unused leave that I can close anytime in May, or even a bit before if I want, but I am committed to working with Isufi and Jani and teaching my Life Skills class while the main teacher is off on maternity leave. I will probably shorten my travel through Europe to just a few cities I would like to see before I head home. I already have our tickets from Berlin in mid-June and I am not sure how easy they are to change. I was supposed to set a date at the Close of Service conference that I missed while I was in London. The staff has been very understanding and has not pressed me for a decision as we all anxiously wait for information from Arizona.

Back in Korca

Thursday morning I watched Catherine and her sister get into a London cab and drive off to Heathrow. The Peace Corps was flying them first class to Dallas, with a connection to Tucson. She has done remarkably well and the rate of early recovery is the best prognostic sign for brain injury. We have good reason to be hopeful. The latest plan was for her to see a doctor in Tucson early the following week and then request a referral to Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix for a comprehensive assessment.

I walked around Kensington Park for the rest of the day and then took the Underground to Heathrow for my flight. I had scheduled to fly through Rome and then on to Tirana. Flights in that direction had some problems, perhaps related to the evacuations from Libya. I had to rearrange my flights but, after spending the night on a bench in Terminal 4, was able to leave early the next morning on a flight to Rome with a close connecting flight. The flight was slightly delayed and then parked on the ramp, so we had to be bused to the terminal. I raced through security and then to the departure gate where we boarded another bus. We were taken to a plane almost next to the one on which I had arrived. I had hoped my inbound flight would park near my connecting flight. I have to be more specific on what I wish for.

I caught the bus from Mother Teresa International to the city center and then walked to the Peace Corps office. I walked past the dentist’s office and tried to figure out where Catherine had been hit. There were so many potential places. As one rides on buses or furgons through Albania one see many marble shrines to mark places where people have been killed in accidents. They usually have a name, dates, a photograph and some artificial flowers. One can see similar, but makeshift, markers along roads in Idaho.

I spoke with the country director and other staff that had been so helpful following Catherine’s accident. I thanked them for their support and understanding. It almost made up for the bad experience I had with the nurse that came out to London from the Peace Corps office in DC. I tried to take care of some of the administrative items from the Close of Service conference that had been held in Korca while I was away. Maybe it was jet lag, but when I tried to open the files I downloaded at the office in Tirana, my computer wouldn’t cooperate. Maybe I’ll figure it out when I catch up on my sleep.

I had phone calls and texts from friends, both volunteer and Albanian. Now that I was back in Albania and knew they wouldn’t be exorbitantly charged, I took the calls and thanked them for their concern. I promised to visit Catherine’s host family as soon as I could. When I walked into my apartment, I found a banner above the kitchen door from all the volunteers who were at Close of Service conference. It was covered with notes welcoming me home and wishing Catherine a quick recovery. There was even a cut out of a jet. How appropriate.

Saturday morning, I sorted through the large bag that the Peace Corps staff had left in my apartment with all the pieces of the medical machine I had brought back for Dr. Isufi. He arranged for his son to drive to my apartment and bring it to his office. In the afternoon, after assembling the pieces with glue and tape, we plugged it in. Much to my amazement it worked and successfully went through the set up test program. The French baggage handlers that had dropped kicked the box marked “fragile” across the tarmac in Paris had been thwarted by tough, US made construction. We went out for coffee to celebrate, but I begged off a celebratory dinner. I needed sleep more than food. Also, we still have to make sure it functions correctly, so a celebration is a bit premature.

On Sunday morning, I met the volunteer from Bilisht who is leaving early. She has been a good friend of Catherine and me, and it was sad to see her off on the furgon to Tirane. After that, I walked to the church where I met my friends from Preka School and the group of nuns who have also been such good friends. I thanked them for all their support and prayers. We have a lot to be thankful for.

