Passion and Politics: Teaching and Learning in Tirana (and Beyond)

It has been a very busy few weeks. I have attended four more conferences (although two were one day meetings here in Tirana): one at the law school on Electoral Politics; one at the Sky Tower Hotel on higher education here in Albania that was organized by former Albanian Fulbright scholar to the U.S.; another in Sofia, Bulgaria (taking two 12 hour bus rides to get there and back) that was sponsored by the Balkan Sociological Forum; and the last an interdisciplinary conference held in Vlora, Albania and sponsored by the Albanian Sociological Institute and various universities. All were interesting and informative in their own ways.

And I turned 60. In Sofia!

In the next post I will reflect more on the conferences and the general principle of a public good or a common good. This concept of a public good or a common good seems to run through most of the conversations I have, and I hope I can articulate my understanding of what it is, or isn’t, or could be, here in Albania.

But first I wanted to reflect on my weekly teaching routine.

In case you aren’t interested in my weekly routine, here are a few pictures from Sofia and Vlora. At the end of the post are some pictures that give some sense of the festivities that took place in Vlora and Tirana for the 100^th anniversary of Albanian independence. I think they are a good place to start in regard to understanding the possibility of a vibrant public life here in Albania.

And, if you get a chance, come back in a couple of weeks or so for the dish on the common good J 

This is the hall at the University of Sofia where the opening session of the
Balkan Sociological Forum conference was held. Beautiful but freezing!

In the foyer outside the room where opening sessions were held.

In the center of Sofia. Taking a break from the conference.
That is our "guard dog" on the left. He followed us all around the city and protected us from the other dogs.

For my birthday, some colleagues and I went to a traditional Bulgarian restaurant.
They surprised me with a lovely wooden plate.

We stopped in Kosovo for dinner on the way back from Bulgaria.
We are getting ready to do a circle dance.

My colleagues said this would make a lovely hair commercial.
All I see is someone who has to watch her feet to do the dance!

View from the balcony of the hotel in Vlora.

Sunset in Vlora. I took this picture right across from the hotel where we stayed.

MY WEEKLY WORK ROUTINE.

My weekly work routine up until last week consisted of co-teaching a senior level course in Public Sociology and sitting in on four ESL classes. The Public Sociology class meets once a week for four hours and the ESL class met four times a week (including Saturday afternoons) for two hours. The ESL class ended last week, and most of the students in it will take a qualifying exam next week to see if they can move from their current “Upper Intermediate” status as English speakers and writers on to an “Advanced” class.

I have already written fairly extensively on the ESL class so here I will elaborate a bit on the Public Sociology class and a “guest lecture” I did for a Political Systems class.

The Public Sociology Class. You may be wondering, “What the heck is Public Sociology and why are YOU (a communication scholar) teaching it?” Well I was wondering that myself until I researched public sociology a bit.

Basically public sociology is a combination of critical cultural theory and communication activism. At least that’s how I see it. In 2004, Michael Burawoy, then President of the American Sociological Association, made a keynote speech at the ASA annual conference advocating for more emphasis on investigating quotidian dilemmas in people’s lives rather than engaging in experimental research or research based on aggregate data gathered from sources such as the GSS.

Here’s a quote from Burawoy:

“. . . There is no shortage of publics if we but care to seek them out. But we do have a lot to learn about engaging them. . . . We should not think of publics as fixed but in flux, and we can participate in their creation as well as their transformation. Indeed, part of our business as sociologists is to define human categories—people with AIDS, women with breast cancer, women, gays—and if we do so with their collaboration, we create publics. ”

Hmmm. Sounds very much like publics theory to me, although my own training did not emphasize so much the “creation” of publics by researchers as much as the understanding of publics through analysis of their discourse.

Anyway, no matter. I have built my part of the course around what I already know and teach about publics and public problems.

I have given two “public lectures” (advertised on my host university’s website and attended by more than just the students in the class): One on the connection between the assumptions of public sociology and the principles of coordinated management of meaning, a communication theory, and another on the role of universities in developing citizens.

In the regular class, I have focused on publics theory and communicative action using the work of John Dewey, Jurgen Habermas, Joseph Gusfield, Gerard Hauser, and Barnett Pearce.

Whether teaching to a small group or a larger group, I have tried as best as I could to make the presentations interactive (more on that later).

As to the “small group” (or regular class), we have six students enrolled, but generally no more than three attend. I have been told this is fairly typical for private universities here; however, the three that do attend are fairly attentive and engaged in the class.

I am co-teaching with a woman who is a native Albanian, but got her PhD in Sociology from Michigan State. She lived in the U.S. for sixteen years and speaks fluent English. Together we designed the course to include the information I’ve already mentioned plus three broad case studies/examples of scholars engaging in public sociology work. We have decided to use Barbara Ehrenriech’s Nickel and Dimed as one case study and Dwight Conquergood’s work on gangs in Chicago as another. We haven’t decided on the third, if you have any ideas let me know J

For what I consider the major assignment in the course, we have asked the students to write an analysis paper that will require them to do some fieldwork. We adapted the assignment from one I used in a course I taught on the material and social construction of poverty a few semesters ago. Basically, the assignment asks students to work with an organization that addresses a public problem and analyze the effectiveness of the organization’s methods.

