Update from Albania

(L to R, Servet, Teuta, Ms. Ibrihimi, Ibrihimi)

Since my husband has not posted in quite some time, I thought I would do a short post letting you all know we're still alive and kicking. Since Dave's adventures in trying to find corn, we have been quite busy. Shortly after, I went with our driver Servet and his wife Teuta to the same place Dave went to find corn, Ibrahimi's house. This time, we went for figs - up the mountain from Ibrahimi's house is a state-owned park which was closed to the public during Communist times. It has wonderful fig trees, which Servet and I both climbed to pick figs. I also came home with grapes from their vines (and which Ibrahimi uses to make his own raki - I declined the raki), homemade bread, and of course lots of figs. We now have jam and fig preserves thanks to Dave. I took a picture of Servet, Teuta, Ibrahimi and his wife (whose name I never did learn to pronounce), and will get Dave to post it later.

Shortly after the fig adventure, Taylor returned from the U.S. after being gone the entire summer. I had never been away from her for two months - we are so glad that she is home. To celebrate, we took a one-week trip to the Marche region of Italy. We took the ferry from Durres to Bari, but we chose the absolute wrong time to travel. It was the end of August, so all of the Albanians (and some Italians) who had come over for summer vacation were returning home. So, the ferry was packed with people, cars, trucks, and given the lack of organization at the Albanian port, we did not depart until almost 2:00 a.m. (missed our scheduled departure time of 11:00 p.m. by 3 hours). Anyway, we made it to Bari and had an uneventful drive to our lovely villa on the side of a mountain near Monte San Martino. My sweet husband has pictures from all of our adventures in Italy, and will post them along with, I am sure, much historical discussion about the towns we saw.

We had some car troubles along the way - some minor and some major. On Wednesday, we went out to begin our daily travels and the car would not start. After a call to Lucia (our young host), she called her father who arrived about an hour later with a mechanic. He was not the smartest guy in the world, which we realized when he was climbing out from under the car and hit his head on the bottom of the door, which he had left open, necessitating a trip to the hospital. Lucia's father took him to the hospital, fetched another mechanic, who was able to crank the car. We followed him to the shop and he replaced some sort of sensor. 40 euro later, we were on our way. Unfortunately, this did not end the car troubles.

Later in the trip, while on the side of a mountain of course, the car began acting strange and we could not tell whether it was a brake problem or a changing gears problem. While heading back to Bari on the autostrada at about 70 mph, it became clear that it was a brake problem. The automatic braking system malfunctioned, that is it kicked in on its on and would not let go. So, we burned lots of rubber off the tires and skidded to a stop, and I managed to get us to the side of the highway without wrecking. I was shaking so badly that Dave drove from that point until we reached the outskirts of Bari. Luckily for Dave, on the autostrada, most drivers obey the rules, so his lack of peripheral vision was not a problem. We made it home without any other car incidents, and Dave, I am sure, will have a long post about how to get a car repaired in Albania. Like almost everything here, it requires a lot of time and much coffee.

As for Taylor, she started school on September 8, and she is doing well. She began a new school, the Memorial International School of Tirana, otherwise known as the Turkish school. She is the first American embassy kid to go to this school, so it is quite an adventure. All classes are taught in English, and the school has Albanians, Turks, Jordanians, Egyptians, and many other nationalities - but no other Americans that we know of. So far, her best friend is an Egyptian girl named Pinar, who is Muslim and is currently fasting throughout the day because of Ramadan. Taylor is struggling with the idea of eating lunch while Pinar eats nothing until sundown. She is enjoying her classes, and is also taking Albanian language.

We have been here for 5 1/2 months with no visitors, but at the end of the month, we will have two visitors at once. First, Chelsi West is the new Fulbright scholar from Mississippi who will be arriving in Albania on September 25. We have invited her to stay in our home until she gets settled and finds an apartment of her own. Although we do not know Chelsi, Dave's daughter Valena knows her from Millsaps. We are excited that she is coming and that we will provide a connection to Mississippi while she is here. Shortly after her arrival, Judge Barbour is coming to visit. He is vacationing in Turkey and will be stopping by here on his way back to the states. I asked him if I could put him to work while he was here, and he has graciously agreed. So, he will be visiting with Albanian law students, judges, prosecutors and others. The Ambassador has also agreed to host a lunch while he is here, which will include the Minister of Justice, the Deputy Chair of the High Council of Justice, a number of district and appellate judges, and others. We plan to show him as much of Tirana and the surrounding area as we can during his short stay with us.