The afternoon was sunny and bright and not too cold. Another volunteer from Korca and I hiked up the road to Mborja, a village east of Korca, and along a gravel road by a creek in a canyon leading into the mountains. We doubled back along a side canyon, through a shallow covering of snow under a grove of pine trees, and clambered up to the ridge where the cross overlooks Korca. We walked back along the paved road in the late afternoon. Benny, the caretaker at St. Theodor’s, a small orthodox church I frequently visit on my morning walks up the mountain, was working on the grounds. When he saw me he ran out to the road to enthusiastically welcome me back. I showed the interior to the other volunteer. It has some of my favorite icons in Albania and, thanks to Benny, it is well maintained.

Later in the evening, I met my friend Lawrence for coffee. Even though he is from Malta, he appears to have picked up some Albanian customs from his long tenure in Korca, so, of course, it involved a meal as well. I may be wrong. Malta is part of the Levant and may have its own, similar, tradition of hospitality. They are certainly taking in thousands of refugees from Libya, including hundreds of Americans that were recently brought there by ferry from Tripoli.

Monday, I went to the health education office at the Directorate of Public Health. The nurses and lab technicians I work with all asked about Catherine and wished her the traditional wish for a speedy recovery, which, in Albanian is “te shkuare”, that is, “to be as you were in the past”. That seems both an apt and difficult wish.

I also learned that my nurse counterpart was enthusiastic about going to a meeting in Tirana on Tuesday at the Ministry of Health. This was planned to honor the work of Peace Corps health education volunteers throughout Albania and to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps. All the volunteers, staff and principal counterparts had been invited. I was hoping she would beg off because she has so much work to do in her home, taking care of her young son, her husband and his parents, as is the responsibility of young Albanian wives. She felt this meeting was a special one, and worth the trip. Although I would rather remain in Korca and work on my projects with Dr. Isufi, Dr. Jani and at the Preka School, it would be awkward for her to be without “her volunteer”. I don’t look forward to another nine hours in furgons to and from Tirana and, yet another night at Fredi’s. Maybe I can also stand in for Catherine with her counterpart nurse from Permet. I know that would please Catherine.

This is London

With a few minor delays we all finally arrived in London. Catherine came by air ambulance, her sister and older daughter by American Airlines from Dallas and me and the younger daughter by British Air from Tirana. Transport from the Gatwick to Kensington was made more interesting by a Monty Pythonesque experience of each information desk person giving conflicting instructions. For example, we were sent back and forth twice between tracks going in opposite directions at Victoria Station and then the tube station where we were told to get off turned out to be wrong. We finally got in a cab and were safely delivered to the hotel the Peace Corps had reserved. The cab driver questioned me if I meant to give him so large a tip. I assured him I did. Since the PC is supposed to be an austere organization and relies so heavily on the internet for communication, it would have been considerate had they booked a hotel that was no quite so expensive or had internet service for less than $15 an hour extra, but at least it was walking distance from the hospital. We all settled into our rooms and then headed over to the ICU at Cromwell Hospital.

England is much more liberal than Albania for visiting hours and they were also much more aggressive in getting Catherine awake and off the ventilator. They changed her to short acting medications and, after repeating the CT Scan the next morning, began to taper sedation. Catherine showed some worrisome signs of increased tone and posturing which I later found out were likely due to the medications, but then opened her eyes and began breathing. Soon the endotracheal tube was removed and she was talking. Much to my relief, she remembered who I was. By afternoon she was taking a few bites of food and sips of coffee and sitting up briefly in a bedside chair.

