Babai ime eshte berber.

My dad is a barber.

Apparently you can get a hair cut here for $1 US Dollar.

Gati!

The overview of Pajove on top of a mountain

“Gati” means ‘ready’ in Shqipe so playing ultimate Frisbee today with the locals we learned some knew words to add to our vocabulary. I’ve never been in an environment where it’s so much applied learning. I remember sitting in Spanish class wondering if I went somewhere where the native language was Spanish would I ever really use what I was learning. Well here the answer is a huge po! or yes in English (Anglist). Things that we learn in class I talk to people on the way home about or at the dinner table with my host family. Tonight I asked my sister to tell me the reciepe to what we were eating, “Mish me patate” for my homework assignment. It was all going smoothly until I looked up the word “lemer” she had written down in the directions and it translated in the dictionary as “threashing ground.” I explained to her I was pretty sure the translation was wrong and we both laughed until we cried. Of course everyone else in the room had no idea what was funny but I’m pretty sure in the preparation of any meal you wouldn’t use the phrase “threashing ground.”

Playing ultimate frisbee behind the school in Pajove.

Rain, rain...go away.

Today it rained. All day. We had to be in Elbasan at 7:45am, which means we had to be at the furgon station at 7:00am, which means I had to leave my house at 6:30am, which means I’m exhausted. We had 4 hours of language learning at the high school in Elbasan (we’re learning how to conjugate verbs) followed by numerous power point presentations by PC Staff on coping strategies, culture shock, etc.

My flowers.

 My host brother before he went off to school.

I never thought I would say this but I was glad when I met one of my sister’s cousins today and she could speak Spanish. It was amazing how much easier it was for her to ask me questions and me to respond than I thought it would be. It’s weird what I retained and had no idea it was still in my brain; especially after all the Shqipe I’ve been cramming in here the past week and a half.

Today I received the first flowers from any member of the opposite sex (that I wasn’t related to, Dad I’m not excluding you, or those guys in Mexico that bought us all roses after the Salsa Club) has ever given me… my host brother picked me two different kinds of flowers and hid them behind his back and gave them to me before dinner. He also picked a cucumber and gave it to me too… to bad I’m going to eat that for lunch tomorrow but I’m probably going to press the flowers. Every girl should save her first flowers right? Just sayin.

 Reppin the double eagle.

We’ve started to plan our community event and I’m pretty excited about it so far. I think we’re going to make it a two-weekend event, one day in Bishqem, one in Pajove, and have like a “Field Day” for the kids of the community. Hopefully it will target community involvement, gender equality, health awareness and waste management. We’ll that’s our objectives anyway, hopefully some how we’ll be able to get something together that will touch each of those subjects and still be really fun for the kids. We’re having our meeting Thursday to run our idea by our C.O.D. leaders.

Site visit in Bajram Curri this weekend

We just got an email telling us where our site visit will be this weekend and I got assigned to Bajram Curri. From what little research I just did the town was named after an Albanian hero and is located in the North of the country. We have to bring our passports because the roads will take us through Kosovo to come back into Albania.

Directions from the current volunteer that I will be staying with:
The last furgon that leaves Tirana to Bajram Curri goes at around 08:00.  The furgon station in Tirana is on George Bush Road, near the Parliament Also, any PCTs visiting Bajram Curri need to bring their passports since they will need to travel through Kosovo. EL-TR-BC-KU-EL (to be in TR by 07:45 at parliament)

Yes, there is a George Bush Road in the captial of Tirana. They also have a seat permenatley reserved for him and his wife for when he should deciede to come home.

Same Shqip, different day.

 

My host brother on the patio.

  

Boys playing cards on the railroad track on the way home.

Our school in Pajove.

Saved by the kastravets (cucumber).

Today was a good Sunday. I woke up around 9am and helped out around the house with some chores. We had a big lunch because my host-mom’s sister came from Pajove with her two children for the day. I bonded with my sisters and their cousins as I made them hemp necklaces and bracelets with plastic beads. They appreciated them so much and it was so refreshing for the little things to be appreciated compared to in the States just being over looked. I haven’t seen my youngest sister that excited since I’ve been here. 

