Budapest for Christmas, Sofia for New Years..

Last day this year in Bajram Curri..

Besim & Endrit at coffee..

My coworkers at the Bashkia. They got me a Tropoje plaque for Christmas! So nice!..

Christmas tree in the center of town..

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

The market street from the Bashkia..

All out to coffee for the last time this year...

Merry Christmas from Albania!

Click here to watch my Christmas card from Albania!

Our first Chili dog Christmas..

Since I'm traveling out of the country for Christmas and New Years, we decided to have our sitemate Christmas last night. One day a few weeks ago we were having conversations about food we miss in America, these happen pretty much every other day. Homemade coleslaw, chili, hotdogs and hashbrowns sounded like an amazing Christmas meal.

We started cooking and preparing around 4:00pm, it gets dark around 4:30 so we had to go ahead and jump the gun early. Right after we finished preparing the coleslaw, what do you know the power went out. So there we sat, wreaking of holiday spirit, sitting in the dark. So, like any red blooded American, we decided to partake in one holiday tradition that we all actually shared: watching The Christmas Story. There we sat, in the dark, and started and finished the movie that we all grew up watching every Christmas.

Finally, about 2 hours later, Santa turned the lights back on so that our Chili dog Christmas wasn't ruined.. well not ruined but altered. Endrit came over and we had a wonderful holiday meal. Tasting his first chili dog, we were a little nervous, Albanian's typically don't like spicy food, and it's pretty hard to make chili without a little kick to it, but he loved it! He even asked for seconds! He even liked Garrett's Whiskey Slush, a traditional Teutopolis, Illinois drink that his family makes even Christmas.

We all sat around, telling Christmas jokes, exchanging Christmas traditions from America and Albania and then the circle dancing started. The Vjalle Kuksi is regarded all around Albania as one of the hardest circle dances in the country and Endrit wanted to teach us. We tried to learn haha. After that proved unsuccessful, we tried to teach him the running man. Probably one of the best cultural exchanges I've had since I've been living here. Overall, I think that Chili Dog Christmas was a huge success and will probably become our Christmas tradition, well for next year anyways.

I leave for Durres and then fly out from Tirane to spend Christmas in Budapest and New Years in Sofia, Bulgaria. Kim & I are going to meet up with PCV's in Bulgaria which should be fun and insightful to see what the Peace Corps is like in another European country.

Merry Christmas from my Bajram Curri family..

Chili dog Christmas in my apartment..

First snow of the winter...

Rain. Rain, rain, rain...rain.

So, I saw the sun yesterday, for the first time in oh about two weeks. It's rained everyday for over two weeks. But yesterday, yesterday I saw the sun. Seasonal depression has never been more relevant than it is now, but don't worry, I just have to get through this week and it's Christmas vacation for me.

My house grandma (in the picture) was out enjoying the sun yesterday and we talked about the rain and how soon it will be snow.

We've also starting loosing power at least once a day, and for longer periods of time. I don't really use electricity that much since I'm living in one room but since it gets dark at 4:30 everyday, not having power that long just makes you want to go to sleep. Lets just say I've gone through a lot of books here lately. But it is weird, when I don't have power I still can pick up this random Wifi connection, which is nice until my battery runs dead.

Everyday that it is clear, I can see Mt. Shkelzeni from my window and sure enough, day after day it becomes more snow covered. I remember the first time I came up here in April and it still had snow on it.. good thing I'm prepared to attack the winter.. at least I think so.

So that's how Santa does it..

So, after living in Albania for 9 months, there's of course a lot of things that I miss about America. Turkey sandwiches, driving my car, centralized heating, I mean I could go on. But one thing that I never even liked and never thought I'd miss from America is tacky Christmas decorations, as well as American flag memorabilia. Every time the fourth of July rolled around I would always cringe at the thought about people walking around with American flag's on their sweaters, in their yards and all over their cars. Christmas decorations too, but you're talking to a girl that now freaks out when someone is wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap (happened today on the way to work). But now, that I'm living in a third world country, that is mostly Muslim. Now ever little hint of Christmas that I see I just want take a while and enjoy it, stare at it, marval it. The only Christmas decorations I have seen in Bajram Curri have been at the hotel and my first floor neighbors have a semi-wreath on their door.

Not to say I never decorated before, it's actually one of my favorite things about the holidays, but I always tried to keep it classy and less traditional I guess (always got to keep it classy). But I guess it's only natural that getting into the Christmas spirit is hard living here and not being around my friends and family in America but I've really come to love the little fat Santa sitting in the front of a business or the sparkle paper that spells out "Gezuar vitin i ri" which means Happy New Year. I leave for my trip in a little over a week and I hear there's an awesome Christmas market there. I got some tree lights (even though I'm ska tree) from Tirane for only 50L (50 cents) and duct taped them around my apartment. I also got two Santa hats that say "Gezuar Vitin e ri" because Albanian's actually believe that's when Santa comes, on New Years Eve instead of Christmas.. maybe that's how he does it...

Tacky Christmas sweater party in Lushnje..

Christmas cookies, white elephant game, homemade wine, flea market found sweaters and great company...

I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams..

Te dua shume...

New street art in Tirane... "I love you a lot"

Fotos me shume from PDM..

View of PDM...

Endrit and my project proposal for Bajram Curri..

Diane and Marci, our amazing trainers...

Lenae and her project plan...

Project Design & Management Workshop..

