Spiders be watchin' my back

I really wanted to put up a scorpion picture for you all, but I am reluctant to let one out of my sight while searching for my camera. They move so damn fast. THUS, here is a large-ish spider who took down a most annoying insect for me. She sucked the insides out and then left the hollowed exoskeleton on my sink.  Perhaps not the classiest of statements, but such is the nature of Albanian housekeeping + the insects that both support and thwart attempts to maintain a sparkling abode.

*Note: It took three wild attempts to kill my first scorpion with a shampoo bottle before I approached the situation rationally and severed, instead of squashing.  Remember, sever.  They've got exoskeletons, too.

Library donations are a-rolling in!



This donation is courtesy of the Scarsdale Woman's Club in New York.  They sent a truly thoughtful collection of books.  We communicated solely by handwritten letter!  Lost art forms, sigh.



Oh November! How Gray and Productive Art Thou!

November flew; days were long and weeks were short. The highlights of the month were project progress: The book club kicked off with a short memoir and is now moving on to The Memory Keeper’s Daughter.* I also brought the summer adult courses back to life, which has been an exercise in scheduling patience. I opened the courses to the town, so some wonderful newcomers are shyly trickling in… AND, the local clinic and I applied for a health volunteer!!! I am determined to bring a Group 14er to Leskovik. We just need to nail down housing, and hopefully all will go to plan. The staff even paid for a group photo shoot and commissioned a town map to submit with the application. That’s worth a volunteer.

Our eighth and twelfth graders met for the first time with students from the Metropolitan Learning Center (MLC) in Bloomfield, CT. With Visa’s unfailing support, I matched a selection of 8th and 12th graders with American peers from an international magnet school in the US. They’re engaged in a teleconference series designed to foster cultural exchange and joint learning.



Grade 8 participants with Visa in the director's office, day of!  From left to right: Suada, Mariglenc, Kristina N., Visa, Teodor, Eva, Kristina D., and Denisa


Our first sessions were a standard “get-to-know-you” via Skype. There was so much anticipation, and many after-school prep sessions were invested into the first round of meetings. I don’t recall ever before looking beseechingly into the eyes of a 14 year-old and urgently demanding, “So, what would you say if an American were to ask you about circle dancing?” Visa and I also had a great deal of fun in these prep sessions, as we don’t usually dare sit on desks and facilitate hour-long open discussion and brainstorming sessions with our students. Chaos would ensue, we would all have a good time, and classroom auditors would give us a poor evaluation.

Our school director (picture a subdued man who listens, nods, and then gets things done) gave over his office, the school projector, and a personal webcam for our meetings. The 8th graders were, in one inadequate word, WOW. Visa and I are infinitely proud of their efforts. They prepared Albanian traditional songs and dance to share with MLC students; filled notebooks with questions and vocabulary; put together an introduction; and memorized student names. The session went an extra 45 minutes (despite two power outages on our end).  The 12th graders put forth a seriously brave effort despite a seemingly unrelenting wave of embarrassment.  Seventeen is a difficult age, I have heard.

Highlights ranged from our students describing their daily routines in fifteen minute blocks (they had that vocabulary down and were determined to utilize all they knew) to debating the rival merits of R&B and hip-hop. Our students were completely impressed with the American classrooms and school uniforms while the Americans were (and I say rightly so!) impressed with the Albanian students’ level of English. The Americans courteously learned a few Albanian pleasantries and gave them a shot, which our director loved. And of course both sessions concluded with the students pledging to connect via the golden parent of contemporary social networking… yes, you guessed it, Facebook! A 2010 friendship is not a friendship until it is consummated on Facebook.

Successive sessions will treat common topics of cultural and social studies. I pledge to post on each.

*I’ve been reading ahead and may I just mention that the total lack of well-reviewed, positive literature on the adult market is mildly depressing? It all seems to serve to remind us that we are grievously wasting our relationships and ambitions. Just saying.

