I have moved into my host family in my training site. Well, host “family” really isn’t the right word. I just have a host person. She is a lovely woman who lives by herself in a two room apartment. With a Turkish toilet. Fun (I love Albania!). From my understanding (she speaks about as much English as I do Albanian, maybe less) she is a widow, though I’m not sure when her husband passed. She has sisters (5?6?) and one of them lives in New York. She is a very good housekeeper, likes coffee and enjoys watching “Big Brother- Albania.” No, I’m not kidding. I’ve never watched “Big Brother” in the States, but I think I like it even less in a language that I don’t understand. Albanian TV seems to be dominated by a lot of “American Idol”-esqe music shows, news, Spanish soap operas and Big Brother. My favorite thing so far is the news. Anyway, my host is very concerned about my well-being and that I eat enough. She even gave up her own bedroom for me to sleep in and is sleeping on a convertible couch in the living room. This is part of the contract that they sign with Peace Corps for hosting, that I will have my own room. She also cleared out some drawers part of a closet. I know that some trainees don’t have much room or privacy, so I am very thankful for this. I think that once I understand a bit more, we will get along just fine. Thankfully though, there are two families with teenage girls that live just downstairs and the girls speak English. Last night after I had settled in a bit and had dinner, the girls came up for a visit. A little while later their mom came up to tell me that my friend was here. It turns out another one of the volunteers is staying with the cousins of my neighbors and they had come over for a visit. The town is pretty small and three of us are staying right off of the main square. Today we went for a walk around town and found the important things (school, mosque, church, internet café, bank). Our first assignment for Peace Corps is to do a community map, so this was a good start. Tomorrow we start our intensive (4-5 hours a day) language classes. I think that I am doing ok in the language. I can already do some basic things like ask for an orange or say that I’m tired. It will come. It will come slowly, but it will come.

Naten e mire!