Well, it is official! Tiffany and I will be landing after almost 812 days abroad. Due to finances and stupid airlines we will have to wait to be back in Ohio a bit longer as flying into Pittsburgh International Airport saved us quite a large sum of money. We have spent the last week looking at flights leaving from everywhere in Europe. Tirana finally won out as the cheapest and easiest option since we will have all of our luggage. We will be downsizing quite a bit in terms of clothing, but have also picked up a few things along the way, mostly for family and friends, but also some stuff for us too. We have asked many people what they wanted from Albania, but if we haven't asked you ,and you would like something please let us know...We'll buy it for you for free it'll only cost you $2000 dollars shipping and handling, we do bulk orders though! Now we have to figure out how to spend about 20 days that we have free from our close of service to our flight back to the USA. Also we haven't really thought about where we will go when we get to Pittsburgh, so if any of our family or friends would like to meet us at the airport and give us a ride, you would have two very happy RPCVs. (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers). The R being the key letter! Now for two months of planning, wrapping up projects and saying goodbye to new friends. Will try to update this thing again soon with pictures from the winter. Talk to you all soon, if not online then June 5th!!!!
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Great Northen Circle
I started writing this a while ago and never finished it, after this one hopefully I will write another to update everyone with what we have been doing since summer.
In June, the Peace Corps along with the embassy opened the northern sections of Albania to be explored and visited by Peace Corps volunteers, for the past year we had been able to visit that part of the country but only using annual leave, the same type of leave we use to visit places like Italy, Greece, and America. It attracted a few volunteers, but most of our group explored the Albania that we could access without annual leave days.
In June, the Peace Corps along with the embassy opened the northern sections of Albania to be explored and visited by Peace Corps volunteers, for the past year we had been able to visit that part of the country but only using annual leave, the same type of leave we use to visit places like Italy, Greece, and America. It attracted a few volunteers, but most of our group explored the Albania that we could access without annual leave days.
We had been in contact with a group that runs a summer camp in Theth for the children that live there all summer while their parents run guesthouses, cafes, or just live in their traditional village (most traditional villagers now live in and around Shkoder all winter and move back to Theth when the pass opens in the spring).
Tiffany and I started talking about visiting Theth and another small village across the mountain called Valbona in May and hearing different stories about how to best visit the northern expanse of Shkoder. We had heard about a trail that was hike-able from Valbona to Theth and thought that we could with a group of people see a large chunk of the north in one trip. We decided our first stop would be the ferry that runs up the artificial Lake Koman, from the village near the hydro power plant of the same name to Fierze, the next hydro dam on the Drin River. 16 people ended up joining us on the adventure, 15 Peace Corps Volunteers and 1 Albanian who wanted to be outdoorsy with us.
The journey was extremely hot and long but after nearly 3 hours of cruising up Lake Koman we arrived at Fierza, we all loaded into a furgon and were driven to Bajram Curri, the largest city in the north and a place for us to pick up supplies for the trip. After a great lunch organized for us by two volunteers placed in Bajram Curri, we had some time to relax and gather supplies. I immediately went for sausage and bread, while Tiffany wandered over to the fruits and vegetables. Camping isn't as easy in Albania as it is in America, finding foods that are hiking and camping friendly is much more difficult. We spent the night with the volunteers and much of the next morning hanging around in Bajram Curri, around 1:30 we gathered in the center of town fully stocked up (and weighed down) with supplies. We made the furgon trip to Valbona in what must have been record time. I was a little surprised to see a lack of anything in Valbona that you could consider to be a town or village. Where the furgon let us off was a large hotel/ cafe/ restaurant but nothing else around. I knew that these places were remote but I expected to see some houses clustered together. We hiked from Valbona about an hour to another village where we would set up camp for the night.
The next morning we packed up our gear and started the trek towards Thethi. The lower section of the hike took us slowly around the mountains that surrounded the Valbona River, as we continued to climb the hike got harder and the rewards sweeter. The views of the mountains and valley below were remarkable and along the trail were patches of wild strawberries. Sometime you would get into a clearing and the smell of strawberries would flood your nose and everyone immediatly began looking for the little red dots hidden in the green along the trail. They were so sweet and ripe. After many hours of climbing, sometimes slowly and sometimes very steep sections, we arrived at the pass between the Valbona and Shala valleys. We had climbed almost 3000 feet and had almost as much to descend before we could rest and relax in Theth for the next couple of days. We took the opportunity to snap a few pictures at the top.
