Mail call

It was looking to be a crappy day. It was one of those cloudy, rainy days where all that you want to do is stay home and snuggle with a good book and a cup of hot cider. It’s so cloudy and foggy that you can barely see the house across the way much less the mountains in the distance. It’s eerie and a bit creepy and when you walk outside it feels like you are walking through water; your clothes never seem to be completely dry. When you get into the office, you find that the internet is out and a trip to the internet café down the street tells you that it is in fact out in the whole town. There go those e-mails that you need to send and the research that you need to do for the training you are doing on Friday. You should have just stayed in bed.

So I walk over to the post office expecting the same- no, the packages I am waiting for are not here. Instead, I find (to the delight of post office ladies and me) that in fact I have TWO packages waiting for me. Bingo! And the day starts to look up. I want to give some credit here to two people that made my day today: My mom and Kenji. First, Kenji- who filled a package with everything needed to make a great thanksgiving (except the turkey, but he’s a vegetarian). When I think back to a year and a half ago and how worried I was that I wouldn’t get along with Kenji, it seems so silly. In the year that we spent here together, he became one of my closest friends and someone that I really came to depend on to listen to me (sometimes to the point of over-sharing, sorry K) and even though he is back in the states, he still is someone I can depend on to cheer me up. Second, my mom- of course, she is basically obligated to send me things, especially because I usually ask for specific things to be sent (in this package- some DVDs I ordered and a new hard drive . . .) but I want to give my mom credit here for having a singular ability for packing a care package. She knows how to use every bit of space- packing small, useful things (granola bars, starbursts, hot cider packets) into the spaces (no need for packing filler here!). She also knows the secret of packing everything into it’s own Ziploc bag. The Ziplocs not only protect everything in the package, but also are extremely useful as for some reason that is beyond me, Ziplocs are not widely used overseas. She also knows how to throw in some unexpected love into the mix- something to make me smile. I think that all moms and dads out there sending out care packages to their kids the world over could take some package-packing lessons from my mom. So to Kenji and my mom, falemenderit shume for the much needed cheer up today. And if you ever need a perfect care package, call my mom, I’m sure she’d send you one . . .

baking experiments

I set out to try to make bagels yesterday. It didn't quiet work out, but I got a loaf of bread out of it. Oh, well. Will try again today . . .

Where's my flying car?

Last night, my friend visiting from Lezhe again convinced me to host a "Kinema Rebecca" party at my house including cooking (lasagna) and a movie projected on my living room wall. As it has been getting cooler all week, it was a perfect time to start up my wood stove and welcome everyone into my nice warm home. We decided to watch Back to the Future Part II, which I love, but haven't watched in a long time. We realized when we were watching that the future that Marty goes forward into is now only 6 years away!

And I want to know: where is my flying car? Or my hoverboard? Or my hanging fruit thingy in the kitchen? Where are the people that are supposed to be inventing these things? Right now we can barely get an electric car on the market, much less a Mr. Fusion. Maybe my hopes are too high and I should worry about the real important things (like heath care and war and things like that) but some part of me just wants the flying car that was promised to me 20 years ago . . .

End of summer

The dip. I was looking back and at about this time last year I had a similar dip feeling. Summer is really over and I can feel winter getting closer. I bought my wood last week- this time all at once so that I don't have to buy more in the middle of the winter. Today it is rainy and not quite cold, but you can tell that the colder weather is coming. A perfect day to snuggle into bed with a good book. I've been searching for the reason for my current dip- I'm not unhappy here by any means. Work things are generally good, I'm getting busy again with the start of school. We had a really successful summer camp at the beginning of Sept. and I had a really successful workshop with my staff about time management and strategic planning. I've started English lessons with a few people in my office. The radio station is very close to being registered and start looking for funding. We had more than 20 kids come to our last Outdoor Ambassadors meeting and are hoping to go camping next week. With one of the girls from my MUN team, I am starting a girls leadership club for the girls that live in the school dormitories. I'm busy. And yet I'm feeling melancholy and homesick. I understand it to be more of an abstract sort of melancholy, rather than missing anything specific. I think part of it is the fact that the end of my service now is closer than the beginning- sort of a theoretical reality that I will be going home sooner rather than later, so I feel homesick because I will be there sometime soon (and by soon I mean within the next year or so) but I'm not there now. Ok, I don't know if that really makes much sense, but anyway . . .

not quite fixed

but getting closer and closer. After a month of panicky kernels, I am getting closer to figuring out what is wrong with my computer. We think that we have maybe narrowed it down to being a problem with my wireless card, which means that I can use my computer again as long as I don't try to get online with wireless. I really don't know what I would have done if I had not been able to use a computer at my office to search message boards and help sites to figure out what is wrong and then how to go about fixing it. A bit ironic, I suppose, that in order to get my computer working again I need another computer . . .

I have never thought of myself as a computer expert in any way, but (especially since I have a mac) I feel like I am probably more qualified to work on my computer (and fix other small problems with other computers) than many other people here, just because I have been around computers for a long time. I also have figured out a secret- in this time of technology, it is not any magical skills that are really needed most of the time, but rather the not so magical skills of asking the right questions and looking things up.





















This is exactly the kind of computer expert I am . . . also maybe why I've thought I might want to be a librarian- I'm good at looking up the answer when I have no idea!