On Saturday morning the rest of her tubes were removed and she was transferred out of the ICU to a private room on a locked ward. She was mostly talking appropriately, but a bit confused, confabulating and impulsive. Still, her underlying charming self was evident, as she was smiling, joking and enthusiastic. She had some mild difficulties with balance and coordination. Physical and respiratory therapies were continuing, but occupational and speech therapy did not work weekends at this hospital and she would not be seen for evaluation until Monday. This is where going to a hospital more specialized in brain injury would have been beneficial, but at this point, it is not causing any significant problem. I would like her to get a thorough evaluation rather than gloss over any deficits, since these are better attended to early on rather than trying to be remediated after they create untoward complications. The nurse from the PC office in DC does not seem to agree with that, but I don’t think it is an unreasonable request. She has made it clear that because I am not family, I really don’t have any say in the matter. Maybe it is too much to ask that since I am also a Peace Corps volunteer who has been affected by this accident, she might have some duty to be a bit more considerate of my feelings, but I can’t fault her for being focused on Catherine. We all should be. Whatever, we’ll see what Catherine’s attending neurosurgeon thinks, although I haven’t seen him around since yesterday morning. I think he has been busy with surgery at another hospital.

Catherine was pretty upset at waking up outside of Albania, but seems to be accepting the fact that her Peace Corps service is completed. I expect that when she is well enough to travel on commercial airlines, with her daughter and sister as escort, she will be transported stateside for whatever rehabilitative care she requires. If I am able to weigh in on the decision, it will be in a program of the highest competence and reputation. When that is accomplished, I plan to head back to Korca to finish up my projects. If Catherine does well enough, maybe she can fly back to Albania to say a proper “mirupafshim” to her many Albanian friends and her fellow volunteers and PC Albania staff. Maybe that is a lot to hope for, but the fact that I can consider it at all seems nothing short of a miracle.

Reanimacioni

I had planned to write this next post about the Close of Service conference which is scheduled in Korca next week. As I said before, plans change. “Reanimacioni” is the Albanian word for Intensive Care. I saw that word for the first time by the elevator in Spitali Hygeia in Tirana on Tuesday evening.

A few minutes after I walked into my apartment in Korca for the first time in more than two weeks, my cell phone rang. It was Fredi, who rents inexpensive rooms to Peace Corps volunteers who stay in Tirana and provides all manner of helpful services for volunteers as they learn to navigate the busy capital city. He told me he had just learned that Catherine had been taken to Military Hospital. This is the hospital that all ambulances take patients to in Tirana. I immediately called the Peace Corps medical officer and was told that she and the country director were on the way to the hospital. I tried to call Catherine. A short while later, the medical officer phoned to say that Catherine had been hit by a car and they were having her transferred to one of the new and well staffed private hospitals in Tirana, Spitali Hygeia. I had noticed the large, modern building when we rode the bus into town on Friday. I think I pointed it out to Catherine. The country director got on the phone and authorized me to leave my site and come to Tirana. That was nice of him, but I was on my way, whatever. I walked past the city center to the furgon stop and caught a ride with the same driver who had driven me from Tirana in the morning.

Several calls on the long ride back told me that Catherine had been hit by a car when crossing a busy street while walking back to Fredi’s from her close of service dentist appointment. The older lady who had hit her had actually stopped to help. This is unusual in Albania where any accident will result in protracted hassles from the police. She had contacted Fredi by calling the last number dialed on the cell phone. Fredi called the Peace Corps office and then called me. At first, she did not seem severely injured, but was confused and combative and then lapsed into coma. Rather than have me take a bus or a cab across Tirana to the hospital, the country director arranged to have a Peace Corps car meet me outside the US Embassy which is on the furgon route into Tirana. This was both worrisome and appreciated.

The Peace Corps programming and training officer was in the car. As we drove to Spitali Hygeia, he told me the Peace Corps office in Washington, DC, was contacting Catherine’s family and would make decisions about medical evacuation, if necessary. He offered to let me stay at his apartment, if I wanted. We met the medical officer and her Albanian assistant at the hospital reception area and took the elevator upstairs. The neurosurgeon spoke with me, and, after gowning and washing our hands with disinfectant, led us in to see Catherine.

