Church Tour

My home church in Idaho has a partner church in the western part of Romania. This is Transylvania which used to be part of Hungary but was ceded to Romania as part of the Treaty of Paris after WW I. Since then it has been subject to a policy under the communist and post-communist governments of encouraging settlement of ethnic Romanians in the region with the result that the original Hungarians are now a minority in their homeland. Over the preceding centuries it was a battleground for various Christian religions and political conflicts dating back to the 30 Years War. Every year my home church sends a group to visit and since I live so close, I decided to use some of my vacation to join this year’s trip.

It is an incredibly scenic area of natural and historic sites. We took the gondola to the top of a ski area. We climbed hills and walked through gorges. We visited a palace and a monastery, a castle straight out of Dracula (where I stood in the garden trying to take a photo of lightning striking the tower during a thunderstorm) and a fortress church that had withstood over 100 sieges. The architecture was the ornate, classical style of the Hapsburg Empire surrounding large cobbled squares with fountains and formal parks. We visited multiple churches of various denominations; Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox and Unitarian.

We stayed a good part of the time with families in the village of our partner church. I would estimate the area we visited to be 10 to 15 years ahead of Albania in development, with good roads, reliable water and electricity, restoration and management of tourist areas and environmental protection. Our village hosts were very hospitable and shared the tradition of overfeeding guests, which, I am beginning to suspect, is common throughout Eastern Europe. The food was very good, but much heavier than the Mediterranean fare in Albania.

We heard a lot about ethnic divisions and suspicions which are almost never heard in Albania. Following the Balkan Wars that preceded WW I, the country of Albania was carved out of a much larger area of ethnic Albanians that now includes Kosovo, and parts of Macedonia and Greece. Maybe attitudes would be similar in the Albanian ethnic enclave in northern Greece where they were forced to adopt Greek names for families and geography and forbidden from using the Albanian language. I was surprised by how there was no mention of Albania in the Orthodox museums I visited in Athens and Corfu. I wonder how southwestern Idaho would feel if a chunk of territory were carved off and given to Oregon. Of course, border tensions occurred when Japanese living in Oregon were put in internment camps during WW II, but those living east of the Snake River in Idaho were not. Some of their Idaho neighbors rose to the occasion and traded farms for the duration and the Japanese community was quickly reestablished after the war to a greater degree than in many other parts of the west. At much greater personal risk, many Muslim Albanians sheltered their Jewish neighbors and refugees from other countries during WW II, although the survivors largely immigrated from the communist regime to the new Jewish state after the war.

I wonder how the evolution of the EU will change attitudes as traditional nation states of Europe become more ethnically diverse with freedom of economic migration like we have in the US. Will resentments resolve if the only difference between being an ethnic Hungarian in Romania and an ethnic Hungarian in Hungary is in the choice of postage stamps? I suppose one should never underestimate the militancy of serious philatelists.

I enjoyed spending time with people I know from back home and the host families in the village were great. They invited me back in a few months if I needed a break from life in Albania. That was nice, but I don’t, not really, and I miss my friends back there. I think I am getting a foretaste of the dilemma that many Peace Corps volunteers face at the close of service. They have generally adjusted to the vagaries of life in the host country; housing, diet, work, transportation, language, etc. Their sense of home has become a blend of the third world, the US and their cohort of volunteers, and one has to anticipate a period of accommodation post service. Mid-service conference is coming up in August and I am sure that issue will begin to be addressed at the meeting.

The trip ended with a very long train ride across Romania, back to Bucharest. It was made longer as large parts of the track are being reconstructed and my train had to wait hours on side tracks for opposing traffic to pass. We arrived near midnight at our hotel near the airport. I slept a couple of hours and then caught an early shuttle van to the airport to arrange an earlier flight back to Tirana where I was to meet visiting friends on their way home after more than a decade of missionary service in Papua New Guinea.

They spent a couple of days touring Tirana and then we took a bus back to Korca. I showed them around my city over the weekend. To their eyes, accustomed to a primitive, South Pacific jungle island, Albania seems highly developed. They enjoyed the coffee shops, restaurants and museums. They especially enjoyed the walks after it cooled a bit and we joined the citizens of Korca out for the evening stroll. This was not something they could do safely in the cities or towns of New Guinea. One night we stopped for ice cream, and the next we sat on a balcony, overlooking the city and sipped cocoa.

