Trimester Report

The end of September is harvest time in Albania. In the US, the fall harvest often results in friends or neighbors leaving bags of zucchini on your doorstep, ringing the doorbell and running away. Albanian gardens seem more productive and Albanians are more direct and aggressive in passing on their excess. They bring 20 lb bags of apples to you at work. If you visit their home for any reason, plan to leave with at least two bags full of apples, pomegranates the size of large grapefruit, persimmons, grapes (green and red), figs, quince, walnuts, hazelnuts, and, of course, squash. It doesn’t matter if your arms are already full of books or papers or baggage, and, of course, in Albania it is a matter of honor.

“Please, I really can’t accept all this. I live alone and it is way too much for me.”

“What? How can I bear to face my family if you do not accept? Please, take two more pomegranates.”

“It is very generous of you, but I can hardly walk. Please, no thank you.”

“I cannot show my face at home if you refuse. Would you have my children be fatherless? Do you insist that they be left destitute? (…pause for effect as my ignominy sinks in) Here, take another bag of grapes? Do you like jam? Homemade from our black fig tree, this jar is too small, take two. Do you drink raki?”

Luckily, another Peace Corps volunteer lived nearby and I was able to struggle to her house. She was at home, but not feeling well. While she was resting, I left one of the bags in her kitchen. It was sneaky, but it was a matter of survival, and I was certain she would have done the same to me.

As I trudged up the hill to my apartment, I met a neighbor family with whom I am friendly. I was very grateful that they would accept two pomegranates, which probably weighed 2 lbs. a piece. When I got home, I put the ripe stuff in the fridge and what needed to ripen on the table. I have found that when I am a guest at meals, if I just say I am too old to eat so much or simply that “I am not Albanian”, it gets both a laugh and me out of a heaping refill of my dish. So far, I haven’t figured out a way to comfortably and effectively decline the bags of produce. Maybe I should just learn to can.

The end of September also is time for the first Trimester Report, required of all Peace Corps volunteers. You probably think I am on some kind of extended, low budget, government sponsored vacation, but I am actually expected to do some work, and not only that, to report my activities three times a year. The Peace Corps does many things to help developing countries around the world, but in Albania the activities are in three areas: community development, teaching English and health education. Each volunteer is assigned to one of these. Even so, we are encouraged to work in other, secondary areas if we have time and the opportunity presents itself. In addition there are four initiative areas: HIV/AIDS, information and communication technology, women and gender development, and youth development. Finally, in addition to helping development by developing local capacity by training individuals in countries where the Peace Corps has been invited, there are two additional goals: to help Americans learn about the people of the country where you are assigned, and, to help the people of the country where you work to learn about Americans. To some extent, this blog is part of my work on the first of these additional goals.

My work activities have developed over the first couple of months in Korca. I showed up at 8 AM, the first Monday, at my primary assignment with the health education nurses in the Directorate of Public Health for the Korca region. There are 4 young women in this group, mostly nurses, who teach a variety of lessons on health topics, rotating through the local schools, primary grades through high school. Some of the younger volunteers with this type of assignment go along with the nurses and help teach these classes. At my age and with my background this would be a poor fit. Volunteers are allowed quite a bit of leeway as to their specific work, so after a couple of awkward weeks, we mutually agreed to limit our work to few mornings a week of translating health education materials which I have access to on the web (through my prior work) from English into Albanian . As we do this, we discuss the topic, so it becomes kind of a seminar on the various topics. It also serves to help the nurses learn English. Some of the nurses have an interest in Spanish, and since I have some ability in that language, we work on that as well. Of course, all this translating also helps me with my Shqip.

One day a week, after I finish with the nurses, I work with a physician who works as the hygienist/epidemiologist for the department. He is interested in work and environmental topics, something more up my alley. We did a project for an EU photo contest of work site safety, visiting work sites in the Korca region and taking pictures. We submitted an entry, although it was unofficial since Albania is not yet a member of the EU. After that, we worked on a grant proposal to try to obtain equipment for quantitative work site environmental testing for respirable dust particles, temperature, humidity, air flow, light, noise, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide and combustible gases. This would greatly increase his capacity to do meaningful inspections and gather data to help meet work health and safety requirements for EU membership. The first shot at funding was submitted a week ago and we should hear a response in a couple of weeks. Whether or not we get it, we are both going to a Peace Corps course on project development and management in December that will be held in Tirana.

Two days a week, I work with a group of lab technicians, mostly on learning English, although I do try to incorporate related health topics when I can. I have two other students for English, local teenagers who were tutored by previous volunteers who asked me to continue with them. One is a 17 year old boy with a congenital visual impairment, the other the 15 year old daughter of one of my neighbors.