It was a scene I have seen many times before, but never from the perspective of a loved one. She was unresponsive with tubes in her nose and mouth. I held her hand and stood there as long as they let me. After half an hour, increasing levels in the chain of command of the ICU nurses asked me to leave. I resisted until the ICU medical director explained that they wanted to limit stimulation and would I please leave now. This seemed a bit strange since stimulation is a main treatment of arousal problems, such as coma. Otherwise the medical care seemed fine. I tried hard not to be confrontational. This is a bit of a stretch for me. Perhaps I have learned something in the Peace Corps. Maybe it is just old age.

The next day, Catherine’s daughter arrived from Germany where she works at a hotel in the Alps. I had only met her once before when she visited Albania before starting her new job. Several of our good friends from our group came to Tirana to offer help and moral support. Many others emailed and texted kind words and a willingness to help in any way needed. Thank you very much, it meant a lot.
Many Albanian friends from Korca , Permet, Thane and Tirana called and some came to the hospital, although few were allowed in to see her. All were shocked and concerned. We have two groups of nuns in Korce and Bolivia, the Precca Society, Greek Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish friends busy praying. We have remarkable coverage. Inshalla, Catherine will have a rapid recovery and be incredibly angry that she was taken out of Albania before she could finish her service. She had planned to travel to Leskovik on Friday to do her breast cancer presentation for a group of women at the medical clinic and then travel on to Korca for the conference.

The Peace Corps office in Washington decided to transfer Catherine to a hospital in London. I don’t know much about this institution, but I have asked knowledgeable friends back home for their opinion. Meanwhile, Catherine moved and responded a bit when they allowed the level of sedation to decrease slightly. Other family members are meeting us in London tomorrow afternoon. We’ll see how things go. I am hopeful, but realistic and considering rehabilitation possibilities in the US. We will have to consider PC preferences, and I have to respect that I am not family and really have no say in the matter.

The day of her transfer, the country director drove us to the hospital for a last visit on the way to the airport. Her site mates from Permet came with us to see us off. Catherine’s host family from Thane was at the hospital, the father, two daughters and a son-in-law. They wanted to see Catherine, even though I had told them repeatedly when I phoned the night before that they would not likely be allowed to see her. I don’t think the authorities realized how close Catherine is with this family or maybe they judged them by their worn clothes, not realizing that they had worn the best clothing they owned. They were obviously hurt and felt a lack of respect that is probably the most significant offense in Albanian culture. This was assuaged by taking the whole group to coffee in the hospital café. There were many toasts to Catherine’s speedy recovery. I promised them we will return to visit them in Thane and made their youngest daughter promise to work hard in school, as Catherine would want. We parted at the hospital entrance and headed off to Mother Teresa International.

The country director was kind enough to grant me administrative leave to follow Catherine through her initial treatment. This is extremely considerate, since, again, I am not family. I have up to 45 days, which saves me from the prospect of early termination. I appreciate that. I have projects that I wanted to complete before leaving Albania, but there are other priorities for now.

A Visit Home

I am posting this because the whole purpose of this blog was to relate my “Peace Corps experience” and my visit home was certainly an important part of that. Anyway, it is mostly written. The next post, however, supersedes this one. The next post supersedes everything.

Pilot lore has a “rule of three”. If three or more glitches occur in the preparation for any flight, a wise pilot puts the plane back in the hangar and launches on another day. Accidents are forged by a chain of events. Break any of the links and disaster may be averted. As they say, “it is much better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than in the air wishing you were on the ground”.

My first trip home in almost two years was in early February. This was timed to allow me to attend a required course to renew my instructor pilot certificate. This is easily done with a two day course, with the stipulation that it be renewed before it expires. Reinstating it after expiration is a bear. I had taken the course just before I left home to join the Peace Corps, but it is only good for two years. A Peace Corps term of service is 27 months. While the course can be taken on-line, the paper work has to be submitted in person so the applicant can be verified by government, picture ID. The Peace Corps allows three “free” leave days related to courses needed to renew professional licenses. Attending the class at home had the added benefit of seeing my old instructor pilot buddies that I have done this biannual requirement with for the past two decades.