Things like that validate the reason why I came here… the small things in life are appreciated and valued and not taken for granted. Since I’ve been here, every meal I’ve eaten I’ve known where the food has come from, whether it was grown in the greenhouses or has been milk from a cow down the street.  Everyone values what they have, no matter how little or how much and I’m really enjoying that about the Albanian culture.

I went and studied in Pajove for a bit to get out of the house for a while and enjoy the beautiful weather.  When I got home I cracked open my work out DVD and got some good cardio in before what I thought was going to be another huge meal. To my surprise it was a sandwich and a huge delicious cucumber! We get the most delicious vegetables at my home because of my host-parents amazing farm.

Side note about the amazing farm... I finally translated “will you take me to go see your farm” and I get out there to look into the green houses and not two minutes later I slip on a slick spot of grass and tumble down a hill into a mud puddle. Now that you have that visual imagine a mortified 16 year old and two snickering children. I tried to tell her it wasn’t a big deal and laugh it off because I thought it was pretty funny myself and once we got back to the house I showed them a picture of me on the floor playing basketball and tried to explain that it’s not unusual for me to end up on the ground.

Champagne in a Bunker

Well first of all, today, well tomorrow, we “loose an hour” with day light savings time. So does that mean that since I went through day light savings time in the states and now going through it again in Albania that I just lost two hours of my life? Not cool. Well today was our first Saturday in Bishqem… well Pajove. We’re going to school this entire week because Bishqem is closed because it’s a holiday, kind of like their spring break. Everyone is starting to feel behind on the language but seriously, we’ve been here a week today… if we think about all that we’ve learned and been exposed to in a week… it’s more than I used to learn in semesters in college.

After tutoring some of us went on a hike after lunch. We went to visit Alex’s home that you literally have to hop on rocks through a creek to get to and noticed a guy standing on an unfinished house taking pictures. He struck up a conversation with us, turns out he is from Pajove but is now living in Italy and wanted to build a home for his family where he grew up. He was a very well traveled man, all over Europe, Asia, South America, and we think he was a photographer as well as some other profession. Anyways he showed us around his unfinished home and told us what each room was going to be, who was going to live there, etc. and when the tour was done he handed us a bottle of champagne. We took a few pictures and continued on our hike. We ended up in some bunkers that were built when Albania was a communist country and we shared the champagne there. In a year or two we plan to return to Pajove to visit the man and hopefully his finished home and bring him a bottle of champagne to return the favor.

My nokia.

Our cellphone, a blast from the past.

Just another day in the neighborhood

 Melia and myself outside our school in Bishqem

This morning we met the Pajove group for coffee and had our first C.O.D. meeting about what we wanted to implement in this community, kind of like a trial run for work, while we’re here. I think we decided on some sort of Bishqem/Pajove Soccer Tournament or something for community involvement. This will be a project through out our 10 weeks in the communities and is supposed to help prepare us for the projects we will be doing once we’re sworn in.

 Tonight we celebrated…actually I’m not sure what we celebrated but we had a special pie called “byrek” which can be made with lots of sorts of vegetables (ours was spinach), it kind of reminded me of Baklava. The tradition is the person who makes it puts a coin piece of Leke in it and who ever gets it in their piece is supposed to have good luck. We didn’t practice that part of the celebration because my host-brother picked it out before we were served haha.

Oh and incase you were wondering, Monte Kristo killed 3 people tonight… just after hot-tubbing with blonde beauties while he drank scotch from the bottle and smoked cigars.  Such a bad, bad, bad man. I do think it’s helping me with my Shqipe though.. watching the subtitles can’t hurt right? Tomorrow we go to Elbasan. Last time we had to pay extra because we went past five and the furgons stop running around that time.

Some moments..

 

They live in Pajove.

 

Sean and Mayaan packing from the hotel to go to their host families.

  

View on the walk home in Bishqem.

 

In our classroom in Bishqem.

 

My host sisters and their cousin

 

This is an everynight thing for him after dinner

Something I miss...

Mexico, Japan…Shqiperia?