Two other days, I work in a rehabilitation clinic with Dr. Isufi, who I have previously mentioned. He speaks some English and has internet access, so I have been helping him get connected and identify resources as well as working directly with patients. The other clinic I work with is run by an NGO, initially started by the Anglican Church, but now with sponsorship from a number of Christian denominations, mainly from the US. They work with the physically disabled in the region through a therapy clinic at their center and home health visits. I do a seminar with the nurse/therapists on relevant topics once a week at the clinic and often go with them on home visits or see patients with them in their clinic.

I also work in a Maltese missionary school that teaches at the high school level in English. While this is a private school, it is much less expensive than the usual Albanian private school, has no special deals to get admitted, is scholastically demanding and has a great record of placing graduates in good universities in Albania and around the world where they have done well. The society runs schools in Albania, Poland and Cuba and does other projects in developing countries. It is called the Preca Society, founded by St. George Preca, of Malta. It is a lay society, although its members live communally and take a vow of celibacy. I teach the required life skills class to the 88 kids in level one (tenth grade). I also have offered an elective in the “scientific method” which will consist of learning how to do science projects. If all goes according to plan, the school will host the first science fair in Albania next spring.

Finally, two afternoons a week I work with the Aviation Interest Club at the American Library in Korca. This is a group of about a dozen teens who want to learn more about airplanes. It has been adopted by a chapter of the EAA from Albuquerque and has also received support from pilots and friends of mine from Idaho and Nevada. The library undoubtedly now has the best aviation collection in the country where most kids have never seen an airplane up close. We have a flight simulator program on a computer in the library, and since flying involves learning English (which is the language of international flight control) and most licensed pilots have to pass a medical exam and maintain good health to continue to legally fly and the majority of the teens are girls, we cover most of the initiative areas as well as have fun.

I try to be active in the community, meeting many of my neighbors and people around Korca. I help pick up trash in the yard around my apartment building. I give treats to my neighbor’s dog. I shop in the local markets, where I know several of the merchants and speak well enough to converse a bit. I am a regular at concerts and exhibitions at the cultural center in Korca, and, as I have previously mentioned, do my morning constitutional walks up the mountain with my fellow Korcans, go on excursions with Dr. Isufi’s patients and help out with maintenance and construction projects at the local ski area. All that, plus my continued relationship and visits with my host family and others back in Thane, help with the third Peace Corps goal.

So that is what one, of the almost 8000 volunteers worldwide, is doing in one placement, in one country, of the 76 where the Peace Corps currently works. I hope that dispelled your suspicions. By the way, do you like pomegranates?

Voskopoja

In the early 1300’s, about 150 years before Columbus sailed to the Americas, the town of Voskopoja was established in a high, fertile mountain valley. After 400 years, it had grown to the largest city in the Balkans, bigger even than Athens. Its 35,000 inhabitants had built 24 churches, a monastery and an academy training artists and architects. It was famous for its frescoes and icons and beautiful basilicas. Fires, earthquakes and invasions have taken their toll since then. It is now a remote, though tidy and scenic, mountain village of a few hundred people whose orchards and fields hide the ruins of its former glory.

A couple of former Peace Corps volunteer were touring through Korca as they traveled through Albania in a rented 4WD. They had served in Fiji in the 1980’s, but had continued their love of foreign adventure and each year chose an exotic destination to visit for a couple of weeks of vacation, often in countries with current Peace Corps activity. There is a bond of shared experience among former and current volunteers, and I had heard through the grapevine, that they were about. I was happy to show them around Korca. I even offered them a place to stay, although they have real jobs and opted for a hotel room instead.

I showed them churches and museums, coffee shops and stores around Korca. We had dinner at Vasili’s. Most locals identify it as the best in Korca. This includes my counterpart at the Public Health Department who is in charge of inspecting restaurants. A good endorsement, indeed, although by any standard, it is an excellent restaurant. Their specialty, lemon soup, is amazingly good. This was followed by a grilled assortment of vegetables (egg plant, peppers, cauliflower, beans, beets and squash), toasted bread, fish, beef, and sugar-cake (a local dessert) and fresh grapes. My friends drank a carafe of local, red wine which they said was good. At about $9 a head, it is more expensive than most places in Korca, but well worth it.

We joined the stroll along the boulevard in the pleasant fall evening. When we returned to their hotel they said they were planning to drive to Voskopoja the next day and asked if I wanted to come along. I did not have to be asked twice.