The next day we visited with the Balkan Peace Park summer camp project and also had some time to explore Thethi. Some of us helped make musical instruments with the younger kids while other took a hike with the older ones. After the camp ended, we took a walk around town to visit the church, and tower as well as a wonderful family who served some of the best food we had ever eaten. After lunch we went to cool off at the waterfall.
The next day we all got into a furgon and headed back towards Shkoder where we once again drove over the mountains out of the valley only this time to the west of Theth. It was a remarkable trip and one that we will always remember. For the rest of the pictures head over to: Great Northern Circle Pictures
The next morning we packed up our gear and started the trek towards Thethi. The lower section of the hike took us slowly around the mountains that surrounded the Valbona River, as we continued to climb the hike got harder and the rewards sweeter. The views of the mountains and valley below were remarkable and along the trail were patches of wild strawberries. Sometime you would get into a clearing and the smell of strawberries would flood your nose and everyone immediatly began looking for the little red dots hidden in the green along the trail. They were so sweet and ripe. After many hours of climbing, sometimes slowly and sometimes very steep sections, we arrived at the pass between the Valbona and Shala valleys. We had climbed almost 3000 feet and had almost as much to descend before we could rest and relax in Theth for the next couple of days. We took the opportunity to snap a few pictures at the top.
The next day we visited with the Balkan Peace Park summer camp project and also had some time to explore Thethi. Some of us helped make musical instruments with the younger kids while other took a hike with the older ones. After the camp ended, we took a walk around town to visit the church, and tower as well as a wonderful family who served some of the best food we had ever eaten. After lunch we went to cool off at the waterfall.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Spring in Albania
Wow! It has been forever since we have posted, partially due to travel outside the country, partially due to work and lack there of with in the country. I guess there are 4 major events that we will discuss and 1 major event that we will avoid. The avoided is the disputed election for mayor of Tirana, the capital city. The original count gave the socialist incumbent a victory by 10 votes but as they have opened the ballot boxes for city council they have discovered that there were votes placed there as well, enough for the Democratic candidate to pull ahead. The question now is whether to count the "misplaced" votes or to not. Demonstrations have taken place in Tirana as well as other cities around the country to push for their opinions. As for the mayoral races in the rest of the country it seems like all the bigger cities in the north (including Shkoder) have gone or stayed Democratic. The larger cities in the south have remained to changed to Socialist. The big change in the north was Puka, which was socialist, will have a democratic mayor.
The first thing I will discuss in some detail is the Ultimate Frisbee "league" I'm trying to start. Working with "The Door" again, we had 10 ultimate discs shipped from Disccraft to Albania and I began "coaching" one group of boys in their gym. The gym is literally a basketball court sized area with little or no out of bounds, so we have adapted the rules for this size of a field. We don't have pulls, and any disc that touches the wall or ceiling is a turnover. The boys seem to like the game because of how closely the game resembles soccer. I have been working to get the game outside, but when the weather turns nice for a few days and before I can schedule a place outside it turns nasty again. Also I have been helping World Vision take care of their growth and the practice times from 12:20 - 1 Tuesdays and Thursday was interrupted many times by me having to go out and take pictures with World Vision. So as of now I have 1 possible group of boys and am no further along with anything than I was in February, and I was hoping to be outside playing with 3 or 4 teams by this time, but avash avash (slowly, slowly).
Secondly, Tiffany successfully held a race here in Shkoder. She worked with Jessi and The Door to hold a 3 kilometer race from the center of town to the top of the castle. If you remember the pictures of the castle it is quite a hill. There were over 100 participants that signed up to run and we had over 80 finish the race and turn in the race bibs. I participated in the race itself along with a few other Peace Corps Volunteers and our Country Director, and finished first out of that group. I didn't place in the top 3 but ran a personal best of 12:30ish. which for 1.8 miles up a pretty steep hill isn't too bad. There were some issues with the race finishing order, but it was all worked out in the end and it is an event that Tiff hopes to hold again next year. Kastriot wants to hold a race twice a year! It even inspired some of the Peace Corps volunteers to attempt a half-marathon in September in Ireland. We are hoping to make it and I would like to run the 13 miles in under 2 hours, considering the winner of the Boston marathon finished his full in under 2, I hope I can run half that in the same amount of time.
