Random News and Observations

My basic daily schedule is as follows...
Wake up at 6:00, look at my travel alarm clock, cannot believe it's 6:00, go back to sleep.
Get up at 6:30, make my bed (can you believe I make my bed? see, some habits do die, and not that hard).
Pray that my babsadijo has already turned on the water and brush my teeth and face with freezing water (this is where I officially wake up).
Step out onto the balcony, watch the sun start to burn the mist off the fields and the valley floor for five minutes before deciding whether I should wear jeans or a skirt... The raincoat always comes with me.
Head into the summer kitchen (note: a few weeks ago when it was cold in the morning and at night we ate in the bodrum, or basement, kitchen with the wood stove) and make bread with gjalp (butter) and homemade grape or fig jam.
Chat with everyone who is already awake, kiss the kids goodbye as they wake up to get ready for school, and walk with Megi to school.
We walk on the train tracks, past the dead goat (which is now more sun-bleached skeleton than carcass) and severed snakes. Usually there are donkeys braying next to the tracks, tied to ropes picket in the hills. We also bump into old women scything the grass for cow feed.
I try to discourage Megi from picking flowers on the way - this is rose season and they are EVERYWHERE - but I usually end up with an armful of pink, red, peach, and yellow roses, heavy and nodding with perfume. It's decadent.
All of the trainees rendez-vous at the tiny school in Lazarej for lessons at 8, at the same time that school starts for the middle school students. The teachers stand on the front steps of the two-story school and wait for the director to arrive and kids to line up in the dustbowl of a front yard (also where recess takes place) before unlocking the front doors.
Our teacher comes in from Elbasan via furgon and meets us upstairs in the classroom we are borrowing. Just to reinforce the image, the school in Lazarej is bare bones, old, and cheerful. The halls are lined with potted succulents and geraniums - most Albanians deocrate their houses and public buildings with potted plants - two faded and ancient regional maps, and the national hymn.
We have class until 10:30, and then we take a coffee break at the tiny store next to the school. Lazarej has maybe 300 people total living on its slopes, so the store/cafe is a big deal. We get Turkish coffee or tea and talk about whatever news we might have heard the night before at our respective houses, both international and hometown news. We are trying to keep abreast of int'l happenings, but it's been very difficult to even fully understand what's happening in Albania.
Right know, our main coffee topic is the Socialist protest in Tirana, the capital city, and a recent engagement and upcoming dasme (wedding) in town.
We go back to classes until 1:00 pm.
Usually, we walk back on the tracks or on the road (where cars and semis blaze by at 70 miles per hour) with our teacher. Back in Pajove, we head to lunch at the same restaurant as the day before, and the day before, and the day before that...
The resturant owner is now completely involved in our lives. As a matter of fact, all of our host families are pretty much related to one another. The real challenge is trying to figure out who is at the center of the six degrees of separation! I think my host family might be winning.
No menus here, the restauranteur recites whatever might be cooking for the day. Usually, I order a plate of spaghetti or a scoop of rice with bean sauce drizzled over the top and a small salad. We hang out, talk about the grammatical gymnastics mastered (hopefully) that day, and then depart for our respective houses. Sometimes we head to a nearby cafe, which is owned by the brother of the host father of one of my fellow trainees. We are always greeted with kisses by the proprietor's wife, Dashuri ("Love").
When I head home, all of the women in my family descend upon me with questions about my day and usually Mande and Eri coax me into playing soccer or chasing chickens or similar. Sometimes I work in the garden and the greenhouse (made of split saplings and recycled plastic sheets), which is now sweating and steaming like the deepest of Amazonian rainforests. Mmm, I may be prone to exagerrations. I also help sometimes to round up all of the chicks and baby turkeys (there were over 60 the last time I counted) so they can be fed crumbled bread mixed with water aaaand HARD-BOILED EGG! After all of the effort I went through when I was little to remove cracked eggs from the coop at home so the chickens wouldn't turn cannabalistic! Oh well, eggs do have a lot nutrients that support baby development.
I have Turkish coffe with all of the women, either on the second-floor balcony, sitting cross-legged on carpets, or outside on the grass, once again cross-legged on carpets. This is my favorite part of the day. We gossip, talk about my day, discuss the progress of the tomato plants, the injustice of the primary school teacher's grading standards, the engagement of someone's sister's brother-in-law's niece to someone else's relative, natural beauty regimens, etc. I love the women in my family. They are honest, uncritical, interested, caring, unreserved, respectful, and they want me to treat them like family, as they treat me.
I am learning to make Turkish coffee!!! It's a far cry from what I used to do at Starbucks... but I am getting there. I will describe that in another post, promise.
Then I try to study, emphasis on "try". It's difficult to study without completely isolating myself from the family. It can be just depressing to shut my bedroom door. I like to hide on the balcony on the backside of the house, over the cow and the chicken coop, looking out over the fields. It's usually effective, and I can catch the setting sun in the evenings before dinner.
In the afternoon I also might do laundry and then hang it on the line with Nete. I love hanging laundry and pulling the dried and crunchy clothes back off the line the next day (if it doesn't rain, in which case it may be a bit of a wait for fresh underwear).
Every three days, if there is hot water left in the solar tank on the roof, I also take a really quick shower. Otherwise, I have to pay a visit to the fuse box in the unfinished floor at the top of the house and use precious electricity to heat water. The few times I have covertly tried to take a cold shower or tried to walk on the floor tiles without socks, my host sisters have playfully scolded me for not protecting myself against illness.
I now help with dinner prep every night. I have learned to make pizza from scratch and make the salad every night. I also can dice any vegetable in the palm of my hand, with just one thumb, and with a serrated knife... all without cutting myself. This includes lettuce, which I roll into long tubes and cut into strips that can be swirled with a fork like spaghetti. Much easier to eat. Salad here is lettuce with green onion, soemtimes cucumber and tomato, sprinkled sea salt, homemade vinegar, and homemade olive oil.
We eat dinner all together at the table in the summer kitchen. I have finally broken free of host family pressure to drink soda every night and now drink cold water (which is, semi-ironically, stored in a giant Coke bottle).
After dinner, I stay with the family in the summer kitchen and watch cartoons/Balkan music videos/the news. Only the babsadijo typically watches the news, and he does this in the bodrum kitchen, so I also had to kind of introduce news into the summer kitchen routine. I was starving for some news for quite a while.
I usually end up building pillow forts with Eri and Mande before scooting into bed. Sometimes I read by flashlight, sometimes I study, sometimes I pass out and wake up the next morning with my homework under my head.