I have wanted to visit Voskopoja for awhile. Many of the most beautiful icons in the icon museum in Korca and in the National Museum in Tirana are from Voskopoja artists. We had a bit of trouble finding the road, and I was glad my Shqip is now functional enough to ask directions. The drive took about an hour on a winding and frequently unpaved road (what else would one expect in Albania) and the 4WD was useful in places. There were crews working on it and someday the road will be good, although a dump truck lying on its side off a steep drop indicated how formidable a task this is. We parked the Toyota in the center of town and set off on foot.

It was a fresh, early autumn day with small puffs of cumulus clouds in a bright blue sky. The fruit trees were laden with plums, wild pears, and thane fruit (a red, olive sized fruit with a slight acid tinge to its sweetness that is sold in cups on the streets of Korca). Blackberries and rose hips were thick on bushes along the paths. Locals worked in their gardens or tended sheep, goats or cows in the fields. They waved to us as we passed.

The buildings were stone with tile roofs, surrounded by low stone walls along narrow cobbled streets. The heroic, communist era monument in the center of town seemed out of place. It had graffiti on it and was broken in places. We found the Church of St. Nicolas, but it was locked and workers nearby said the priest was away in Korca and no one else had the keys. We climbed to a raised yard and along a fence and got a good view of the frescoes on the outside wall. We sampled a few of the yellow and red plums on the trees.

We walked across town to another church and encountered a teenage girl who spoke some English and told us she could give us a tour if we wanted. She was born in Voskopoja, but commuted every day to Korca to attend high school. When she graduated she planned to join her sister and go to university in Tirana. She led us along paths through fields to ruins that we never would have found on our own. One church had frescoes that had been defaced on the outside and on the inside when the communists had used it for storage. There was a large graveyard on the hillside by the church going down to the creek. Some graves were recent and some headstones were hundreds of years old. More recent ones had photos of the departed. Alongside were empty bottles of wine or raki, incense holders and dried or fake flowers. Albanians frequently visit graves of relatives on weekends and holidays.

Our guide pointed us towards the center of town and headed home. We then drove towards the monastery. We made a wrong turn and ended up at a small military base. The soldiers were friendly and pointed us in the right direction. We drove up a hill to the monastery which is an EU cultural site, according to the sign on the wall. No photos or cameras were allowed. A caretaker wandered about outside and let us into the church. The wood carving and icon painting inside were remarkable. We left some coins in the box by one of the icons and offered the caretaker something to compensate him for his trouble, but he refused politely. We walked around the buildings for a bit and then headed back to Korca.

We stopped at another church in Mborja. We waited outside while an old man passing by went to tell someone at the store up the street to bring the keys to let us in. This church is small but its frescoes from the 13th century are well preserved and show scenes of the final judgment and the apostles.

We then drove back into Korca. We had a late lunch at the beer garden adjacent to the Birra Korca brewery and near my apartment. My new friends gave me a recent New Yorker magazine, a recently published paperback novel and a bag of M & M’s. We said our goodbyes and they drove off the Pogradec and Lake Ohrid. They planned to spend the night in Lin, a town on a peninsula in the northwest corner of the lake, which I’ve admired from a bus window and heard good things about, but have not yet been able to visit. I walked back home to my apartment, across the litter strewn dirt yard between the blocks, past a recently collapsed brick wall, up the alley and into the building, and got back to work.

Trashegohet

I went back to Elbasan for the first time since Pre-Service Training. I stayed with another volunteer and we attended the wedding of the middle of five daughters of one of the Thane host families. It is apparently quite an honor to be invited to a wedding in Albania, and traditional weddings, like this one, are very big deals.

Our arrival at the house was heralded by an Albanian combo (drum, clarinet and accordion). We were welcomed with handshakes and hugs and air kisses to both cheeks (traditional greeting for good friends and family). We were seated on a couch next to the father (the most honored seat), served raki to toast the day, and given small bags of cookies and candy. We sat and chatted for a while, then went outside to make room for arriving visitors. The band played for the arrival and departure of each group. People in the courtyard did the traditional line dance to the music and money for the band was placed in the drum.

After about an hour and a half, we went to a room above one of the Thane lokals which had been recently remodeled. It has large open windows and ceiling fans for cross ventilation which was really needed for the stifling, humid weather. Because it was held in a village, it had to be during the daytime because public transportation stops at about 6 PM and the guests needed time to get home. In cities, wedding parties are usually in the evening, to avoid the heat of the day, and go on most of the night. We were seated with more than 100 guests, in groups according to family relationship (we sat with the sisters and brother of the bride’s mother and their families). Sons-in-law of the two older sisters managed the bar and younger sisters and cousins handled food service under the supervision of the youngest brother of the father. Food had been prepared by the family, excluding the mother of the bride who got the day off. Being Albania, of course there was a lot of food, but that hardly describes it. That is like saying there is a lot of water in the Pacific Ocean.