On Saturday, we were invited to a lakror feast (a traditional layered pastry with cheese and a wild, leek-like herb baked in a covered pan over a wood fire). Dr. Isufi and his friends were hosting an official from the EU at the ski area near Dardhe. Local and regional officials attended as well as representative patients and family members from the recreation group that frequently uses the area. They are trying to get funding for a better lift system and other improvements. They have big plans and high hopes and their enthusiasm is such a contrast to my high school students who seem to have adopted the Greek attitude towards their country.

I hope the EU acts favorably on at least some of their requests for help with their projects. It would help in so many ways; tourism, recreational opportunities, pride in their accomplishments and recognition of their potential. A summer thunderstorm showered rain and hail over the mountain, but I think the EU representative enjoyed the food, music, dancing and talk inside the day lodge. I showed him winter pictures that were on my digital camera. Outside water and mud washed down the slopes.

The rain stopped and the EU entourage left for the long drive back to Tirana. My friends and I picked our way up to the top of the ski hill where we could see north to Macedonia and south and east to Greece. We helped minimally with the clean up and then, as the sun was setting, lighting up the lingering clouds, we made the short trip back into Korca.

Freedom of Travel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Albanian Uncertainty Principle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kultur in Korca

As I sat listening to a recent cello and piano concert in an upstairs art gallery at the “Cultural Palace” in Korca, it occurred to me how different my Peace Corps experience has been from what I expected. I could be living in a mud hut in Botswana or a yurt in Mongolia with only occasional opportunities to watch a native dance or listen to throat singers. Instead, even though Albania is the second poorest country in Europe, it is still in Europe with all the cultural traditions that implies. This is especially true for Korca, which prides itself on its music, art, folk traditions, and much more.

There is a moderate sized public building next to the library in central Korca that is called the Cultural Palace. It is named after Vangjush Mio, a celebrated Albanian artist who was from Korca. His home in the old part of town is now a museum. The Cultural Palace has several rooms on its two floors. Downstairs is a gallery for touring shows of paintings or sculpture. Upstairs is the salon used for recitals, usually classical European instrumental or vocal music. I have not found a reliable source for the schedule of events, so I make it a point to walk by it frequently and hope that banners about cultural events will be displayed on the front of the building before they actually occur, which is not always the case. During the past few months, there have been a piano duet and piano recital, photography from local students, a touring exhibit of art from Shkroder in northern Albania, and an exhibit of contemporary sculpture and paintings from local artists. There is a trombone and piano recital scheduled for tomorrow.

Performances usually start on time. A program is rarely provided. Frequently they are videotaped by the local TV station. The bright lights and roving camera men detract a bit from the experience. Sometimes they bump against the paintings hanging on the walls or their cell phones go off and they take the call. This is a bit annoying, but seems to bother mainly me and maybe a couple of others in the audience. At the end of a performance, invariably a couple of audience members, usually a small child or young woman, will carry bouquets of fresh flowers to the performers. They kiss the artists on both cheeks and the audience applauds. There are never encores. Often the musicians are faculty from the local music academy or recent alumni.

Across the street from the Cultural Palace is the Cajupi Theater. This is a performance hall that hosts touring theater or musical groups or local productions such as the recent high school reviews of singing and dancing, both modern and traditional, skits and even videos produced by the students. There were nights for each of the local high schools and then one night which was a compilation of the best from all the schools. I think there was a competition to be included in this although a winner was not announce and prizes were not awarded in public either during or after the show, although several performers did get their flowers.

Earlier in the year I went to a contemporary play at the Cajupi. It was a situation comedy by an Albanian playwright. I didn’t get all the dialogue, but was able to follow it pretty much. Before that, a touring musical review of apparently well known national popular singers performed. It reminded me of a Lawrence Welk show with an older couple singing romantic ballads to each other and another act consisting of a father and his five young daughters. One singer came out into the audience and the spot light was shown on a few of the attendees who broke into song, singing a verse of the, apparently, well known and beloved number in progress. Towards the end of the show, the head of the Orthodox Church in Korca came onstage to bless the performance and introduce a long haired, middle aged priest with a pony tail, who sang a popular song. For the finale, all the cast, including the priests, came onstage and sang a big number. Lights and streamers fluttered in the fans that blew at the rear of the stage. The volume, typically, was set to painful levels. I have to be more consistent in remembering to bring my ear plugs for protection.

