Thanksgiving Planning

I'm not sure how many people Cindy has invited to join us for Thanksgiving Dinner, but I know it's more people than we have chairs.  The embassy sent around a request for people to host Peace Corps volunteers from around the country, and we're hosting four.  I think some of them are spending the night.  

Chelsi will be here -- she's in charge of making the dressing, something I've never made.  She hasn't either, her father always has, but he sent her his directions.  

We have a young Coast Guard lieutenant who just arrived at post.  She is in charge of something called EXBS, which is something about Customs and Border Security.  She's coming.

We have a Canadian couple who live here in Tirana coming also.  He works for a big Austrian bank here.  I'm not sure how the structure is; he's one of three directors here, but it seems to be more like the president than our directors.

We may have a lady who has dual citizenship, US and Irish.  She is a lawyer who works with a European Union organization.  One has to be a citizen of an EU country to hold the job, so her Irish grandmother has helped her out.

I'm sure we'll have more by Thursday.

So I've been trying to plan a menu.  Turkeys are not available here until around New Year's.  That's the traditional New Year's Day dinner.  Someone at the embassy arranged for us to buy turkeys from Macedonia -- not sure how-- but I ordered two, and Tuesday someone drove to Macedonia and picked up boxes of frozen turkeys from North Carolina.  I got two 14 pound ones, the smallest available.  There must have been a couple hundred turkeys being distributed.  So we'll have turkey after all.

Elisabeth sent me some cranberries and sweet potatoes that arrived today in good shape.  Neither of those are available here.  The only corn available here is canned or frozen corn, so I'm thinking about getting a couple cans and seeing if I can turn them into creamed corn for a pudding.

In Bethesda I had some jello and blueberry pie filling that was shipped over here, enough to make a jello dish.  It calls for a can of crushed pineapple, but the rings are all we can get here, so I'll have to process it.  

Sour cream is not available here, so I'm going to make some with ricotta and lemon juice.  The buttermilk here is imported from Greece, and it's not like what we have.  It is not as thick, and you have to shake it up good first to mix the liquid and the solids together.  But it works good to cook with.

So the menu, at least, is coming together.  It's a little short on vegetables.  Veggies, as in green veggies, are pretty limited.  We get good broccoli sometimes, and green broad beans.  I have not seen asparagus yet.  If they have asparagus the season would have been over when we got here, so maybe next year.  They import pineapples, but not asparagus, so it may not ever be available.  I've seen some artichokes from time to time.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Thanksgiving starts a five-day holiday for us.  The embassy is closed for American and Albanian holidays.  Friday is Independence Day for Albania, Nov. 28, 1912, which is when they finally got out from under Ottoman rule, which lasted 400 years.  Monday is Liberation Day, Nov. 29, 1944, when the Germans/Italians were finally driven out of Albania by the Greeks, Brits, Albanian partisans, and probably some more.

So thank you, Elisabeth!  Looking forward to cranberry relish and sweet potato casserole.

 

American Embassy Tirana

I thought I would post the website to the American Embassy here in Tirana. If any of you are interested in what is going on here, this is a good place to look. If we do anything that is press-related, then it usually appears here. If you scroll down far enough, you will see the MAPO cover with me on it and a short description of what the interview was all about.

http://tirana.usembassy.gov/

I have also copied below the entire text of the speech given by our African-American Ambassador John L. Withers II, at the morning after election day breakfast. This speech is worth reading in its entirety:

Remarks by U.S. Ambassador John L. Withers II U.S. at the Election Breakfast (November 5, 2008)
Good morning ladies and gentlemen,

Thank you for attending and sharing with us a very special day, the day after the elections of 2008.