I will write more later - I'm off to the first of 4 meetings/events scheduled for today. I am staying very busy and still enjoying what I do on a daily basis. To all of you who read this, post a comment now and then and let us hear from you.

Infrastructure

$1 = 86.95 lekë; $1 = .7024 Euro; $1 = .5581 Pounds.

The dollar is the strongest it has been against all these currencies since we've been here.  Don't know how long it will last, but the 369 lekë bottle of wine is now $4.24 instead of $4.82.  Which is a nice direction to be going.  $230 instead of $261.44 for my driver.  That extra 31.44 is equal to 7 bottles of free wine!  (For my friends who prefer to deal in more abstract terms, instead of free wine, it is a 13.67% increase in my available spending money.  A couple of you have encouraged me to post on why I think Obama is going to lose, and I will, but this problem with language is one of the Democrats' biggest problems.  Of course I could say one bottle of free wine, but that would be elitist.)

Lack of infrastructure is a huge problem here.  From previous posts you've no doubt gotten the idea that roads are poor, and they are.  Many intercity highways are undergoing improvement, and some entirely new highways are being built.  Imagine the New Orleans to Jackson drive being a dangerous eight-hour trip, and you get the picture.  But that aspect will probably change relatively quickly, within a couple of years.

Harder to deal with are water and electricity.  City water here is not particularly safe to drink.  All embassy houses have distillers, and we have a continual supply of about 30 gallons of distilled water for drinking/cooking.  Our housekeeper takes about 10 gallons home with her a week.  Servet takes two boxes filled with empty plastic coke bottles or juice bottles, about twice a week, probably 20 gallons.  Water is cut off every day for several hours.  We have a water tank in the yard, probably 1200 gallons or so, that fills up when the city water is running, so we have a continual supply of water.  (The tank has run dry twice, and a water truck from the embassy comes to fill it).  The vast majority of people in town do not have water during the day, and have a routine of filling bathtubs at night so they'll have water during the day.  Many have small tanks on the roof that look to be maybe 40 or 50 gallon capacity, but I've assumed they were for water-pressure purposes and not for storage, although 50 gallons is better than nothing.

Electricity goes off almost every day for some period of time, from two minutes to five hours.  I have long since quit resetting the oven clock, microwave clock, or any other non-battery operated clock.  Sometimes the power goes off and on several times in a short period of time.  These power surges especially play havoc with light bulbs, which don't last too long.   We have a generator which automatically comes on when the power goes off, but of course the embassy houses in the neighborhood are the only ones on our street who do.  Interestingly, the English embassy people don't have these "perks" and neither do people like USAID contractors or NGO groups.  

When we were in Himara this summer, our fancy hotel had scheduled power outages from 10:00 to noon, and 3 to 6.  Of course with no air conditioning from 3 to 6, it was midnight before the room cooled down.

My understanding is that almost all of the electricity generated in Albania is hydroelectric.  That works fine, of course, except that there is not enough water to run the turbines in the summer, nor enough water to pipe around the city.  Last winter it rained enough and there was enough snow that people say this summer was much better power-wise than last summer.  If true, last summer must have been pretty dismal.

As you've probably noticed if you've tried to call or email, our internet is very sporadic.  It works say for ten days straight, then is out for a couple hours, then on, then out maybe three days, then back on, and so forth.  We've had two five-day outages, and many, many shorter ones.  Don't know the reason for that. 

I am much less sanguine about the likelihood of improvements in these areas any time soon, mostly for the reason that huge amounts of construction are going on here, thousands of units of apartments and commercial buildings as well as houses, and "hooking them up" to the grids will place added burdens on an inadequate system.

