Better than Valentine's Day

You may have read that deadly winter weather has swept Eastern Europe and put the rest of the Continent on alert. Ukraine alone has suffered over a hundred deaths in the past few weeks. Albania is quite cold, but we're also blanketed in a mercifully heavy layer of snow. I say "mercifully" because this snow insulates even as it slows us down.

Prime Minister Sali Berisha has declared a national state of emergency, and Peace Corps has us "standing fast" - also known as on lockdown.  Transportation neither comes nor goes.  Favorite brands and staples are beginning to dwindle on some shop shelves. But really, this unceremonious dumping of snow upon our heads constitutes a minor interruption in life, and FINALLY we are enjoying respite from the howling, bitter wind that preceeds an Albanian snowfall.  While northern Albania, up in the Diber region, is reportedly smothered in three meters of snow, we've got a tolerable one and a half here in the southern mountains.  Folks are resourceful and resilient. Our crankily bellowing and belching stoves work to keep us all warm.  Occasionally curls of smoke sneak into our kitchens from cracks and yielding seams, but we must accept that stove pipes only go so many months unscraped of soot before leaking.  And this is a long winter.

All the apartment doors in my building are flanked by gunny sacks stuffed with wood and banged-up tin pails full of ashes. I've already exceeded the amount of firewood I used last winter, and ten bucks says that I continue to rely upon wood heat through early April. Old timers have sagely pronounced this a year of dimer i ashper, vera nxehte. Harsh winter followed by a hot and productive summer, indeed. I belive we'll take it, though.  At least it will be a wet as well as hot summer.

Last summer, after a decidedly half-hearted winter, we suffered a horrible drought that put Leskovik on a miserly hour-a-day water schedule (from 5:30 am to 6:30 am, no less) and shriveled up 70% of the grape crop.  Extremely bad news, the latter.  Many folks are economically dependent upon our famous grapes. Everyone who was in debt last spring after installing a new kitchen or sending a child to university is still in debt.  And there were many unwashed heads and pungent armpits gracing this town for several months!

Now, yesterday was Valentine's Day. Though it is a new holiday in Albania, couples will typically recognize the occasion with a coffee out and a new outfit. Wonderful way to distract oneself from the relative monotony of winter. However, with Leskovik buried in a world of white and all the roads into and out of town blocked, all our big-city lovers, despite their most valiant efforts, couldn't penetrate the snow. It turned out to be a day sadly lacking in cordials and teddy bears, but full of other amusements and activities to alleviate slowly-building cabin fever.


Top Ten: Beat the White-Out Blues

#1 Take refuge next to our glowing stoves.
#2 Pull on our custom wool socks to ward off the chill rising from exposed cement floor.
#3 Cancel more school due to continually plunging temperatures, perpetual snowfall, and stubbornly disfunctional radiators.
#4 Resign ourselves to catching up on paperwork and actually getting ahead. Horrors!
#5 In periodic bursts of energy, extract ourselves from total slothdom and march up the hill to get the blood moving.
#6 Engage in domino tournaments of fierce proportions. When losing, we are obliged to throw about our opponents' dominoes and stomp mightily around the room. Domino etiquette commands loser's petulance.
#7 Have all the productive pleasure of planning a bakesale fundraiser for school, despite knowing that it will more than likely be pushed to March.
#8 Dig for the last of the paperbacks musting up the shelf behind the spider plant.
#9 Turn our emptied coffee cups upside down, smear the dregs, and divine our futures in winding paths, striking snakes, and eagles' heads. When the winking bulbs finally give out, talk long into the dark.
#10 Boil down sheep's head in a juice spiced with garlic, onion, and cracked black pepper so it might be ladeled over a bed of crumbled soda bread and oregano. This preparation of juice on crumbled bread is called pershesh. Tender head meat, it's been a while. We feast!

Never say that we don't enjoy ourselves here in snowy Leskovik. Saint Who? Keep your chocolates, we've got head meat.