Neither of these public venues is particularly well maintained. Plaster is falling off the walls and the ceilings are stained by leaks. There is not much heat in the winter and no air conditioning in the summer. The rows of chairs are not all bolted to the floor and are pushed tightly together. Some people, usually the camera men or, for the high school performances students in the balcony, smoked, although I am pretty sure smoking is prohibited. One of the high school numbers involved students dancing and singing while carrying lighted candelabras and I worried a bit what would happen in the crowded theater if the curtains or streamers caught on fire or a smoker dropped a lit cigarette on the wooden floor. Thankfully, there was not the opportunity to find out.

In the fall, there were exhibits at the museum housed in the building where the first school that taught in Albanian during the declining years of Ottoman rule. These were of photographs and paintings by a local artist. Before that, on a pleasant fall day, artisans demonstrated traditional crafts and displayed some of their wares in the courtyard in the courtyard. Across the street from this museum is a coffee shop that is in the house that belonged to Themistokli Germangji, who was the leader of the autonomous region of Korca between the world wars of the 20th century. They have a very pleasant outside garden and have a jazz band that plays intermittently during the summer.

The Museum of Medieval Art houses the icon collection in a communist era office building made out of a modified church. There are plans to restore the church and a new museum is under construction on one of the main boulevards. This is near the modern building that houses the Bratko Museum of Oriental Art. The name is misleading because it houses a fairly idiosyncratic collection of a son of Korca who made a career in Hollywood and decided to build a museum in his home town to house the art and artifacts he had amassed over his long career that included military service as a photographer in occupied Japan after WWII. I love museums like this that gives insight into the collector as well as the collection. There is one more museum, for archeology, that also serves as temporary housing and a lab for visiting archeologists who explore the many burial sites in the area that date form the Stone Age.

On the boulevard that runs between the cathedral and the university is a park dedicated to Germangji. There is a large bronze statue of him there and behind that a wooden gazebo where, on summer evenings, locals gather in a circle around a small band of accordion, clarinet, mandolin and violin, and sing traditional Korcan ballads. Often along the three main boulevards that attract scores of walkers in the evening as the weather improves, there are street musicians playing the clarinet or drums. Many of the beer gardens have live music on weekends and groups vary between traditional, Korcan music and rock. Since I live near Birra Korca, I often walk past them and listen in. Sometimes I go with friends, but since I don’t drink I don’t go alone and would awkward sitting for long.

Closer to the university is a large park where sculptures are displayed. There is an annual competition and somehow a few are selected each year to be added to the permanent collection in the park. This park has many well tended flower beds and is a favorite stroll for local families or couples during evenings when the weather allows.

The university hosts some cultural events. I went to a recent conference on Camus in the agricultural building. It was sponsored by the Aliance Francez and was in French and shqip. The room it was held in was fairly modern and not as noisy as usual. I was able to follow most of the lectures. The TV camera men roamed around during the presentations and a friend of mine later told me that my image was on the local news that night. Also, the university hosts the Korca Beer Festival in August. On the main street near the university are also many night clubs. I leave these to the younger volunteers.

In a week or two, there should be the Carnival. I have asked about it but have not been able to find out exactly when it is scheduled. I am pretty sure is will be happening soon since they have put up flags near the cathedral and I think there is the start of a stage. I am looking forward to seeing the parade with the traditional music and dancers. I wonder if the local Elvis impersonator will participate again, riding in a white convertible while he sings from the King’s repertoire, stopping occasionally to dance around the car. It would not surprise me if there are Elvis impersonators in every country where there are Peace Corps volunteers. I wonder how “Hound Dog” sounds when sung by a Mongolian throat singer.

May Day

The Peace Corps safety director for Albania sent out a general text message to the cell phones that volunteers are required to carry at all times. The opposition party had scheduled a big rally in Tirana for the day and the party in power had scheduled a huge counter protest for the next day. Volunteers are not allowed to go near anything political to avoid even an implied endorsement of one side or the other in the various political disputes. We were warned away for the weekend from going anywhere near Skanderbeg Square in the center of the city. The younger volunteers were planning a fund raiser party in Tirana this weekend for the cause of supporting Albanian youngsters to attend an environmental camp in Minnesota this summer. It is a good cause and I am happy to support it with a donation, but I am too old for beer and loud rock music parties. I planned to stay home in Korca and didn’t need the caution.

