Catching up on an Albanian summer...

Hello Family and Friends!

It’s been an unpardonably long time since I last posted. At first it was work, then lack of internet access, and then the move to my permanent site… the feeble excuses are endless. I am now resolved to maintain this blog regularly!

This post is intended to bring you all up to speed, a summary of sorts.

I am now situated at my permanent site, finished with training and an official Peace Corps TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) volunteer. I am, on my own, “opening” a new site, a remote mountain town called Leskovik in southern Albania. Leskovik is a bare nine kilometers from the Greece; I can see Greek villages glittering across the valley when we have clear weather.

During Communism, Leskovik was a critical military outpost on the border with Greece. We still have the remnants of the military’s strategic offices, artillery storage vaults carved into the mountain face, bomb shelters, and single-man anti-aircraft bunkers scattered all over the surrounding terrain. Post-Communism, the town’s economy has faded.

The only work available is at the school, in the town hall, and at the local clinic, so the majority of Leskovik’s residents have moved to Greece or to major Albanian cities in search of greater opportunity. We’re mostly a town of older folk, children, and unemployed men who listlessly watch sports in the summer heat at coffee bars while their wives endlessly clean at home… all waiting anxiously for the evening’s social hour.

But please don’t misunderstand! Though Leskovik is considerably quieter and slower in the post-Communist era, it is still a lovely town with a warm, proud, social, and culturally-rich community. Everyone waits for the evening xhiro, when the day’s work is done, and we all spill out of our homes into the main street to promenade in our finest (and to enquire endlessly after one another’s health and family). And you cannot find this kind of landscape anywhere else. We are situated at 900 meters above sea level on a sort of gentle ridge linking two modest mountain peaks to one another. The edges of town just begin to slip into narrow valleys bordering us to the southeast and to the northwest. We are surrounded by soaring mountains, raw vegetation, and sweeping skies. It is, in a word, stunning.

I am working as an English language teacher with an Albanian counterpart, the lovely Miss Ervisa “Visa” Muca. We teach at Leskovik’s grades 1 through 12 school, Jani Vreto. Jani Vreto serves a total of 370 students, though I am sure the numbers will change once we finish registering students for the fall semester. Currently, we are on summer break, or pushim. I will keep you posted.

Together, Visa and I are responsible for English language education in grades 6 through 12. Each grade level has an average of 20 to 25 students, who learn together in one class, regardless of level. A few of the grades have two classes of perhaps 15 to 17 students each, but none of the grades exceed a total of 35 pupils. This past year, Visa also taught on Tuesdays at a village school. I joined her for the final lessons of the semester, in a one-room schoolhouse where we met with six students. I sincerely hope we will have the opportunity to continue teaching there this fall.

The students at the village school are enchanted by English… I love teaching students who are dazzled by the opportunity to learn and meet every new concept, every activity with genuine enthusiasm. When these students reach the 6th grade, they will travel into Leskovik every day to join the students from our town for lessons at Jani Vreto.

I arrived in Leskovik just two-ish weeks before school let out for the summer and had the opportunity to explore the school's inner-workings. I say two-ish, because the students and teachers both check-out physically and mentally loooong before the final day of the semester. This summer I gave free English courses to adults and to students. Now I am on vacation, from courses, for two weeks. It's been a busy summer, which has been best for me. Being bored and isolated in the house does nothing for me. And I am pretty damn well integrated now; I have a host of Albanian friends and sometimes hide in my apartment to seek alone time.

Pushim is an excellent time for catching up on blogs and photos. Look for more shortly.

Much love,

Molly