So after doing some traveling around Albania I finally made it back to my cozy apartment in Bajram Curri. My apartment is one of my favorite things about where I live. It's comfortable, safe, the perfect place for 3 person dinner parties every night, has ample amounts of seating and sleeping surfaces and has become my home; my first apartment by myself. Although it does have those minor quirks I've had to get used to: Water only once a day, no working refrigerator, no source of centralized heating or air conditioning, a turkish toilet, no hot water and probably other things I've just gotten used to and don't realize anymore. Anyways, it's my home and probably the place I feel most comfortable in Albania.
I've realized that you don't go anywhere in Albania, Albania takes you places. You don't decide to do things, Albania decides you do things. You don't order what you want on a menu, Albania decides what you're going to eat that day. This is one of those scenarios. I was four days late on paying my electricity, which you would think would be a big deal, but since I'm one of probably 20 constant costumers, I wasn't worried about getting my electricity cut off. I usually carry my receipt book around the day and pay just to spark up conversation with people because 9 out of 10 of them laugh at me for paying and tell me not to.
Anyways, I was waiting to be helped and my landlord comes up to me and tells me she wants to come to my apartment at 3:00 (when we're supposed to have water) and clean my blankets and sheets. Okay I thought, I haven't been home in a while, maybe they do need a little cleaning, no big deal. Let me also throw this little bit of information in there; because I'm a woman there is a lot of pressure from other women in the town to keep my apartment clean. Albanian's standards of clean compared to mine are very different. I take pride in keeping my house clean but even when I think it's at it's best I still get comments on how it should be cleaner.
So sure, I'll have a cleaning day with my landlady, no biggie. She comes over and to my surprise doesn't want to have a girls day in cleaning with me, just wants to rip up my carpet to take to the car wash to be cleaned and take off all of my covers off of my couches to be washed. Except we didn't have water all day. So now, my lovely, humble abode has been stripped down to what feels like a dingy basement. Now, this is a huge offer of help and she continues to do an amazing job at being my
pronar but it was definitely beyond my control when this was going to happen. She said she's been wanting to do it since the new year.. 8 months later it happens.
Back to that whole Albania takes you places and feeds you things, this is another example.
It finally came full circle and I spent an entire (fiscal) year of my life in Albania. I had my 23rd birthday in Albania last summer and last week celebrated my 24th birthday. Last year about 15 other PCV's came up to celebrate mine and another PCV's birthday but this year I laid low and celebrated with the boys and Sara and Kim came up from Durres to celebrate with us. Garrett and Eric made us delicious nachos from a package from Garrett's parents that included nacho cheese and a 3 pound box of tortilla chips (we inhaled them).
So after doing some traveling around Albania I finally made it back to my cozy apartment in Bajram Curri. My apartment is one of my favorite things about where I live. It's comfortable, safe, the perfect place for 3 person dinner parties every night, has ample amounts of seating and sleeping surfaces and has become my home; my first apartment by myself. Although it does have those minor quirks I've had to get used to: Water only once a day, no working refrigerator, no source of centralized heating or air conditioning, a turkish toilet, no hot water and probably other things I've just gotten used to and don't realize anymore. Anyways, it's my home and probably the place I feel most comfortable in Albania.