The combo from the house was joined by a drum and keyboard. They had amplification which was set just below feedback, most of the time. My ears will ring for a week. The bride was seated at a small table on a dais at one end of the room under an arch of flowers. People waited until everyone was served and the father gave a toast. Then the guests began to carefully pick at the huge plate of meats, cheeses, and vegetables in front of each person, and the baskets of fruits and bread and bottles of water, soft drinks and beer on each table. They knew this was only the first course. One has to pace eating at celebrations in Albania. Traditional line dancing commenced. Each table would get up to do the money dance. People put bills in the hands of the lead dancers with a competition to see which group raised the most money for the couple.

After 2 hours, the groom and his family arrived. The bride’s family formed a reception line. The males of the family came first and were greeted with handshakes, hugs and air kisses. The women were next and were similarly greeted. Then, finally, the groom, who was escorted to the head table and seated next to the bride. The groom’s family was seated at their own table. Line money dancing then resumed and, this time, with the groom’s family joining the competition. They had critical expressions on their faces, apparently judging the quality of the party and the feast. How could it not pass? For the first time at the party, I saw the parents of the bride smile.

After 3 more hours and courses of soup and several kinds of meat (there is an Albanian proverb, “dasme pa mish nuk ka”- “there is no wedding without meat”, i.e. nothing comes without some sacrifice), a cake was brought out. It had several layers, sparklers and fireworks on top and when they were set off, confetti and spray snow were showered on the couple as they cut the cake. They then led the traditional handkerchief dance. They passed it back and forth and then both held on as they danced under arches of raised arms and joined hands of the other couples.

After the bridal pair returned to the head table, the groom’s family stood up, left the party, and took the groom with them. There was another receiving line. Each was given a large bar of chocolate with a picture of the newlyweds on the wrapper. The party then continued for another hour or more. The following day, the groom will drive to the bride’s home and take her to his village where there will be a similar party, with the roles reversed. After that, the bride and groom will move into their new home, living with the groom’s family. Imagine the thrill of a new bride being welcomed to her new home by her mother-in-law.

This was a modest wedding. It only lasted three days (there was another party the day before that we missed). Some Albanian wedding parties go on for 6 days. This does not count the similar big party held for the engagement, usually one year before the wedding. Rings are traditionally exchanged by the couple at the engagement.

It is very rare for a couple, once engaged, not to go on to marry. This is a great dishonor, particularly for the woman. It is almost as bad as divorce, which is rare in Albania. This may be because few families can afford more than one wedding per child (which requires years of saving). In spite of that, broken engagements and divorce are increasing in Albania, particularly in the bigger cities, like Tirana. In traditional villages, like Thane, it would be hard to show your face after either. I wonder what they think of me with two counts against my past. It is an indication of their tolerance and affection for Americans that I can be an honored guest at this occasion.

After the wedding, the father of the bride and many other relatives will return to Greece or Italy or elsewhere to resume their migrant work. He is gone for 6 months a year working in orchards. He feels lucky to have a work visa no matter how much he misses his family. It is that work that paid for their house and this wedding. The groom similarly worked two jobs in Wales for four years to save up enough money to return home to marry. He is a hard worker and smart. He is fluent in English and Greek. He wants to start a construction business with his brothers. It might work out as their village is only an hour or so from the big growth area between the capital and its seaport, Durres. Also, I noticed several new buildings in Elbasan as well as new stores and cafes. Even so, once the new couple is settled in, he will likely have to leave again for work. His new wife is a skilled seamstress and will probably run a business from their home as she will be left to manage home and family, just as her mother ran a byrek stand, tended the cow, chickens and garden, and took care of 5 daughters while her husband worked abroad.

By the way, “trashegohet” means “to enjoy a happy life with one’s family”. In the optative mood (used to express desires or wishes) it is the traditional Albanian greeting of good wishes given by guests to the family at a wedding. I said, “Trashegohesh!” to my hosts as I entered their home, the band played, and I was greeted with the genuine warmth that seems characteristic of most Albanians. I meant it.

