Hurrah for baking!

I noted this in an email to a friend and have brought it up with some sisters…
Hurrah for baking!!! Baking assuages the soul wounded by cooking failures. Whenever I bomb yet another experiment in a pot, I resort to the simple science of flour and baking soda/powder to boost my self-esteem. HOWEVER, it must be admitted that I recently attempted two batches of brownies that failed to properly set and had to be eaten out of the pan like cake. Due to having followed Prairie’s especially tailored brownie recipe, the mess tasted like heaven. But it remains that I cannot yet coax a brownie from a pan.

Fall is here, and my students will not get off their cell phones

I am sitting on my couch, trying to remember how to knit—I had one brief lesson with Miss Katie K, a most patient fellow volunteer—and am thinking it might just be better if this scarf knitted itself. It's cold! Let's say my fingers have been too numb to type as I am struggling with my wood stove situation... and thus this blog post is so late? Or how about I haven't an adequate excuse and what I am posting here is in fact an adapted email?

This is my favorite season, and Leskovik shows it off to particular advantage. The clear days are crisp with a high wind. I can wear sweaters and want to go for walks with a canteen, rucksack, and Heidi as a cheerful, rosy-cheeked companion. I can forgive the indecisive rain and blankets of soupy fog. Even those days evoke the Sleepy Hollow legend and Hudson River mystique.

Fall + the advent of the school year = a starry-eyed official start to service. Four weeks of school with seniors and sophomores equate a bit of a crushing blow (only a bit because it's like a crushing blow in slow motion - little bit more crushing every week). Four weeks of school with seventh and eighth graders and village school students equate relief, enjoyment, and renewed interest in teaching. After years of helpless laughter at my mother’s dinner table, I finally have my own wild student antics—wily ruses to lead lessons astray and hopeless, yet earnest, blunders—to cackle (and I do mean cackle) over with Visa while planning in the evening.

We have a Halloween party coming up on November 1st and another party after the 30th of November (we're thinking perhaps right before Christmas) for the 7th or 8th grade class that wins a magic bean competition. The two seventh grade classes and eighth grade class are pitted against one another in a competition where they win/lose points based on behavior and performance. Each class has a jar filled with pinto beans, from which the students can lose or earn back beans. Whichever class reaches November 30th with the most beans still in the jar wins the competition and a class party, catered by yours truly. I promised “American food”, which drew a universal chorus of “oooo!”, so that ought to be interesting. I unintentionally set the bar rather high for myself, being a merely passable cook. AND, most of my students' mothers excel in the kitchen - few Albanian girls reach adulthood without a mastery of cooking that puts the average American twenty-something to shame. This setting of the bar unintentionally high is turning into a repeat offense in all aspects of service in Leskovik, but it does keep me busy and happy.

Cooking and party aside, the classes are engaged in fierce combat (no other word fully expresses the nature of this competition). When a student steps up to the plate to deliver a particularly earnest performance during a lesson and all of the kids rally to maintain some level of calm in the classroom, putting a lost bean back into the jar makes up for having to kick an intolerable, completely insolent sophomore and his I’ve-just-about-had-enough-of-your cell phone out of my earlier class.

All in all, things are good. I put a bean back into Class 7B's jar today, rewarding the students for NOT once uttering the word "beautiful" during the lesson. Albanians are addicted to the word beautiful (translates as "bukur"). The level of restraint displayed was remarkable.

I also drew a peacock and the Taj Mahal on the blackboard to illustrate something in a 7th grade discussion. Everyone hollered “xhami,” which translates to “mosque”. It follows that we had to have an impromptu discussion about different domes and what one might find under them. When I cruised by desks later in the lesson, most of the kids had copied the bird and palace, which made me laugh and appreciate the thorough note-taking of newly-minted teenagers. It feels like we've been teaching for six months instead of four weeks (as very aptly remarked by a fellow TEFLer).

