Thursday, July 29, 2010

Ice Cream

One of the two local ice cream shops has a tendency to give me free ice cream. I have not yet figured out why they like to do this. Maybe it is because they are being hospitable, maybe it is because they are happy that I am here volunteering, or maybe, and more likely I either provide enough entertainment or they have enough pity for me with the 5 minutes it takes just to order the type of ice cream, complete with stuttering and mumbling hoping they will not notice I am pronouncing every flavor wrong. Either way, I will happily accept the gift.

The beggining of my weekend story

When I lost internet I started reading too much, when I read too much I tend to change my writing style... Sorry about that

A few days ago I woke up before everyone else did, the day before that after rising at 8:00 I was greeted with “how goes it sleepyhead, we’ve been up for an hour and a half already.” Damn it was only 8:00. It was the morning and therefore accompanied with the usual grogginess, haziness, and pleasantries; I may not be a morning person but there are a few aspects that even a grump like me can grow to appreciate. We hurried out the door at 8:30, what a crew in our tee shirts and chacos hoping to catch the 9:00 bus. I doubt that we would have gotten a seat even if we had arrived at 6, 7, or 8. The short bus was already packed, and despite people trying to help us (both bus employees and random stand bys) there was no way that 3, 2, or even 1 of us was going to make it onto that bus. A quick regroup ended with a decision for Kyle and I to hitch hike down to Elbason, while one volunteer would stay and enjoy a coffee before taking the 12:00 bus out.

One has to be careful in Puke, it has started to gain a reputation for hurt ankles. Many a volunteer has taken one wrong step and become yet another Puke curb casualty. I have always had super skills at avoiding nasty things in sidewalks , my natural walk—head down, shoulders slumped, a complete lack of posture—ensures that I see everything in my path. This skill has even gone onto a group skill sheet “Libby Horwitz: Talent, spotting dog crap on the road.” My friend to whom I point out every hole, ditch, bump, and notch in the road assures me that this might just perchance be a bit overkill, but I think he will think differently on the day he falls into a ditch while I was not there to point it out to him. What would people do without me?

But we make it through the treacherous roads of Puke to a small clearing next to a gas station. And we wait. When a car every 5 minutes passes I begin to wonder if hitching will get us anywhere at all. A car stops, the first one. They aren’t going where we need to go but at least we’re one for one. Kyle and I take turns choosing cheesy songs to sing; I’m the one who wants to be with you, Beach Boys, and so on, a Land rover comes into site “strap me to your land rover, une jam gati!” Kyle jokes before it pulls over to us. Kyle goes to talk to the two nuns sitting in the front. “Ne do te skojme ne Tirana,” he states “We are only going to a nearby village, sorry,” one replies in perfect English. As they drive away we remiss about how we were unable get a ride with two nuns in a land rover. Kyle says “we met two nuns but they were not willing to go all the way.” I tell Kyle “strap me to your land rover, I am ready” will be my new pick up line for all of time.

And We're Back!

So after 3 long days of scrambling between work computers, my computer, and internet cafe computers, bothering Mike, and looking up computer information I have finally got my computer back up and running, internet and all! I have a few things that I would like to write about but for now I just wanted to put out that piece of information. I will leave you with this:

What $7 will buy you in Albania:

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Computer

Y'all might have noticed my sudden lack of internet activity... this is because I broke my computer. Yes I deleted some important file. I was afraid it was dead to the world but luckily a fellow volunteer brought it back for me. Now however I am entirely frustrated as I cannot get my computer to connect to the internet. I don't even know where to begin... do I have dial up or broadband? Setting up an internet connection... uhhhhhhhhhh.... please please please call me and help!

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Update

I know many of you were worried about me after that last post, I would like to report that I am doing much better now. Currently I am very upset over the news of my Grandfather, and the fact that I am unable to go home and support and be with my family, but this is a natural feeling of sadness, and I think it is only healthy to be as upset about this as I am, and I also know that in time this heavy sadness will pass.

I think my major break through was realizing my situation here of isolation and loneliness has less to do with me being an American and more to do with me being a woman. Meeting new people in this community and talking to various women I have come to learn that many of them pass their days in the same manner as I do, watching tv, reading, fiddling on the internet, and staying at home. It was selfish and self centered of me to think that I am the only one here affected by this sadness and lack of outside freedom. I now no longer have to feel guilty about what I am or am not doing, and just have to take steps to make this better for us all. I am currently playing around with the idea of a free school, or at least giving some classes to start and have almost finished the flier.