Warden Training

So, I am traveling on a bus back to Korca, winding over the mountain road between Tirana and Elbasan, pitching side to side as we pass dump trucks, and motorcycles, hay carts, old ladies walking their cows, herds of sheep and goats and even a couple of Germans on a bicycle tour. Clarinet music is playing to a syncopated Balkan beat over the bus speakers. I am gazing out the window at the deep valley far below the cliff edge of the pavement which has a 104 degree haze lying over it. The little boy in front of me pukes his breakfast over his mother. She puts her head down, as does the old lady in her traditional black dress and white scarf across the aisle. When the young girl who is sitting on her mother’s lap in the seat next to me starts to look a bit green, I pull a plastic bag from my pocket and hand it to her mother. She accepts this gratefully and passes it to her daughter. The bus conductor (most every bus in Albania has a conductor to take fares and help with baggage) opens a roof vent which helps a lot. What strikes me then, is that none of this seems particularly remarkable to me. I am suddenly made aware of how much I have accepted as normal things that would have amazed in their strangeness a few months ago. Humans, even old ones, adapt quickly. I go back to looking out the window, dozing off occasionally on the long trip.

I was in Tirana again for two days of Warden Training. I am a warden for the Korca region. This involves responsibility for safety and security and an intermediate role in the Emergency Action Plan for Peace Corps Albania. This is not a abstract exercise. The Peace Corps had to evacuate from Albania in 1997 during civil unrest that followed the collapse of Ponzi schemes that evaporated most of the assets people had from distributions following the collapse of communism a few years earlier. There were riots, fires, shootings, road closures, etc. (I wonder how Americans would have reacted had the malfeasance of Madoff and Stanford had as broad an effect on our economy). Eight of our current volunteers were evacuated from Georgia after the Russians invaded last year. They could hear artillery from where they were staying. If you are evacuated from an assignment before completing enough of your term of service, you are offered placement in another country, based on their need and ability to absorb additional volunteers. A few went directly from Georgia to Albania and began service following abbreviated pre service training in Albanian language and culture. Three in my group went home for awhile before returning this year to start again. Albania is also an active earthquake area and, during a drought a couple of years ago, large forest fires raged nearby in Greece.

I am supposed to keep track of the 8 volunteers in my region and be ready to assemble them and keep them at my apartment for awhile, and evacuate them safely through Tirana, if communication is maintained and that this advised or, on my own initiative, to either Macedonia or Greece, if communication is lost, the situation meets established criteria and I decide it is a good idea. At training we reviewed policy and procedures and did some exercises with various scenarios. I am glad there are only 8 volunteers in my region and I would guess that some would proceed on their own across the border, since Pogradec, where there is one volunteer, is only a few miles from Macedonia and Bilisht, where there are two, is walking distance to Greece. Other regions have a lot more volunteers and, if the one airport or ports were closed, might have a long and difficult trek to the border.

The election in June was very close. It took weeks to get the result. The current, right of center government had to make a deal with a leftist splinter group to continue in power. The left of center opposition has not been happy with this, but it seems the election was generally fair and the results have been accepted. International monitors were positive in their assessment. All this seems hopeful to me. It is hard for me to imagine bands of heavily armed factions fighting it out in the streets of Korca, burning public buildings, blocking roads, and pulling people from their cars, as happened in 1997. Perhaps the worst consequence of that was the large migration of educated professionals from Albania as engineers, doctors, nurses, and teachers left en masse; a severe setback for a poor country trying to emerge from more than a generation of communist dictatorship.

A few of the people at the NGO’s where I do some of my work were here through that period. They acknowledged being uncertain and scared at times, but say they kept their heads down and got through it. Korcans I have talked to about it say they stayed inside and away from windows, lay on the floor if they heard gunfire and had problems keeping kids occupied when schools were closed for months and they couldn’t play outside. Food and other supplies were difficult at times, but friends and family helped each other. That was a time when steel doors and bars on windows were put on apartments and concrete block walls with steel gates were built around homes. Some people are able to adapt to a lot more than wild bus rides.

Ekskursion

Once a month, Dr. Isufi organizes an outing for his patients. He hires a larger furgon to take them and a few family members to some scenic place near Korca. He invited me along on a recent trip to a lakeside park.

A basic, 15 passenger furgon (deluxe models have additional features like shocks or brakes) was filled with 24 people. In typical Albanian fashion, the aisle was filled with plastic stools for extra passengers. Since I was an honored guest, I got a plastic chair in the front of the aisle. The bus was a bit hard to start, so the driver had to work on it and get some water for the radiator. Eventually we were on our way heading northwest from town.

After a short ride we pulled into a private park with grass among large trees by a lake with swans and ducks. There were rowboats for hire, but these were being used by wedding parties for photographs of brides and grooms rowing on the lake and feeding the swans (we are in the thick of Albanian wedding season. I will write more on this later as I am attending a wedding back in Thane at the end of the month). Our group sat on blankets and laid out a typical feast of roast chicken, pilaf, cheese, bread, fruits and vegetables, sausage, beer and raki. Being the guest, everyone made an effort to feed me. Luckily, Dr. Isufi invited me to go walking while I was still able to stand.