Tirana is a dirty city -- dusty and dirty.  The dust is because it doesn't rain.  It rained Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, and the streets look cleaner.  But that was the first time it's rained in about three months.   Summer dust, however, is a Mother Nature event -- that won't change.  Like Tucson or Albuquerque.  

Highways and water/electricity will improve with time.  I'm curious about trash collection.  If there ever was a country that needed to ban plastic bags, it is Albania.  They are everywhere.  There are small dumpsters here and there, but they fill up way before they're emptied, so there is almost always a mound of garbage on the ground around them.  I think one of the smog-causing problems here, besides the gazillion automobiles, are the constant trash fires going on.  Little ones, like around the corner from us people will dump stuff on the street and burn it.  Litter is all over, and I wonder what can be done about that.  People everywhere litter, I know, but Albania is sort of extreme, and I don't know whether it's habit, if it's a new phenomenon (probably so -- from what I understand of "during communism time" there wasn't enough to litter with), and how much regular trash collection would ameliorate the situation.

When we got back from Italy we had to spend 100,000 lekë to get the car fixed.  Today that is $1150 dollars.  A month ago it would have been $1307.  Quiz:  For Rankin County Republicans, how many bottles of free wine is this?  For DC Democrats, what percentage increase is this, and what percent of the top bracket would this place me in, if applicable, or is this just a windfall profit, too small to be unconscionable? 

Corn

Some things in life seem so simple.   (Or, Tales in Cultural Anthropology)

I periodically get Servet and we go all over town, pazar to pazar, looking for something I desperately need, like basil or sage or pickling cucumbers.  I have discovered that the plentiful Albanian variety of basil is a small-leafed variety, which tastes okay, but I don't like it as well as the Italian version.  I've ordered some sweet basil seeds to solve that problem.

Sage has proved elusive also, and seeds are coming to solve that problem.

Cindy mentions every time we see a fig tree how much she likes figs.  I saw some figs at one of the pazars, and they were a little "old" shall we say, and I was picking through them to see if I could find a handful, but Servet let me know that these were too far gone and I wouldn't be buying any of those figs.

Seeing little grills at street corners with people roasting ears of corn, I thought it high time I went to the pazar and bought some corn on the cob.

 After going to five or six pazars and seeing no corn, and none in the grocery stores, I decided I needed some help from the locals.
I thought surely there would be a source of fresh corn.  After all, I've seen it growing all over the

country.   

So after asking Rosa, my language teacher, the word for corn in Albanian (misra, which turns out to be uncomfortably like misery), I enlisted Servet in the search for fresh corn.

Through his daughter, Vilma, who speaks very good English and graduated from the American High School here where Taylor went in the spring, he quizzed me at length about actually what it was I wanted.  I couldn't tell him "like they have at the pazar" because they didn't have any.  I told him "to eat and to freeze."  He's seen me can tomatoes, so he understands the food preservation idea.  There does not appear to be a size of measure comparable to our bushel, so I said I wanted 100 ears.

He was still pretty puzzled, but after he and Vilma talked between themselves for a good while, he called his friend Ibrihimi, who lives in Varosh.  Varosh is a small village, to build it up a bit, on the old road between here and Durres.  Servet said Ibrihimi had just what I wanted, but we'd have to go in our four-wheel drive Mercedes because our old Ford Taurus wouldn't make it up the hill.  

