gjakmarrje comes (again) to Shkoder

What a weekend!  Things kicked off Friday, I came home early to start a relaxing weekend, and it really has been, but in a very weird way. 
    Gjakmarrje (jock marr yea, or just jock marr) is the Albanian found in  the Kanun of Lekë Dukagjin.  The Kanun has been present in Albanian society for a long time but was made into a formal code somewhere around the 15th century.  The kanun or code has many rules and I'm sure most Albanians don't know them all but one that many people know is gjakmarrje.  It literally means blood taking (gjak is blood and marr is the verb to take).  The code goes something like this... If a person, lets just say person A, kills another person, person B, then the male family members of person B are responsible to murder a male family member from the family of person A.  It could be person A or his brothers, father, sons, or cousins for that matter.  Normally all of the stipulations are decided upon by a meeting of the families and the chief of the tribe, when there was a tribal chief to mediate meetings.  Things that could be decided in this meeting were the members of the family that were eligible or ineligible for the blood feud, or if a family was wealthy enough they could buy their families out of the blood feud.  Family members are always safe in their own house, but not outside of it.  This practice is also what keeps foreigners and guests safe here.  If person C were to come to your house for a few days from out of town and while they were in town they were killed, you would be responsible for avenging person C's death.  As residents of Shkoder blood feud is a little more visible to us than to many other volunteers in Albania.  The Kanun has always been more predominant in the north than in the south and during communism it was the main form of justice since Hoxha's army did not venture into the mountain highlands.  Thethi ( a city in the north of Albania) is cut off from any contact for around 6 months a year depending on the snows, and that is presently imagine when Albania had all of 20 cars, that is really cut off from the rest of the world.  After the fall of communism in Albania people felt once again that they had to manage for themselves, and the Kanun reemerged as the primary means of creating "justice" that the state was not able to guarantee.  One particular example is a great one to show the lack of power that government had.  During the years immediately following the fall of communism everyone built whatever they could where ever they could trying to gain a claim to land.  Many former parks and green spaces were overrun with illegal buildings even in the capital city of Tirana.  One place that many people chose to build was a long the river that ran through the heart of the city.  The government came along and started destroying the houses along the river and forcing people out of their homes they had built but one family was engaged in a blood feud...so what choice did the government have?  Of course they let the home stay illegally on the river.  Eventually the family members passed away of natural cause and the house still sits on the river in the heart of Tirana.
    In Shkoder we have at least one house where we know that a current family is trapped as self made prisoners, and we have heard rumors about a second house that is close to one of our favorite restaurants, what we had not heard about was an actual killing because of a blood feud.  I figured that these men just holed themselves up inside their houses until they eventually passed away from old age.  That is until this weekend.  I was on facebook catching up on the latest farmville news when my friend and local pastor posted that all the events for this coming weekend were cancelled.  He has a friend in from the Netherlands or some other country and so I gave him a text message to see if everything was ok.  He replied back that a pastor had been killed here in Shkoder.  I got a call from a co-worker at the Aarhus center that I have been working with to meet him to give him the pictures that I had from a meeting we had on Tuesday.  He was one the phone when I arrived and when he finished his conversation he looked extremely distressed.  I know how small the 4th largest city in Albania is and knew that he had just heard the same news I had heard a few minutes earlier.  From the news reports I have read and people I have talked to the cousin of this pastor murdered someone between 5 to 8 years ago.  The brother of the victim took his revenge on Friday.  People are in shock over the murder especially since it took place in a very public area of town near the pedestrian walkway.  The key issue, in my opinion, is what changes will come about because of this event.  Obviously changing the public opinion on blood feud is many years off but I believe it is the responsibility of the governments of Shkoder city, district and region as well as the national government to begin putting an end to blood feuds in whatever way possible.  It appears that Albania and Bosnia will gain visa free travel to EU nations this November.  They also hope to someday gain admittance into the European Union.  I find it very hard to believe that the European nations will admit Albania with a system that at the very least permits and in many ways encourages an eye for an eye, especially when it spreads to entire family of the perpetrator. 
    In other news, we had our first major power outage of out time here just over 32 hours.  The power went out sometime before 1:30 Tuesday afternoon, and returned 9:31 Wednesday night.  Luckily we had not been shopping recently and lost very little food, just a few apples that were sitting in the puddle of defrosted freezer ice.  I managed to make it through the whole Buckeyes game last night but fell asleep during the michigan-michigan State game.  (the power outage really adjusted my sleeping schedule to sleep by 10 or 10:30)  I woke up to a pleasant surprise of MSU beating u of m.  What I discovered later because it didn't even make the first headline of ESPN.com was that Alabama also lost to South Carolina.  So now Ohio  State should be #1 in the BCS poll that is due to be released some time this evening.  Makes a good end to a rather shocking weekend.  Go Bucks!!