The News from Lake Wobegon, Albania

October 2010

Narrator: A long time ago, in a far away place called Philadelphia, 50 strangers converged to embark upon a fantastic journey. Most arrived via airplane [NATHAN: airplane noise], some drove [N: car horn], maybe someone took the train [N: train noise], I suspect somebody honed their hitchhiking skills [N: noise of car passing without stopping] [“Hey buddy! Can I get a ride?!”], aaannnnd Libby walked.
They came from all over the United States. Some were from Texas [Howdy]. Some from California [Gnarly]. Some from Florida [Y’all know if it’s going to be cold there?]. And too many were from Chicago [OBAMA! YES WE CAN!].

Anyway, they flew to Albania [N: airplane noise] which was a LOOONG, and frankly discombobulating, transcontinental flight [N: extended airplane noise]. They deplaned and boarded a waiting bus on the sizzling tarmac …whichhhhhh drove all of ten feet. Beyond the lines of passport control they met this shady lady [“I’ll buy your passport for 50 lek”] who shooed them into the sunlight. Ahhh, they had arrived in Albania!

A whirlwind of cautionary tales and British Berkfeld filters followed, and then, before they knew it they were whisked off to their host families. Here…here they understood nothing [“Mirupafshim.” “Mire-ju-pap-fa-shim.”]. They struggled saying the simplest of sentences and relied upon funny gestures to illustrate highly important points [“Dje (pointing behind) Unë shkoj në shkollë”]. Their families thought they were very curious creatures [“It’s 6pm, when do we eat?”], these uncultured Americans. But, of course in the beginning the Americans thought the same of their hosts [“They made me dress up like a traditional Albanian bride and took pictures of me!”].

Now, many of these people were city-slickers who were now ruralizing on farms…..ya, that was interesting. They were used to electronic alarm clocks [N: beep beep beep] and blindly slapping at the snooze. It was different here though, some had lovely host mothers [“Mirëmëngjes!!!”], some had enthusiastic roosters [N: rooster noise], some cows [N: cow noise], and some were lucky enough to have a donkey rouse them from their pleasant dreams [N: donkey noise]. You really can’t slap a donkey into a snooze.

Speaking of the, uh, fauna, a favorite, and admittedly strange, activity a lot of these visitors enjoyed was hiking. While trekking the wilds of Albania, they saw all types of animals: cats [N: cat meow], dogs [N: dog], sheep [N: sheep], goats [N: goat], female turkeys [N: f turkey], male turkeys [N: male turkey], and sometimes the rare upset male turkey [N: u m t]. Oh my. A regular National Geographic documentary, one might say.

But, slowly, grammar was labored over, cultural coffees became gossip coffees, raki was thrown back, stories were traded, cows were milked, circle dances were mastered, the death wagons known as furgons were braved, and gradually these foreign folk fell in love with the mountains, plains, and people of Albania with the spirit of eagles.

PST was a lot of fun [wink] but these people were destined to become PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS! They had to graduate eventually. They descended upon Skampi Theatre. Everyone cheered [applause and cheers], they made the news and then ensued the tearful goodbyes [goodbyes and maybe crying]. All 50 emerged bonafied Volunteers, ready to brave the unknown corners of this massive country! Why, life could only get better.

So they traveled to their respective sites and everything was perfect! Water worked [N: noise of no water], they had power 24/7 [N: noise of power going out and then a generator starting], chickens were respectful in the morning hours [N: noise of cats and dogs fighting]. Counterparts and assignments were exactly as expected and more. All was peaceful [“MATILDA!”] [“MAMI!”] [“O MA!”] .

And now, here we are today, united again. We have all experienced variable ups and downs, but we have made it this far and can go further. [Begin “Star Spangled Banner” on kazoo] The Peace Corps just celebrated its 50th anniversary and we are compelled to revisit John F. Kennedy’s vision and hope. We are here to serve [“Ask not what your country can do for you…ask what you can do for your country.”]. We are dreamers and do-ers [“Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.”]. [“There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.”]. Let’s remember why this organization exists and why we are here [“We must seek, above all, a world of peace; a world in which people dwell together in mutual respect and work together in mutual regard.”].

Peace Corps Albania,

…where vajzat are strong,

…çunat are good-looking,

and the staff is above average.