So at nine o'clock sharp on the morning of August 20th we left for Varosh to buy 100 ears of corn.  Arriving in what I assumed to be Varosh, Servet slowed down to a crawl, on the highway, of course, and after looking around then pulled halfway off the road and attempted to phone Ibrihimi, but got no answer.  So we made a U-turn and went back and started down a little lane, which soon abruptly turned and started a steep ascent up the mountain.  It was steep and twisting, but in short order we arrived at Ibrihimi's house and I met his wife and one son.  After a little conversation, Servet, the son, and I got back in the car and went back down the mountain, where we found Ibrihimi waiting on the other side of the road.  He and Servet made the universal gestures for "where in the hell were you?" and so forth, and after exchanging the kiss-on-both-cheeks Albanian greeting for old friends, he got in the car and we proceeded at a crawl down the highway for about 200 yards before pulling off into a very narrow one-lane gravel lane, where after about 100 yards we saw two cars stopped, facing each other, a little down the lane.  The occupants were out of their vehicles talking, visiting, and more of concern to me, paying no attention at all to us.  Ibrihimi got out of the car and walked down to where they were and joined in the conversation.  After a few minutes Servet started laughing and said something under his breath about Albanians, and drove on down and went up and they all continued talking and having a good time.  I have no idea how a plan was decided on, but soon Servet got in the car and backed up past a house, the second car backed up and into the driveway, and the first car came down the road and through the corn field stubble around us and left.  We followed Ibrihimi to a field, where Servet stopped the car and we got out.

I knew something was not quite right.  Not only were the corn stalks all stiffly brown, but some had started to be cut and tied into bundles.  The ear I was shown was brown and very hard.  I was just tapping on the kernels to see if one would fall out, wondering exactly what to say.  

"Good?"  Servet asked, and I looked up and saw them waiting with eager anticipation.  "Well," I said, and managed to convey that I really wanted something more soft, with water content, and green husks.  Servet and Ibrihimi just looked at each other, not knowing what to say or do.  Ibrihimi's son said something and gestured toward another field, and we all walked over to it.  The stalks were still green, and we pulled and inspected an ear.  There weren't 100, but we put 50 or so in the car, and headed off for coffee at a bar/ristorant on the highway.

Being the guest, I was asked to order first, and I asked for a cappecino, which I have found to be the best alternative option for me.  The waiter I think said he didn't know how to make it, or they didn't have it, I'm not sure.  But a long discussion ensued between he and Servet, and I understood enough of it to realize Servet was telling him what was in it and how to make it.  Eventually he just got up and they went into the ristorant, returning finally with my cappecino, which tasted great, and was -- hot chocolate!  It may be that there was a little coffee in it, but I couldn't taste it.  I may have gotten it because they figured if I couldn't handle espresso I didn't need coffee at all -- after all, it was ten o'clock in the morning, and Ibrihimi was already drinking raki with his espresso.   

We returned to Tirana.  I suspect Ibrihimi will relish telling his version of my visit.  He's probably still trying to figure out what I wanted, and why I wanted what I got.  He and his family were very nice, though, and Albanians I have met have been unfailingly friendly and hospitable, but I wouldn't expect that to stand in the way of a humorous tale.  

I shucked some of the corn and boiled it for supper.  It never got done.  I think it was already too dry, or maybe not a corn-for-fresh-eating variety.

After interrogating Servet on the way back to town I discovered corn is not a food Albanians seem to eat fresh.  The corn Ibrihimi had was dried and they grind it for cornmeal.  They do eat cornbread, and polenta is readily available in grocery stores.

I imagined that was the end of my Ibrihimi acquaintance, but yesterday Servet told me that we should go out there Saturday to get figs.  So he and his wife and Cindy and I are off to Varosh Saturday.  

I have corn seeds on the way, two packets of Silver Queen and two of Mirai.  I'm expecting better things next summer.  

I may give them to Ibrihimi for Christmas.

Saranda

The beach in Saranda, the first looking north and the second looking south.  More people and clutter and nonfunctioning hotels than I enjoy.  The beach was packed, and I had heard that it would be.  August is vacation month in Europe, and lots of people come to the beach for a week or two or three.  This year, however, the Greeks and the Macedonians are feuding over their name, and visa issues led many Macedonians to come to Albania.  

The bottom picture is of Lake Butrint with one of the mussel nurseries.  It was taken on the path up the hill between the first and second city walls.

I have resolved to sit at home next August.  Maybe just planning ahead would work, too.  

Return From Saranda

The top two pictures are of the highway, with olive groves on either side.  A lot of groves are being cut down to make room for all the construction.  In the top one the Ionian Sea is visible -- the groves went right down to the beach.  Maybe I should have labeled this post something to do with domestic animals.   The cows, goats, sheep, donkeys wander around the highways.  This cow was one of the group eating out of the trash bin.