Thirdly, we had an opportunity to take a vacation with Tiff's parents. They made it out of the US for the first time ever, voluntarily. The map gives you an idea of where we travelled. The black lines are by plane, red by train and the blue lines by boat (Royal Caribbean Cruises).
We met in Milan, travelled to Florence and Rome by train, caught the ship in Rome and sailed to Athens, Kushadasi Turkey, Rhodes Greece, Istanbul, and Naples. Everyone loved Florence and we would love to go back to see more, specifically the Uffizi Gallery with some of DaVinci's and Rafael's artwork, but we did get to see The David, and it was remarkable. I wasn't really impressed with Rome although Vatican City was an exception. The Colosseum and many other fountains and buildings weren't as spectacular as I had built them up to be. I also really likes Kushadasi, the city was modern and clean but not ultra touristy like Istanbul. Tiff's parents also came back for a few days to Shkoder where we got to show them around our city a little as well as take them to Kruja (the most touristy place we have in Albania).
Finally, we had an opportunity to meet the new trainees that will be moving in and around the Shkoder area. We will have a new TEFL teacher coming to Shkoder, there will be a COD in Vau Dejes and Koplik (both are smaller cities about 1/2 hour from town, and a Health Educator in Koplik as well. We are excited to get to spend more time with the new volunteers and help them adjust to life in the north of Albania. While we were down at their training in Elbasan we took time to have a "working vacation." We have never explored the South west coastline and we decided that pre-tourist season would be a good time to do that. We picked two cities to visit since we had 3 days to explore, Himare and Vlora. We went to Himare first, and if it wasn't for the 5 and a half hour furgon ride we would be visiting there a lot more. It had to be one of the most beautiful places we have ever been. Crystal blue water, white marble rocks jutting right out into the ocean and in some places forming small tide pools that we could watch small crabs and other creatures scurrying around in. The volunteer there also had a beautiful apartment. The downside is she is by herself and about an hour an a half from any other volunteer, but we offered to trade her sites and she said no so she must be happy there. Vlora was also pretty but it had more of the feel of a big city on the ocean. Kind of like a Long Beach in LA. The city was a little more dirty and bigger. I'm sure I would have liked it more had we not just seen Himare, but I've also been to much worse too. Here are some pictures of Himare that I took with my little camera. I packed light for this trip, 6 days with only my book bag and a sleeping bag, plus an extra pair of shoes in a plastic bag tied to the outside of my book bag. Have I mentioned I love spring in Albania, you can pack like this and be totally fine, 6 pairs of underwear, 3 tshirts, a dress outfit and a pair of jeans and a pair of shorts, plus a light jacket for the cool evenings. Looking forward to seeing more of the country this summer and fall before winter sets back in. We've decided to explore more this year, helping other volunteers with projects around the country instead of hunkering down in Shkoder waiting on our own projects. I think that is all for now. Hope the spring is good for you all and that it stops raining long enough to enjoy some of it outside!
The first thing I will discuss in some detail is the Ultimate Frisbee "league" I'm trying to start. Working with "The Door" again, we had 10 ultimate discs shipped from Disccraft to Albania and I began "coaching" one group of boys in their gym. The gym is literally a basketball court sized area with little or no out of bounds, so we have adapted the rules for this size of a field. We don't have pulls, and any disc that touches the wall or ceiling is a turnover. The boys seem to like the game because of how closely the game resembles soccer. I have been working to get the game outside, but when the weather turns nice for a few days and before I can schedule a place outside it turns nasty again. Also I have been helping World Vision take care of their growth and the practice times from 12:20 - 1 Tuesdays and Thursday was interrupted many times by me having to go out and take pictures with World Vision. So as of now I have 1 possible group of boys and am no further along with anything than I was in February, and I was hoping to be outside playing with 3 or 4 teams by this time, but avash avash (slowly, slowly).
