People & Places Part Four: Field Trip to Shushicë

This is a story about constitutional rights, but it also the story of a lovely trip through the mountains.

Apparently I didn’t totally botch the presentation in Krujë because on Thursday afternoon, my colleague called to invite me to join him and two young faculty members for another training session in Shushicë.

The Invitation. Actually he called the school administrator who I just happened to be passing in the courtyard of the school while they were talking. She handed me the phone and he said, “Ask me where I am.” I bit.

“Where are you?”

“I am in the middle of NOWHERE!” was his reply. (Shushicë is about in the middle of nowhere, but maybe not for long.) “Would like to join me here tomorrow?”

Why not? I thought. 

We agreed that a colleague would meet me in front of my apartment around 7:45AM and we would walk together to the place where another colleague would pick us up.

[Side note: Addresses here are not very straightforward. For example, my apartment address includes a street name, a door number (apparently there are several ways to enter the building but none of them connects to the others), and a floor number and then “Tirana, Albania.” No apartment number, no actual street number, no postal code.

Now I think understand why the person who picked me up at the airport had a bit of trouble finding the hotel I stayed at the first night I was here and why my language tutor didn’t ask for my address but rather walked with me to my apartment so she knew where it was.

Also if you try to get directions in Tirana through Google Maps, you get really strange instructions, like “go past the AMC store on your left”:  Here’s an example of the directions you would get if you searched for how to get from where my office is to ERA Piceria, a good pizza and traditional food restaurant in the Bllok area: https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Universiteti+Marin+Barleti,+Tirana,+Albania&daddr=ERA+Piceria+Tirana+Albania&hl=en&sll=41.33165,19.8318&sspn=0.200826,0.271912&geocode=FUttdgId3BMuASEtC1IHzuDSlymhdwy9UTBQEzEtC1IHzuDSlw%3BFa1ndgId_6MuASGr-BeSdXMljyllaz503zBQEzGr-BeSdXMljw&mra=ls&t=m&z=14

You have to wonder what happens if “Big Bite” or “MoF” goes out of business. Also, uh, there is no “1^st exit” at the roundabout at Wilson Square – it is a city street! Go figure . . .]

Long digression, sorry!

Anyway, my colleague was right on time to pick me up and we walked together through a fine mist to our first meeting place, got into a car with another colleague, picked up the language professor and were off to Shushicë!

Getting There. Shushicë is in the almost exact opposite direction from Krujë. It is southeast of Tirana, whereas Krujë is northwest: https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Tirana,+Albania&daddr=Shushic%C3%AB,+Elbasan,+Albania+to:Kruj%C3%AB,+Kruj%C3%AB+District,+Durres,+Albania&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=41.29019,19.922333&spn=0.803811,1.087646&sll=41.279655,19.917705&sspn=0.803938,1.087646&geocode=FcKrdgId-JsuASnbxfpwBDFQEzEgN2UQr5IABA%3BFQkFcwIdwI8zASnXbsA2O11QEzGZn_Qb6FZ9rQ%3BFUJdeQIdJQAuASmpNdqPec5REzGBA52ZaSPGiA&oq=Kruj%C3%AB+District,+,+Albania&mra=ls&t=m&z=10

But when you go either way out of town, you go through mountains.

In fact, on the way to Krujë, my language professor colleague told me a joke about how God created Earth. He reached in his pockets and found fertile land and said, “I’ll put that in the middle of this continent." Then he reached in again and found beautiful streams and said, “I’ll put these in this country.” And on and on, until he reached in his pocket and all that was left were rocks. So he threw them down and said, “That will be Albania.”

But really the mountains are beautiful. The landscape reminds me of a cross between the rolling hills of Tuscany and the towering peaks of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, if that makes any sense at all.

Here are a couple of pictures taken from the top of Krraba Mountain before we started making our descent into Elbasan and then on to Shushicë.

Taken from the top of Krraba Mountain on the way to Shushicë.

As we made our way down to Elbasan, we passed several olive groves and people on the side of the road selling big bottles of oil olive and various fruits and vegetables. I hope I have a chance to go back through there and stop at a stand or two.

We didn’t spend too much time in Elbasan, just passed through the “outskirts” (funny word, no? My colleagues and I talked a bit about such words as we drove along. Since being here, I have experienced a heightened sense of the English language and its oddities. “Outskirts” implies that cities are gendered. Hmmmmm.)

At some point we turned off the main road unto to a slightly less well paved road. My colleagues had said the road to Shushicë was not very good. I commented that the road really didn’t seem that bad to me.

But as we drove farther and farther in, the road turned from barely paved to not paved at all.

Being There. We knew we were in Shushicë when we saw this sign:

My colleagues got a kick out of the sign as it suggested the officials in Shushicë had been practicing their English, but perhaps they needed a few more lessons.

But the larger story was about economic development in Shushicë. One of my colleagues pointed out that many of the people there had embraced a free market economy, and many had built new and elegant houses with their own funds.

Moreover, the people of Shushicë had built a brand new municipal building (see below-- it's a little fuzzy but i think you can get a sense of the building) AND had received a grant to pave the road into the town.

All of this mainly, according to my colleague, to bring in tourist trade, as the setting is truly idyllic, near a lovely small park where people can camp and picnic, and close to mountain trails for hiking. Here are views from the window of the room where we did the training that may give you some sense of the area.

An Ah-ha Moment at the Training. This training, I think, went much better than the training in Krujë. I had learned from my time in Krujë to slow down, way down.  Plus, the other two people who made presentations on doing economic analyses and preparing budgets had brought a portable overhead projector that they let me use, so the people in the training had both the written and the spoken words to follow.

I also shortened the presentation some, stayed more on script, and tried to use more specific examples. Learning by doing.

So, I was cruising along at a nice pace, in the final stretch of explaining the rights guaranteed by the first ten amendments to the constitution when one of the participants made a comment--in Albanian, of course.

The person translating motioned for me to stop for a moment and said, "He wants to know how the American constitution can be of use to Albanians."

He wanted to know how the American constitution can be of use to Albanians! A good question indeed!

"That's a good question!" I said.

"I guess the answer has to do with serving as a model in regard to inalienable rights, such as free speech and due process. That's what the U.S. constitution guarantees to all citizens."

The translator explained what I had said in Albanian. The man seemed satisfied and I went on.

But I kept thinking in the back of my mind it was not a satisfactory answer. Yes, the U.S. Constitution may serve as a model; however, the guarantee of a right is simply not the same as people believing they can act on that guarantee. That requires a trust in the system, the governing officials, and other citizens. And those are, in my humble opinion, characteristics of democracy that come only from within  a system--characteristics built over time through honest relationships and honest communication, keeping promises and holding others to their promises. None of those things can be imposed. They must grow in native soil (sorry for the mixed metaphor!).

Anyway, it was an "ah-ha" moment. Or maybe a "re-ha" moment, but at any rate a moment to seize to reflect upon the relationship between a constitutionally guaranteed right and the belief that one can act on that guarantee.

Again, a group photo was taken when the training was finished:

And some of the men in attendance invited us to coffee. We talked of their visits to the U.S. Everyone of them had been to the U.S., some multiple times. And the progress in Shushicë. The proposed new road, etc. etc. It was a lovely coffee.

Until next time! When the topics will be bears and idioms and maybe chickens.