My pilot friends might think this is a distress call (things are fine, thanks), but May Day refers to May first which is Labor Day in most of the world and the big holiday under the communists. It is still a holiday here and many families plan picnics in the mountains or at nearby lakes. The weather was about as nice as you could want; sunny and 70 degrees with a light breeze. I awoke early, did my exercise routine and headed up the mountain towards the cross for the traditional Korca morning constitutional. There were lots of people hiking up the road, families and groups from teens to pensioners.

I stopped briefly at St. Theodur’s church, about halfway up. I said hello to the caretaker who is there every day about 5:30 AM. He has been doing a lot of work on the yard around the church, planting trees and fixing the stairs to the chapel. It is very small, but has some of my favorite icons. A lot of the regular morning walkers use it as their destination and pull the rope to ring the bell before heading back down to the city. I continued out the back gate, up the hill, past a spring where some people had already spread out their picnic. I walked along the road a bit, past a couple of large groups of teens, and then took a steep and rocky path that is a more direct route to the summit. It offers some nice views of the canyon that is to the south of the mountain. I decided to explore the opposite side and make my way down to the path along the stream and through the canyon back to Korca.

Beyond the cross, the path was not well marked. It was steep and rocky. On the plus side there was hardly any litter and the view was spectacular down to the stream and canyon below and up to the higher, snow covered mountains to the east. I carefully made my way through the rocks and trees and eventually found a path. I followed it down the mountain to the creek where I came upon a group of teenage boys swimming in the water. I walked down the creek, occasionally passing a few people on foot or horseback. The horses had the traditional wooden saddles that look uncomfortable to both wear and to ride. They are ridden side saddle by up to three riders. The horses, like the people here, work hard.

I came out of the canyon at the village of Mborje which is adjacent to my end of Korca. Even though the hike had taken several hours, I was not in a hurry so I decided to further explore along the road to the south. After a bit it took a bend in the wrong direction and then petered out. I didn’t want to back track and then noticed that a man with a load of wood on a small mule went off on a path in a better direction off the side of the road. I followed him.

Before long I caught up with him and he struck up a conversation. He asked me where I was from.

“America”, I said in my limited shqip.

“Do you speak Greek? Italian?” he offered as a way to facilitate our speaking.

“No, only English, Spanish and a little shqip”, I replied. Most Albanian are multi-lingual, but with languages that don’t usually help an American. Older, educated people speak some Russian or Chinese from the sequence of communist alliances, the aged often some French from past cultural ties particularly in Korca where there was a French school and there is still a French library, and the younger adults who have done migrant labor in Europe, usually Greek or Italian.

I told him I was looking for a path back to Korca and he told me to follow him. We walked along a fence and then across a field. We came at last to a group of houses and he invited me in for a drink. As I have mentioned before, this is the principle risk of hiking in Albania. Of course, I accepted.

His name was Nadir. We sat at a table in his yard among his flowering quince and apple trees and budding grape vines. I was introduced to his father, his mother, his wife and two year old daughter. He told me his five month old twins were inside. He had been born in Mborje and had built this house about 8 years ago with money he had earned in Greece working in farm labor and construction. It is a nice home. He has two cows in addition to his mule. He has some land a couple of kilometers away where he grows grain and hay to feed his animals. He recently bought a tractor and hires out with his machine to work for other farmers in the village. He said gasoline was so expensive it was hard to make much money at this enterprise. It has recently risen about 30% to about $1.50 a quart. He asked me how much gas was in the U.S. I told him it was about half what it cost in Albania. I didn’t tell him how much people complain about the high price of gas in America. We finished our Turkish coffee. He asked me if I liked it. I don’t mind it, it is like cowboy coffee back home, so I it was not so strange to me when I came Albania. I did tell him I usually drink what they call “filter coffee” or “American coffee”. I have a drip coffee pot, kindly left to me by another volunteer when she returned to the States. Nadir had never had that. I offered to give him some if he would visit me in Korca. We exchanged cell phone numbers before I headed off down the road towards town.