Technically possible, just not very practical

Looking at a map, it is hard to tell a few things- are there places where the river is too shallow or too deep? Are there natural or un-natural barriers? Is the river slow or fast moving? Looking at the map and even getting in the river, we found that it is technically possible to go from near Peshkopi to Kukes (about 60km) but just not in less than about three days. This was a problem only because we thought that we might be able to get there a lot faster and we wanted to bring as little stuff with us as possible (one backpack for four people).

The beginning was pretty great. It was Dylan, Leslie and this German guy Johan that's doing forestry research here and me. The river was really perfect for tubing- not too deep, but deep
enough that you didn't get stuck too often. And our packing system was pretty ingenious- we put a tarp on the bottom of an extra tube and tied Dylan's backpack into it, then one of us held on to the "raft." It took a while to get used to it and we capsized twice (and got ourselves stuck in a few trees), but by the end of the day we had all pretty much gotten the whole steering and paddling to stay in the middle of the river down. We found some villagers that told us the bad news- we were not nearly as far along as we wanted to be- only about 20km away from where we had started.

We made camp on the side of the river and it was a great spot. Sandy, but with a grassy area nearby and lots of trees (so lots of firewood) and close to the road. It would have been perfect if we had a tent (or sleeping bags) but we had tried to pack so light that we were really not ready. We also didn't really have enough food. We got a fire going and were fine until we tried to sleep- then we found how cold and uncomfortable it really was. There was a hay pile nearby and in the middle of the night we got the idea to bring over some hay to sleep on- that made it a little bit better, but not really. Basically we were freezing, even with the fire going all night (which meant we got no sleep).

In the morning we were cold and tired and decided that the last thing we wanted to do was get back in the water, so (for better or worse, who knows) we deflated the tubes and started to walk, hoping that we might find a car going our way (which really was either way, cause we were less than half-way and I would've gone back to Peshk if there had been a car). I think we walked nearly 20km overall, on almost no food. We stopped twice to get water at people's houses and Leslie and I got a short ride from two guys going to a wedding. After the guys caught up, we kept walking . . . Finally around 4 we got picked up by another car from the wedding and they took us the rest of the way into Kukes (about another 20km). This was lucky, because I think that we were all basically at a breaking point- we had had almost no food all day (the fact that it was berry season really saved us) and it was still a ways into town. We were lucky to find a ride, although we would have gotten there eventually- at this point we had already asked the Kukes PCVs to look for someone to come pick us up. But anyway, after a few bumps on the road (including a flat tire!) we got into town ate two dinners (to make up for all the berry eating) and spent the night there, exhausted, but happy in our attempt (at least I was). Things I learned- it is possible to get to Kukes by river, but it will take you three days and you really need to pack well because there is NOTHING out there (we saw more donkey carts than cars, no surprise).

The best thing about this trip, even though it didn't end up exactly as expected, was that we did it! Most of the Albanians that we told about the trip told us that we were crazy. Maybe we were, but we saw something that no one had ever tried before and decided to try it. We had to walk a lot, slept on a hay pile, got bitten by ants and were really hungry, but we survived and actually had a really great time. It was kind of like going to Antarctica or the Moon- people tell you that you're crazy and it's not possible, but you will never know that it's impossilbe until you try . . .

Probably the Best City in the World

Probably the best City in the world. This is (no joke) the motto of Brasov, a town in the Transylvania region of Romania. It is on every umbrella at all the cafes and restaurants downtown. Seriously, I can just imagine someone coming up with that, "Well, we haven't been to every other city in the world, so we can't really say 'The best city in the world, period', but we've been a lot of places and none of them were as good as here, so we can say 'Probably the best city in the world' until someone proves us wrong . . .

Anyway, Brasov is a pretty cool place, but I don't know if I was there long enough to really be sure of it's supremacy over every other place that I've been (I'm particularly partial to Prague myself, but that's just me . . . ). The town center is full of beautiful buildings and there is a slightly out of place giant Hollywood-esque sign on the side of the hill (just in case you forgot where you were?).

We actually didn't spend too much time in Brasov itself (except Amanda who decided that castles were not her thing and had an adventure with a red scooter . . . ) rather we used it as a base to see a bit more of the region and the castles that this part of Romania is famous for. The fairy tale tourets of Bran Castle harken back to princesses as much as Dracula and I'm all in favor of the former. The only mention of the famous literary biter was in an upstairs room talking about how the castle actually had nothing to do with the historical Vlad Tepes or the fictional Dracula at all except that maybe Bram Stoker may have based his description of Dracula's castle on Bran. What the castle did have, however was a lot of information about the Romanian royal family (who had most recently used it as a country home) and some pretty great views.

The next day, on our way back to Bucarest, we stopped in Sinai and explored another fantastic castle- this one much more royal palace than quaint country home. It seemed that every room we went into was more lavishly decorated than the one before (and it's no wonder that they charged a whole lot extra to take pictures!). Based soley on this and the Parliment I would have to say that the Romanians are skilled interior decorators . . . they take their palaces seriously!

Leaving Romania, we had a truly unpleaseant train ride to Sofia (lights on all night, loud, cold, uncomfortable seats . . . ) and arrived in Bulgaria to a rainy day. We had planned to spend the day exploring Sofia, but after the bad train ride and the rain, we decided to get the earliest possible oppourtunity back to Macedonia. As we crossed this last border, I realized that in just under two weeks I had completly crossed through Bulgaria three times (and had the 6 passport stamps to prove it) without stopping for more than a quick meal. I guess I've technically been to Bulgaria now but I think I might have to go back as I didn't actually see a thing.