My program manager, Agim, recently made a tour of Albania to check in with all of his TEFL volunteers. Being a thoughtful guy, he brought, for my fishing pleasure, a fly rod! The rod had been gifted to him by a previous volunteer. It’s a pint-sized two-piece Eagle Creek sweetheart rod, just right for swinging wildly about in these little creeks with brush and overhanging trees. It looks like I am going to have to wait until I go home to properly complete the outfit with tippet, leader, etc, so I don't know if any fishing will go down until next spring...

I took the rod by the town pharmacy to show to my naturalist friend, Sejdin (he also happens to be Visa’s fiancé’s older brother). He likes to fish and fries his own catch. Might I add that it is highly rare for an Albanian man to willingly enter the kitchen? Sejdin is fascinated by fly fishing. We have made some noncommittal plans to fish the Vjosa River at some point! The Vjosa is about two hours away by car, though it is visible from our mountain.

In other news, side projects are just starting to really take off and the school schedule has FINALLY been, well, finalized. I am working on completely overhauling our school’s library and on adding an English language literature section to the collection. My school director has granted permission to relocate the library and is donating an old desktop computer to our catalogue project. We're working on a grant application, which process has been mildly difficult as the school librarian's baby girl is ill. I salute this stalwart mother for battling through baby illness, work, and grant development.

My women’s book club is kicking off this week! Darien Book Aid (CT pride) sent novels and biographies for our club. I hope we will start with The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, which I have not read. Also, it looks like the Jani Vreto-MLC cultural exchange and joint-learning project is nearing the schedule-building stage, so I am quite excited. The seniors participating in the project are ambitious and dedicated students, so, “me kismet” (loosely translated as “with luck”), the exchange will be both productive and fun (what a piddly word).

I miss you all,

Molly

Post-Communist Capitalism in Albania, as illustrated by Cinnamon-Flavored Gum

When I go to the supermarket in Leskovik and I pay for items, I sometimes receive both coin and gum as change. This occurs when, at the end of a transaction, I am due a fist-full of coins that should include five or one cent pieces—baby leke. Instead of baby leke, the cashier gives me one, two, or sometimes even three, pieces of chewing gum. I balked at first, confused by what appeared to be a pseudo trade system. Actually, I have no idea what that is – the unwanted tender for unwanted goods system? But now that I better understand the reasoning behind this perfunctory disregard for the least-used units in the Albanian monetary system, I am inclined to just laugh.

In Albania, most prices ignore the singles place value and scoot a zero into that spot. This is partially a side effect of the old leke versus new leke phenomenon, compensating for old leke mental calculation when confronted with the new leke exchange of coin and bill. It’s also a way to neatly ensure that 10 is a factor of all prices. It follows that one and five cent pieces are in circulation, but are rarely used. Since prices only stray into awkward territory, like, oh gosh, 487 or 53 leke, on those rare occasions when irritating shoppers purchase produce in non-kilo increments (a-HEM, if you live alone and are buying food for just one person!), no one wants to give or receive these pesky buggers. How to get rid of them once they’re in your pocket? Do you even want to get rid of them; do they really have value in Albania?

Elsewhere, the entire interaction might have potential to break down. Here, a simple solution is handily slapped onto the problem, and we all carry on with life. You get gum—even if you don’t want it—instead of money. It’s a duc tape sort of approach to post-Communist capitalism.

Case in point: Today, I was owed 182 leke at the supermarket after buying bleach, some sponges, toilet paper, three peaches, and one cucumber. Sofika, the gruff and probably chain-smoking cashier who introduces and re-introduces me to everyone, took my 500 leke note and gave me 180 leke and one or two pieces of Chiclet-style gum in return. I thanked her, hurled a couple of mirupafshims over my shoulder to the general audience, and fumbled the gum into the palm of my hand as I headed out the door. The gum then proceeded to sweat up against my plastic bag handles, smearing traces of red food coloring and cinnamon flavor on the inside of my knuckles. Awesome.