The other night, my landlord, Palo knocked on my door to introduce a neighbor who wants to learn English. Most young Albanians see English as a key to a more prosperous future. She has been paying for classes and having trouble finding time between her two work shifts and also it is expensive. Neighbors have obligations to each other in Albania, so of course I agreed. The Peace Corps provided me with some computer based English teaching materials which I have found very helpful. I have a couple of people I tutor one on one. One is going off to college next year, so I will have some free time for another student.

My neighbor is a young woman who I think is the mother of Megi, who is in the group of young kids who frequently knock on my door to talk to me and practice their English. It is taught in most grammar schools. At their age it is not much beyond “hello, how are you?”, but I try to introduce new words. Sometimes I lead them around the apartment building, picking up trash and give them each a new word when they put something in the bag. I figure this way I am staying true to my primary assignment in health education, which includes the environment. It’s not an environmental camp in Minnesota, but I don’t have to organize a party to raise money.

Good House Pets

I was hiking along a trail in the hills east of Korca, when I noticed that several people I passed were carrying wicker cages. At first I thought they were traps of some sort, but a closer look revealed they were taking their pet parakeets out for a walk. Maybe this is a common practice in other countries, but I have never seen it before. I wonder if the birds appreciate the fresh air and change of scenery. Birds are very popular pets in Albania. As the weather warms up people hang their cages out on balconies or outside apartment windows. Birdsong brightens up a springtime walk along the cobblestone alleys in old Korca or on the boulevards or sidewalks in newer parts of town.

Dogs and cats are everywhere in Albania. In villages, every yard seems to have a dog chained to a dog house to scare away intruders, human or other. In Korca, dogs wander the streets and hillsides. Cats slink under fences and along rooftops. They raid trash bins and contribute to the general profusion of litter, but, on the positive side, I haven’t seen many rats or mice. They are pretty street-smart. Cars race by since Albanian drivers love to floor it and race along any distance that might open up in the traffic. I have seen dogs step out onto a street and carefully look both ways before crossing. I should not have been surprised; otherwise the streets would be littered with carcasses.

People here seem to like dogs and cats, but house pets are a newer phenomenon. I have not seen dog treats in the markets. One of my neighbors has a Pomeranian that appears pampered. They even asked my help in giving it a vaccination they had obtained from Greece. I am not sure what it was, as I can’t read Greek. I reconstituted it, injected it under the skin on its back, and hoped for the best. Few dogs or cats receive vaccinations and almost none are neutered. I haven’t seen any dog catchers around, but they must make periodic sweeps or there would be more dogs roaming around than there are.

The neighbor often takes his little dog running on the road up to the cross. Almost every day, I see it running pluckily along trying to keep up on its stubby legs, the bells on its collar jingling, its tongue hanging out. It must be in fantastic shape for a Pom. Frequently the wife or daughter sits in the alley next to our building with the dog in their lap.

Ilky, the neighborhood alpha dog who slept by my door during winter, now sleeps on the stoop of the apartment across the alley. I think he must belong to the family that lives there. He is a good dog. He greets almost everyone enthusiastically. He keeps order in the yard and doesn’t bark too much at night. We gave him the bone from the pot roast we ate for Easter dinner. He turns up his nose when I offer him bits of kibble that I bought as a treat for him, but he attacked that bone with gusto.

Isufi has a puppy named Lupe, a small to medium dog that looks like she is a good part Husky. He likes dogs. I have seen him give Lupe a scratch behind the ear and play with her at times. She sleeps in his yard and, as far as I know, is not allowed in the house. During the day she is allowed out of the gate to roam the streets of Korca. She does not have a collar. Isufi does not buy dog food. Like most dogs in Albania, Lupe is fed table scraps. She doesn’t look malnourished. I haven’t asked him what he will do when she inevitably has a litter. I am afraid he will misunderstand me and try to give me one of them. That happened to a volunteer in a previous group who mentioned to an Albanian friend that she liked dogs.

A volunteer in my group has two dogs. They are typical Albanian mutts. She rents a house and has a yard and has even built a kennel. She has had them neutered and they have been wormed and had all their shots. They have collars and are leash trained and she walks them around her town. Her counterpart isn’t married and is willing to do dog sitting when she has to travel. I miss having a dog, but I couldn’t manage any of that with my apartment. Also, there are lots of hoops to jump through to bring a dog back to America. I think it is easier for a volunteer to bring home an Albanian spouse.