We walked to a nearby village where a friend and former patient of Dr. Isufi runs a small coffee bar. Dr. Isufi pulled his hat low over his face and had me walk up to the elderly man, who was sitting on a chair in front of the small, empty store, and ask for directions. He then pulled up his hat and surprised his friend, who was obviously delighted at both the visit and the prank. They shared a beer and I sampled some water from a local spring, and his son and grandson came from the house behind the shop to join us.

We took a short cut through fields back to the park and the patient group. Most of them were still eating, although some were walking along the lake and waving at and well wishing the wedding groups in the boats. After a few hours, we loaded up and headed back to Korca. Each person paid about $2 for the trip.

Dr. Isufi spent 5 years after medical school working as an emergency doctor at a small city near the lake. After communism fell, he returned to his home town of Korca to work as a sports medicine doctor for the local soccer team. After a couple of years, the owner of the team wanted to charge Dr. Isufi to continue the relationship, so Dr. Isufi built a small gym and clinic in front of his parents home, where he also lives with his wife and children, and continues to run his rehabilitation and sports medicine practice. According to a friend of mine, it is the only one of its kind in Albania. He has been here for more than 20 years and is largely self-taught in his specialty.

The clinic is pretty different from anything I have ever encountered in the US. Patients seem to come in without appointments, often walking in on another patient undergoing evaluation or treatment to ask their own question. I have not seen any record keeping or consent forms, although the doctor does make a ledger entry if there is any payment, although this seems infrequent and is rarely more than a few dollars. His diagnoses and treatments seem pretty reasonable for the most part. Most of the patients seem to being doing well, although many have been coming to the gym for years.

Dr. Isufi does not have a car and gets around town on his bicycle or on foot. His parent’s home is near the center of town, so he does not really need a car. He even is able to make house calls on patients who cannot get to the clinic. In typical Albanian fashion, these involve sitting and drinking coffee (or sometimes raki) with the patient and family and chatting about everyone’s family including the doctor’s and mine. Eventually the discussion gets to the patient and their problems.

On the weekend Dr. Isufi likes to work on a ski area of which he is a part owner. It is in the mountains nearby. It is not Sun Valley. It is not Soldier Mountain (a small Idaho ski area owned by Bruce Willis). It is much more like a small ski hill that was set up by a group of Boy Scouts as an eagle project in Cambridge, Idaho, using a washing machine motor to operate a rope tow. Dr. Isufi would like to have a disabled ski program there someday.

One of the other owners owns a bakery in Korca has a van. One Sunday four of us piled into it with bags of cement, shovels and picks, and three steel posts scrounged from somewhere. I was among the youngest of the group and the oldest, who they call “The Commissar” (which he was during communism, but now it is just a nickname), is 78. Two years ago they built a day lodge and that day we dug a trench along the hillside on the northeast corner of the building and built a stone foundation for a kitchen extension. The steel posts were put on concrete footings and set vertical with a level. There were no plans, and, as far as I could tell, none were used for the day lodge either. We worked hard all day long, but did take about an hour for a typical Albanian lunch, complete with the feed the visitor event. I had bought a loaf of corn bread and some fresh vegetables from a small store before we set out, but the others shared homemade sausage, cheese, sardines, beer, bread, and summer apples. They told stories and jokes over lunch. Dr. Isufi speaks a bit of English and tried to translate some of it for my benefit. After a short rest, we were back at work. I was pretty beat at the end of the day. On the way back we stopped to admire a used snow grooming machine they had acquired from Italy that was stored with friends in a village and a building that was being built by some friends at another village along the way.

Dr. Isufi’s wife would like to move to America. He could probably make orders of magnitude more money working as a family doctor in some rural area of the US where most of the doctors appear to be foreign medical graduates. They could have their own house and cars and a second home at a ski area. Dr. Isufi would be a lot better than most of these doctors I have met, but his heart would not be in it. I think he would find American medicine a high pressure, money machine with little time to talk with patients and their families. He would find it strange that there are insurance companies and lawyers that can dictate how long and in what manner he can treat his patients without seeing them or even talking with them or him.

There are lots of problems with medical care in Albania. It is very centralized in Tirana and a patient with any degree of complexity to a problem usually must make the long and difficult trip. Many Albanians do not trust their doctors, who may have bribed their way into medical school or a hospital or clinic position. Complicated, modern equipment, given by a foreign donor, may not be adequately maintained or used appropriately. Many health professionals have emigrated, as Dr. Isufi’s wife urges. In spite of everything, medicine is often provided by doctors to patients humanely and effectively. The same, I think, is true for America.