Secondly, Tiffany successfully held a race here in Shkoder. She worked with Jessi and The Door to hold a 3 kilometer race from the center of town to the top of the castle. If you remember the pictures of the castle it is quite a hill. There were over 100 participants that signed up to run and we had over 80 finish the race and turn in the race bibs. I participated in the race itself along with a few other Peace Corps Volunteers and our Country Director, and finished first out of that group. I didn't place in the top 3 but ran a personal best of 12:30ish. which for 1.8 miles up a pretty steep hill isn't too bad. There were some issues with the race finishing order, but it was all worked out in the end and it is an event that Tiff hopes to hold again next year. Kastriot wants to hold a race twice a year! It even inspired some of the Peace Corps volunteers to attempt a half-marathon in September in Ireland. We are hoping to make it and I would like to run the 13 miles in under 2 hours, considering the winner of the Boston marathon finished his full in under 2, I hope I can run half that in the same amount of time.
Thirdly, we had an opportunity to take a vacation with Tiff's parents. They made it out of the US for the first time ever, voluntarily. The map gives you an idea of where we travelled. The black lines are by plane, red by train and the blue lines by boat (Royal Caribbean Cruises).
Finally, we had an opportunity to meet the new trainees that will be moving in and around the Shkoder area. We will have a new TEFL teacher coming to Shkoder, there will be a COD in Vau Dejes and Koplik (both are smaller cities about 1/2 hour from town, and a Health Educator in Koplik as well. We are excited to get to spend more time with the new volunteers and help them adjust to life in the north of Albania. While we were down at their training in Elbasan we took time to have a "working vacation." We have never explored the South west coastline and we decided that pre-tourist season would be a good time to do that. We picked two cities to visit since we had 3 days to explore, Himare and Vlora. We went to Himare first, and if it wasn't for the 5 and a half hour furgon ride we would be visiting there a lot more. It had to be one of the most beautiful places we have ever been. Crystal blue water, white marble rocks jutting right out into the ocean and in some places forming small tide pools that we could watch small crabs and other creatures scurrying around in. The volunteer there also had a beautiful apartment. The downside is she is by herself and about an hour an a half from any other volunteer, but we offered to trade her sites and she said no so she must be happy there. Vlora was also pretty but it had more of the feel of a big city on the ocean. Kind of like a Long Beach in LA. The city was a little more dirty and bigger. I'm sure I would have liked it more had we not just seen Himare, but I've also been to much worse too. Here are some pictures of Himare that I took with my little camera. I packed light for this trip, 6 days with only my book bag and a sleeping bag, plus an extra pair of shoes in a plastic bag tied to the outside of my book bag. Have I mentioned I love spring in Albania, you can pack like this and be totally fine, 6 pairs of underwear, 3 tshirts, a dress outfit and a pair of jeans and a pair of shorts, plus a light jacket for the cool evenings. Looking forward to seeing more of the country this summer and fall before winter sets back in. We've decided to explore more this year, helping other volunteers with projects around the country instead of hunkering down in Shkoder waiting on our own projects. I think that is all for now. Hope the spring is good for you all and that it stops raining long enough to enjoy some of it outside!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Pictures from Thessaloniki
Per Shume Vjet!