I want to thank the American Chamber of Commerce for hosting, arranging this event in conjunction with the American Embassy.I would like to take a little privilege and speak to you less as the American Ambassador to Albania than as an American citizen and a voter. Today is a very special day for America and for Americans. The elections results of last night have declared Barack Obama to be the President-Elect and have changed the direction of American history.
Many decades ago, Dr. Martin Luther King expressed a dream for America. It is a dream that captivated Americans and is shared by millions from all walks and statuses of life. He dreamed of a day that would come in which Americans would not judge each another by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Today, millions upon millions of Americans, whether they be black or white, whether they be old or young, whether they be male or female, whether they be straight or gay, have shown that they wish to fulfill the dream that Dr. King shared decades ago.

They looked at two of the finest that America could produce. Senator John McCain, who is one of the finest Americans of our generation: a man of integrity and so much courage that when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam and had the opportunity to be released early under a special program, refused. Rather, he preferred to remain in jail with his fellow prisoners of war. And Senator, now President-Elect Barack Obama - an African American who had the audacity to hope.

A choice was made between these two fine Americans on the basis of issue, of programs, of ideas. And America preferred the one over the other without disrespect to the person who lost the race.

This morning, I received dozens of emails from my friends and family in the United States. When you take all of the sentiments that were presented in those various emails, they all came down to one thing: the one question, “Well, how do you feel now?”

I thought about that a little bit as I was coming over here and I think the only way I can describe my feelings is this. There was a song sung by the African-American slaves during the time of their bondage centuries ago. And amongst the lines in that song were words that I would paraphrase thus:

On my way to the promised land,
I heard from Heaven today.
God is going to give me his right hand,
I heard from the Heaven today.

How do I feel? I feel like I’m standing amongst my beloved American countrymen, and we are reaching out and we are touching the hand of God.

Current Events

Two great minds, One great magazine, Two stellar weeks!

Never Underestimate a Girl

I have not posted anything in awhile, so I thought I would post something about my parent/teacher conference yesterday at Taylor's new school.  You will get some hint about my mood in going by Taylor's advice - "Mommy, please be nice - this guy is my teacher and I have to go every day."  First, a little background.  When we first came to Albania, Taylor went to Tirana International School, where most of the other American embassy kids go and where a large number of Albanians and various other internationals go.  She was there from April through about mid-June, and I swear I never saw her do one minute of homework.  She loved the social interaction at the school, but I thought if she remained here for the next couple of years, then her brain would just go to mush.  Another drawback of the school is that the facilities are terrible - essentially, it is a bunch of old frame houses that they have converted into classrooms.  So, I set about trying to find another school.

Some of the other American kids go to a school known as GDQ - I do not know what that stands for, but do know that this is the school started by missionaries and is quite religious.  Having grown up in some churches that I now think had questionable theology, I am very reluctant to have any sort of organized religious teaching of my child by a school.  So, that school was not an option - plus, it only goes through 8th grade, so that was another drawback.  So, I discovered Memorial International School of Tirana (MIST), otherwise known as the Turkish school.  Many Albanians told me that this was a good school, the academics were rigorous, and the kids who go there have gotten international scholarships.  MIST teaches all classes in English, and has separate classes in Albanian grammar and history for the Albanian students.  Just before Taylor came home for the summer, she and I visited the school.  It is a 4-story building, nice facility, computer labs, science labs, British curriculum - you get the point.  They insisted on testing her in math and science before they would admit her, so after looking at the school, I left her there for about 2-3 hours of testing.  She did fine on the tests and was accepted for this fall.  She is the first and only American kid in the school - this does have its drawbacks.  For example, any function that I attend at the school or at the invitation of the school, I am treated like royalty - in one instance, they presented me with a large bouquet of flowers that I then carried around like an idiot for the rest of my time at the school.

Anyway, MIST requires all students to wear uniforms, which I actually think is a good thing.  As a parent, you don't have to argue about what is ok to wear, what other kids are wearing, etc.  They all wear the same thing - so, it's easy.  Most of the kids in Taylor's class are Turkish, with a smattering of Albanians, one Jordanian, and an Egyptian girl named Pinar who has come to be her best friend.  The thorn in her side is an Albanian boy named Kreshnik, who constantly picks on her and eggs on the other boys to do the same.  My one concern with sending her to a school without a lot of Americans was this whole boy/girl issue - here in Albania, men are revered - women, not so much.

