Finally official, conferences, Durres, and back to Elbasan and my new apartment

Another busy two weeks: we took the oath and headed for our counterpart conference in the coastal city of Durres. Then when the rest of the volunteers took off to their sites, I hung around for three days until the university conference on Friday. After that, back to Elbasan into my new digs.

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 The swearing-in ceremony, Monday, May 11, 2015 was quite impressive. Host family members gave a couple of talks about their relationships with volunteers. The attachments these host families have made with these strange and new Americans is wonderful – and of course the same in return. Sali and Rezarta were there to see me take the oath. It was pretty exciting after a fifty-five year anticipation!

Two volunteers, Miles and Michelle, gave an address, all in Albanian – everyone was blown away. They were interrupted with applause every fourth sentence. At the close, Catherine, from upstate New York, was joined in a clarinet duet. She and local clarinetist played with complete mastery a couple of Albanian pieces – and then the audience truly went nuts!

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We left immediately in a chartered bus for the coast – a wonderful beach resort and the kids hit the pool almost immediately – looked like spring break for a couple of hours. We met up with our counterparts that evening in a banquet, folk dancing, and relaxation. 

Pier and Barb (both on the left) with their counterparts

In the middle with Diane and Big Mike

Our final Thane group - Me, Nate, Juli, Cristin, Adrian, and Mike - Jo already headed out with her counterpart, the first to do some good right out of the gate!!

The next day we had final send-off meeting and then the group broke up and spread to all parts of the country. Text messages, phone calls – “so, what’s it like where you are? how’s your apartment? have you heard from…..?” I’ve considered the amount of work that the PC staff had to do to get everyone settled into affordable, clean, working, and safe places. My place is beyond what I had hoped for – more on that in a bit.

Agim, our Education Director, giving us some final words before sending us off.

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I left with Steve for his place in another part of town. He got Juli (from our Thane group) safely into her apartment and I spent the next three days exploring the city, a bit of beach time, but my language books were never too far away. In the mornings I would hit the local lokal for morning coffee and some personal tutoring from the owner, Miri.

Durres is a beautiful city – wonderful people and the streets range from the rustic to the magical. I spent my time exploring – probably walked about ten to fifteen miles a day. Cruised down to the boardwalk, had some great gelato, and got a bit of sun. 

The Grand Mosque, or Xamia e Madhe

One of the coolest streets to the boardwalk

Some innocent bystanders in Durres and in Elbasan - All the guys are named "Elder" and the girls "Sister" - go figure, anyway, "Greetings from Salt Lake City - how's the language going?"

The day before the conference at the Aleksander Moisiu University, Steve and I had the best dinner at his favorite place – the Belvedere. I never thought I would ever have mussels as good as this little place off the Forum in Rome, but these were even better! Agron was our host and his attention to our service was nothing that I had experienced before. The meal and conversation with Steve couldn’t have been better. I had to go back the next day for lunch - I could always talk to Steve, but I had to get my fair share of mussels!

All volunteers will get most weekends and time off to travel the country; and volunteers (veterans or brand new) are more than welcome to put someone up for a few days and show them around their location. It will make getting around the country pretty affordable – and buses or furgons go everywhere.

The next morning I got to the university early. There are a few things that I’m still getting used to. I picked up a bus right outside Steve’s place. Some of the city buses are something like the airport shuttles that run us from one terminal to another or to and from the parking lots – someone told me that a massive fleet of these things were donated from France to the various cities in the country. Anyway, I didn’t look around for a seat; I simply leaned next to the window and grabbed a bar. This guy, around thirty, built a bit like he just walked off the Jersey shore, got out of his seat and motioned me to sit down. I smiled, thanked him – faleminderit! – and made more signs (in shqip) that I was OK. He took another step toward me and said, “Please sit!” And he said it in such a firm way that I was more than happy to do exactly as he instructed. Coming back from the university at the end of the day I got back on another bus – mostly empty. I sat down in one of a pair of seats, put my briefcase on the empty and started to read. Well, the bus started to fill up and two young students were looking for a pair of seats to sit together. There was a single in front of me. I motioned to them, started to pick up my briefcase and you would have thought I had started a riot or gave cause for bodily harm. Three older women, certainly professors, sitting in different sections of the bus but near enough to see what was happening, all started saying with force and conviction – “jo, jo, jo – you sit!!! The one sitting across the aisle from me, looking like she could have been the mother of the Jersey guy, gave me a look that a week later I can still see clearly (mostly in moments of night tremor). BAM! Needless to say someone slipped in the single seat while all this was going on and both girls stood all the way back into town.

So, I have mentioned the trifecta privilege in Albania: old, male, and American – throw in university professor and then Peace Corps and holy hell! I am learning to take these considerations with grace and aplomb, and putting aside the typical American old-guy courtesy. Albania is modifying my behavior.