working too much?

It has been a rather busy couple of weeks.  Two Wednesdays ago a Peace Corps representative met with Tiff and I and a coworker in our office talking about how our first three months were going in the office.  After talking with her for for about an hour, she implied that I worked too much.  I think that I was taking tsaying that we were working 24/7 too literally and I am trying to relax the amount of time I spend at the office.  But things are picking up quickly.  Last Saturday, the 25th of September a village outside of Shkoder held the first (hopefully annual) "Play for Peace" soccer tournament.  The day was centered around the International Day of Peace (September 21) and organized by The Door, an NGO funded by Norwegian Aid.  Tiffany and I had proposed the idea to Kastriot a while back, and he ran with the idea.  The Peace Corps country director came and spoke on a very wet and rather chilly day, but we still had a full complement of teams.  4 boys teams and 4 girls teams competed.  In the end the boys from Berdice and the girls from Juban won.  Everyone involved was very excited on the success for both the soccer games and the crowd turnout (which was estimated between 200-250) in spite of the terrible weather.  That afternoon we welcomed other volunteers from "the north" for our first northern dinner.  We had a potluck at our place with veggie lasagna, spicy chicken bruschetta, babaganoush, samosas, chili, rice with veggies, potato and corn salad, fruit pizza, brownies, oatmeal raisin cookies, fruit salad,  and honey cake, along with a few drinks.  The party was a success but we were exhausted from the soccer tournament and I fell asleep in the 2nd quarter of the Buckeyes game (which was already a blowout by that point).  The week was filled with coffee meetings and planning for an environmental group that Tiff and I are wanting to start here in Shkoder.  US Aid had a meeting on Friday to help plan the next phase of their local governance program which Tiff helped organize bringing a few NGOs that weren't invited by city hall and met with the representative before the meeting.  Tiff also has helped the Aarhus Center complete a few post season beach surveys, and we were very surprised with some of the responses.  We have also been busy watching all of the new fall TV shows, and catching up on the ones we have been missing.  I thought we watched a lot of TV in the US but it is true when they say you never watch as much TV than when you are in Albania.  On Tueday I will travel back to Puka to attend a deforestation round table that hopefully will end with a convention being signed by all the leaders of the Puka region to stop illegal logging.  We will also have information sessions in the schools for the Outdoor Ambassadors group that we want to have the first meeting on the 13th of October.  I have some other plans for groups I want to organize but I'll wait to get more information before I share that with the world (or all 8 people that read the blog).  In other news it looks like Tiff's family will be visiting us in the spring, which is very exciting for us and I think they are excited as well. We are always excited to have more visitors.  Hope all is well in the US and to talk to everyone soon.

It's that time of year again

First off we'd like to thank everyone who has sent care packages recently.  The Youngstown gang, including mom, grandparents, and UC & AG, Newark mom and dad, and Aunt Marcy.  I think the post office is getting tired of us as they are now setting time constraints for us coming in to pick up the latest two packages between 8 and 12 noon, so I got myself out of bed one chilly fall morning and rode my bike down to the post office.  After fighting my way up to the front of the "line" they brought out two packages full of goodies.  Spices, candy, rain boots for Tiff and lots of other stuff. 