It means "For many years" literally, it is used as a greeting for Christmas and New Years. These past few weeks have been fun. After the waters receded from our little flooding experience Tiff and I quickly headed for Thessaloniki, Greece. It was our first trip outside of Albania since we got here and it was much needed, but Albania wasn't about to let us go that easy. We took a bus from Shkoder to Thessaloniki, for 30 euro each the ticket agent said the trip would take about 10 to 12 hours. On the trip about 3 hours south of Shkoder, there was snow falling and on the ground, (this was somewhere between Durres and Elbasan, for anyone with a sense of Albanian geography) when we pulled into the bus station in Elbasan there were a couple of inches on the ground. Further along the road to Librazhd many cars and other buses stopped to put snow chains on, our bus kept chugging along. Finally on a steep hill somewhere passed Librazhd we met a roadblock of cars stopped on the hill to put chains on, when they stopped others were forced to stop behind them leaving many cars stuck on the side of the snow covered road. What made it even more interesting was the rather large canyon that was right out of the window Tiff and I were looking out of. As the driver and his assistant put the chains on the tires slowly rolling backwards and closer to the edge of this canyon more and more traffic piled up behind us. Finally the bus got the chains on and we crawled slowly over the hill. Shortly after one of the chains came loose and we had to stop to put it back on. Then again, this time the driver decided to take them off completely as the road had been cleared by the plows, and we were off of the large hill. But something didn't seem to be working correctly, we rode the rest of the way through Pogradec, and past Korca stopping every 10 minutes or so for about 5 or 6 minutes to fiddle with the engine and then drove on for about 10 minutes. Finally we made it to the border! Getting through the Albanian checkpoint was easy but then came the Greek checkpoint. We had heard horror stories about the time it took buses to make it through the border, but we figured with Albanians no longer needing visas to go to Greece or most of the rest of the EU it wouldn't be as bad, plus our bus was only about half full so it couldn't take that long right? Wrong! 2 1/2 hours of people selling bags, phone cards, food and drinks, CDs and just begging for money while we sat patiently we were finally through and on our way to Thessaloniki. We didn't stop again except to let a couple of people off at a couple exits on the highway. We finally arrived in Thessaloniki at 8 (7 Albanian time). A total of a 16 1/2 hour trip. Once we got there everything was fantastic, even if a little expensive. I have gotten used to paying Albanian prices for things and was suffering a little from the sticker shock of a 5 euro coffee, or a 2 euro salep from a street vendor. That's all Tiffany heard about the whole trip :) We took our wonderful hosts to a dinner at a restaurant they liked near the water front, and had some of the best seafood we've ever had. The calamari didn't even need marinara sauce to make it delicious. We spent the rest of our week shopping at Ikea and walking the streets checking out churches and other historic sites. One church we went inside was built in the fourth century, and we visited the old Roman agora that had buildings that were built in the fourth century BC. We also took a couple of days to just relax and walk around the little neighborhood where we were staying.
We arrived back to Albania on the 23rd, just in time to sleep through Christmas eve. When we finally got up Christmas day we were suprised to see it much like any other day even on the Catholic side of town. We left on the 26th for Tirana to have another Christmas dinner with our American neighbors in exile before they left for France. They had Christmas dinner catered by "Steven's Center" which gave us a whole turkey, you have no idea how happy were were to see a table with an actual turkey, mashed potatoes and all the fixings even pumkin pie (even though it wasn't as good as Grandma Bloom's pies). We returned to Shkoder the 27th to head back to work for the first time since we had gone to Greece only to find out that the week between Christmas and New Years is much like in the US, some people are there, some people aren't and not a whole lot is going on. Needless to say we have been prepping for New Years and doing some cleaning. Here's wishing you all a Happy New Year, enjoy the last days of 2010, especially you soon to be volunteers who are getting ready to start their service in a short 2 and a half months. Per Shume Vjet Gezuar! Lots of love!
We arrived back to Albania on the 23rd, just in time to sleep through Christmas eve. When we finally got up Christmas day we were suprised to see it much like any other day even on the Catholic side of town. We left on the 26th for Tirana to have another Christmas dinner with our American neighbors in exile before they left for France. They had Christmas dinner catered by "Steven's Center" which gave us a whole turkey, you have no idea how happy were were to see a table with an actual turkey, mashed potatoes and all the fixings even pumkin pie (even though it wasn't as good as Grandma Bloom's pies). We returned to Shkoder the 27th to head back to work for the first time since we had gone to Greece only to find out that the week between Christmas and New Years is much like in the US, some people are there, some people aren't and not a whole lot is going on. Needless to say we have been prepping for New Years and doing some cleaning. Here's wishing you all a Happy New Year, enjoy the last days of 2010, especially you soon to be volunteers who are getting ready to start their service in a short 2 and a half months. Per Shume Vjet Gezuar! Lots of love!