Halloween: The Good, the Bad, the Terrifying

The last weekend in October, Peace Corps hosted a Language Refresher conference for Group 13. We all returned to our old stomping grounds, Elbasan and her villages, for a weekend of grammar, japrak (stuffed grape leaves), and talent shows. Yes, we revisited (in a hotel disco) that ever-popular third grade form of exalting our respective skills. Bring on the disco ball, stand-up, and impromptu jam sessions. Because (we like to think) we are grown-ups, humiliation was absent; appreciation was great. One of my friends came up with the idea of putting together a Peace Corps Albania version of the News from Lake Wobegon. Four of us teachers valiantly performed with tinkling piano music, red-cheeked sound effects, and a Star Spangled Banner-playing kazoo. The script is posted in the next blog entry for your reading pleasure. I also spent a night with my host family – all members of which, I am pleased to report, are hale, hearty, and whole. I left home with oranges and three kinds of jam.

After the conference we all retired in typically haphazard fashion to a southern city called Berat. There the two extremely accommodating volunteers in-residence hosted us, plus Group 12, for a Halloween celebration of excess and ironic costumes. Some were constructed on the bus. There was an Albanian bunker, the “before” and “after” of Albanian marriage, Skanderbeg, and a cupcake. It was, in summary, an excellent time.

Immediately following that weekend, I threw a Halloween party for 40 over-charged seventh grade students. My counterpart and I decided that Halloween, festa e frikshme, merited an after-school party for the combined seventh grade classes. We scheduled the event about a month beforehand. Plenty of time to whip our students into a frenzy of costume brainstorming and apple-bobbing anticipation. We planned careful explanations of costumes and trick-or-treating, completely forgetting Carnivale. Our students knew exactly what was what and put tremendous effort into their chosen alternative identities.  We clearly are blessed with some under-the-radar artists in the seventh grade.  One student come as "a town crazy", totally in character and totally brilliant. It wasn’t p.c., but it was marvelous. 

All we really had to discuss in prep sessions were jack-o’-lanterns… with considerable historical background to make some sense out of a puzzling and otherwise seemingly foolish tradition. I’d never really meditated before on exactly why I liked carving faces into orange squashes and then sticking lights into their guts – or why I had been taught to do so. It took a classroom full of Albanian adolescents with bewildered faces to impress this failing upon me.

Through a series of slightly unfortunate circumstances, I ended up hosting the party on my own.  I had a group of determined girls help me set up the teachers' room for the event, but still would NOT recommend this particular undertaking to anyone. I did, however, learn roughly 54 life lessons in the span of 2.5 hours, no one drowned in the apple-bobbing bucket, and my students hugely enjoyed themselves. Relative gains! That's how we measure success in the Peace Corps.

Teaching the Teacher

Funny lesson anecdote: Visa and I have split the 10th grade, which is in its first year of English language studies, into two groups to motivate the students and build up classroom control. I have a group of about 20 students who are beyond restless, but are a lot of fun to teach and always game for interactive learning. Example: Today we did a warm-up with imperatives. The students took turns being the teacher and ordered the rest of the class to open windows (allowing blasts of freezing mountain air into the room), trade seats at top speed, crawl awkwardly under desks, etc.

Last week we were working with “I like to” followed by an infinitive. One of the students offered Unë pëlqej të kalëroj (“I like to horseback ride”). I couldn’t work this out in my befuddled brain, failing to deduce the root word kalë, which translates to “horse”, in the verb kalëroj, which translates to “horseback ride”. So he patiently began to break it down for me, miming with his hands and explaining (in Albanian) “Okay, so I have a horse; I climb on the horse, I sit on the horse” and then he bounced in his seat, elbows flapping energetically. He was so serious, *so* earnest, I just turned red and started laughing. I could not keep my composure for about five minutes, which the class thought was hilarious. I tried to continue with “I like to draw comics” and fell apart all over again. The kids loved it.

If I were to stay in Albania...

I would become a terrifyingly brilliant entrepeneur and cultivate a business empire in one or all of the following:

*durable nailpolish
*insulation and central heating systems
*women's fashion magazines, as in Vogue, Elle, etc.
*bullet trains