The rest of their grade will come from a final exam. Apparently this is generally the way students are assessed here. One exam at the end of the course. Whew! I doubt I would have made it through my undergraduate degree much less my masters or doctorate if everything rode on one exam for each class!

So that’s the class I am actually “teaching.”

On Thanksgiving Day (yes, of course, Thanksgiving is not a holiday here J), I did a guest lecture in a Political Systems class. It also is a senior level class. As I recall, there were seven students in the class: six women and one man. My lecture was on the stages of Presidential campaigns in the U.S. and the communicative functions of each stage.

I used video clips for the presentation and they proved to be the most interesting part of the presentation for the students.

Here are a few reflections on these classes:

Language. The most fundamental challenge in the classroom for me is my lack of Albanian language skills. My interactions with students lead me to believe most speak at perhaps an “upper intermediate” level or maybe just a tad lower (“intermediate”) and my Albanian language skills are at best “beginner” level. So when I teach, the lesson consists of me talking in English for a while and someone else translating what I say into Albanian for a while. If I ask a question of the students, it takes four steps before I understand the answer.

Needless to say, the teaching process is slow this way and I can expect to cover about half the material I generally cover in the time frame. The glacial speed of the progression of class is exacerbated by the lack of textbooks, my second major challenge.

Textbooks. While efforts are being made to translate basic texts, the number of textbooks available in Albanian is very limited. This might not be such a huge problem if there were an abundance of original Albanian texts – works by Albanians in the fields of political science, sociology, psychology, discourse. But, sadly, this is not the case. In fact, during the communist era many texts were banned or destroyed. Here are two stories that poignantly illustrate the significant impact of this censorship.

By far the most interesting presentation I saw at the law school conference on Electoral politics was on the “lost texts” that contained historical accounts of the electoral system in Albania from 1912, the year Albania gained Independence from the Ottoman Empire, to 1939, the year Albania was invaded by Italy, setting up the rise to power of communist leader Enver Hoxha, who ruled Albania with an iron fist until his death in 1985.

The presentation was basically an account of the laws that governed who had the right to vote, how people were protected under the law in regard to the right to assemble and to express their opinions about public matters, and what were the actual voting procedures.

As I listened to the speaker, I was struck by how similar this account was to the one Michael Schudson describes in The Good Citizen concerning the U.S. system. But what was markedly different was that the process of standardizing voting procedures, ballots, etc. was just getting started when POOF! It was stopped dead in its tracks.

Moreover, most of the books that contained accounts of the electoral process were destroyed once Hoxha came to power. Essentially, Hoxha locked down Albania for about fifty years. No one got in, no one got out. Information was tightly controlled. Information was destroyed. Albania existed in its own bubble cut off from the world around it.

If it hadn’t been for the few brave souls who were willing to hide some copies of these accounts of the budding Albanian electoral system of the early 20^th century, part of Albanian could have been lost forever.

As it is, few people are aware of these “lost” texts and even fewer can access them.

This presentation was my first concrete introduction to how valuable and rare historic information is here. It also in hindsight conditioned me to the presentations that followed for the rest of the day, although at the time I was not aware of this conditioning.

To be honest, at first, I was a bit horrified by the rest of the presentations I sat through that day. My first reaction was, “Uh, I could have read this on Wikipedia!” But that initial snarky criticism was much too harsh.

A few days after the conference, I had dinner with an American legal scholar who had been a keynote speaker at the conference. I had started to voice my disappointment with the “quality” of the presentations when she said something that gave me pause. She declared that the conference was one of the best she had attended in a post-communist country!

Her reasoning was that most of the presentations were fairly objective, well-translated accounts of electoral systems in other countries or decent interpretations of current international laws related to electoral politics.

As I thought through her evaluation of the conference, I realize how right she was. While the information present seemed very rudimentary to me, it WAS at least information, not widely outrageous opinion or fabrications.

And then I started thinking about how the organizers had been so careful to say the conference was “scientific” – that term puzzled me at first. I was expecting presentations based on data-driven research, not direct translations of the work of researchers and theorists such as Lester Milbrath and Robert Putnam, not accounts of the electoral systems in the U.S. and U.K. that could be surely found in any encyclopedia.

But then I realized that WAS the “scientific” part. “Scientific” to mean perhaps “vetted” or “legitimate” or maybe even “able to advance knowledge in Albania.”

One more revelation I had based on attending this conference was that no clear standards for what constitutes “original research” exist or can exist if an academic community is still struggling simply to have knowledge, not necessarily to produce it. And I can see now how translating the work of others into Albanian can count as “original research.” Of course, I still draw the line at simply copying something and claiming it as one’s own – that’s plagiarism no matter what, isn’t it?

