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.