We have decided that if we never reuse any of the reusable shopping bags we will still have extras to give away as wrapping paper for gifts!  Thank you all very much for all of them but we have got more than what we know what to do with now. 

What these weeks have been filled with are football of the American variety.  We were out of town for the Marshall game (we left town on Friday morning at 7:00 a.m.  the game was actually Friday morning at 1:30 a.m.) but we downloaded the game online to see it later in the week.  The game we wanted to make sure we saw was the OSU- Miami game.  We had a friend (Buckeye) come in from a town nearby and we made hot dogs, mac and cheese, chips and guacamole, pasta salad and had plenty of American candy to go around.  This was the first attempt of watching a Buckeye game in real time over the internet.  Here is the result:  

We moved the couch in the bedroom, set a projector on a table sitting on the bed and turned on the game.  We watched the first drive of Ohio State and the internet went out all over Shkoder.  (Aunt Marcy: I know what you were going through for the Marshall game.)  The girls gave up on the game about 10:30 when the internet still hadn't come back, I went outside to let the girls sleep and the internet came back with a few minutes to go in the 2nd half.  I watched the rest of the game outside, trying not to yell too much.  When the game ended and OSU had won I was still wide awake and watched some of the Penn State- Alabama game, until I finally passed out from exhaustion.  We got up in the morning to watch the whole game, and I tried to be quiet about who won.  Of course everyone was happy once Pryor downed the ball the final time and all of us could say (a few hours late) that we had beat Miami (again)!  Yesterday we could not find the game online to watch but we were able to listen to a radio broadcast of the game.  It makes us feel more at home to know every Saturday and Sunday we can settle in behind the computer and watch (or listen) to the Buckeyes winning, and the Browns losing, although hopefully that will change soon.  We hope to have at least one more Buckeye Big Screen showing here this season, and maybe more depending on when the games are.  We do pretty well with the noon or 1 p.m. starts but the 3:30's require a mid day nap, and the 7s require going through jet lag again.  We hope to watch the game against that team up north at the end of November, and maybe the Penn State game depending on the time.  There is an actual tOSU grad here in Albania and she has promised Buckeye candy if we host another party.  We might even invite the traitor from Berat who was born in Ohio but likes corn and blue better than scarlet and grey, just to give us someone to pick on.  Hope all is well in the USA, hope your teams are winning, unless their name starts with and M and ends with an ichigan.  Go Bucks!  O - H...!

Greastest Care Package to date

The greatest care Package yet to date, 26 pounds of spices, and candy, Lots and Lots of Candy!

Finally the traveling part

So we realized that this blog was called the travels of TnT not the travel, so in the interest of informing people about more of the country than the Shkoder region, we made a few trips.  Well, we made the trips to see more of the country, but also to let everyone back home know about these places too.  When we returned home people in my office as well as other peace corps volunteers asked what our favorites were, so I thought it would be a good idea to give my best and worst of Albania list, and at the end I will share some pictures of the places we have been and let you choose your favorites.  The two "peoples choice" categories are best castle, and best view from a castle.  Sorry cities without castles, you didn't make the cut.  Sorry Elbasan, your castle is nice but I don't have a good picture and the field castle idea just doesn't provide inspiring views.  Tiffany has declined to compare anything since she feels that Albanians compare too much and doesn't like my awards idea, but I digress. On to the awards...