I had to leave for Tirana a day early since the protests on the Friday before I left had resulted in three deaths and scores of injured and on the Friday I planned to travel to the airport there was protest of that. The Peace Corps security officer let me know that a “stand fast” order would be in effect on Friday, beginning at 8:30 AM. That meant I had to stay where I was at that time. To comply I had to travel the day before to Tirana and stay the night with a friend in the city. I got on the 8 AM bus from Korca to Tirana. After waiting half an hour, the driver told us there were not enough passengers, so there would be no bus today. The passengers got off the bus and found furgons instead. The next morning I caught the airport bus and loitered for 20 hours until my flight was scheduled to depart. This was probably a good idea for me personally, since my route of travel required me to walk across the center of the city in the middle of the time of the protest. I read a couple of books and had a great meal at the airport café (for about $8. Try that at any other international airport in the world). The custodians at the Tirana airport were very nice about letting me sleep on the benches. At 2:30 AM I was able to check my bags all the way to Boise. My flights to Budapest, then Paris, then Salt Lake, then Boise even left on time.

There was a list of 50 items or so to accomplish. These included everything from meeting with my accountant to go over tax stuff to donating blood. With the help of many friends, I was able to get through most of it. In fact, if I haven’t explicitly said this, Peace Corps service, especially at an advanced age, requires the help of many people back home. These include my trusted friends who have my power of attorney and have sent in tuition checks for a kid in college, signed contracts for rental of my home, made money transfers so I could pay my taxes, and so many other things. I have already mentioned my aviation friends who have supported the Aviation Club of Korca. It continues, mostly to their credit, to the benefit of kids from kindergarten to high school. I have no doubt it is unique in the Balkans, and probably in the Peace Corps, as well. My home librarian helped me get online books on tape and e-books, something that has been invaluable. My banker helped immensely when the arrangements I made before I left proved to be wrong. The people in my former office let me know about important mail and helped me solve many problems. The staff office of my institution helped repeatedly with questions that arose about online access and email. Good friends helped with storage of furniture, boxes of books, clothes, papers and accumulated detritus of 60 years. My old convertible is on blocks in the hangar of a good friend and will be great to drive when I get home next summer. That same friend made sure I had wheels while I was home for my visit. Even my sprinkler guy sends me encouraging emails from time to time. I think the Peace Corps should provide some recognition of partial Peace Corps service for those back home, who make it possible for volunteers to work abroad for 27 months. In my case for sure it is definitely a group effort. If I have not officially thanked all of you, I would like to do so now.

I got in some skiing and some flying and even did a clinic to benefit two worthy local causes (Wilderness Within Reach which flies disabled people to backcountry ranches for a weekend each summer, and ACE Academy put on by the State division of aeronautics to teach high school students about careers in aviation- I wish I could enroll some from the Aviation Club of Korca in that). Dinners and parties were appreciated, and, while it was absolutely wonderful to see everyone, I did gain about five pounds.

As planned, I packed mostly books and donated equipment for my counterparts in Albania for the trip back. This included a 20X20X20 inch box of electronics for Dr. Isufi, the number one item on his wish list when we first met. It barely complied with the current weight and size limits for the airlines. It was well padded and marked “fragile” and had my name and address of the Peace Corps office in Tirana written on it inside and out. No doubt you have guessed that it wasn’t on the carousel at Tirana International after I arrived.

It was a chain of errors, of course. I should have checked more carefully on the routing when I checked in. I should have checked at each stop to make sure it was transferred, especially in Paris where it had to change airlines, but I was lulled into a false sense of security by the ease with which my large checked bag had made it home. I had forgotten another flying maxim, “when everything seems to be going right, you are obviously missing something”.