Better than a snow day

At first it was a school-is-cancelled-because-the-radiators-broke-again-and-they-can't-send-anyone-from-Korca-three-hours-away-to-fix-them day, then it became a snow-is-rapidly-falling-and-it-is-cruel-to-get-students-and-staff-out-in-this-weather-to-attend-school-in-an-unheated-building day!  We would never have something so pedestrian as a simple snow day.  We instead had a day of mad catch-up work and a snowball fight outside.  Overnight the snow accumulated up to my thigh!  Thank you for small blessings and our director's prevailing wisdom.

Senior Prank '11-'12: Making Asses of Us All

Senior Prank 2011-2012:
The senior class concoted and put into a motion a most devious prank prior to our winter break.  It completely topped anything else of which I've ever heard.  A handful of the students obtained a copy of the school key and, one night, forced a donkey into the building and up the stairs to the second floor.  The students locked the poor donkey in the 11th grade classroom and made sure to crown the teacher's desk with a generous pile of manure.  The beast spent a miserable night pacing an icy, confined space full of desks and chairs.  When the custodian came in the next morning to fire up our anicent radiators, he heard the donkey's distressed braying.  Once he hit the second floor, he also SMELLED the donkey.  The classroom was a mess of urine and manure.  The creature had emptied his nervous bowels.  The custodian attempted  to lead the terrified animal down the double flight of stairs and back outside.  Ever hear that hooved animals can more or less manage ascending stairs but most certainly cannot descend?  Well, it's true.  The donkey basically stumbled and fell his whole way down those stairs.  If I were him, I would have a list of students to haul off and kick clear across the valley.  And, it took the better part of the morning to rid the hall of the stink and the classroom of a slip-'n-slide horror show.  Truly excellent prank - who didn't giggle and snicker?  Talk about making asses of the entire 11th grade... and of the entire faculty, for that matter!  You know what, maybe the pranksters just made asses of themselves.  Because, at the end of the day, what an awful experience it was for the donkey! 

Getting that Exercise High, Despite the Odds

I have an on-and-off relationship with exercise, usually dictated by the seasons and the amount of work waiting for me at home (read: my lack of self-discipline).  I go through spurts of running, usually up the mountain road leading out of town.  The road winds up along our side of the Vjosa River Valley wall.  There's serious drop to the valley floor below, occasionally broken by narrowly terraced vineyards.  Many kilometers away on the opposite face of the valley, the Nemercke Mountains soar sheer and high, impassive and impenetrable.  Best view in Albania.  Even better when the sun sets or rises.  Even better when the wind whips, and the mountains barely breathe through the frozen stillness.  Even better when I'm dodging through jangling herds of sheep, goats, and cows on their way to pasture.  S'up, homies?  Enjoying that brisk morning air? 

Sometimes I go with Visa, which is great - we "motivate" (egg on, cajole, insult) one another all the way to the mountain spring marking the rise where we then double back.  We talk the whole time and pick beat-you-there landmarks.  I bought her a pair of Asics last Christmas after she spent Summer 2010 running in flats!  Flats, I tell you! 

Other times I go by myself, especially when we're experiencing rain, snow, or a prevailing north-eastern wind.  Everyone in Albania knows that both willful and accidental exposure to the cold and wet will cast one into the throes of miserable infection.  When I brave the weather, I look like a tipsy, bedraggled sparrow weaving through gusting wind and rain.  I risk the ill health and get scolded, happily.  Who doesn't want an Albanian mama clucking over you, smoothing back your wet hair and brewing tea to warm your insides?

Visa and I were disappointed this last October when we discovered that a particular gnarled olive tree, once a beacon of hope at the top of an otherwise most discouraging uphill stretch, had been hacked down.  Maybe by a hunter.  Adios, our dear friend.