Sunday, December 5, 2010
wet and wild
This will be a short one but we wanted to update everyone with our status. There has been some flooding in Shkoder this past week, our part of town has not been affected and we did not really notice a difference in the happenings around town other than some shorter tempers and a lot of people walking around with wet pants. That and constant buzz of helicopters and military personel carriers moving through town. The villages have been hit the worst as normal, but the US ambassador along with the staff at the Peace Corps here in Albania have moved us temporarily to Tirana. They will continue to monitor the situation in the north and will let us return to Shkoder as soon as they feel we are safe. We will post more later complete with our own pictures and stories from Shkoder. Until then the best article we have seen was on CNN, so for now hope all is well in the US and we are doing well here.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Sometimes this country is just strange...
Since I haven't sat down to write in so long this will be a mix of stories from the past month or so. Don't take strange in a bad way. Strange can be good. I used to call Tiff strange or weird and she would be offended, its not a bad thing, you are different, and different can be good. Albania is strange, Albanians are strange. This whole experience can be really strange. Let me start with my best example, I was heading to work one morning and got in the elevator to head up to the office on the 7th floor. I got in and pressed the 6 on the elevator like I always do, because in the elevator the ground floor is 0, but if you took the stairs up one flight you would see a sign announcing that you are on the second floor, strange. Back to the elevator, and elderly gentleman gets in with me after parking his bicycle in the hallway, the doors close and we begin making our way up, he asks me if I live in the building, I answer "no, I work here." He hears my obvious accent and then asks me something I don't quite understand, I ask him to repeat it and he second time I pick up what he asked me. He wanted to know if I was Turkish. Really? Me? Have you seen me? Do I look Turkish at all? I'll give you almost any Western European country you want because you probably don't see that many but Turkish, not so much. I told him that no I am from America just as the elevator reached his floor. Strange.
I went to the Vodaphone store to put money on my phone so I could make phone calls and send texts. I got to the store and told the guy behind the desk that I wanted to add one thousand leke (about 10 dollars) to my phone. He looked at me like I was crazy and said I could add that amount. I put my phone down and pulled a one thousand leke note out of my wallet and handed it to him. He took it, put my phone number into the computer and I got a text message saying I had ONE THOUSAND LEKE added to my account. As I turned around to leave he told me that I really wanted ten thousand leke on my phone not one thousand. Strange. The Albanians like to use a system of called old leke. I guess a while ago the government wanted to use smaller amounts of money to fit more equally with the standard dollar, pound and euro, so they dropped a zero from the currency. The problem was they didn't force anyone to use it. I'm almost sure if I went and asked the Prime Minister, Sali Berisha, how much his car cost he would reply to me in old leke. I realize by now that this blog is probably being read not only by family and friends, but maybe some new group 14 volunteers, so here is my tidbit of advice for you. Love the old leke system. It is actually easier for me to understand a price in old leke than new, for example dy mije pese cind pese dhejte (2,550) versus dy cind pesedhejte e pese. (255) have someone read those to you as fast as they can, which one do you understand more easily? The first one right, that extra 0 keeps really long weird number sequences from happening at the end. Granted we generally get both prices because we look, act, sound, and smell like foreigners, but I like the old leke best, and I'm guessing if you are coming here you will someday too. You'll complain about it, we all do, but then you'll come to embrace it and if your confused just ask, but generally you'll know that you pay 500 leke for a dinner out and 50 leke for a candy bar, not 5000 for dinner and 500 for a candy bar.
Staying on the money theme, in the US I always (tried) to carry around a 20 dollar bill, I figured I could use it in case of emergency, car needed gas, needed to grab a bite, whatever came up. Whatever it was from a pack of gum or candy bar no one wouldn't take a 20. Here having a 2000 leke (roughly 20 bucks) note is like being cursed. You go to the ATM and people are standing in line at one while another is completely free, I walk up to the free one knowing exactly what will happen, I will get my weekly budget out ( I try to go to the ATM once a week, this prevents me from spending too much money on coke early in the month only to run out of toilet paper at the end, a little extreme of an example but it is my way of budgeting) and from the machine will slide a 2000 leke bill. I hit myself for coming after the bank has closed for the day (3:00 pm) put the bill in my wallet and begin planning how to spend it. I try to spend about 500 leke a day so 2000 would be 4 days of my week. And to hand a cashier, waiter, anyone short of the beggar on the street 2000 leke you will get a death stare worthy only of having cursed someones dying grandmother. Many of the businesses that we frequent often would tell us to pay next time, but we are on the other side of town we either have to wait for the manager to find change or walk away without or groceries. This will happen less often with 1000 leke usually at a coffee bar when you are paying 120 leke for a couple of coffees. But change is a foreign concept to many people here. And we won't even mention being given change in bubble gum. I heard once a volunteer saved his and bought something entirely with gum given as change. Me, I eat my change the lemon and cola is pretty good even though it is out of flavor by the time I get home. Strange. Hope things are well in the USA, enjoy your holiday this week. If there is anything in the Black Friday ads I could use in Albania feel free to go to the stores Thursday night wait outside all night buy it Friday morning (now that is STRANGE) and spend the 60 some dollars it costs to ship it here to me. I love not working retail right now!!