I attempted to pass off this sugary treasure, cozy in its little wedge of shiny foil hacked from a pack ensconced in the change drawer by the Sofika’s knee, to a convenient child or fly-ridden dumpster. Both work – I’m not a fan of super sugary gum. But I am a fan of Sofika, and I like this ritual. It makes for all kinds of excitement.

I always wonder how Sofika calculates the value of each piece of gum and what color my palm will be when I get home. To whom should I try to give the gum? Little kid, older kid, my neighbor’s son’s colleague’s kid? I would be a creeper in the United States; never accept candy from people on the street! And if I succeed in foisting the gum onto a kid, I am perpetuating poor dental health habits! Can I even justify throwing the gum away if I can’t find a handy child willing to rot holes into his/her teeth? Oh my, waste, waste! Additionally, chucking it into a dumpster just contributes to the national trash problem! Escalating guilt, guilt! Internal debate and berating ensue.

And finally, the ritual reminds me that we’re still in a post-Communist state of transition where private businesses inevitably engage in a little artistic manipulation of financial transactions. Ah, behold, macro-level problems playing out at the micro level! But hey, from the perspective of people just trying to function in a country where money and relative value are still a little fragile, if this practice makes for a more efficient transaction at the local supermarket store…who’s complaining? Really just PCVs protective of their teeth, I would think. It’s gum, after all! CINAMMON-flavored gum!

Note: This supermarket observation was written shortly after I moved to Leskovik. I have since learned that Sofika is a covert, as opposed to chain-smoking, cashier and that I can receive match boxes instead of gum if I smile winningly and ask about her migraines.

Baxho - the Dairy

About two months ago, when I was still the “new foreigner” in Leskovik, I went with a neighbor girl to the local dairy, or baxho, to buy cheese. The baxho occupies the bottom floor of a small destroyed factory. Leskovik has several miniature factories like this, some made of stone and others of cement with what used to be tall glass windows. They are remnants from Communism that now lie either in ruins (sometimes because of the 1997 pyramid scheme crisis) or have been partially rehabilitated for private use by whoever is interested and can stake a semi-solid claim on the property.

Quick digression to discuss this curious leftover from Communism - With the fall of Communism, property rights became a major problem. No one really owned any land for fifty-odd years, so, when democracy and capitalism took hold, old disputes revivified and people attempted to stake ownership to houses, gardens, and fields. Things got temporarily ugly and then terribly messy. Today, now that most Leskovikqarians have built new cement houses or moved into raw brick apartment buildings, stone houses are abandoned and the surrounding property is simply cultivated by whoever last occupied the space.

Case in point: the network of communal animal stalls and pens behind our apartment building, mentioned in the previous post. They’re made from repurposed materials—warped planks, corrugated tin, flour sacks, plastic sheeting, stones, barbed wire, etc. It’s like a tiny town without ownership. Everyone is tucked up against everyone else. It’s unclear where one man’s cluster of stalls end and others begin. Post the morning milking session and the arrival of the cowherd to collect the prize milkers and new calves for a day in the pasture, I skirt clouds of flies and hop around manure to get down to the main road.

This sort of impromptu, and yet highly productive, repurposing of available space is exemplified by the dairy operation. Factory space is less ambiguously awarded to entrepreneurs than grazing and garden plots. Half of the three-story factory’s bottom floor has been converted into a dairy, and, behind a heavy blue door, a vast cool chamber hums with activity. The rest of the building is still burned out. The windows lack panes, scorch marks smear their wretched palms across the walls, the floors are covered in shattered glass and tiles, and there is an eerie stillness.

It was my first visit to the dairy, so naturally most activity ceased so everyone could come ask about the American. Once they discovered I could speak Shqip, they also talked to the American. Where are you from? Why are you here? Wait, are you really going to stay here for two years alone?! But you are 23 years old and unmarried! Well, good for you, sweetheart. Really, that’s wonderful. But we will have to find you a nice Albanian boy.