This past week I went away to help out at another volunteers camp. It was great to be doing something again, be with other volunteers, and be working with youth again. It can be sad sometimes to face that many of the students here have not been asked to do any type of critical thinking, and a struggle to get everyone to see the power and intelligence that youth have. It is also hard to face that despite teaching critical thinking they will go back into the schools where the teachers will not want them to deviate from the "correct" answer. Man if I was a sometimes disliked student in the US they would have HATED me here.

I am back home now, relaxing and taking it easy. I currently have my first couch surfer, we cooked some pretty decent eggplant if I do say so myself. We also colored, a prerequisite to spending time with me. I really would love to hear more about what everyone at home is up to, I follow whoever has a blog vigorously (really I check daily) so please feel free to send me an email, comment, or anything telling me about you!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Frustration

So I have had a growing frustration over the past few weeks which has recently only escalated. I am sorry to bring you all this post because I know you only want to hear about how I am enjoying everything; my adventure, my work, my new friends, oh I must be having so much fun! But here's the reality, I spend 80% of my day alone. Even when I am with other people I am still often alone. By this I mean I wake up in the morning to get a little bit of work done before heading to work. At work I come in and talk to a few people about small things; food, language, clothing -- and this is the highlight of my day. I then proceed to my desk where I will remain sitting staring at random things on the internet, looking up projects, or finishing small tasks I want to get done. I am only interrupted occasionally to be asked for a coffee, or to make photocopies, or to translate some message that AutoCAD is spitting out (the file could not be located/unable to render the model).

People tell me that I should not be worried or upset, lots of volunteers don't have work when they first get to site. But that's just the problem, I'm not sure this will go away with time. I'm trying to work out how much of this is me and how much is the circumstances given to me. This has left me restless, listless, sleepless, and in a complete rut. I keep telling myself if I only do this, if I only get to know more people, if I just get to know people in my workplace then they will trust me.

But they don't. Partially due to my age, partially due to the fact that I come off like a bumbling moron talking in my 2 year old level Shqip, and honestly largely because I am not one of those people who demands respect when I walk into a room. No you will much more likely see me gaining respect from kindness, but this time it just isn't working. I just don't really know where that line of how pushy I am supposed to be is, and yes I have been pushing doing things. Anything that I do at work (other than the photocopying, and painting of the nails) comes from my initiative. Frankly, sometimes I just don't have the energy to push anymore. Again, maybe I'm just making excuses but I don't want to anger people so early on. So for now I will step back.

Today as you might have noticed was a breaking point. Maybe it was the fact that I made a pie for the Bashkia and nobody ate it except for me (and it actually was a damn good pie), or the fact that my co-workers just kept asking "soup? soup?" despite me explaining time and time again than no it was in fact a pie (I know this is the time to explain American culture but sometimes I wish people would just listen to me), or maybe that my boss asked me to paint her nails and then told me I did a bad job, or got angry at me for leaving to go on a walk to look at places in Shijak I have still not seen (pretty important to researching this community)despite refusing to tell me said information, or maybe that I no longer have a counterpart and I'm upset about many of the people who were suspended. Somehow I just made it to three and then left, returned home, watched tv and slept.

I am trying to pull myself out of this cycle, I don't want to leave site, I have met some wonderful people and things do move in a positive direction, I just wish I could get rid of this nagging feeling of guilt...

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Happy fourth!

I just took one of the amazing showers of my life. Really, my whole entire life. I came in and dropped my bags down on the bathroom floor (it's big enough to do that), and hopped right into the shower. I didn't have to turn on the water heater (I have to if I want hot water, but recently I have been loving the cold showers), but I turned on the water pump (this I have to do if I want good water pressure). I stood in the shower not even washing, just letting the water hit me until it no longer felt like my body was the water filter. The amount of grime on me was absolutely incredible, too much for even me (which if you know me you know is really saying something). So I guess in order for you to understand why I was so grimy and hot I will have to backtrack to tell you a little bit about what was my fourth of July weekend...