The other story related to the lack of textbooks has to do with the discipline of sociology. During the communist era, sociology was declared a “militant science” and, basically “outlawed.” Those who taught what was akin to sociology could only use the works of four authors: Marx (and I was told one couldn’t actually teach Marx but rather a version of “Marxism” approved by Hoxha), Engels, Lenin, and Stalin!

Oh my! Sociology without Weber! Sociology without Durkheim! Sociology without Mead! In other words, no sociology at all.

Apparently the same was true in regard to other disciplines, in particular philosophy, but the philosophy professor I know does not speak very good English and I haven’t had a chance to sit down with her with a translator yet.

Anyway, these stories give some insights into why there is a dearth of translated texts or original texts to use in courses. Hearing them also gave me a new appreciation for how easy it is for me to have a wealth of information delivered to my laptop with a few clicks of the mouse.

Teaching Style. Students here are apparently more used to a lecture style of teaching than an interactive style. One teacher I talked with said this is a holdover from the communist era, when critical thinking and questioning were not encouraged in the classroom. Students were expected to sit and listen and soak in the information (banking model of pedagogy). She herself experienced this in her early education: children are supposed to sit, listen, and NOT ASK QUESTIONS or have ORIGINAL IDEAS. The best answers were those memorized from the teachers’ lectures or the texts provided.

This teacher also suggested that many teachers in the public schools still use this method, so the move to more innovative ways of teaching and developing of critical thinking skills has been slow. In fact, this teacher indicated she had moved her own child from the public school system to the private school system mainly because of the lack of innovation and critical thinking pedagogy in the public schools. Sound familiar?

This may explain why when I have asked questions in class, they are first met with a prolonged silence. I have tried following up my question-asking with, “There is no right or wrong answer. I want to know what you think,” and that has worked to some extent. But still when I hear their (translated) answers I get the sense that they are holding something back – not quite willing to venture an original idea.

This is fascinating to me in light of the state of public discourse here. Or it may explain the state of public discourse here. From what I have been told, public discourse here is abysmal. Debates consist of politicians and political leaders making (sometimes outrageous) accusations against their opponents and calling each other names. No cases are made to support any kind of policy claims, in fact, from what people have told me there is no talk of policy whatsoever. It is mainly just posturing. (In all honesty I don’t know if these interpretations are accurate, as I cannot understand what is being said. I will say, though, that the style, which I can observe, seems to be more aggressively argumentative than constructively argumentative.)

Are the politicians and political leaders as afraid to voice original ideas as the students in my classes? Has their education failed them? If the public discourse is as impoverished as I have been led to believe, what are the chances for democracy to thrive here?

Well, these are questions that keep popping up as I make my way here. I don’t have the answers but I can make more observations.

I will make one such observation before I end this post. It was something that I learned when I did the guest lecture in the political systems class.

As I mentioned earlier, the lecture I did in that class was on the communicative functions of the stages of U.S. presidential campaigns (Trent & Friedenberg). When I got to the last stage, the election stage, I focused on how one of the communicative functions of that stage was to legitimate the process. I offered as an example of this legitimating function, videos of Mitt Romney and John McCain’s concession speeches, explaining that one way the system is legitimated is by the person who loses graciously conceding to the winner.

The basic message of the concession speech is "My opponent won fair and square, the system works, let's get along (at least for awhile) because in the end we are all Americans."

And I further explained that the loser always concedes. This is a ritual that reassures the voting public that the system is legitimate.

The students found these videos and the concept of a concession speech most interesting. One student even commented that such a speech would never happen in Albania. The party that lost would accuse the party that one of stealing the election, but would not concede.

I wondered if this was really true, so I asked the professor in the class if she thought this was true.

“Oh, yes!” she replied. “But you have to remember they are speaking for their party more than speaking for themselves.”

Speaking for their party. What does this mean in regard to a common good? A public good? Albanian identity? Hmmmm.

More on this next time.

Naten e mire! (Good night!)

Along Rruga Ismail Qemali in Downtown Vlora

In Skanderbeg Square during Independence Day Celebrations. The caps the boys are wearing are called Qeleshes. Notice that they are shaped differently. The shapes indicate what region the person is from. Most of these boys are from central Albania, as the tops of their qeleshes are flat. The boy with the qeleshe with the rounded top is from another region, maybe Elbasan.

Crowd in front of the National Museum during Independence Day celebrations. The ghost-like things in the background are statues of famous Albanians that were revealed later in the ceremonies.

Placid Waters and Powerful Stories: My Trip to Ohrid, Macedonia

This post is about my trip to and participation in a conference on conflict mediation in schools that took place in Ohrid, Macedonia.

