Visiting my host family for the first time..

Since Bajram Curri is so isolated and getting to the capital is even a big deal, I've kind of been slacking on going to visit my host family which is, from Bajram Curri, 10 hours of travel. I finally went back this weekend to visit them. It was so strange, I felt like I was revisiting my childhood home. This was the place where I learned to walk, talk.. everything. I was greeted by many hugs and cheek kisses, I actually was walking up to the house and ran into my host dad and brother going to get meat from the butcher for dinner. It almost felt like I was being greeted by my family in America as happy as they were to see me, it was nice.

A new trainee lives in the house of my Dad's cousin, which shares a front yard with my house. We spent the afternoon taking pictures, drinking juice, reading Shqip, watching my brother play video games on the computer and catching up. They were really impressed on my Albanian skills compared to what they were when I lived with them and even told me I looked more 'elegant' or thin. My oldest host sister had moved out because she was engaged so she had moved in with her fiance's family but would be coming for dinner. She's still in high school and has one more year left, he is out of high school and a waiter at a lokal.

For dinner we had two kinds of meat, grilled peppers, cheese, fried potatoes, egg byrek and mixed salad. A meal fit for a king. I couldn't even force my entire piece of tre leche or three milk cake down, just a few bites, even though it's my favorite desert. My little brother wanted me to sleep in the room with him, that used to be my room, so we feel asleep together in our twin sized beds, heads facing each other. We left the light on until he feel asleep and then my host mom came and gave me a hug.

I woke up, wanting to be out of Bishqem by 7am and my host mom was up putting together a huge bag of produce for me to take home with me. After swearing in I went up to Bajram Curri with over 3 kilos of peppers and this time I came home with fresh oranges, peppers and cucumbers from their green houses.