It is difficult to understand the status of women in Albania, so I will share this story to try and explain at least a part of it.  One of the young prosecutors that I work with the most called his boss after a particular hearing, one that I attended, and told him "it's a boy."  So, I asked what are you talking about?  He explains that if you have good news, i.e., we won at the hearing, then you say "it's a boy."  If not, of course, then "it's a girl."  Despite my role here as an advisor and presumably a diplomat, I jumped on him with both feet.  You see, this particular prosecutor has a young daughter (age 2 or so), so I asked if he thought it was bad news when his daughter was born.  He said of course not, and I proceeded to lecture him about the continuing stereotypes here in Albania that men are better than, smarter than, women.  But, I digress.

So, fast forward, Taylor comes home earlier this week to tell me about a play they are doing at school.  The essence of the play is that the class goes on a field trip, then it begins to rain, so they have to come up with something to do while they wait for the rain to stop.  The solution is an impromptu talent show.  So, for her portion, Taylor planned to do a dance and lipsync to a song called "Never Underestimate a Girl."  The lyrics to the song are sort of girl-power-type stuff such as "She might be the president, make all the rules; don't try to win the game, you're only gonna lose."  That kind of stuff.  So, her English/literature teacher, an American guy from Chicago, decides that this song might "offend" the boys - I kid you not, this is what he said.  So, she comes home to tell me, on the day after the U.S.  has elected Barack Obama as the next president, that she won't be able to do this song because the teacher let the boys "vote" on whether she should be allowed to do it or not, and they of course all voted no.  I quizzed her many times about this, even got on the internet to make sure the lyrics weren't suggestive or anything, and she assured me that the teacher was just worried about the boys.  I gave her my business card and told her to have her teacher call me.  

As fate would have it, Taylor came home the next day with a letter inviting me to the first parent/teacher conference day which was yesterday, Friday.  So, I held off on talking  to the teacher until then, and in the meantime, he actually changed his mind and said Taylor could perform her dance to this song.  However, I still raised the issue with him at our conference.  This guy actually said that after he read the lyrics, it sounded to him like the girl in the song was trying to rule the world and would not be willing to collaborate with others.  Because he is trying to foster "cooperation" among his kids, he did not think that the boys would appreciate such a song, so he let them vote on it.  While I took a couple of deep breaths, I asked if Taylor or any of the girls for that matter got to vote on anything the boys would be doing in the play, and he said no.  After that, I told him that he may not have noticed that having a bunch of women who were running the world did not appear to be a huge problem at this point in our history.  I also told him that maybe it would be good for these little Albanian and Turkish boys to learn that they could not dictate what girls should be allowed to do, a practice he appeared to be supporting by allowing them to vote on what my daughter could do in this play.  His defense was that he did not like to say "no" to anyone and just wanted them all to get along.  I was sort of speechless at this statement and wanted to say, these are 12-year-old 7th graders, you're the teacher, get a damn backbone - but, I did not.  

What I did say is that apparently my daughter was having some issues with one particular Albanian boy.  I told him this could be because my daughter is a little outspoken, she will not cower from a fight, she will say what she believes, and in spite of all that, she will try to be friends with everyone, even knuckleheaded little chauvinist boys.  I assured him that he should blame me for her personality, because her mother is a little strong-willed (ok, maybe a lot).  I also told him that maybe this play could foster a discussion about gender roles in Albania in particular and the world in general.  If so, then that is a good thing.