Getting There and Back. Exactly two weeks ago today, at around 12:30PM, I pulled my rented white Chevy into the Hotel Sileks which is right across the street from a public beach on  Lake Ohrid in Macedonia. My Albanian colleague and I had left Tirana around 8:30AM that morning,  braved Krabbe Mountain Pass,  stopped for a wonderful traditional sandwich called simete me bugaçë in Elsbasan, worried about getting across the border in  Qafë Thanë, and stopped at least four times after we crossed the border to ask for directions to the hotel.

But we made it.

In four hours we had traveled approximately 92 miles (148 kilometers). Don’t believe the guidebooks or Google maps that estimates a two to two and a half hour drive. It is at least a three and a half hour drive. The road is two-lane all the way and contains many switchbacks. But, as I indicated in an earlier post about my trip to Shushicë, the views from the top of the mountain are amazing.

The trip also requires navigating through Elbasan and a few villages, including Librazhd which can be fairly congested, and stopping at the border, which takes another 20-30 minutes, as there are two checkpoints.

My colleague and I could probably have shaved about a half hour off our time if we had not stopped for the sandwich or gotten a little lost once we crossed the border; but I doubt we could have made the trip in two hours no matter what.

No matter the time it takes to drive through the mountains of Albania to Macedonia, I highly recommend trying it. I must say I was fearful about the prospect of driving in a country where many people ignore solid lines that indicate DO NOT PASS and the average years of driving experience is probably less than five years, but here’s the deal: renting a car is in the end safer, more comfortable, and far more convenient than other modes of transportation.

Those other “modes” include a regular bus service that leaves Tirana at 9:30PM and gets to Struga, Macedonia at 2AM, from which you can take cab (if you can find one at 2AM!) for the 10 mile ride to Ohrid; “furgon” (mini-bus) travel, which requires finding a place where a furgon stops, negotiating a price, and  enduring a ride over the mountains stopping every ten miles or so to pick up other passengers (sometimes including livestock) with a driver who, uh, maybe has three years of driving experience; and the train—ah, the train. Apparently you can walk to the border faster than the train can take you J.

So rent the car. It may cost ten times more than the bus or furgon and fifty times more than a  train ticket (apparently you can ride the train to Pogradec, another border crossing, for 340ALL, about $3.40), but it is well worth it.

In fact, perhaps the most difficult part of car travel was actually renting the car (I had to go back to the car rental place three times before the car was ready), or driving through the streets of Tirana (I had to be as aggressive as everyone else in Sheshi Wilson to get through the roundabout), or finding a place to park the car overnight before the trip (I finally just gave up trying to find a place within a block of my apartment and parked at the school).

Or getting gas. Or should I say petrol? No, I should say benzin.  

I had to return the car full of gas, so on the way back to Tirana, we stopped at a gas station on the outskirts of town. My Albanian colleague had a long conversation with the attendant (there is no ‘self service’ gas here), which ended with her pulling out the papers for the car, handing them to the attendant, his pointing to a certain section of one of the documents, and her finally saying, “okay” (the only word I understood in the whole interaction).

Apparently they had the long conversation about what kind of fuel to put in the car. While I knew for sure the car did not run on diesel, I had no idea that deciding what kind of gasoline to put in it could be controversial. The papers indicated the car ran on “benzin,” which is what that station offered, so it all worked out. I saw no pumps for different octane grades of gas, so I guess they were all the same. When I got back to my apartment, I looked up the word “benzin”—apparently it is the German word for gasoline.

One more thing about the “benzin”: I needed less than a half tank of gas. The car I was driving, a Chevrolet Evanda, which isn’t a Chevrolet at all but a Daewoo, but that’s a story you will just have to ask me about in person, has a fairly large tank (65 liter capacity—about 17 gallons). It took 25 liters, about 6.5 gallons, to fill the tank.

Guess the cost. Be realistic. Guess.

Thirty dollars? No . . . Forty dollars? No . . . Forty-five dollars? Yes!!

Forty-five dollars! Actually 4503.67ALL, but I handed the guy a 5000 Leke note and he handed me back a 500 leke note. That’s almost $7.00 a gallon. 

Whew! No more complaining about the $3.85 a gallon gas back home for me J

Language of the Conference . As I indicated above, the conference was on conflict mediation in schools. About fifty people were in attendance—from Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Slovenia. And Germany. The conference was sponsored by two German NGOs that work mostly in the Balkans.

It was a good conference, and I learned a lot about conflict and conflict mediation in K-12 schools in the Balkans. Unlike the US where bullying tends to be based on sexual identity and perhaps race and clichés, bullying in the Balkans, at least according to the conference attendees, centers almost exclusively on ethnicity: As one conference presenter asserted about the situation in Macedonia particularly, “The Macedonians pick on the ethnic Albanians, the ethnic Albanians retaliate against the Macedonians, and the Roma are picked on by all and retaliate against all.”

Basically, the distinguishing characteristic among K-12 students is their first language, which indicates their cultural heritage (back to the politics of language!). This distinction carries over into universities, where, at least in Macedonia, classes may be taught in three languages: Macedonian, Albanian, and Turkish.