The wandering dogs of Korca seem pretty well behaved and mostly interested in each other. Walking in the countryside, one has to be wary of the sheep dogs. I have been told that if you get between them and their sheep you may be attacked, so I am careful to walk around them. Sometimes I pick up a rock to chuck at them and scare them off if they seem aggressive.

There are other pets. There are a few horses in the neighborhood, but, however much the owner dotes on them, they are mainly work animals. Horse drawn carts are common in Korca. A Roma man stands in front of the market in Korca with his pet bear. You can take a photo with the bear for about five dollars. He walks the bear, which looks like it weighs about 250 lbs., on a leash over to a nearby park where the bear and the man lie under a tree for a break. I assume the man found the bear as a cub and has had him since. The bear looks in much better shape than the man. The younger boy of my host family keeps rabbits. They are pets, but also a commercial enterprise for meat and pelts. He reminds me of the 4-H kids back home, but he is too big to cry when he has to sell one.

Once, as I was returning from a hike in the hills above Thane, I met my host mother on the road. She had the two family cows on a rope and was walking them, letting them browse the grass and weeds along the side. I watched them for awhile and then I mentioned to her that back home I often saw people taking their dogs for a walk, but had never before seen someone walking their cow. She asked me which I thought was better for walking, dogs or cows. I told her that I had never gotten milk from my dog.

Meet and Greet

The 3 hour furgon ride to Elbasan is routine by now. I know enough to sneak up on the furgon stand, find one that has at least a few passengers inside, and make sure I know they are about ready to leave before I get on. Otherwise we could sit for an hour or more waiting to fill up the van. Also, one should get the price set before getting on, although I haven’t been too taken when I forget to do this, no more than about 50 cents more than the usual price. I don’t begrudge the drivers that. Driving a furgon is a hard way to make a living.

The road over the mountain between Lake Ohrid and the Shkumbin River valley is being straightened and widened. It is a mess now, but will be great when they finish. The trip between Korca and Pogradec used to take an hour and a half and now is only 45 minutes. They celebrated the opening of that section of the road with a bicycle road race last summer. The road over the mountain might take another half hour off the trip. I don’t know when they plan to finish the work. Not that it matters, since some road projects that are ongoing have signs posting completion dates four or five years back. One of the satirical TV shows has great fun showing big ribbon cutting ceremonies, signs with pictures of modern highways, “Soon to be Completed!”, and footage of large potholes and detours as construction drags on for years barely keeping up with deterioration. The first autostrada (a four lane, divided highway to European standards) opened between Durres and Kukes was opened to great fanfare last year. They were way over budget and only opened 2 of the four lanes for most of it, but it cut the 8 hour trip to 2 hours. It was incredible. People made special trips just to drive the road. Then one of the main tunnels collapsed. They hope to reopen it soon. It must have been engineered by the same group that did the Big Dig project in Boston.

I gave two classes to the 15 volunteers in the health education section. The sessions went ok. I hope the information I gave was useful. No one fell asleep, even though it was just after lunch. This was likely more a tribute to their politeness and attentiveness than to my riveting presentation. I talked mainly about how my volunteer activities developed over time and how I approached things. I tried to emphasize that they have to work it out for themselves, be positive, flexible, patient and creative. I also got to hear another health education volunteer about her activities in Berat, another historic and scenic small city in southern Albania. She is a dynamo and I was very impressed. I am inert by comparison.

The total in Group 13, the new group, is 50; two-thirds larger than my cohort. On Saturday, many of the volunteers from Groups 11 and 12 joined them for the “Meet and Greet” session, first at the Peace Corps training room and then at the park. The new group was fresh faced and enthusiastic, and young! There is one volunteer in the group from Georgia in her 60’s, but I didn’t see her there. There was a couple in their 40’s and the rest were the usual Peace Corps age, newly out of college, in their early 20’s. In Group 12 there are four of us over 50 years old. Meeting the new group made me feel even older than I usually do.

I unrolled my sleeping bag on the couch of a volunteer from Group 12 who is sited in Elbasan. There were 7 of us in her house for the weekend. It saved money for the Peace Corps which is trying to do the pre service training for the new group on the same budget it had for previous groups. The others talked long into the night. I remember doing that when I was their age, but I don’t fit into such conversations and, anyway, I wanted to get to sleep so that I could get up at dawn, head to Thane, visit my host family there and get back for the afternoon activities in town.