I got home just in time to load the car with my white chili and head to the Ambassador's residence.  I shared the story with Taylor (and 2 of her Albanian girlfriends) on the way home from the chili party, and she is now dreading going to school on Monday.  I told her no worries, at least I did not do what Miss Brenda advised (Miss Brenda works at the embassy, is a very strong Southern woman, and she advised me to rip off the teacher's head and use it as a bowling ball - Taylor and Miss Brenda have become fast friends and just adore each other).  I guess that's the end of the story - I will do a post after the play, which will be performed later this month, and let you know if all of the boys fainted at the prospect of hearing that girls can in fact be powerful.  

Rainy Day In Tirana

This is the main highway (Rr. Durësit) as one enters Tirana from the north.  Note the man on crutches crossing the street.  The street is about four lanes wide at this point, lanes being an amorphous idea here.  It also has a traffic signal.  Most red lights are advisory only, but on the main highways most people will stop, at least for a little while. Cindy says pedestrians is why I can't drive here.  Just after I took this picture I was startled to see a young lady right in front of the car.  She had entered from the right, where I have no peripheral vision.  
This is still the Rr. Durësit.  You could see Mt. Dajti straight ahead if it wasn't raining.  Kind of like Mt. Rainier in Seattle.  Everyone always knew where it could be seen but for the rain.  More pedestrians waiting to cross the street.
One of my favorite buildings.  This is an office furniture/office supply store, with floor tiles also.  I haven't figured out what the Rubic Cube looking thing on top is.  Albania strikes me very much like America in its early motoring days -- the big wooden lady at the motel coming into Vicksburg, the ice cream stands in buildings that looked like an ice cream cone, teepees, all that kind of thing.  Someone is building a restaurant out by the airport that looks like a fuselage.  Next time I go out I'll post a picture.  Even the commercial building have some wild architectural features, like the one at the bottom.

This picture is taken a little out of town on the way to Durës.  I always feel safer on this highway because of the concrete median divider.  This prevents folks passing and coming straight at you from the other direction.  This is sort of an industrial vehicle row -- Ford, Iveco, some others.  We were on our way to a nursery.  But why go to "a" nursery when you can go to two nurseries?  Which we did, buying two bags of dirt at the first, and an olive tree at the second.  This time next year I expect to be pressing olives.  We also bought three little cypress-looking trees, so now we will have green in the garden if it ever freezes and kills everything else.
Here is the windows-as-architectural-feature building, a concept that goes back centuries, albeit not quite as free-form as this one.  The Lavazh in front is a car wash.  Down in southern Albania they're mostly Lavazo -- don't know the language implications of the switch.  We have some Lavazo in Tirana too, though.  This picture is illustrative of a common problem in land-use planning (that's a joke-- there isn't any.)  But there are several instances of big buildings being built with a little section, like an out parcel, remaining in its original form.  I don't know if this is a result of the horribly inadequate land ownership issues left over from the fall of communism, or just poor planning by the builders.

Election Week

It was an interesting election week in Albania.  I went to bed about 11:00 election night, figuring I'd get up early and see who won.  Cindy was more hardy -- she stayed up until Pennsylvania was called at 3:00 a.m.  

I got up about six and came down and turned on the television and got CNN and discovered that my candidate won -- a nice feeling.  About 7 we went to the American Albanian Chamber of Commerce election breakfast at the Rogner Hotel.  Wolf Blitzer was live on the big screen TV.  Got to see a replay of Obama's acceptance speech -- pretty good, I thought.  I didn't see McCain's, but everyone said his was good too.  (Their was an election night party there too, but we didn't go.  It started at 1:00 p.m. New York time, so I didn't see the point.  But a few stalwarts at the breakfast had been there all night.  The event was covered live by Albanian TV, and the ambassador was interviewed, as was the public affairs officer, who is Albanian but grew up in Chicago, and the Deputy Chief of Mission, who is from New Orleans.  Some other folks were interviewed but I didn't know them.  I picked up an Obama button from an almost empty bowl.  The McCain button bowl was spilling over.  Chelsi posted a picture of her and Cindy on her blog.

chelsialbaniaadventure.blogspot.com

It is hard to convey how happy the Albanians are that Obama won, and Europeans in general.  Like Chelsi said, everyone was congratulating us.  They harbor no illusions that life is going to better for them by virtue of his election, but I think they think they will be listened to and respected.  It always amazed me the number of people who would bring a lawsuit, and I'd sit through the trial wondering how in the world they thought they were going to win, and after they lost discover that all they really wanted was to tell their story to an impartial audience, to be listened to.  The fact they lost their case was secondary.  (To be sure, all losers didn't think this way, but many did.)