As another conference presenter noted, when students graduate from university, the different language speakers often plan and attend different graduation parties, perpetuating the divisions among the groups.

It is similar to students sitting with their own race and cliché in the U.S., but the differences among the students are not that apparent until they start to speak.

A rather striking example of these subtle differences even happened at breakfast one morning. My Albanian colleague greeted another conference attendees with “Miremengjes,” which means “Good morning” in Albanian. She answered in kind and then my colleague started talking to her in Albanian. She stopped my colleague and politely said in Enlgish, “I’m sorry I don’t speak Albanian.”

My colleague was a bit taken aback, “But you are Kosovar!”

“Yes,” was the reply, “But I am Serbian Kosovar.”

Subtle differences recognized by language. But differences far deeper than the language itself.

Interestingly, the “official” language of the conference was English, the second or third or fourth language of everyone in attendance but me.

English as the neutral language. The “nonpolitical” language.

As I listened to presenters and attended sessions, I kept thinking how tiring it must have been for all the attendees (except me) to be constantly translating what was said into their first language.

Since then, I have spent some time reflecting on both my privilege and my limitations of being monolingual. I am indeed fortunate that the only language I can speak is one so many people understand or want to speak.

Conference Stories. During the course of the conference, I had a chance to interact with many wonderful people working on the issue of conflict mediation in schools. Two stories told by conference attendees were particularly memorable and will follow me long after I leave this region.

One was told casually by a young ethnic Albanian Kosovar woman during a coffee break. She and I and another attendee were standing by the coffee cart by the pool of the hotel, basking in the warm sun.

She started talking about her childhood. I can’t remember why or what was said before her story, as the story was so powerful it seemed to come out of nowhere, to stand on its own. When she was a child she was an avid reader. She loved the worlds created in the books she read. But she wondered why the reality in the books was so much better than the reality of her life. And she wondered how she could enter the reality of the books.

One day when her mother was not home, she had an idea. She realized the reason she could not enter the world of the books was because the books had no doors. She also reasoned that if she made doors in the books she could enter the world inside the books. So she took a pair of scissors and cut “doors” in all the books.

When her mother realized what she had done, she was severely reprimanded for her actions, as she had destroyed every book in the house.

At this point in the story, she laughed at her childish actions. But then she said, “In the end it didn’t matter, because soon after our whole house was burned in the war and everything was lost, including the books with the doors.”

What can one say to that story? How does one react? I laughed with her and squeezed her arm, fighting back the tears in my eyes.

“What a lovely story,” I said. “About the books, I mean.” So inadequate. So outside my comfortable existence. So touching. So memorable.

The other story came from the attendee who had been standing at the coffee cart with me and the Kosovar woman. In the course of conversation, he explained how he had attended high school in the U.S. at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, no less. He had then gone on to get his degree at Brandeis University in Boston. The conversation ended there, but later that day I found him alone in the lobby of the hotel and asked him how his family came to know about Phillips Exeter.

My first assumption was that he was from a family of means. But that assumption proved incorrect. He, too, was ethnic Albanian Kosovar.  Either during or after the conflict (I should have taken better notes!), a U.S. aid worker recognized him as a talented basketball player and helped him to make application to Phillips Exeter.

There he is played stellar basketball, earned a scholarship to Brandeis and was named MVP of the league during his college career. He was even featured in basketball magazines and did an interview on national television in the U.S.

He noted that although his basketball career had ended, he still worked to inspire students (I think he teaches high school or middle school) to do their best and use their natural talents.   

His story and that of the woman are excellent examples of the vagaries of life, both good and bad.

I offer one more story from my trip to Macedonia. This is a personal story. And one that illustrates the depth of generosity of the people of this region.

One afternoon of the conference, we were treated to an excursion to Sve. Naum, an area on Lake Ohrid that includes a monastery, a spring, and an open “market” of sorts (mainly stalls with tourist-y souvenirs). We took a boat to get to Sve. Naum. Here are some pictures I took from the boat. They give some idea of the beauty of the landscape and the lake.

Where we boarded the boat for the trip to Sve. Naum. On the public beach across from the conference hotel.

On the way to Sve. Naum

On the way to Sve. Naum. Development on Lake Ohrid is restricted.

Those are mountains in the background, Albanian mountains, as the country border is through the lake.

Lake Ohrid is one of the deepest lakes in the world.

As we docked at Sve. Naum, fishermen on the pier started shouting to us. I am so used to hearing languages I don’t understand that I tuned out what was being said. As the greeting subsided, another attendees turned to me and said, “That man kept asking you ‘Where are you from’ and you ignored him.”

“What?!?” I said.

“That man kept asking you ‘where are you from” and you ignored him.”

“In English?!?”

“Yes! In English!”

“Which man? Where is he?” was my rather frantic reply. I see part of my job here as being an ambassador for the U.S. and here I was ignoring someone’s simple question about my country of origin.

