One month . . .
I have been at my site now for one month. Or rather, I have been a volunteer for one month but I’ve only actually spent two weeks at my site. Almost right away after getting here, I found myself traveling. I was invited by World Vision to attend a youth conference in Vlore, a lovely town on the coast. Hmmmm . . . free trip to the beach? Let me think . . . OK! The conference was about peer educating and about 150 kids from 5 cities came to get trained to be peer educators. There were no kids from my area because we haven’t actually started working with kids yet, but it was good to see what groups in other cities were doing. The other volunteers and I didn’t really have a lot to do except observe the conference (and help out when we could) and enjoy the beach. The beach was great. It was a rock beach and it was actually pretty clean (cleaner than I had expected). The beach we went to was a little bit south of the city. During communism, it was the private beach of the party bigwigs and in fact, Enver Hoxha’s (communist dictator) summer home is still there. It has basically been gutted and all that stands is a shell with a few walls. The walls that are left are covered with the most pornographic graffiti that I have ever seen. During communism, the whole area was off limits to the common folk, now all the teenage boys use parts of the house that hang over the sea as diving platforms.

The day I returned home from Vlore, I went into my office and my supervisor says, “Guess what, we’re going to Tirana on Wednesday!” So I had one full day in Peshkopi before going out on the road again. I was already planning to be in Tirana for the weekend, but this meant that I would get to spend two more days there and have my travel paid for. So on Wed. morning we got on the furgon to Tirana and endured the bumpiest ride I’ve had yet. On Friday evening I went up to Lezhe to visit some friends and have a 4th of July party, Albanian style. Winifred went a little wild with cooking: hamburgers, hot dogs, potato chips (fresh), salad, and like 6 kinds of dessert (brownies, cookies, carrot cake and cheesecake- otherwise known as heaven). The best part of the party was probably our special guests- real live Brits! What better way to celebrate the end of British colonial rule in America than with actual British people! Kris and Alison are two lovely Brits that are bicycling across Europe from France to Istanbul. They happened to be in Lezhe trying to figure out how much Albanian money was worth and how much to take out the ATM and heard two volunteers walking down the street speaking English. The volunteers graciously helped them out and then invited them to come to our little British-bashing shindig. They hung out and ended up sleeping on the floor of Leslie’s house. In the morning they left for Tirana and the rest of their journey. They are doing the trip as a fundraiser for cancer research- check out their website for more info. Good luck guys!

The last part of my two weeks of travel was the US Embassy 4th of July party. This time, 4th of July the American way! The party was held at the Ambassadors recidence complex- The Ridge. The Ridge is like a little piece of America plopped down in the middle of Tirana. If you don’t look too far past the houses, you would think that you were in any American suburb- green lawns, split level houses, two car garages. The party itself was nice- bbq, beer, games for the kids, and my favorite part- apple pie. After the party, all the volunteers went out on the town in Tirana. Tirana actually has a pretty hopping night life- good bars, live music, fun atmosphere. We hung out with a few people from the embassy (mmmmm marines. . . ) and partied until the wee hours. At one bar we found a pretty good live band that played a pretty random mix of Albanian and English music. My favorite moment was when they played “La Bamba.” Now that’s a cultural exchange- a Mexican song played by a Kosovar band in a Tirana night club. Fun.

Anyway, after all my partying and traveling, I think that I’ll be sticking around Peshkopi for at least a few weeks now . . . or at least until I get invited to travel for free again!

PS- I now have very slow dial-up internet at home and work, which is fine for checking e-mails and posting, but sucks for uploading pictures, so bear with me a bit. I will upload pics when I have the chance or can get to a faster connection!