After going through the usual round of questions and exclamations, I had opportunity to observe the assembly line they had developed, the vats of brine and sweating cheese, and picked out a kilo of feta to be weighed on a shuddering scale with brass weights. Only a kilo, but, just because this is Albania, and Albanians are the most hospitable people I have ever met, the entire staff offered to have the kilo delivered to my door by an eight year-old playing outside with a new kitten. I paid 300 leke (3 USD) for my prize and took it away in a blue plastic bag with advice to soak it in the salty yellow whey that you can buy by the giant one-liter Coke bottle.

The first time I bought cheese in Leskovik, no one mentioned to me that I ought to buy the whey. The cheese started to turn in one day. No preservatives, remember? Ah, well. Dairy products here both frighten and impress me.

One of my secret ambitions (perhaps not so secret now) is to learn how to make… my own yogurt. Oh lord.

Gatimi Shqiptar - Albanian Cooking

I thought that I was never going to find Albanian food with much flavor after my training period in central Albania. For a nation that has been shaped by centuries of conquest and intersection of European and Middle Eastern cultures, Albania has emerged with remarkably bland food. Spice is rarely used, and even then with much restraint. You have to travel to cities and comb through the occasional European mart or specialty shop to find elusive items like ginger and red pepper.

Albanian food is also very high in cholesterol and sugar. Oil, salt, red meat (with most of its fat intact), bread, and sugar are the most important elements in Shqiptar cooking. Everything is deep, and I mean DEEP, fried. Even rice and spaghetti are fried before they are boiled.

But, the food is incredibly fresh because the vast majority of Albanians outside the big cities produce most of their own vegetables, cheeses, yogurts, preserves, condiments, wine, milk, dhale (half water, half yogurt, and sometimes a pinch of salt), etc. No added preservatives or hormones. Living in a community where processed food is essentially non-existent is something new for me. The lack of processing, the lack of pesticides and inorganic fertilizers go a long way for health… It is only after most food is cooked that it begins to lose its optimal nutritional value and that Albanians fall into two major health traps—acquired diabetes and hypertension.

In Leskovik I have found way more flavorful cooking than in central Albania, mostly the result of fresh garlic cloves, liberal use of black pepper, and a passion for wild oregano. Everything is a little pikante (spicy) here. My counterpart’s mother gifted me with several bunches of dried oregano from the mountain. She is a fabulous cook and makes a mean, mean stuffed eggplant dish. My stomach groans wistfully just thinking about it, sigh. And her pastiço, the Albanian version of macaroni and cheese (but heavier on milk and egg, light on the cheese), oh my. Serious soul food. Shpresa is always flying about her apartment, just two floors below mine, mopping the loosely-tiled floor and popping something in the oven.

Shpresa and Tomori (her husband, named for the highest peak in Albania) also love their byrek, maybe the quintessential Albanian specialty. Picture a savory, flaky, layered pie often stuffed with milk, wild greens, spinach, or sometimes meat, baked in a giant round pan and cut into wedges like pizza. The less oil involved, often the better the byrek. I also love byrek made with corn meal.

In Leskovik, everyone has a kopësht (garden) on the outskirts of town, wedged into empty lots between buildings, up at the base of the sharp mountain slope, or gracing the ruins of stone houses that were abandoned post-Communism for cement dwellings down in town. This mountain community is free of air pollution and all of our water is clean, straight from mountain springs (before the banking crisis in 1997, Leskovik was famed for its hot therapeutic springs). We drink water, opaque with oxygen, straight from the tap. The vineyards are lush, preparing for the September wine season. Cherry season just finished. I am overwhelmed with white cherry and apricot preserves, gifts from all of the lovely women in my building. It’s actually a bit dangerous – anytime I visit anyone’s house and am settled into a chair for the customary cup of Turkish coffee, a saucer of sugary preserves materializes at my side.