My counterpart and friend Endrit signed up for the PDM workshop held by the Peace Corps in Tirane. Our project plan is to renovate the basketball courts in the middle of town by having a clean-up day for the community, replacing the basketball goals and rims and painting the area, overall, just making the area safer and more easier to play on than it is now. The basketball courts are in the middle of the town and it's the first thing that foreigners and locals alike see when they get off the buses. We both think that it is important for a beautification project to be implemented as well as renovate the courts to help provide healthier life choices for the youth and start up the neighborhood basketball teams that were in place in previous years.

The PDM workshop was so helpful for this. I mean I learned a lot of this stuff during PST but since I had no idea how it was going to be at site, what my co-worker's reception of me would be, what the community's needs were, etc. it was hard to actually visualize any of this helping me. During this workshop we go through all the necessary steps to creating a successful project (on paper), with our Albanian counterparts which is a great opportunity for us to work together and create a project together.

I think the entire workshop was a huge success and I was so fortunate that I got to attend with my counterpart. I realized this week too how fortunate I am to have my counterpart because he not only keeps me informed with what's going on at the Bashkia but is so supportive of my own projects as well, and speaks really good English which is always a huge help. Now, hopefully, when I return to site, we will be as motivated and productive as we have been this week. None the less, I think what we learned this week will definitely benefit us with our current project and all projects in the future. Stay tuned for project development. I also learned today that the Peace Corps Partnership fund for the Outdoor Amabassador's group has been fully funded! Urime! Shume sukses. It happened quicker than we expected and I can't wait to see what our next step is for this training.

The view from my hotel in Tirane..

Just another manic Monday..

Today I actually spent most of my day in my office working. Strange, I know. I've been working on the Bashkia's logos since summer and we still haven't come to a decision yet. I'm also attending PDM tomorrow and it was a scramble and a gamble (like Coach Johnson used to say..well probably still says) to get everything together and ready for Tirane tomorrow. It's been raining for 4 days straight. I'm talking about drizzling either, like hard rain for 4 days. Checked the weather forecast for Tirane and it doesn't look like I'll get away from it there either. I think PDM will be a great learning tool for myself and my Albanian counterpart. Since we have a project in mind, we can focus directly on this and how to properly develop a project and write a grant specific one as well. I have to be at the bus station at 5:30am tomorrow morning and I have a feeling the rain probably won't have stopped. Hey, at least I'll be able to take a hot shower everyday at the hotel. That's a good feeling. And that I'll be in Budapest soon for Christmas.. on a Christmas lunch cruise with live music. That'll put me in the holiday spirit, since that's highly lacking right now. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.

A short video from my long weekend in Rome..

Click here to watch my video from Rome...

Get out of jail free drink..

It's a raining and cold Sunday in Bajram Curri so I think I'm going to spend the day cleaning up my apartment and preparing for the PDM workshop this week in Tirane. I had coffee this morning to discuss some changes to the logo and what we needed to do for the workshop with a few colleagues. After we finished talking about work we started sharing stories from college and our families, and it's very fun to see what they think is weird from America. Like the fact that kids can't go to stores and buy alcohol for their parents. I explained that if that were the case, everyone would be 'buying alcohol for their parents,' but here it's normal to see kids who can barely see over the counter buying cigarettes or alcohol for their families. I also explained to them the idea of having to show your I.D. every time you get a drink or purchase alcohol. He thinks that this is very weird but a better system than what they have in Albania. He then told me a story about his father and how he was a driver during communism, there were very few drivers so it was a very prestigious job during that time period. One night he had too much to drink and wrecked his car. In order to get out of the jail time for punishment he took a small bottle of gasoline out from the back of his car and took a swig. This enabled him to pass the breathalyzer and convince the police officers he had not been drinking. Although this method was proven effective, I couldn't believe that he would go to such great lengths. He then explained to me that during communism they could jail you for anything they wanted to (although this would have been something understandable) and then it would ruin your families reputation for generations. So.. he literally drank gasoline to save the good name of his family.. he also never drank before he drove either.

Grandmas and eggs..

Health fair & AIDS march reflection...

Peace Corps and World Vision have provided the health volunteers here with brochures and information on various health topics. Yesterday was World AIDS Day and for the day we piggy backed off of Garrett's counterparts AIDS march and distributed information on AIDS prevention. Although AIDS isn't a very large health issue in Albania, it is still important to spread awareness on how to prevent the spread of AIDS. Due to recent studies, it is said that 478 people have the HIV/AIDS virus in Albania and there have been a reported 65 new infections in the past year. We started off the day with setting up our tables with information on AIDS in Shqip and began talking to locals about Global AIDS Awareness day and handing out information and condoms. The march was scheduled to begin at 11 so Emily and I made our way down to the high school to take photographs. There were over 200 students with posters, red ribbons, megaphones and pamphlets ready to march down the main street of Bajram Curri. They marched to the History Museum where the AIDS rally was held and our table was set up. Crowd control was definitely an issue for a while when the march stopped around our table and hundreds of little hands began grabbing information. Some kids were even jumping off the steps in order to receive a brochure (as you can tell the pictures below). My main job of the fair was to document the event and I wish the pictures did it justice of how crazy it got for a while. Overall, I think the event was a success and it was such a good thing for us to be involved with this event because of the huge turn out.

Global AIDS Awareness Day in Bajram Curri...

STOP SIDA march, rally and table with information on how to reduce your risk of contracting AIDS...

Stop SIDA in Bajram Curri...