On Friday I left to go to Durres to meet up with another volunteer and a women in an organization he worked with (he is leaving soon) that would be a possible contact for me. For this trip you might say that I came UBER prepared, equipped with only a sleeping bag (rated for 5 degree weather), 3 tee-shirts, jeans, quick dry pants, quick dry towel, chacos, sneakers, sunscrean, bug spray, toothpaste, toothbrush, and a bathing suit. Ok you might have figured out that this was not my final destination of the day (or weekend). After having a nice coffee (when I say having a coffee I mean it in the most Albanian of ways, meaning any type of drink, I had iced tea), I met up with some other volunteers and ate at a nice pasta place for lunch before grabbing a furgon (small bus/van) with all of us to head down to Divjak. We were lucky that we had so many people because we were not only able to get a furgon but we managed to convince him to drive all the way to Divjak (they don't normally go from where we were coming from).

After a stop at the dyqan (small market, there are many of them in every city) which we convinced our furgon driver to make for food we ended up at the beach in Divjak. Here we met up with a few other volunteers (a word which I have problems spelling now because it is vullnetar in Shqip) on the beach and had a drink.

So recap on grime on my body: sweaty body from sitting in a furgon [check], sand all over me from walking on the beach [check]. Don't worry, I'll keep a running tally for you.

So the beach was kind of an interesting one, and by interesting I mean strange. I loved the forest part we drove through, but the beach was a large expanse of wet sand, which cars and motorcycles drove on, and people left their trash on (or it washed up). But it was pretty all the same.

So then the journey continued, as we walked along the beach (add more sand to the grime count) then passed through a dug out river like thing to get to a different more isolated part of the beach (add salt water and whatever else was in there). A little bit further we pitched some tents and relaxed.

For dinner we cut some veggies (add random veggie juices to count) and beans and corn with "Mexico" sauce (add Mexico sauce to my body). Cooking was an adventure, complete with falling apart tinfoil, hot fire and hot grill which one of the other volunteers brought, and cooking using cans from other foods we had bought (add sand I was sitting on to the count).

Next morning we woke up and adventured into the sun (add slathered sunscreen), and the sand (add more sand), and the sea (add all the sea stuff and crab pieces floating in it) for a swim. We ate some vodka infused watermelon (add both of those to grime count).It was all quite nice. We then went on a journey to find the lagoon, ended up going on a nice walk through the woods (add pine and dirt), and maybe a trash heap (add trash). A few of us split off to make a large American flag in the sand, complete with 50 collected sea shells for the stars, and differently textured stripes, very impressive if I do say so myself.

After a decent walk we returned and rested while playing a few games. A few of the other volunteers had the idea to do a slip and slide so 5 of us decided to give it a go, and by slip and slide I mean a tarp folded and directed into the ocean then with shampooy water put onto it. So the shampoo might have managed to deplete the grime count a little, but the sand at the end of the tunnel.. err tarp brought it all back with a vengeance (add more sand, and a few bruises).

The night was celebrated by sparklers, and sparkler pictures, as well as some light fireworks. Our meal was cooked again, but this time better. The next morning we set out to find a restaurant where the guy serves you from a horse and arm wrestles people. It took us a little while to find it (with a few wrong directions) but eventually we did. There was some confusion about the pricing, it was a set rate which was far above that of our Peace Corps budget, but somehow we got it to work out. An interesting dining experience, with the waiters running everywhere (well I guess it's one way to stay in shape) and bringing out the food on grills. We then all split to go to our respective sites. Those of us heading up north managed to hitch.

A long weekend but all together a successful one. Sorry for the rambling towards the end of this, I am quite hungry and tired currently. I am also sorry for my not stellar mood recently. Things here have been a little rough for me, we all know the things I am not very good at (being alone, and not being busy) which pretty much explains my life right now. My counterpart and other friend were suspended from the Bashkia due to lack of funds, so I'm currently regrouping. Done a few tasks here and there today though. Generally I am entirely confused at how I ended up at a desk job. I swore to myself that I would not have one of these, and my body doesn't want me to either! My shoulder acts up when I have been sitting too long, and guess what this job does to me... Oh well, I assume this is a rough spot and I will work my way out of it by doing small projects and getting to know more people. I will go for a walk tonight.