The Salufi family is doing well. The grandmother is now fully recovered from her surgical complications and seems quite well. They have 5 cows now, and the mother is traveling to Elbasan every other day to sell her dairy products at the bazaar. She makes a lot more doing this than selling her milk to the dairy van that picks up from the villages every morning. It keeps her very busy. The father continues to do construction work in the area. The older boy, Aldi, is in a Turkish college in Cerrik, a larger town that is about a mile down the road from Thane. He is learning English, Turkish and Arabic, computers and trigonometry. His English is now pretty functional and it was a treat to converse with him. The younger boy, Diku, goes to the same school on Saturdays and will go full time next year. It is a private school and a big expense for the family, but seems to provide a good education. The family wants the best it can provide for their children. The school in Cerrik seems like an Islamic version of Preka, which, of course, is sponsored by a Catholic society. I don’t know about corruption issues, but they don’t allow slackers in this family. The girl cousins are also doing well. Their parents are back from working in Greece. Their mom is helping with the cows. Both families are hosting volunteers in the new group and are very happy with the volunteers that were placed with them.

One of the reasons I came in the morning was to try to avoid a huge dinner, so, of course, they put on a huge lunch. I felt badly that I had to leave abruptly to get back to Elbasan. I was given large jars of pickled peppers and fig jam to carry home, but unfortunately the glass fig jam jar rolled on onto the floor of the furgon and exploded. The other passengers were not upset and helpfully gave me Kleenex and barf bags to clean up the mess. Luckily most of it was over me.

I washed up at the office and walked over to the meeting room across the street. The volunteers were divided among eight tables it was run like a speed dating session. Every few minutes the prior volunteers would rotate to the next table of new volunteers. There was barely time for introductions. I apologized to each group for not hosting anyone in Korca during the volunteer visit over Easter. By the time we got to the park, it was running a bit late if I wanted to catch a furgon back to Korca. I said hi briefly then headed across the street where some of the furgons leaving Elbasan for Korca ran. Luckily, after about 15 minutes one came along and I was on my way home.

I had promised Isuf and Maca that I would go to the ski area the next day and help with the clean up now that the season has ended. There was a fair amount to do, but the weather was not great. It alternated between hail, rain, snow and occasional sun. We cleaned up the inside of the day lodge but didn’t bring the rope tows inside as they were wet and muddy. We did clear a large area of ground with pick and shovel for a garden by the door of the equipment room we had built last summer. I expressed doubts about how well it would do at that altitude and with a northeast exposure, but Isuf assured me it would be great.

The following week was busy. I had a day of make-up classes in addition to my regular schedule at Preka. I have started co-teaching a couple of classes at the public nursing school. The classes are huge and crowded and in shqip. Sometimes I get flustered and my already limited language ability disappears entirely. Sometimes I am not exactly sure what I am saying which is not the best situation for instruction. After my class with Isuf, he insists we go out to eat kernacka (a local delicacy about halfway between a meatball and a sausage) at a nearby beer garden. With the warming spring weather we can often sit outside, which is pleasant, and I can slip some of my over generous portion to cats or dogs that hang around the tables. After that class I have English tutorials with two students at their homes. Their families routinely try to feed me as well. I have found I can mitigate this a bit by protesting that I have to save room for the obligate feeding at my next stop. No matter what I say I have learned I don’t have to plan meals for that day and most of the next.

Thursday afternoon as I was walking to the aviation club at the library, there was automatic weapons fire on the street. The police quickly closed off the area to traffic, but pedestrians seemed more curious than afraid. When I passed by, there were two cars with the left front tires flat, perhaps shot out, shell casings on the pavement, and the driver’s door of the front car open with a police motorcycle parked beside it. I didn’t see any signs of bloodshed. The cars had Italian license plates and it was assumed by my friends that it was related to organized crime. I am not sure if they have apprehended the shooters.

On Friday, I got a text message from one of the new volunteers that he was coming to Korca as his service site. I suspect that he is in community development rather than teaching English as a foreign language, although this is difficult to judge from the grammar of a text message. His is one of the young, enthusiastic “newbies”, but I can’t put a face with his name from the meeting last weekend. I look forward to introducing him to my city.