Since I moved to Albania in 2010, I twice attempted to found run/walk groups for female friends and colleagues, the first composed of twenty-somethings and the second of thirty-somethings.  Both sputtered and then woefully putted to a stop after about two months each.  The major barrier proved to be small-town society. 

Since the collapse of Communism, it is uncommon for women to publically exercise in Albania.  This is changing, especially in the capital city, but rural communities such as Leskovik aren't universally tolerant.  There are always a handful of bored housewives who gleefully cackle and speculate about others when they have nothing exciting going on in their own lives.  Mind you, these women are a precious few amongst many good-natured souls, but their speculation still spreads like wildfire and does plenty of damage. 

My second exercise group gave rise to malicious gossip.  Folks wondered why my fellow runners weren't dutifully spending their time at home, how they found the time to abandon responsibilities.  For whom were they exercising?  Why did they want to look good?  Because surely a woman only exercises to acquire a svelte body, not to improve her cardiovascular health and spirits.  Is she hitting the pavement for a man outside of her marriage?  A particularly nasty rumor became associated with one of my friends, and we were forced to abandon the pursuit.  I started thinking about what to do next.

Remember how I was writing last year about our odyssey to secure a health volunteer for Leskovik?  We were granted a Health PCV named Emily last June!  She's a sweetheart and a half.  In September 2011, she and I founded a women's aerobics class with the help of Emily's counterpart and my friend, Bruna.  Bruna lobbied hard with the health clinic.  The formidable female doctor heading the clinic in turn secured us free use of public space and electricity for one hour four times a week.  The municipality gave us permission to use the tiny, high-ceilinged dormitory dining hall.  Jani Vreto's female physical education teacher, a friend of mine, donated the school's four gymnastics mats.  My director permitted us to use the school projector.  We rig up my laptop with an extension cord threaded through the kitchen window, and the projector is angled and balanced on a pile of books.  With it, we cast video up onto a white-washed wall. 

Jane Fonda circa 1980 is the feather-haired star of the class, leading us gently, yet firmly, through lots of leg lifting and counts of eight.  Our group quickly swelled in size and now has both regulars and occasional attendees.  We exceeded our mat space as we grew in number, so new members began to bring frayed carpet squares to keep themselves off the chilly floor.  We bob, bend, lunge, stretch, lift, and punch (sometimes) in rhythm.  You can probably imagine that there's much laughing at ourselves and whooping.  Little boys tried to peer into the high hall windows in the beginning, but now we aren't such a novelty as we link arms and march down the middle of Main Street in sweats and sneakers.

We've seen some toning and some weight loss.  Results are SO important when we need to argue the value of our class.  Mostly, we've observed an eagerness to escape the house or the family shop, to revv those endorphines, to exercise freedom, to enjoy one another's company.  Winter really shuts people inside.  Sometimes we descend upon a lokal for a coffee after class just to prolong the high and the companionship.

We're on a month and a half hiatus (yikes!).  It's been a truly merciless winter.  Just ask a neighboring PCV whose house experienced such low temperatures (down to -25 Celsius) that her glass jars shattered, her water reserve froze, her pipes burst, and her kitchen became a veritable skating rink.  Leskovik is settled in a crook where Greek winds raging across the open valley furiously claw at our homes, intent upon dragging us down the slope.  A darkly passionate, awesome (!!!) experience if you're at home under a blanket with a roaring wood fire, listening to the windows tremble then frantically rattle then subside again.  Not so awesome once you leave the house.  Again, you couldn't get an Albanian woman in her right mind to spend an exercise class on a cement floor in an unheated, uninsulated building.  You couldn't get me to do it, either. 

Everyone took a copy of our video home; they're all supposedly plugging away on their living room carpets until we meet again in the spring.  Maybe we'll be on the advanced video!  We keep on talking about adding a once-a-week yoga component.  I'll let you know.