Shqiptar cooking, for all its liberal use of fat and sugar, is yum when prepared by the experts. And for those of us learning gatimi shqiptar, behold, freedom from recipes! Everything is to taste, everything is eyeballed, ho-hummed, an extra pinch of this maybe, and an extra dash of that. I have helped to make gjize, a white Albanian made of koss (yogurt) boiled down until lumps of squeaky cheese emerge from the yellow liquid and then can be strained through a series of cloths. Kind of like cottage cheese. I have also learned how to make the aforementioned stuffed eggplant dish, as well as stuffed peppers, and the Albanian macaroni and cheese. Next I hope to learn petka, an Albanian homemade macaroni liberally doused in butter and salt. It’s the perfect comfort food. We also have an Albanian version of a doughnut, called petulla.

I also participated in the preserve-making process during cherry season, mostly sitting on a three-legged stool next to a cow stall and manure pile pitting cherries into a bowl of water (and dead flies) between my knees. Behind our Communist-era apartment building is a maze of animal stalls made from a medley of salvaged materials; it’s a veritable shanty town of human ingenuity.

During the two weeks dedicated to preserves, the shanty town was humming and smoking with boiling vats of sugar, water, and pitted fruit on top of drunkenly leaning and blackened wood stoves. I sweated and pitted. The flies, which are ever present in a thick cloud, droned happily in pools of rapidly cooling sugar, and everyone had sticky feet for days. And all those gifted preserves I mentioned earlier? They arrived at my door in repurposed glass jars still too hot to touch.

Two literacy and empowerment projects - an open letter

Dear Friends,

My name is Molly Douglas, and I am a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English as a foreign language in Leskovik, Albania. Leskovik is a remote mountain town in the southeast, nine kilometers from the Greek border, with a population of roughly 1,800 people. With the collapse of Communism in the early 1990s and the advent of poorly-regulated capitalism, Leskovik finds itself in a state of socioeconomic transition and development. Many people have abandoned the town and moved to Greece and Albanian cities in search of work. Leskovik’s remaining citizens, however, remain fiercely proud of their rich cultural heritage and have high hopes for reviving their town.

I am writing to you with the hope that you might consider donating used or new books to Jani Vreto, the local grade school in Leskovik.

I am the first Peace Corps volunteer to serve in Leskovik and count myself very fortunate to be welcomed by a warm community with great ambitions for its students. I am employed in Leskovik as a high school and middle school English teacher and work with an Albanian counterpart, Ervisa Muca. Our school, Jani Vreto, serves grades 1 through 12 and has a student body of about 650 pupils. English language education is a relatively new addition to the school's curriculum. Most of our students are currently at beginner to low-intermediate levels. We hope to eventually graduate students who will go on to major in English studies in college.

The desire for English language education here is incredible – everyone wants to learn! To make the most of the community’s energy and enthusiasm, I also give free courses outside of school to motivated students and adult learners. In this spirit, I currently am working on two extracurricular projects that promote literacy, as well as English-language acquisition, within and beyond the classroom. I am seeking donations for these projects.

First, we are accumulating English-language literature for our struggling school library. We do not have any English-language literature in our collection. Mostly outdated, it is housed in a former storage room outfitted with collapsing book cases and repurposed laboratory cabinets. Roughly 50% of the student body regularly checks out books to read for school projects and, occasionally, for pleasure. This rate of borrowing is enormously encouraging, as interest in reading has declined greatly in most of Albania. Our goal is to provide our students with the opportunity to delve into the world of American and British literature and to incorporate English-language literature into our foreign language curriculum.

Using donated literature, we plan to introduce story-time circles to our youngest students. With our junior high school and high school students, we would like to introduce book report projects, reflective writing, and critical discussions. In this way, students can apply and improve their English language skills outside the realm of grammar-driven textbooks and can enrich their understanding of American and British culture through literature. We would love to see eventual vocabulary expansion and greater acquisition of expressions through an increased rate in book borrowing. We also seek to renew interest in reading for fun and to encourage more creative writing, inspired by the great fiction writers.