My colleague pointed the man out to me and as soon as I scrambled off the boat, I made a point to go up to him, hold out my hand, and say with a smile, “Hi! I’m Christy. I’m from the U.S. From America.”

The fisherman immediately shot back, “Kentucky?”

“No . . .,” I said.

“Ohio?”

“No. . .”

“Indiana?”

“No . . ., I’m from Arkansas.”

“Ar-KANSAS!” was the reply.  “Ar-KANSAS! A big river flows through Ar-KANSAS.”

“Yes,” I said, “The Arkansas River and the Mississippi River.”

“Yes,” the fisherman said, “I know my geography, yes?”

“Yes, you do!” I replied and bid goodbye.

Sometime later as my colleague and I were walking through the path lined with souvenir stalls, the fisherman spotted me again.

He shouted, “Ar-KANSAS!” Picked up something from one of the stalls and approached me. He pressed something into my hand and shut my fist tightly saying, “This is for you Ar-KANSAS!”

As I walked away I opened my hand to reveal a mother of pearl pendant in the shape of a heart. I turned around, beaming and waved to him, “Thank you! Thank you so much!”

He smiled and waved back.

View of Lake Ohrid from Sve. Naum

Souvenir Stalls at Sve. Naum

On the dock at Sve. Naum

When I told a friend this story, his response was that such simple acts of generosity give you great insights into a culture.

So true. I will cherish my time in Ohrid, my experiences at the conference, and my heart shaped mother of pearl pendant long after I have settled back into my ordinary life in Ar-KANSAS.

Happy Halloween!

Next time: Adventures in teaching J  

The Politics of Language and Albanian Reality

It has been a hectic two weeks! I attended a conference on conflict mediation in schools in Ohrid, Macedonia, sat in on more than a few ESL classes, actually taught a class in Public Sociology, “joined” a book club (well, went to a book club meeting), and attended two “event” dinners sponsored by my host institution.

I also managed to rent a car (and drive through the mountains to the conference!), vote, make a trip up Mt. Dajti, and get my hair cut.

Okay. Now that I wrote those activities down, they really don’t look like that much. But things take time here—mainly because I am still trying to feeling my through the culture and partly because, well, things just take time here.

This post starts with some observations and reflections on the politics of language, something I keep running into as I settle into life in this region of the world, and it meanders on to the topic of “The Albanian Reality,” a term I keep hearing that seems to elude definition.

The next post will be about the conference in Ohrid, Macedonia (and there will be pictures!) and the beauty of this region as exemplified by the landscape, the culture, and the resilience of the people.

But first, the politics of language.

As I mentioned above, I have been sitting in on an ESL class, which as been fascinating in many ways. Here I wish to describe a few somewhat related “lessons” from that class.

The Translation of Idioms. I’ve already written about some of the idioms I have encountered here, but in the ESL class I learned a few more. The task of the class one night was to translate English idioms into Albanian equivalents. The results yielded some interesting insights into the culture. Here are a few of the translations:

“Too many cooks spoil the broth” translates to “Too many midwives maim the baby.” Wow! Now that to me suggests a far more serious problem than spoiled broth! But both are in the private realm, which marks a clear difference between this idiom translation and its direction opposite: “Many hands make light work.”

The Albanian equivalent of “Many hands make light work” is “ Union makes strength.” Yes, they basically mean the same thing, but the connotation of the Albanian version seems more public to me. I generally imagine a group of women washing tons of sheets when I hear the English version (okay, maybe I am just weird!), but the Albanian version conjures up a group of people working for some cause or against some injustice. The image that jumps into my head is of the Solidarity Movement in Poland, but that again may simply be my own idiosyncratic interpretation.

In the same vein of public realm vs. private realm connotations, the Albanian equivalent of “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch” is “Don’t tally your own bill, let the innkeeper do it.” Again, a more public, or at least more market-based, connotation. Well, I guess both are market-based if one is going to sell her chickens, but I’ve never really thought of the English version that way; I’ve generally thought of the idiom as being about private reflections on hopes and dreams and anticipation of success, not about a monetary exchange.

Three other translations students performed were, to my mind, far more equivalent: “Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill” translates as “Don’t make a beam out of a hair”; “Rome wasn’t built in a day” translates to “With one stone at a time, you can build a castle”; and the translation of “His bark is worse than his bite” is the very similar “Barking dogs seldom bite.”

Now on to the English idiom I had never heard, some ruminations on the difference between British and American English, and the politics of teaching people language.

I have never heard the idiom “A bad workman blames his tools,” but it was one of the idioms in the lesson. The Albanian equivalent is “It’s the donkey, not the saddle.” Similar to the idiom I noted in an earlier post, “If the baby doesn’t cry, you don’t know s/he wants milk,” as opposed to “The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” the Albanian version connotes relationships with living beings, not inanimate things. This seems culturally significant to me in that it clearly connotes harm or attention to a helpless beast or infant. The English versions “de-personify” while the Albanian version do not.