Biblioteka e Shkolles - The School Library Project

I realize I haven't written much before about the USAID Small Project Assistance (SPA) grant Diana Pasho, our school librarian, and I won to build a library for Jani Vreto.  We're close to concluding the grant, so here follows the backstory:

I began working with Jani Vreto's librarian, Diana Pasho, and with our director, Veli Xhelili, in September 2010 to build a new school library.  Our old "library" was a mildewed, lightless storage room stuffed with decaying books and collapsing chemistry cabinets.  The school had the potential for a functioning and attractive library, but lacked the financial means.  To rectify the situation, Diana and I applied for a USAID Small Project Assitance (SPA) grant.  We won a SPA grant in the April 2011 application round and finally received the funds in July 2011.  Our proposed project sought to build a new, COOL (please don't judge my vocabulary use - it IS cool) library and to stock it with attractive, modern literature for adolescents in Shqip and in English.  We began library construction, technology training, and collection expansion last summer.  The projected project conclusion date is early February 2012.

Diana and I founded a student group called "The Friends of the Library" (Miqte e Bibliotekes) last spring while writing the grant to foster student ownership of the project, to contribute to library-related decision-making, and to help with project implementation and daily operations.

Since August 2010, we've been building an English language literature collection solely with donations from friends in the US.  Notably, a US shipping company called DHL agreed to work with the Capital Region Education Council (CREC), one of our donors in Connecticut, to facilitate FREE transport of a major shipment.  We now have about 250 English texts.  With SPA funds, we also ordered $1,000 worth of new Albanian-language books to update our permanent collection in Fall 2011.  This order included classics, but put emphasis on the likes of Harry Potter, Twilight, The Golden Compass, and more popular literature designed to reinvigorate student interest in reading for pleasure. 

Diana, myself, and the Miqte have developed Excel catalogues of our collections and are creating a physical card catalogue. We worked hard over the late summer months  to alphabetize and sort our standing collection by genre. We reclassified the books by author's LAST name, which is a new system for Albania. We also established careful cataloguing and borrowing rules for the library. 

In late Summer/early Fall 2011, we relocated the library to its new home.  October 2011 was the Grand Opening month, promoted new Albanian language and English language literature and educated students on proper library use and new systems.  The space is painted a warm cream, lined with honey-colored bookshelves bolted to two of the walls and wide, double bookcases marching down the center of the room.  The fourth wall - all windows - is covered with donated lemon-colored curtains to protect the books and keep the room cool.  Students and teachers donated plants to line the windowsills. School-donated reading tables and chairs were in place by mid-September 2011. 

Diana, the Miqte, and I hold library hours during the daily school recess and four additional hours a week.  The Miqte are primarily responsible for facilitating lending, maintaining the bookshelves and classification system, keeping the library clean, and updating recods.  We're all still plugging away at the card catalogue.  Diana's currently working on an Albanian language curricular module with upperclassmen using the library's resources.  I'm working on a tree of knowledge mural for the back wall and slowly collecting and mounting posters, quotes, and maps to decorate the walls. 

Our school custodian and sometimes electrician fixed all of the wiring for free, so we have enjoyed lighting sufficient to brighten the dreary days of winter.  My most persistent worry was that the radiators clinging to wall below the windows would cough, shiver, and give up the ghost mid-way through winter, but they have instead exceeded expectations and kept us warm.

Fast forward to January 2012: Visa and I are planning an English book report module for the upcoming Spring 2012 semester.  We'll see what happens!  All of our 9th grade English students will read one English novel from the library, prepare a book report and visual representation of the novel, and answer questions about the text in an oral interview by the end of the semester.  Realization of that goal would be a coup.  My service began with a school entirely lacking a functional library, never mind English language literature.  It now has the potential to end with a REAL library and English literature module.  