The white paint on the tree trunks looks like what we used to have on our apple trees when I was a child.  I think it had a heavy dose of lime in it, and is supposed to protect against insects, I assume the bark borer type.

The bottom pictures are of the goat herd.  The crossed the road in front of us, followed by their herder (hard to tell if he was herding or chasing).  They walked through this house under construction, although work has temporarily stopped.  I don't have a picture, but the cows like to lay on the floors.  A bit hard, I would think if I was a cow, but out of the sun, and the concrete should be cool.

Butrint

The amphitheater at Butrint dates from 3rd C. BC, and held about 2500 people.  This is a Greek theatre, for plays and performances.  The water table has risen to the point where the orchestra is flooded, but it is covered now with a wooden stage and performances are still held here periodically.  Notice the lines chiseled into the amphitheater seats -- lines of demarcation between the "seat" part and the "foot" part of the folks behind you.  Sort of reminded me of occasions (surely very rare) when my father felt the need, because of impending violence, to draw imaginary lines on the back seat of the car that we children were not to transgress.  I have read several descriptions of theaters and coliseums, but none have mentioned the presence of petrified bubble gum and sticky coke residue.

The middle picture is of the baptistry at the Byzantine church built here over Roman baths.  The baptistry has very nice mosaic tile floors, which are covered most of the year by about 30 inches of sand for protection.  The Roman temple walls are largely intact, but a very small portion of the mosaic floor.  As was common, as the city developed parts of old structures were used in the new.  The city eventually had three walls around it; as the city expanded, the outside of the first wall was used as the back of a new line of buildings.

Butrint Lake actually opens up behind Butrint from a small channel connecting it to the Ionian Sea.  The Greek island of Corfu is only about two miles offshore.  The lake has been "planted" with several wooden pylon "tree" farms for use as black mussel nurseries.

The last photo is outside of the "Lion Gate," so named by the Italian archeologist who first did work at Butrint in the 1920s.  Mussolini funded the work evidently to rediscover the glory of Rome, and in the process Luigi Ugolini, the archeologist, apparently destroyed much of the Byzantine over-layer of the city.  Nationalism is such a destructive force!  But the lion of the lentil is eating a wild pig.  The lentil was moved from another place when the original door in the wall was made smaller for extra security.  The original opening was taller, and you can see the curved "crown moulding" at the top.  My photograph makes it look more like a chamfer than a curve, though.

The site itself was like Syri i kaltër, cool and pleasant in some parts.  The views from the top, where there is a museum and a reconstructed 15th C Venetian fortress, are quite good -- Corfu across the Ionian Sea to the west,  the Albanian mountains to the east.

This area around Gjirokastra and Saranda is close to the now-Greek city of Ioannina, and was the central part of the territory controlled in the 1790s-1820s by Ali Pasha Tepelena.  Lord Byron visited his court at Tepelena, if you remember your English lit classes.  I will have to write you a short biography of him -- he was an interesting fellow, until he got a little too ambitious for the Ottomans and they captured him and cut off his head.  

Along the Highway

The town square at Libohova.  This is the largest plane tree in the Balkans, and is about 500 years old, they say.  I didn't know deciduous trees lived that long, but I'm no botanist.  It was big, though.  

On the way to Saranda we took a little detour to see the Blue Eye (Syri i kaltër, in Albanian).  It is a deep and very large spring with quite a fast flow rate, although the flow rate varies.  The picture is looking straight down at it.  It looks like a blue eye to those who are not imagination-challenged.  The third picture is the river which flows from the spring.  It was nice and shady and cool under the trees.  

The last picture is of the beach at Ksamil very close to Butrint.  The amount of construction is really mind boggling.  There is no planning, so whoever wants to build whatever builds it, whether or not there is any infrastructure to support it.   Bank financing is available, but it seems to constitute a small portion of construction.  The majority of construction is self-financed, and construction stops when the money runs out.  Some of the houses in this picture will probably look the same this time next year, while others will be in varying stages of completion.  Some may even be finished.