As evidenced by the idiom above, the course materials used in the class I am sitting in on are unequivocally British, which makes for some interesting discussions in the class, as I am unabashedly American in my perspective to the language.

A quick example: one evening, the professor had the students read a transcript from an interview with a person who was visiting a remote village in Bhutan.  In the course of the interview, the “trekker” made the following statements:

“I had to acclimatise [sic] myself to the thin mountain air.”

And, “The girls were just beavering away at the wood, while I was left puffing.”

What?!?

I told the class I would never say either of those two things, but rather something like, “I had to get used to the thin mountain air,” and “While the girls chopped the wood with ease, I was left gasping for air after a few swings of the axe.”

After my remarks, the professor made an astute observation: “You know what they say about the UK and the US? Two countries, separated by a common language.”

So true!

One last observation about the class and the politics of teaching people language.

A few nights back, the lesson centered on the workplace: appropriate dress, different kinds of work-styles (telecommuting vs. traditional office work), and the benefits of having paid employment.

It is the characterization of the benefits of paid employment according to the course materials that I found most interesting. The article the students read boldly asserted that paid employment was far superior to volunteer work, and that research (which was not cited) shows paid employment leads to higher self-esteem than nonpaid (voluntary) work.

Moreover, according to what the students read, too much work or working long hours is not detrimental to one’s health nor does it make people irritable.

These two assertions were reinforced in the comprehension test as students were asked to identify the following statement as “true”:

“Paid work is better for one’s self-esteem than is voluntary work.”

And this statement as “false”:

“Too much work is detrimental to your health.”  

Perhaps I shouldn’t have, but I questioned the validity of both statements, but also noted that in terms of showing competence in comprehension, they would have to answer such questions as “true” or “false” according to the article they had read.

But in the back of my mind, I was thinking about the power of language to shape our reality and how this lesson on work both revealed how work-centered Western culture is and how either consciously or unconsciously language teachers inculcate their pupils with certain cultural values with the examples they use and the course materials they select.

In addition to my observations in the ESL class, I have had several conversations with colleagues about the politics of teaching language. One striking example was at a dinner my host institution sponsored recently. Most of the conversation that evening was about plans to launch a new graduate program, but at one point it turned to the teaching of English.

However, before I relate that brief conversation, I would like to set the scene for the dinner, as it gives some insight into an illusive term I keep hearing: “The Albanian Reality.”

So, meetings here tend to happen rather spur of the moment. All of sudden, you get a phone call asking you to be somewhere to meet someone to go some place. My experience has been that the purpose of the meeting is left unsaid, so I have just gone with the flow, managed to show up where I am supposed to show up, and hope for the best.

I guess that is one aspect of “The Albanian Reality.”

On the particular evening of the meeting I will describe below, I met three colleagues from my host university at the cabstand near my apartment. One of my colleagues was carrying what I thought were two bottles of water in a plastic grocery sack. I vaguely wondered why she had brought the water, but soon put that thought out of my mind.

We walked to the car of another colleague, got in, and were off to a part of the city I had never been to. My colleagues pointed out the building where the Parliament met and a few other landmarks. It seemed to me we drove a long way, but in retrospect we really didn’t, because on the ride home I was aware of familiar surroundings within a few minutes of our leaving the place we had dinner.

The place where we had dinner was Hotel Viktoria, a lovely little boutique restaurant owned and operated by the husband of one of my colleague’s husband’s sister (I think I got those relations right. There tends to be a lot of those kinds of connections here).

Anyway, our party ended up being about eight people, and as far as I could tell we were the only people in the restaurant, perhaps the whole establishment except for the staff.

We sat down at a table in the main dining room, immediately to the left of the entrance to the hotel. The waiters brought water and bread and I engaged in chitchat with the people seated next to me. I even asked one woman about the term, ”Albanian Reality.”

“You just have to experience it” was her response. “You will know it after you have been here awhile.”

Not one minute later, our conversation was interrupted as another colleague said something to everyone at the table and we all stood up. I didn’t know what was happening but went along with everyone else, who was walking to the stairs or to the elevator.

I chose to follow the people who were walking up the stairs—five flights of them!

We arrived in the foyer to a private dining room with a large terrace overlooking what I assume was the city: at least I could see twinkling lights in the distance. We were escorted into this private dining room, where we all took our seats again. Waiters poured more water and started pouring wine.

The person I had been conversing with before the move looked at me, smiled, and said, “See? Albanian reality!”

So another aspect of the term, I guess, is “change.” In this case change for the better.

We had a most lovely and delicious meal: Cheeses, green salad, fried patties with corn and what I think was rradhiqe, pasta with squid, fried sardines and mullet, an exquisite grilled fish (similar to trout) with what tasted like a basil lime sauce, and vanilla and chocolate gelato.

And wine.

And raki.

And coffee.

A few words about the raki and the coffee.