Right now, I basically feel like I’m studying abroad…. with one exception, I don’t have to finance anything.  We’re in class 6 days a week, 5-7 hours a day, studying culture, integration strategies, learning about our field (mines C.O.D. (Community and Organization Development)), learning about Albanian history… I mean I could go on but it’s amazing all that I’ve absorbed by just being here for just a week. I feel like I’ve been here for months already from all the knowledge I’ve gained so far but I’m sure once it becomes routine I wont feel so over-whelmed with knowledge... oh and there’s that learning/understanding the language thing too. Today we have our first meeting with C.O.D. representative to try and get a feel of what we're actually going to be doing here, even though its going to vary person to person and site to site.

 

My host families home in Bishqem.

Address for letters only.

Brenna Mickey 

Korpusi Paqes

P.O. Box 8180

Tirane, Albania

(my walk home from school)

After training we can get packages but not while were at the host homes.

Lanner, he loves Marcus.

Sugar on pasta and grid paper

For everyone (and it’s pretty much everyone I know) who talked crap about me putting sugar on my pasta… I have found my homeland. We were served pasta tonight that everyone put a spoonful (or more) of sugar on. BAM! Eat that.  Another reason I feel as if I was meant to be here is that they don’t have regular notebooks…everything is grid paper. Hello!? The only notebooks I own is grid paper… I took all my college notes on grid paper… I know these seem like stupid details but they’re really significant when you’re experiencing massive amounts of culture shock every millisecond of the day.

 

 First day of school in Bishqem. 

Xhoni (Johni) and his water filter.

Crazy girl

Tonight I got my first taste of how much people in Shqiperia really care about what others think and how important reputations are, especially in my host family. I feel like I’m finally connecting with my host family…and I say finally but it has seriously only been three days. So much has happened since I’ve been here I feel like I’ve been here for months but the days go by so quickly. Anywho, I was joking around with my host sisters and me and the youngest started to make animals noises, honestly because I think we were both exhausted from trying to figure out every little thing the other was saying. I called her a crazy girl, crazy girl and we laughed until we were all crying (that is one thing that carries on between any language). I joked and joked and then her and her mother both got really serious and after 15 minutes of translating I figured out that they were asking me to not call her ‘crazy girl’ at school (we go to the same school) because people would get the wrong impression. We pinky promised (because apparently that crosses languages as well) that I wouldn’t say crazy girl to her at school.

Avash, avash. (Slowly, slowly).

That’s how my Shqip is going right now, slowly. Our teacher this morning kept telling us ‘avash, avash’ and not to get frustrated because it is only our third day learning Shqipe. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed but I guess that’s all part of the culture shock I’m experiencing because I still feel like this isn’t real life most of the time I’m awake. I mean... I feel like I’m in West Virginia or something… not Albania (Shqiperia (SHQEP-ER-EE-A).

Today was our first day of classes in the Bishqem 9-year-old school. Our classroom is basically a closet and there are four trainees and a teacher in said closet for 4-5 hours a day. But honestly I can’t complain because since it’s so small we keep it warm throughout the day. Oh and all the kids pressing their faces up against our window during their recess do too, they’re quite the distraction but I don’t hate it, they’re so cute. Everyone was quite interested in the Amerikan’s at the school today. My host sister that I walked with to school even knocked on the door during our class to show me to a few of her friends. She was very proud to ‘have me’ as we walked the 30-minute walk to school together with about 4 of her cousins.

Tonight we had cos (COAS) (yogurt (but not like the yogurt you’re thinking of, it was more like queso from the Mexican restaurants)) and lamb. The bad part about being served first was that I had no idea how to eat it. We also watched a French Soap Opera, which is apparently very big in this house (Big Brother is not but is in most other homes I’ve heard). Have you ever tried watching a Soap Opera in French with Shqipe subtitles? Not the easiest thing I’ve ever done but I still managed to know that Kristol was a bad…bad man.

Oh, and apparently the roosters (Gjel (GTH-EL)) in Europe didn’t get the memo that they’re only supposed to crow in the mornings because it’s a 24-hour a day thing here in Bishqem. It seriously sounds like someone pushed a button and the perfect rooster noise comes out. But I can’t complain, one of the other trainee’s has a bedroom right on top of where the cow (Lopa (LOW-PAH)) sleeps. I would choose a cock-a-doodle-doo over a merrrrrrrh any day.