Now, I'm the innocent bystander here - this young lady wanted a picture with the American!!

I opened the conference as a key-note speaker, along with academics from Germany, the UK, and Australia. It was a bit bizarre in the set up. We were each given fifteen minutes to speak! I got the speaker agenda the day before and responded with a housekeeping question about the PowerPoint set up, and mentioned in my email that I had cut my address to accommodate the time. The response was something like, “You may take more time if you need.” I did, but wondered where all the other time was going to come from – we all spoke longer than fifteen minutes and the session was rushed and dragged at the same time. 

Across that afternoon and the next day all the speakers were allotted their fifteen minutes – not very long to present anything worthwhile. There are reasons for this; most of which have to do with grad school requirements to present and attend conferences, and this format is typical in all the universities. There was no conference at Elbasan this last year; I had some discussion with my counterparts the last few days on this, so maybe one of my supplemental projects will be to take part in structuring a conference that will be more substantive. I would be nice if Aleksander Xhuvani could have a top-notch reputation in this regard.

That evening the conference organizers had a reception for a few of the foreign speakers. I had some nice conversations with some of the professors, had another great meal, and danced! I opted out of the traditional Albanian circle dancing, but did get invited to dance to an old American standard. Alas, another photo opportunity missed – left the camera at Steve’s. But I did salvage this one from my cell phone – not very clear but this was my dancing partner.

Megi is very funny and quick-witted and her English is impeccable - she has her own private language school. I have found that my sense of humor, though a bit politically incorrect (surprise!), is not so far removed from most of the professional friends I have made. Things are really no more formal here than they are in the states; the professional decorum between students and teachers is quite structured – and I’ll become more familiar with that as I go along.

The next morning I headed back to Elabsan – I passed on the second day of the conference since I had a list of the titles and the abstracts, and there would hardly be any time for the speakers to expand!

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Back home! During the week before the conferences I was able to move my stuff but had not yet stayed overnight. Man, it was great! Up four flights of stairs: living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom with washer and a shower (with killer pressure). When I moved my stuff in the week before I did a load of wash – washer got stuck and Imelda, my go-to PC staffer along with her husband, got the washer fixed and hung some curtains. When Imelda first showed me the apartment I saw that the shower had a bar across the top, I commented that now I had to find a curtain – Albanians have open showers as a rule and the water that doesn’t stay in the shower area (about a 50/50 chance for a given drop) and goes down the drain placed in the middle of the bathroom. (I learned my lesson the first time I left my towel on the floor!) Anyway, so upon my return I see the curtains, I go into the bathroom to check on the washer and, BAM, a shower curtain!! What a great welcome gift!! Here are the pics:

This is a street that leads directly to my apartment - the one on the right with the red trim

The rear view of my place - nicely appointed laundry with my Peace Corps t-shirt!

Up four flights on the left - and a butler for my coats and hats and a great place for emptying my pockets!

Yay!! A double bed and (wait for it!) a shower curtain!!!

And a room with a view!

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I got back to Elbasan on Saturday (05.16) and the next day, Ymer took Mike and me out to lunch – ahh, Albania, lunch lasted until late in the day! We talked about our jobs up at the university, what we could expect, and basically brainstormed our getting started and the different opportunities over the next two years. More on this later.

This week has been spent at the university, a trip to Tirane for some lectures that Ymer was asked to give for the University of Tirane, working on my language, and going about town marking off my “things-to-do” (post office, police station, etc.). I met with Helian, my History Dept. counterpart. Rather than teach my own class, I’ll be co-teaching with Helian – he’ll take care of the two lecture hours and I’ll handle the hour seminar covering review and primary source documents. We’ll have about seventy students and the weekly seminars will be broken into three groups meeting an hour each on a given day. This looks pretty good and of course I can hardly wait for the fall term. Helian and I will meet again with Ymer next week to firm up some other jobs for me.

Holy hell, Helian!! Can't you at least pretend to be happy that I'm here to work with you!!

Oh yeah!!! BREAKING NEWS!!! Holy hell!! I finally paid for my first coffee when out with a local!!! When I connected with Helian I invited him to discuss over coffee. It is the invitation that determines – and I had calculated this half-way in my walk to the school. When the bill came, I picked it up and paid for him and the tech guy that joined us. He tried to put up a fuss – but I told him I was now a semi-local (in the country for over two months, right?), and I knew what the rules were. He laughed but I could tell he was going to be on his guard.

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I also connected with my language tutor. Megi (yes, another one) was the most patient teacher during our entire training (well, Erion was pretty patient, too – but not you Lindita or Ornela, at least not until the end when you realized how white my gray matter really was!).

"OK. So this is how I pronounce it!"

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Again, it’s been a busy two weeks (it’s hard laying in the sun and studying my language!). Still have some things to get for the apartment – ice-trays (can’t find any) and maybe a couple of lamps. Until next time, my love to all of you guys. XOXO