Our library is in great need, and would greatly appreciate donations, of the following items:
(a) large story books with illustrations for children in the primary grades;
(b) beginner-level chapter books for middle school and junior high school students (anywhere from the Henry and Mudge series to the Goosebump books);
(c) any literature for high school students with high interest and knowledge levels, but low grasps of the English language (Orca Books, a Canadian publishing house, is an excellent reference point http://us.orcabook.com/index.cfm?countryID=USA);
(d) reference materials, such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses; and
(e) poetry collections of the Shel Silverstein type.
(f) Magazines, ranging from lifestyle and fashion to National Geographic, and comics would be wonderful assets to encourage otherwise discouraged or apathetic readers.
(g) Classics are also always welcome, even if they might be above level! We do have four or five students who have high-intermediate English skills and could attempt some more sophisticated literature.

To further develop local teachers’ capacity, I have also founded a women's book club with three teachers who all have an advanced command of the English language. Two learned English while working in Greece for several years. The third acquired her English through a joint university program with a Turkish institution. The three women understand spoken and written English fairly well and have a strong grasp of grammar, but very much need to expand their vocabulary and to practice speaking.

My fellow teachers have the potential to return to school to acquire Master's degrees in English language studies, greatly boosting their employability and earning potential. Public school teachers in Albania are paid a pittance. Most supplement their earnings with second or third jobs. Potentially working as a translator for an international NGO, a private business, or a municipal office would greatly improve their families' standard of living in a struggling economy.

More nuanced English skills would also give these women more control over the trajectory of their lives and those of their children in a traditionally male-dominated society. Women are mostly tied to their homes and have very little freedom of choice in Albania. They are bound by highly defined gender roles, by the scrutiny of their neighbors, and by family obligation. My goal is to arm these three teachers with a high-demand skill set that would allow them to make their own decisions in a global economy.

I plan to facilitate weekly meetings with the book club members to discuss how emergent themes and plot issues relate to these women's lives and to engage in spirited and constructive debate. We will also address new expressions/vocabulary and complex grammar structures embedded in the text. I would greatly welcome, in multiple copies (five or more per set would be ideal), any (a) contemporary novels stylized for female readers in their late twenties through their mid-thirties and any (b) biographies of women leaders you might have to offer.

Please consider donating to Leskovik and Jani Vreto! Any contribution, big or small, is welcome! To reiterate, we are seeking fiction and non-fiction chapter books, large story books, magazines, comics, and reference materials for grades 1 through 12. We would also greatly appreciate novels and biographies, in sets of five copies or more, for a women’s book club.

The introduction of English-language reading materials to our school and community will have an enduring and meaningful impact on many lives. I cannot fully express what kind of hope you could inspire in this town by just demonstrating your interest, your concern, and your willingness to contribute to a small Albanian community. My students, their parents, the teachers, and I would all be very grateful.

I am very happy to answer via email any questions regarding our situation, project plans/goals, how to donate, and specific needs. I am also able to set up appointments on Skype, if you first contact me with an email. Additionally, I am always interested in referrals to other potential donors.

If you are already planning to donate, I would like to say thank you! You can mail your contribution directly to our local post office. For the best shipping security and rates, I would recommend purchasing flat rate boxes from the United States Postal Service. Stamping or writing “Used Books – No Value” on the exterior of the box will circumvent the possibility of duty fees. Please consider placing in your box a list of its contents so I can verify that the contribution arrives intact at our post office! I would also very much appreciate an email (write to m.b.a.douglas@gmail.com) advising me of a shipment so I may monitor its progress and plan for its arrival. Most boxes take two weeks to travel from the United States to Leskovik.

My mailing address is:
Molly Douglas
Bulevardi Fan S. Noli
Godina X
Leskovik, ALBANIA

Also, I would be more than happy to send an email confirming your donation’s arrival in Leskovik and to update you periodically with news and photos documenting our library’s evolution. Just include a request for information in your shipment notification email!

Thank you so much for your kind consideration! I deeply appreciate it.

Warmest regards,

Molly Douglas
Peace Corps TEFL Volunteer
Leskovik, Albania
m.b.a.douglas@gmail.com

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