Everyone here is very hospitable to the Amerikans that are sprinkled about Bishqem and Payov. People have been buying our coffees, trying to offer us rides on motorcycles (one way trip home from the PC incase you’re wondering) and just overall being extremely welcoming. I’m right in the middle of Payov and Bishqem so it’s almost like I’m a part of two sites. Ian, Melia, Alex and myself are in Bishqem, Laurie is in Bishqem (the house down from mine) but goes to school in Payov with another Alex, Lenay and Corey. It’s already really interesting to see the differences in the experiences that the males are having compared to the females.

Tomorrow we go back to Elbasan for our first “hub-day.” Elbasan is going to be looking pretty big compared to where everyone has been the past three days. I forget how long I’ve been here.. and that other things are happening in the world. I’m getting NCAA basketball bracket updates from Lanner via email just to realize that the US, France and Great Britain are bombing Libya, as well as there being a no-fly zone? Is that right? This is translated from Shqipe subtitles that was spoken in French on the news tonight…If anyone could update me on that situation… and Japan that would be amazing. It’s definitely strange being out of the country when you hear something like that.

Don't eat the flowers

Today was my first complete day in my host family’s town of Bishqem. I woke up around 9ish and took a shower. Once I got out I was asked if I wanted to eat now and I did. While I was eating I was informed by the daughter that “they ate while I slept.” Great. After my breakfast I organized my room a little and tried to get situated into my new home. I went and sat in the living room with the daughters and we added on to my Starburst chain, which, thanks to the help from my host sisters is about 8 feet long now!

Laurie, another PCV is literally the house next to me so we met up with her host sister who speaks very good English, a current PCV that stayed in Laurie’s host home last year and went to Paaov, which is about a 2km walk. When we arrived at the coffee shop in Paaov we were asked by the current PCV if we could go through the side door for her host sister because there were a lot of men in the shop. Her sister is engaged and for her to be seen around other men would be culturally unacceptable. We met 3 other trainees that are staying in Paaov and had coffee. When Alex and Corey arrived they were asked by the current PCV to sit in between Laurie and myself because her host sister (moter (MOW-TER)) shouldn’t sit beside men either.

We met the owners of the coffee/internet café and received nothing but warm hugs and hopefulness that we would return back soon. I figure I’m just going to start saving my blogposts/pictures/emails on a USB and writing them in my home and then uploading them to the computers at the cafes because there is not wireless but plenty of computers to use. The cost for internet is 1 leke a minute or 60 leke an hour which translates into about 10 cents a minute.

After the café we went exploring around Paaov and Bishqem and located the school (Shkolle (SHK-OLE-LE)) we would be attending in the morning. Tomorrow morning I’m walking with my youngest sister to school at 7:30am because we are taking classes at her school in Bishqem.

I think we definitely got our presence out today in the towns of Bishqem and Paaov because we walked around and explored for about 4 hours. I found a Super Mart, gas station, my school, a fountain, an Italian restaurant and plenty of donkeys, turkeys, roosters, dogs and cats as well as friendly and curious people in the town of Bishqem.

Tonight we ate more delicious food, some sort of pasta casserole. The oldest sister taught me how to say the days of the week and the months in Shqipe (SHQEEPE) Albanian)). Today was easier than yesterday, tomorrow should be easier than today. My first sentence in Shqipe that wasn’t from a textbook or me translating every word in the dictionary was to my host brother who’s 6 years old and it was “don’t eat the flowers” or “Nunk ha lule (NOONK HA LOO-LE).” He was goofing off in the front of the house and for some reason thought he should show off and eat some flowers that I’m sure his mother spent hours arranging. Thankfully, despite his decision that made him spit for 20 minutes after, allowed me to form my first sentence in Shqipe conversationally.

Southern Hospitality put to shame..

 So we take about a 20 minute drive from Elbasan to my host family site today in Bishqem, For some reason (I didn’t hate it) me and one other girl got to skip our first “furgon” experience (basically like an old church bus, we’re going to be traveling on them a lot) and got to ride first class in a SUV with the Director  of Home-stay Placement in Albania for the Peace Corps. She took me straight to my house. It’s in a gated lot and has two stories. When I get out of the car I am greeted by the mother, father, two daughters, three cousins and a grandmother. After the director has a short conversation with the family (she said she told them how tired I would probably be and to show me where the bathroom was) I was dropped off in a house in the middle of Bishqem in a home where no one spoke English.