Best City... the nominees are Shkoder, Lezhe, Tirana, Gjirokaster and Berat.
Shkoder is a nice city, the hub of the north, it has 3 rivers, a lake and the ocean just to the southwest.  It is also the "cultural capital" of Albania, boasting many famous poets and singers.  Lezhe is nice, having the big city feel and the beach so close. Tirana is the capital crowded and metropolitan but it is a good place to stop when you need a bit of the Western World feel.  Gjirokaster is also a nice city but the hike up the hill is a killer and not one that I would enjoy having to do every time I needed to pick up some imported item.  The fact that many of the imports come in the country through Gjirokaster and are sold there does give it some bonus points.  Finally Berat, the city of 1000 windows ( I only counted 997, just kidding)  Berat is beautiful with the castle and river running through the city, but the water schedule bumps it down because sometimes you just need to shower, do dishes and laundry in the middle of the day.  For those of you not familiar with a water schedule it is how many cities distribute water for a few hours during the day generally once in the morning and again in the evening, many residents have storage tanks to provide 24 hour water, but they notice a lack of pressure when not on city water.

And the winner is....  SHKODER!!  They say there is no place like home, and I may be a bit biased but I like it the best.

Worst Climb to a Castle (or best place to train to climb Mt. Everest if there were a castle at the top of Mt. Everest)...The nominees are Shkoder, Lezhe, Berat and Gjirokaster...
Shkoder's Rozafa castle sits on a hill on the south end of the city, Shkoder itself is as flat as a day old can of Coke so the castle rises up out of seemingly nowhere.  Lezhe's castle also sits above the relatively flat city, the castle is less visited by tourists so the path is more of a goat trail than a road of many others on the list.  Berat's castle sits perched between to large mountains the road leading to the castle wraps around the hill providing an easy drive for a car but at points a steep climb.  As mentioned before Gjirokaster's castle sits above both the old and new cities providing views of the river valley below.  The recent settlers of Gjirokaster built the city at the base of the hill but the old town was built on the side of the mountain with nothing but straight cobblestone roads to get to the castle.

And the winner (or loser) is...Gjirokaster.  I know it had to be painful for armies trying to take the castle but someone had to think about tourists centuries later!  (To be fair the true loser of this category is Elbasan their castle sits in the middle of the city with nothing even close to a hill anywhere close)

Best Beach...

No idea still have only been to 2 in the north, and I have heard the southern beaches are pretty nice

Best Souvenir Shopping (or best place to spend all of your money on things no one will know what to do with)...The nominees are Shkoder, Tirana, and Kruja.
Shkoder has a number of souvenir shops around town including the tourist information center.  Tirana has many souvenir shops selling everything from Albania t-shirts to pens with the Albanian flag, they even have mobile shops around the necks of teenagers that hang out in the center of town where the tourists all pass through.  Kruja's "souvenir central" is set up in their old bazaar.  The narrow cobblestone street is lined with merchants speaking in English asking you to come in to look at their merchandise.

And the winner is....Kruja.  The merchants can be a bit annoying after awhile but there is no beating the setting.  If I was looking to buy my set of Albanian leader coffee mugs in the 1700's I'd look in the same place as I do today and it would probably look pretty similar too.

Alright we will take a pause for now from the awards but I want to know your opinion so post your favorite castle pics and view from a castle on the message board or E-mail me. 

The nominees  for best castle are...

A

B

C

D

                                                                

And the nominees for best view...

A

B

C

summer camp

It has been 2 exhausting weeks.  World Vision organized 4 summer camps in 2 weeks.  That means we had 2 camps going on at the same time Monday-Friday.  The camps started at some point around 9 a.m. and finished at some point around 1 p.m.  One camp a week was held here in Shkoder at a Kolping center.  Kolping is a organization affiliated with the Catholic Church and has guest houses around the world.  The other was held in the villages.  The first week in Drobrac, the second in Stoj.  I helped to organize the camps here, but volunteered in the villages two days a week.  Tiffany and our site mate Jessi also volunteered a day or two each week as well, mostly at Kolping but each made it out to Dobrac as well.  I have never felt as terrible about my level of Albanian as I have with the kids.  They spoke so fast and I realized even having simple conversations with people in the office they are slowing their speech down so that I am able to understand.  The kids don't do that for me, they speak their fast high pitched kids speak and leave me looking around for someone to translate.  Fortunately I had Adi, the games coordinator at the camp who also served as my translator, and after he learned how the game or activity worked, he pretty much took over to let me take notes or time the kids, whichever was needed.  Without Adi the kids would still be staring blankly at me waiting for directions in a language they understood.  Instead of explaining he rest of the camp I thought I would share a few of the pictures.