I went to the Vodaphone store to put money on my phone so I could make phone calls and send texts. I got to the store and told the guy behind the desk that I wanted to add one thousand leke (about 10 dollars) to my phone. He looked at me like I was crazy and said I could add that amount. I put my phone down and pulled a one thousand leke note out of my wallet and handed it to him. He took it, put my phone number into the computer and I got a text message saying I had ONE THOUSAND LEKE added to my account. As I turned around to leave he told me that I really wanted ten thousand leke on my phone not one thousand. Strange. The Albanians like to use a system of called old leke. I guess a while ago the government wanted to use smaller amounts of money to fit more equally with the standard dollar, pound and euro, so they dropped a zero from the currency. The problem was they didn't force anyone to use it. I'm almost sure if I went and asked the Prime Minister, Sali Berisha, how much his car cost he would reply to me in old leke. I realize by now that this blog is probably being read not only by family and friends, but maybe some new group 14 volunteers, so here is my tidbit of advice for you. Love the old leke system. It is actually easier for me to understand a price in old leke than new, for example dy mije pese cind pese dhejte (2,550) versus dy cind pesedhejte e pese. (255) have someone read those to you as fast as they can, which one do you understand more easily? The first one right, that extra 0 keeps really long weird number sequences from happening at the end. Granted we generally get both prices because we look, act, sound, and smell like foreigners, but I like the old leke best, and I'm guessing if you are coming here you will someday too. You'll complain about it, we all do, but then you'll come to embrace it and if your confused just ask, but generally you'll know that you pay 500 leke for a dinner out and 50 leke for a candy bar, not 5000 for dinner and 500 for a candy bar.
Staying on the money theme, in the US I always (tried) to carry around a 20 dollar bill, I figured I could use it in case of emergency, car needed gas, needed to grab a bite, whatever came up. Whatever it was from a pack of gum or candy bar no one wouldn't take a 20. Here having a 2000 leke (roughly 20 bucks) note is like being cursed. You go to the ATM and people are standing in line at one while another is completely free, I walk up to the free one knowing exactly what will happen, I will get my weekly budget out ( I try to go to the ATM once a week, this prevents me from spending too much money on coke early in the month only to run out of toilet paper at the end, a little extreme of an example but it is my way of budgeting) and from the machine will slide a 2000 leke bill. I hit myself for coming after the bank has closed for the day (3:00 pm) put the bill in my wallet and begin planning how to spend it. I try to spend about 500 leke a day so 2000 would be 4 days of my week. And to hand a cashier, waiter, anyone short of the beggar on the street 2000 leke you will get a death stare worthy only of having cursed someones dying grandmother. Many of the businesses that we frequent often would tell us to pay next time, but we are on the other side of town we either have to wait for the manager to find change or walk away without or groceries. This will happen less often with 1000 leke usually at a coffee bar when you are paying 120 leke for a couple of coffees. But change is a foreign concept to many people here. And we won't even mention being given change in bubble gum. I heard once a volunteer saved his and bought something entirely with gum given as change. Me, I eat my change the lemon and cola is pretty good even though it is out of flavor by the time I get home. Strange. Hope things are well in the USA, enjoy your holiday this week. If there is anything in the Black Friday ads I could use in Albania feel free to go to the stores Thursday night wait outside all night buy it Friday morning (now that is STRANGE) and spend the 60 some dollars it costs to ship it here to me. I love not working retail right now!!
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