I spent the weekend in Tirana because the Peace Corps medical officer had scheduled my close of service physical exam for Monday. This has to be done within 90 days of leaving and we wanted to use my travel through Tirana to get it out of the way. My friend, Catherine, from Permet, met me at the airport to help with the large box that never came. With my still limited Albanian, I filed a missing baggage claim with the lost luggage office at the airport. Early the next morning I emailed Delta and Malev airlines to ask for help. On Monday, I talked with the Peace Corps staff and enlisted their help as well. I fretted as each day passed and I heard nothing.

Catherine and I celebrated Valentine’s Day under this cloud. We went to a wonderful Italian restaurant in the trendy Bloku district of Tirana and went to a French pastry shop for dessert not far from that. I left early the next morning to catch the bus back to Korca. There was no bus again, so I caught a furgon. Before I got to Elbasan I got a call that the box had been found, but was damaged. The Peace Corps staff was arranging for it to be delivered to them and they would bring it next weekend when they came for the Close of Service conference at the Hotel Grand in Korca beginning on Sunday. I worried if all the pieces would be there or if it would still function.

Safety

The Peace Corps Safety Officer for Albania sent out an email to the volunteers advising us that there was a program scheduled to air on ABC television that would feature a story on murder and sexual assault of Peace Corps volunteers. She warned it might elicit concerned messages from home. My service group had already been touched by the story of the murder of a volunteer in Africa when three days after arriving in Albania one young woman left for home. The explanation was that her parents were concerned about her safety after hearing the news from Benin. Her befuddled host family worried if it was something they did or said.

I was able to watch the video at ABC online. It showed a group of young women, interviewed Oprah style while they sat on white stools of varying height. They tearfully related their stories of assaults and the callousness of the PC response. Then there were snippets of an interview with the current deputy director of the Peace Corps. She came across as defensive and uncaring. I am certain she had no say in how the broadcast was edited.

Now, I have pretty low expectations of the Peace Corps bureaucracy. It is an agency of the federal government, after all. I also have low expectations of television. ABC exposing a story on risks of mistreatment of Americans, especially young woman, in the third world is like NASCAR doing an expose about how high school driver’s ed doesn’t do enough to educate young people about the dangers of speeding.

The Peace Corps does have a safety officer for each country (ours is an Albanian national) and a regional safety director (an American, who happens to be based in Tirana). Sometimes their advice isn’t the most useful, but I don’t think they are unconcerned or uncaring. We have had safety lectures at all of our conferences, including videos on risks of sexual assault and robbery. They have pulled volunteers from uncomfortable situations and reassigned them, either in their community or in another location within the country. We were advised from the outset that most of our security comes from local friends and neighbors who look out for us. Most of us also have site mates who can be called upon to help. Is that so different from many places in the US? Can we rely on quick and effective response from authorities in cases of harassment or domestic disputes at home?

The ABC story, of course, didn’t mention any of that. It didn’t talk about safety programs or staff. It didn’t mention site mates as potential help. It didn’t provide any perspective as to the length of time that was included in their story or the number of volunteers at risk. I have read that one in four women reports a history of sexual assault at college. Is serving in a community in a developing country riskier than that?

ABC should see how American media portrays our culture to the third world. Excessive sex and violence must seem like the norm in America. The media is quick to blame intemperate speech when a madman shoots innocent people outside a store in Tucson, but doesn’t recognize the risk of its own intemperance influencing the behavior of people abroad. Countering that impression is one of the good, and, unfortunately, sometimes brave things that Peace Corps volunteers do.

Does it really require the investigative might of ABC News to show that federal bureaucracy is insensitive and inept, or that young women tear up when they relate details of sexual assault? Did the ABC newsperson think, as he rode in his limo from his tony suburban enclave through neighborhoods much more dangerous than a third world slum, that a thorough investigation would include going to Bangladesh to interview young men on the street who would rape a young American Peace Corps volunteer or condone those who did? Did he think about meeting their families or learning about their culture and community? Did he think about what he or ABC News could do to change that?