Just a few more cosmetic touches to the space and card catalogue.  We've also a long overdue trip to the bank in Erseke on the calendar so we can finish balancing expenditures for the grant report.  The swiftly-approaching conclusion of the grant merits a HURRAH!  Diana and the Miqte have committed a great deal of time and effort to administering the library since it opened in September 2011.  I wouldn't dare to wonder what this project would've looked like without the Friends.  Project design and management without a motivated, intelligent, and resourceful working team is a hideous prospect.  Shudder.  Thanks to the students, I am really truly confident that the library will continue to grow under Diana's supervision and serve the Jani Vreto community long after I've left Albania. 

Until my Close of Service sometime in May 2012, we'll continue to independently collect funds for a several improvements we couldn't cover with the grant budget.  Together they rather read like a "seriously, Molly? SERIOUSLY?" wish list: add a corkboard for posting student work and announcements, replace the door with one that doesn't require a shoulder to shove open and a knee to slam shut, acquire additional Albanian language books, equip Diana with a real desk, locate a reasonably-priced and well-functioning BUT used laptop to house our electronic catalogue.  That's a bit expensive.  Think we can do it? 

If you would like to donate books to our ever-growing English language collection, please take yourself over to the nearest USPS office, purchase a $50 flat rate box, pack tightly, and ship to:
Molly Douglas
Bulevardi Fan S. Noli
Godina X
Leksovik
Albania

Venture onto our library page at: http://janivretoschoollibrary.shutterfly.com/

Some library progress pictures below!

The original "library"

Starting on the new space

Receiving and sorting donations

Bookcases!

New Library!!! October 2011

Friends of the Library - Miqte e Bibliotekes

Paint thanks to PCVs Richie and Michele in Puka.  Still need some white, though, so we can create some definition and make it look less like something out of The Wizard of Oz!  Leaves up next.

What You Missed! Student Exchange to the US, July 2011

After just a few short months of crazed planning, fundraising, cross-culture and travel prep lessons (THIS, my children, is an airplane!), document applications, and cross-country trips to interview at the Embassy for the aforementioned documents, and number crunching...

Visa (my counterpart), five of our 8th grade students, and I journeyed from Leskovik on July 9, 2011 to the United States on a ten day student exchange. 

Our five students and their American hosts outside the MLC 

  The exchange trip served as a capstone to a year-long cultural exchange and joint-studies program conducted between our 8th grade class and an 8th grade social studies class at the Metropolitan Learning Center (MLC), an international studies magnet school in Connecticut.  The program grew from an identified need to effectively communicate American culture to Albanian students and a desire to really make that culture tangible.  One might question whether American culture - that ever-dominant force which saturates international media, dictates international fashions, and fills the heads of kids airound the world with rapping, blinging dreams of spun-sugar success - is that inaccessible.  Well, sure, our students can watch Miley Cyrus sing on Greek public access channels and read about George Washington in their 8th grade textbooks.  Relating to the American ideals and dreams forged under early political leadership and understanding their impact upon American culture today is another thing - especially from the perspective of American youth.  Visa and I wanted to literally bring the United States and the experiences, opinions, and ambitions of the American youth to our classroom.  Along with our American administrative and teacher counterpart in this program, we wanted to puncture our respective students' bubbles and open their worlds to one another.

During the 2010-2011 school year our two classes exchanged perspectives on current events, culture, and common social studies topics, such as Albania's bid to join the EU.  After our first few months of Skype conferencing and emailing, the MLC and it's directing organization, the Capitol Region Education Council (CREC), invited us to visit.  To prepare for the trip, our students committed many extra hours after school to preparation, practicing their English and developing cross-culture presentations on Albania and its culture.

The seven of us were in Connecticut for ten days, during which each student and Visa stayed with host families. We learned about American culture and shared Albanian culture. In the mornings we attended and gave lessons with our American hosts on themes in American and Albanian culture/history/current events.  In the afternoons, we visited sites of cultural importance and had pure FUN in the Connecticut area.

