Albanian moments

Memorable moments over the last two weeks in Albania....

- Sitting at my gate in Munich, as the seats filled up with people speaking Albanian or talking in English about their family there and Albanian culture, realizing that I'm not in Oregon anymore!

- Playing music on my first night here, with Luke and my host-sister Illektra. I'm glad I brought the guitar. :-)

- Standing outside the office door at the day center with one of the older kids, Aleko, as we prepared to go in and try to catch the "mouse" (rat) with a bucket. We eventually gave up the idea, but I was ready to try it. :-)

-Trying to talk with Aleko... or rather, Aleko trying to talk with me; sorry, kiddo, louder Albanian is not any easier for me to understand.

- The boys at the center playing chess, three on three... one chess board.

- Getting my fingernails painted by little Suella at the day center. She looked at my bare nails, pulled some polish out of her pocket, took me by the hand, sat me down and started painting. By the last few nails several other kids had come to watch and they got into an argument about who got to paint the last one. Xhilda (Jill-da) won.

- Trying to teach Maria at the day center how to do a chain stitch in crochet, only to have all the boys swarm us and want to learn too. They got bored... but Maria eventually got it!

- Crossing the street for the first time. Whoo boy..... I'm not in Oregon anymore! (I've gotten two pieces of advice for crossing the street: 1) keep walking at a steady pace and the drivers will adjust accordingly and 2) cross the street in sections, maybe having to stop three or four times to wait when crossing a wide street.)

- Meeting a few of the girls in the village. One of them came and hugged me two or three times. I wished we could spend more time there, but am looking forward to more visits and the special "creative" week when I'll get to do Bible studies and different art projects with them.

- People have been really friendly and welcoming and it's been a joy to meet people I've heard so much about from Luke. 

- Seeing a guy casually carrying an axe down the street. Scared the daylights out of me the first time I saw that, but thankfully, the same day I also saw guys in the streets chopping wood.

- Seeing how excited the kids at the center were when a team came. The littlest child (who I blogged about before) was shy but beaming to see all the people who were there to see him.

- Understanding a brief conversation in Albanian! Every day I'm learning more. :-)


A little about the food...
- Food is prepared with more salt here... and the cheese is very strong and salty.

- Summertime is for fruit! People eat a lot of fruit here and they eat some of it sour, like crunchy plums and nectarines. There are lots of veggies here in summer too.

- Albania has amazing cherries.

- Food tends to be fairly simple - beans, potatoes with chicken, soups, tomato & cucumber salad, bread, rice pilaf... and they make really good meatballs.