This all in consideration… I have never and I’m not exaggerating when I say this, but I have never felt so welcome before in my life. The oldest daughter can speak a little English that she has been learning in school and the rest of the five members of the family can speak no English at all. I was treated like royalty from the moment I walked through the door. I didn’t have slippers to wear around the home (it is an Albanian tradition to take your shoes off in the house) so I was given some. My things were carried into my room and unpacked for me as they wouldn’t let me lift a finger while they put my things on the shelves provided.

The room is huge. I have a bed, a couch, a three-part wardrobe that’s about 6-feet tall and a desk for when I need to study my language. Their house is immaculate.  Everything is spotless. The youngest daughter (she’s 12) has already started calling me her sister. Both daughters are very eager to learn from me which makes me feel like I’m actually contributing something to this situation. I think it’s going to be good because they can teach me Shqipe (Albanian) while I help them with their English.

Now onto dinner... I was served some sort of beef soup and when I say beef soup I know it doesn’t sound that impressive but I’m talking homemade broth, beef that had been cooking since long before I got there, homemade vegetables from their garden, it was incredible. Along with a Greek salad, the dressing was vinegar, salt and lemon (or limon) and it was also to die for. Pilaf or rice was also served on the table as well as Greek yogurt. I was served first and had to taste it before everyone else was served to make sure it was good enough. Now in Albania they don’t use utensils for the rice and the salad and provide another bowl for them (it’s actually really logical). The soup was obviously in individual bowls but everything else was communal and everyone just nibbled what they wanted. I really enjoy this style of meals and it’s so much less clean up for everyone after as well.

Now, before dinner, I’m not kidding you (I counted) 19 people (including the 6 that lived here) came by to see me. All extended family of my host family. They spent hours flipping through my picture books I brought from friends and family back home and laughing and telling me how beautiful I was. The youngest daughter started calling me ‘her beautiful sister.’ Now you would think that sitting in a room filled with people who don’t speak your language would be daunting but it was actually somewhat refreshing. I actually, well some part, could follow the conversation just by hand gestures, tone of voice and facial expressions. And if that failed, my 6-year-old host brother would do something entertaining to get everyone laughing.

Tomorrow is my first full day here and we’re supposed to meet up with our site mates to do a walk around of the town and sketch a map for our hub day on Monday. It’s been raining a lot today and I believe it’s supposed to be tomorrow as well so this should get interesting.

Oh, incase you were wondering, no Turkish toilets in this house. I don’t have to squat quite yet. I’ve spent my down time after dinner texting my fellow PCV’s and uploading videos. But seriously… who ever coined the phrase “Southern hospitality” had never been to Albania. Just sayin.

Not so internet cafe

I've been writing my posts on Word and will transfer them to my blog in a few days. Expect a lot on one big swoop. The internet cafe in Bishqem wont let me upload pictures either. I will try tomorrow from Elbasan. Love/miss everyone. Momma, Dad, Shell, Clay, Lanner, Memaw.. Thank you for all your words of encouragement and updates from home, you have no idea how much they mean right now.

Keeping Shqip real..

Kip explaining the local drink, Raki.

I had my PST interview with the director of C.O.D. during lunch and think it went really well. They asked me what I expected out of my position and I think that I would be very beneficial to the tourism industry here because of my marketing and graphic design background. I showed the two interviewers some of my graphic design work and they seemed very impressed by my trade. They kept telling me what a need there was everywhere in the country for my skills and even mentioned a possible site placement somewhere that a PCV has never been before.  They also mentioned that I might be placed with two other site mates that were from TEFL and Health so that would be interesting to be with PCV’s of a different division. Over all I think the initial interview went very well and that they were impressed with my previous work, which was one relief of many anxieties I’ve been having since I’ve been here.

Kip, Casey and Mayaan in the Univers Hotel.