Trip highlights included:
- meeting Connecticut Governor John Malloy;
- visiting Mystic Aquarium, the Connecticut Pequot (Native American) Museum, and the Connecticut Science Center;
- attending a minor league baseball game (hotdogs and free t-shirts flowed);
- visiting the University of Connecticut (UConn) with representatives from UConn's Albanian Student Association;
- attending RiverFest, a summer evening festival on the Connecticut River in Hartford, complete with stunning fireworks and a stirring rendition of "The William Tell Overture" followed (naturally) by Katy Perry's "Firework";
- messily making ice cream with ice, salt, and plastic bags in a science lesson at the MLC;
- learning about environmental protection and energy-saving techniques online;
- studying the American political system, with a noteworthy take on the concept of "taxation without representation";
- discussing racial, ethnic, and religious stereotyping in the US and Albania;
- teaching our American hosts how to dance valle shqiptare, play dominoes, and make kafe turke;
- and a hardcore kickball game, a waterpark visit, a Harry Potter midnight showing, and two cookouts with friends and family.  

Visa and the students also learned a great deal about American values and diversity outside of the classroom.  They formed strong friendships with our 8th grade hosts, their families, and Ms. Alana Asrelsky (the hosting 8th grade social studies teacher).  The MLC's state-of-the-art facilities and Ms. Asrelsky's teaching methodologies also gave Visa a unique perspective on American educational systems and philosophies.

Visa and I are incredibly proud of our students' performance and behavior on the trip.  Only one student had ever been to an airport; none had ever left the country. All five students exceeded our expectations, drew many compliments from our hosts, took risks with their English, and were outstanding cultural ambassadors everywhere we went in Connecticut. 

At risk of waxing too poetic, I must say that I admire our five travelers so much for their bravery, their daring, their committment, their maturity, their perseverance.  From where did they draw their courage?  How far will that courage take them in life?  I do believe they may accomplish to whatever they set their minds.  That kind of determination demands that I help them realize those goals.  They are a truly wonderful group of 8th graders.  They inspire ME.

Visa and I continue to work to ensure that our students maintain relationships with their American friends and the MLC throughout high school and will be inspired to pursue higher education opportunities abroad (like the US Federal YES Program).

I am also very proud of Visa's performance.  She met steep challenges associated with technology, professional interactions, international travel, cross-culture education, and leadership with steadfast professionalism and calm. Visa has grown through this experience - and I believe will grow even more. She has also expanded her own personal ambitions with exposure to the great opportunities available to our students. Notably, she began studying this fall to take the TOEFL (an Albanian requirement for admission into a graduate program) and plans to return to school for a Master's degree.

We are now working to bring our five American hosts, a few more 9th graders, and Ms. Asrelsky, to Albania in April 2012. I believe this may be the first visit of its kind to Albania. CREC, the MLC's directing organization, granted permission for a return trip in August. We've put together a hypothetical itinerary for the visit (which we hope will include a U.S. Embassy visit), have begun fundraising, and just held our first student Skype conference of the 2011-2012 school year.  The new 8th grade class is now a part of the project, starting off as our now current 9th graders began their odyessy last fall. 

Expect to hear more from me on the topic in the winter!

You can find a trip photo album at the following link: https://picasaweb.google.com/m.b.a.douglas/StudentExchangeJuly2011authkey=Gv1sRgCMODra2I1qeCJw#

You can find the project site at the following link: http://janivretomlcexchange.shutterfly.com/

TGIS - Thank God It's Spring

I feel like a bear emerging from hibernation.  I just got back from a trip up north and haven't needed to light a fire, my long-suffering jeans are drying overnight on the line, the almond trees are in bloom, no more root vegetables and lentils... BLISS. 

The new group of Peace Corps Albania volunteers arrived in country for training about two weeks ago.  Their arrival signaled a year for me in country (!!!).  Happy Anniversary, Peace Corps Albania Group 13, I'm proud and really fortunate to be here with you all :)