The bottles of liquid my colleague had carried with her to the dinner did not contain water. They contained “raki,” a traditional Albanian alcoholic drink, usually made by distilling grapes (but I’ve been told it can be made from other fruits). She had made the raki herself. Now to describe raki:

Colorless. Smooth (at least this raki was. I have had a commercial raki since then that was not as smooth). Delicious. And POTENT!

Although it looks harmless, the effects of raki sneak up on you after a few sips.

After the meal, we were offered coffee. Most of my colleagues ordered either espresso or macchiato. I decline both explaining having coffee that late would mean I couldn’t sleep.

The conversation turned for a moment to the difference between American coffee and Albanian coffee (or any coffee in this regions really—Italian, Turkish, etc.). The consensus of the group was that American coffee (even Starbucks) was not really coffee, but more akin to tea.

Perhaps a penchant for raki and strong coffee is another clue to the meaning of “Albanian Reality”: Potency that can sneak up on you without warning.

As to the purpose of the dinner/meeting? It was to discuss plans for a new program at my host university.

As I listened to that discussion (which was mainly in Albanian, although occasionally someone would translate parts of the discussion for me), I learned a lot about the plans and the various positions people took to bring the plans to fruition. From people’s inflections and expressions, I surmised that there was some disagreement, but in the end everyone seemed to agree at least on a general way to proceed.

Again how, where, when this meeting took place may also be a clue as to the meaning of “Albanian Reality”: business can be mixed with pleasure and discussions over good food, good wine, and a little raki may be the best way to reach agreements.

As for the brief conversation during this dinner related to the politics of teaching language, one of the people present, who had been an exchange scholar to the U.S., explained how he had been in English language lessons since he was a grammar school.

His recollection was that the English classes were smaller than the other classes and the lessons were taught in a more interactive manner.  He also noted that by the time he was in high school he was able to take more advanced classes, such as physics, as they were only offered in English.

So it seems the politics of teaching language may extend in some cases beyond the ESL classroom.

Two more observations about “The Albanian Reality” before I close this post.

Thursday was Eid al-Adha, a Muslim Feast Day. Even though Albanians are not generally religious people, it was a national holiday, so I was off.

Two colleagues of mine, both here on grants similar to mine, one as a teacher of  legal English and the other as a student researcher, coordinated a trip up to the summit of Mt. Dajti. Two other Americans here on research grants accompanied us.

Here’s a picture of everyone in our party except the teacher of legal English (who took the picture).

Our mode of getting up to the summit was a “cable ferry,” or what I would call a “ski lift” that took us over some lovely countryside and offers some amazing views of the city.

Once we got to the top of Mt. Dajti, I immediately noticed a drop in temperature and a change in the air. The air in the city is fairly polluted because of all the cars; however, the air on the mountain is clean and fresh. Here are some pictures I took from the cable ferry:

We ate lunch at a small restaurant near where we got off the ski lift. Five of us had a substantial and tasty lunch for about $20 including tip. We then walked a ways on one of the paths through the trees, coming upon a few bunkers that had been built during the communist era.

I had to turn back at this point to make it back to the city for my hair cut appointment, but my colleagues that stayed told me later they had a leisurely walk up to a lovely restaurant with panoramic views off the terrace where they had coffee.

So, this little day trip afforded me a bit more insight into the “Albanian Reality,” with the sharp contrast between the pollution and bustle of Tirana and the serene calm on top of Mt. Dajti.

While Thursday’s weather was beautiful, yesterday it poured rain. Poured.

It can pour rain where I am from, also. I am no stranger to driving rains that require galoshes (which I didn’t bring with me!) and a good raincoat (which I didn’t bring with me!). No stranger to rains that soak you to the bone if all you have to protect you is an umbrella (which I did bring!).

So yesterday as I walked to an event on the other side of town with my flimsy umbrella, I got soaked. And when I walked from the event to a bus stop, to catch the bus to the ESL class, I got soaked.

But what I noticed was almost everyone was getting soaked, too! Few people had galoshes or raincoats. Just umbrellas. Just like me.

On the bus ride to the ESL class, I noticed the roads in that part of town had turned to rivers and even the main roads were flooding to some extent. I was accompanied on this ride by a colleague, who when he got off the bus at his stop (one stop before mine), gestured to the flooded streets and the soaked people around us and said (with an ironic cheerfulness), “Welcome to Albanian reality!”

As my colleague leaped from the bus and into a puddle, I noticed the bus driver light up a cigarette as he tried to navigate the flooded road crowded with cars and people. I braced myself for the ride up the hill to my host institution’s second campus.

When I got to my stop, I made my way through riverlets of muddy waters to the campus and to the ESL classroom where only the professor for the class was waiting.

Eventually, three (out of about fifteen) students made it to class. Soaked. We had a good class. The students were lively and they helped me to learn a bit of Albanian.

Today, the sun is shining and the air is crisp.

My understanding of “The Albanian Reality” is becoming clearer every day.