Six current PCV’s came to the hotel today to answer any questions that we had has trainees, which was very helpful. They had 2 from each division here and one from each group currently serving in Albania. I was relieved when the women serving said that the only occurrence of harassment they had received was minimal to none (cat calling, etc.) at all at their sites. Two of the three women on panel lived alone and said they felt safer at their apartment in Albania than in the U.S. This was one of my biggest concerns coming in after learning about all the differences in gender roles in Albania but it eased my mind listening to the current women volunteers.

  

The Univers Hotel.

Language training was even more difficult today than yesterday as we learned food names and beverage names.  We even started to form small sentences. It’s so strange because no matter how hard I try to not revert back to Spanish, somehow my mind still does. Instead of asking “and you” in Albanian, pronounced “po yew,” the first thing that pops into my head is “y tu” in Spanish. I think with time this will dwindle but right now that’s the most difficult thing I’m dealing with as far as language learning goes. A lot of Albanian words sound German to me, very harsh sounding letters and words.

 1000 new leke = about 10 US Dollars

 

We had our last meal all together tonight and I got to talk to some people that will be staying in Bishqem with me. I hear that the site is a medium sized town and does not have internet access. I’m very anxious to meet my host family but just as excited as I am anxious. I know the language barrier will be an issue at first but I cannot wait until we can all communicate effectively with words and not just gestures.

John and I drinking our Albanian beer and studying.

I feel like I’m really bonding with some of my fellow trainees. Don’t get me wrong, everyone is amazing but it’s only natural to form smaller groups within a group of 41 people. I’m still trying to get everyone’s name down but I can probably tell you about 85% of peoples names, about 60% of where people are from in the states and about 50% of what division they’re serving in as a PCV or PST right now.

Our study group trying to learn Shqipe.

John and I walked to the store tonight and I bought some detergent because I read that we were responsible for washing our own clothes at the host families’ homes. They said that it is a Peace Corps requirement that each host family provides a room with furniture and a lock on the door. I guess it’s the more ‘not knowing’ aspect right now than anything that is making me a bit anxious about tomorrow. Since we’ve been in Albania we have truly been inside the walls of the hotel or about 20 blocks into Elbasan. It almost doesn’t even feel real to me that I’m here yet, it hasn’t sunk in that this is real. I think for the most part I’ve been running on auto-pilot since I’ve been here and once I get to the host family and the pace of life slows down (well sort of) it will finally sink in that I’m actually in Europe. I say sort of because although we will be experiencing more relaxation in our living situations we still have a booked schedule with language classes, hub visits.. and the list goes on. Every volunteer that spoke today said that training was the hardest experience overall. Great. If I make it through this at least I know I’m semi, borderline prepared for what’s next.

Sean (Durham NC, Duke), Casey (Streator IL, University of Illinois), Kip (San Antonio TX, Texas A&M and Brenna.

Një Di Tre Katër Pesë Gjashtë Shtatë Tetë Nëntë Dhjet (1-10)

John and Lauren practicing their conversation skills in Elbasan.

Yesterday we learned how to count to 20 in Albanian and learned common phrases like "Hello" "Good afternoon" " How are you" etc. It felt good just to get started and actually dive into the language. I feel like the teachers are really in tuned to us learning and being productive with the language which is very comforting. The numbers 11-19 are seriously about 5 syllables a piece which is quite difficult but easy once you catch onto them.

My roommate Casey and I right off the plane in Elbasan.

I'm feeling a bit apprehensive about go to my host family tomorrow since I feel like other PCT's are my family right now. I feel like the friends that I've made will definatley be a strong support system throughout this experience since they  going to some of the same trials as I am. I think PC knows what they're doing when they don't just drop us off at a host families house and give us a chance to bound with our group.

 

A Greek salad at dinner.

I feel like they are feeding us sooooooo much. Everything here is very tasty! We have french fries with almost every meal which I did not expect. The only thing missing is the ketchup! Meat, kabobs, pasta with ham, boiled eggs, sides of Greek yogurt and some sort of potato salad are somethings that have frequented our dinner tables.

Tonight they have a planned Disco for the volunteers last night together. I'll probably be able to post one more time before I go to my host family then I'm not sure about the internet connection in the town but I will be back in Elbasan 4 times a week for language training.