A Tale of Two Roads

This past weekend Tiff and I decided to travel to Kukes for our first non-capital excursion as volunteers. We chose Kukes for a few reasons; first the volunteers there were hosting a training event for Outdoor Ambassadors ( a group that promotes enviromental awareness through activities like hiking and camping), secondly we wanted to go to Puke (pronounced with the e like an A), thirdly we just needed to get out of Shkoder. Our list of sites to visit also included Fushe Arrez (fush arrez) but due to bus schedules and furgon routes we couldn't make it there, but we have a bus that makes a trip to the Fushe everyday so we will make it there soon. As you know Shkoder is in the north-west part of Albania. We are surronded on three sides by water (1 lake, 2 rivers) and prone to flooding, we are also about a 45 minute drive to Ulcin, Montenegro, so we have heard, we are still not allowed to leave the country. Kukes on the other hand is almost directly across the country traveling due east. They are surronded on 3 sides by water (1 lake that used to be a river) and was completely rebuilt after the old Kukes was submerged under the lake when the government dammed the river in the 1970's. They are also about a 45 minute drive from Prizen, Kosovo.

We left Shkoder on Friday and traveled to Puke on a bus. About 2 hours later we arrived on the outskirts of the city, our bus was bound for a different location and they took the road that runs along the outskirts of Puke instead of the one that runs through the city. We spent the day with the volunteers relaxing and joking, we were also joined by 4 other volunteers that were working with GPS software mapping trails around the country. The next morning we caught a furgon at 7:25 a.m. bound for Kukes. We went up and down mountains through valleys and over rivers, luckily this driver goes very slowly but the ride still felt like a roller coaster. He even bought us a coffee at our rest stop because we were Americans and we knew James (one of the Kukes volunteers), who I think he might have a little of a man crush on. We finally arrived at about 11 a.m.

Traveling time from Shkoder to Kukes- 2 hours to Puke + 3.5 hours from Puke = 5.5 hours

We enjoyed a great weekend with the volunteers in Kukes and a volunteer that joined us from our group. We learned about the Outdoor Ambassadors, had good food, and went on an incredible hike up a canyon called "the bad staicase." (Hopefully I will get pictures up soon). This afternoon after our hike we decided to take the "new" road home. The new road is the Albanian superhighway that includes numerous bridges, and a tunnel that I estimated to be over 3 miles long. Most of it is 4 lanes and it is designed to allow freight to be brought from Eastern Europe to the port in Durres more efficiently than was possible before. If anything went out from Durres it either went around Albania and then south from Montenegro through Shkoder, or through the old road that we took on our way here. The road is not totally finished yet and they still have to let one direction of cars travel through the tunnel at a time, 3 mile tunnel, but traveling on this road we left at 2 p.m. from Kukes and arrived in Shkoder in time to here the bells chime at 5! This included a transfer of furgons in Milot but I didn't check to see exactly what time this transfer happened.  The road was very nice and reminded me of freeways in the US other than the random people on the side of the road trying to catch a bus or furgon.  I made a quick map of our trip just to help anyone not associated with Albanian geography what the trip looked like.  You can't even see the new road on maps yet, but it cuts in that general direction and meets up with the Shkoder- Tirana road near Milot and that meets with the Tirana- Durres Road near Tirana. 

So we are back in Shkoder safe and sound albeit tired, and ready to start a new week.  I have seen other volunteers do this and thought it would be a good idea to have people who read the blog, or get it forwarded to them by people who read it to ask questions about what life is like in Albania, and we will try to answer them as best as we can.  So shoot us an E-mail, or comment in the blog and we will answer all your questions and everything you ever needed to know about Shqiperia!  Hope all is well in the US!