That doesn’t excuse the PC for a lack of sensitivity and compassion in dealing with the women in the story. I have not been impressed with what I have personally seen of how the bureaucrats deal with volunteers with physical injuries, but, as I said, having seen bureaucrats in “action” over the years, I am not surprised. I would think a better response from the deputy director of the Peace Corps would have been to acknowledge the problem and to cite investigations and remedies that had been undertaken. Perhaps she did, but ABC edited it out.

My general impression is that the Peace Corps is well intentioned, but often confused and misdirected. Yet it is almost unique among American institutions in its approach to the world. It is not trying to convert or pacify. It does not spread American largesse. It is simply an effort to meet the larger world on a one-to-one basis, a world where there are incredible inequities and challenges, to get to know them and they us, and to help, a bit, if we can. It sends mostly young people with the time, education and inclination to volunteer, and, a few oldsters, as well.

I think the ABC News story, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary year of the founding of the Peace Corps, was a cheap shot. But it does not take an investigative team to figure out that television is superficial and self-serving. Maybe the problem is not that Big Brother is watching us, but that so many people around the world are watching “Big Brother”.

ADDENDUM: The Friday after I posted this, a large protest was held by the opposition party in the capital, Tirane. The Country Director of Peace Corps, Albania, arrived in Korce Thursday evening on a tour to videotape volunteers in my group and their counterparts, talking about volunteer activities and the impact on their communities. This is a project he is doing as part of the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps to show incoming volunteers at Pre-Service Training for Group 14. So far, 45 have accepted and are due to arrive mid March. He was traveling with the regional Peace Corps Safety Officer, who covers the Mediterranean and the Middle East. There was also a college freshman from Ohio who was doing a short term internship in Tirane. She was acting as the camera person. It was hard for me to pick among my various counterparts, but Isufi was eager to talk and Jani showed up to talk, as well. We had dinner with another volunteer on Thursday and they asked me if I wanted to come along as they visited other volunteers in the region. It was a chance to visit others in my region and see what they were doing as well as spend the weekend with friends. Also, they were buying meals and coffee at each stop. We even got to stop at a couple of tourist sites along the way which I had previously only seen from the window of a bus. It seemed like a good deal to me.

They were aware of the protest and were concerned about possible violence and further escalation. They made sure all the volunteers were out of Tirane, except the one who was there at a meeting related to a project. They phoned him to make sure he was safe. They closed the office early to make sure all the staff was able to get home before the protest began in the early afternoon.

It was estimated that about 20,000 people took part in the protest. Almost as soon as it started there were conflicts between both sides with rocks and sticks thrown by the protesters at the police who stood in a line behind plastic shields around government buildings and responded with rubber bullets, stun and smoke grenades. Live bullets were fired by someone identified as a security guard for one building. A protester from Gjirokaster was killed. Video of this was shown repeatedly on television. Two others also died and many injured protesters and police were taken to hospitals. The Prime Minister announced an investigation. The opposition party leader condemned the government response. The President appealed for restraint and calm.

Throughout the drive, the Country Director and the Safety Officer stayed in frequent contact with volunteers and staff. Emails and SMS messages were sent to all members of the Peace Corps in Albania. Reports were filed with the "country desk" at Peace Corps headquarters in Washington. Things seemed to have settled down in the capital and unrest has not spread to other parts of the country. We hope it stays that way.

It turned colder and rained throughout the night. Snow closed the road back to Korce and the bus home was canceled. Few roads are plowed in Albania so I am planning on an early start in the morning to take a series of buses and furgons for the long, circuitous alternative route through Elbasan. Since I am the warden for our region, I made sure the alternate knew my status. He has a key to my apartment where we keep extra water and food in case we need to gather there for potential evacuation as they had to do during general anarchy in 1997. Isufi also offered his home as a refuge, if needed. I think we are taken care of.