Fitness

This seems a strange topic to discuss right now as I am recovering from about 2 weeks of some ailment. I awoke one morning with fever and chills, muscle aches and feeling as if someone had kicked me in the stomach while I slept. When I tried to stand I came close to passing out. I had to miss a work day for the first time in decades.

The next day I was able to resume a limited work schedule, but felt weak. I slept a lot and drank a lot of tea. When I didn’t improve after a week, I talked with the Peace Corps medical officer and decided to try Cipro. After a couple of more days, I felt a bit better, possibly due to the antibiotic, possibly not. Some of my Albanian friends and neighbors came by to check on me and give advice. Herbal tea, bananas, hard boiled eggs and well cooked cabbage were recommended. I also got advice through e-mail from friends back home. They recommended different teas, vitamins, chicken soup and against bananas and cabbage. I am not a believer in “single case studies”. As one of my professors used to say, “given any disease in any patient, he will either get better, get worse or stay the same, and just because you are waving your arms around when he gets better, does not imply cause and effect”.

At this point, I am happy with the effect and could care less about the cause. It is good to be back to full activity. I appreciate the concern and help from the Peace Corps staff, my Albanian friends and counterparts, and from my friends back home. Most volunteers have bouts of illness during their service, especially early on as strange foods and situations, cultural and language confusion, new schedules, time changes, living situations, etc. take their toll. I remember about 6 weeks of GI distress that started about a month into my time on the Navajo reservation about 30 years ago. My friends and coworkers at the time laughed and said that was normal. Maybe my most recent illness was a case of “Skanderbeg’s Revenge”.

Usually, however, I am pretty healthy. My only regular medication is a multivitamin. Except for the usual changes of age (eg. hair and vision loss), I am pretty fit, especially compared to others of my age. As with most of my life I have been pretty lucky with natural inclinations so that I don’t have to apply much self discipline. I don’t like heavy, greasy foods. I was inculcated with a love of fresh fruits and vegetables by my farmer grandfather. I don’t watch television (I believe that snacking while watching the tube for hours on end is a major cause of obesity and deconditioning). I like to walk, hike, camp, ski, bicycle, etc. I find starting my day with exercise gives me more energy and helps me sleep at night. I can’t tolerate alcohol and I gave up smoking years ago so I could give health lectures on the evils of tobacco without being too hypocritical.

When I joined the Peace Corps, I figured I would not have access to gyms or exercise equipment. I decided to work out a routine that would not be dependent on equipment or even a lot of room. I thought back to exercises that were in a pamphlet I read long ago in the Air Force on recommended exercises for prisoners of war. There is some irony in using that for my Peace Corps service. Anyway, the isometric exercises described seemed like something I could do anywhere. There is the added advantage of warming you up in the winter before you crawl out of your sleeping bag.

Unfortunately, isometric exercise is particularly boring. It is pretty easy however to work out a routine that exercises most muscle groups starting with the neck and going down to the feet. I do as much as I can make myself do on a regular basis, figuring that the best exercise is the one you actually do. For me this is holding a position for a count of 20 seconds and repeating it 5 times alternating opposing groups of muscles. I also work in some stretches for my shoulders, back and hips and a short aerobic routine of either jumping rope or jumping jacks.

Afterwards, I usually head up the mountain to the East of Korca for the daily “Folks March”. The road has been recently paved to the two hotels and restaurant on top and there is a large cross (like the one on Table Rock in Boise, but with lots less controversy) and an old, small Orthodox church. There are lots of foot and donkey paths crisscrossing the mountain as well. About a 100 Korcans will walk or jog each morning, and more on weekends. Not all go to the top. Many, like me, are older. We form a kind of community and the regulars greet each other with a hearty “mengjesi” (roughly “top of the morning”) and a smile. I am sometimes asked where I am from, since my boots, t-shirt and R&M Steel Company Aviation Building Systems ball cap are obviously not Albanian. They often respond to “from America” with a hearty “Bravo”. It takes me about 1 ½ hours to get to the cross and about 45 minutes to come back down. There is a spectacular view across the valley with Korca at the foot of the mountain surrounded by villages and farms and of the mountains that form it rising more than 6000 ft above the valley floor. I leave about 5:30 AM to avoid the heat of the day and the sun is warming the ridge where the cross is perched by the time I get there.

This is in addition to the exercise I get walking around town to the various places I work or visit for errands or socializing. I only take a bus or furgon when I head out of town. Evening activity is often joining the Korca Xhiro after the heat has dissipated and the townsfolk come out in thousands to slowly walk the boulevards, meet friends, drink beer or coffee and eat qofta (meat balls) or grilled ears of corn sold by street vendors. I often go for an ice cream cone which is about 25 cents for soft serve or 60 cents for three small scoops. Maybe that counteracts some of the exercise, but it sure helps my mental fitness.