And in the vein of being listened to respectfully, here is a link to Dave Barry's column from this week.  Fix yourself a martini and sit down and read it.

http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/dave-barry/story/756596.html

Yesterday we had a chili cookoff at the Ambassador's residence.  The second floor is his living quarters.  The first floor is given over to entertaining, with a commercial kitchen, a large dining room, a formal "living" room for guests to assemble for formal events, and with a large covered porch, and down some stairs is an immense patio.  It is where we have most of the functions for the mission at large.  Cindy won second place for her white bean chili, so "we" won a dinner for four at the Far East restaurant.  I think we have one Japanese and two Chinese restaurants in Tirana, a town of one million.  Seems strange, but to put it in perspective, the girlfriend of one of the guys at the embassy is visiting him for a month.  She is from Indonesia.  They say Jakarta has only one Italian restaurant!  How can that be?  She came over and I taught her how to make veal ragu and polenta.  But I digress.

The chili cookoff was attended by many Albanians and a smattering of other foreign nationals.  I talked to several, and all were ecstatic over Obama's victory.  I thought I was happy, but nothing compared to these folks.

I think it has to do with how others view America's place in the world.  For many overseas, America is still their dream, the apotheosis of "goodness."  They don't think we're perfect; they're not shocked by Wall Street greed or corrupt politicians.  But they are upset over what they see as America's loss of direction -- the torturing, the ugly immigrant bashing, the casually vapid denigration of all things Islam, and on and on and on.  I think they're so happy because they think America is about to become an ideal again, something to emulate and to aspire to.

Magazine

It's not quite Rolling Stone, but Cindy's on the cover of this week's MAPO.

http://www.revistamapo.com/index.php?faqe=detail&kat=Politike&id=1433

Check it out. Tell me what it says. Revista is "magazine." Cindy says the photographer told her to talk, so she's talking.

MAPO is sort of like Time, but they don't have an international scope.

Berat & Gorican

This was taken from the third floor balcony of the restaurant where we ate lunch in Berat.  Berat is about a two and a half hour drive more or less south of Tirana.  At Berat the "good" road ends and a not-so-good mountain road continues south into the mountains.
Pedestrian bridge over the river.  This is looking south, or probably actually southeast.
Looking northwest on the road back to Tirana.  Also from the restaurant.

Berat is known for its architecture, especially the "walls" of windows and the houses built on the sides of the steep hills.  These two pictures are of opposite sides of the river.  Berat was recently listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
This is the school at Gorican.  The kids loved posing for pictures -- not sure why.  We were there for a project planned by USAID.  This Saturday's chores were to plant trees along the sides of the long walk pictured above, clean off and line the soccer field seen on the left, put up two goals and netting, and around behind the school, to put up two basketball goals and a volleyball net, spreading dirt/sand for the playing surface.  Someone from USAID arranged collecting all the materials, and I must say she did an excellent job.  Everything was there and ready, including a whole lot of people.
This is the soccer field and one of the new trees.  Took this picture during the ceremony, so there was no one on the walk of the field.
Site of the ceremony.
One of the soccer goals standing upright, and the crackerjack international team of concrete mixers.

The man pointing to the camera here asked me who I was going to vote for.  He was very relieved it was Obama.  If the election were going to be held in greater Europe, it would be a huge Obama landslide.  He kept asking me which of the Albanian parties I supported, and I lied a little and said I didn't know enough about them to know.  There was no doubt who he and his buddies supported (not the incumbents), but he let me off the hook.