The Fourth in Tirana

The American Chamber of Commerce in the capital hosted a Fourth of July party at a private school in Tirana. All the Peace Corps volunteers were invited and many came from all parts of Albania to join the celebration. They charged us each about $6 to attend, but it was well worth it. Hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, brownies, cherry pie, éclairs and ice cream along with beer and wine and soft drinks were provided. To my surprise I found that my stomach is no longer used to American food, even though I ate moderately and I don’t drink alcohol. I guess I have become used to the Mediterranean diet of Albania, and I didn’t feel well the next day. That’s was ok, olives, feta cheese, roast chicken and yoghurt, fresh tomato, cucumber and pepper salad is just not appropriate for a 4th of July picnic. The fireworks display was grand and we all sang the national anthem, although I think I was the only one who knew all four verses.

Saturday, I stayed in town to visit the National Historical Museum in Skanderbeg Square. There is a large communist era, heroic style mosaic on the façade. The history starts with the stone-age and documents an unbroken line to present day Albanians. Albanians are very proud that their culture has survived repeated invasion and conquest. The history documented ended with the ‘”war against the fascists”. Albania was able to liberate itself from the Nazis (with some help from the British and Americans), and never sent Jewish or Roma (gypsy) citizens off to the death camps (also, apparently Albert Einstein escaped to America through Tirana in 1933).

Enver Hoxha, the communist dictator, who ruled Albania for 40 years after WWII is only mentioned as a partisan leader against the fascists. Albania is not yet sure how to deal with the long isolation and grinding poverty that characterized his reign. People are angry that they were denied their rightful place in Europe since at the beginning of the 20th century, an independent Albania emerged from the Balkan Wars and WW I for the first time since the 15th century and was at least as developed as many parts of Europe such as Italy and Greece.

Many locals came up to me and asked me if I was American. When I confirmed their suspicion (yes, it is obvious), they shook my hand and wished me a “happy birthday America”. Some also gave condolences on my loss of Michael Jackson. In Albania, it seems almost everyone is known to one another, mostly because they are related. I guess they assume that even though the US is much bigger than Albania, given our advanced communication and travel systems, that must also be true for us. My opinion is that we will have to live as a people in America for at least 3 or 4 millennia to achieve this. I would have explained that even though I liked his music and we share the same first name, I was neither related to nor a personal friend of Michael Jackson, and, being a male of my vintage, I was probably more personally effected by the loss of Farrah Fawcett. Trying to be polite and having limited language skills, I shook their hands, thanked them for their kind thoughts, and yes, I was good, and yes, my family, other than Michael, were good, and, yes, I would pass along their condolences, etc.

Tirana is a bustling, modern city, although the water still goes out part of the day. Walking through the large, Blocku section of town on Saturday night reminded me of parts of New York City, with hundreds of street cafes, art galleries and shops, and a vibrant night life. One startling difference, however, is the graffiti one sees by the university. “America- Freedom, Peace, Happiness” is not one I remember ever seeing at Berkeley. That is understandable because it is hard to appreciate American liberty and tranquility until it is seen through the eyes of an ancient people that has know little of either. Maybe we should sing the last verse of the national anthem at ball games to remind ourselves that we are “blessed” and “heaven rescued” and are pledged to the “just cause”.

I don’t think the younger volunteers have much interest in this sort of musing. They were just happy to be in the Big City and enjoy the urban scene that is absent in most of Albania. It was good to reconnect with my cohort and share tales of our adjustment (many involving plumbing. My electric shower was nowhere near the worst), but I was glad to head back to Korca.

On Sunday, the five hour furgon route went over mountain passes and through river valleys that were steep and narrow, broadening occasionally into pastures, corn and wheat fields and orchards of ripening fig, olive, plum, peach, apricot and more, through the large cities of Elbasan and Pogradec, and smaller ones of Librazhd and Malic, past dozens of villages and along the shore of Lake Ohrid. There are many abandoned and decaying factories and stark communist block apartments (although I have been inside many that have been beautifully remodeled) but also many new businesses and new homes going up where migrant Albanian workers have invested some of their earnings. Many families were picnicking along the river and men were fishing in the rapids of the Shkumbrin River or selling their catch from Lake Ohrid along the roadside.

I would ask a favor of those of you who read this. If you know any Albanians, on November 28, please be sure to shake their hand and wish them a “happy birthday Albania”. Don’t forget to ask them about their family.