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.

Wise and Wonderful Women: From the TMCC to Mother Teresa

Since I have been in Tirana, I have had the pleasure of meeting many wise and wonderful women. This post is about them and how they have helped me.  

I have also included the presentation I will give about Mother Teresa based on all the fabulous feedback I received from people who heeded my call for their perceptions of Mother Teresa. I received well over 60 responses in all—amazing!

There are several links embedded in this post. I think most of them are in Albanian, but they may be interesting to explore to get a sense of the language, the people, the food.

Wise and Wonderful Women of Tirana

I actually started meeting the wise and wonderful women of Tirana before I ever set foot on Albanian soil. A former colleague of mine had seen an email about my impending trip to Tirana and contacted me with the name of an Albanian woman he knew through the international humanitarian organization he works for.

I emailed her to introduce myself and she emailed me back the names and emails of two more women who live and work in Tirana. One, in fact, is an administrator at my host university, who found me a wonderful apartment before I came and welcomed me with open arms.

And the other has become my first best friend in Tirana.

[Side note: Social connections seem to be very important here. You meet someone who puts you in touch with someone else who knows someone else who can help you with whatever it is you need. Kind of like good ole “southern style” networking, but it seems/feels slightly different to me for some reason.

It may “feel” different because of how much I need to network here, for even the most basic of things like where to go to buy a pillow or where to catch the bus to TEG (Tirana East Gate Mall). These are not things I can easily look up/research on the internet, as oftentimes no information is available on the internet or, if it is, it is in Albanian and the Google translation can be unreliable. 

And don’t get me started on Google maps or the (IMHO) even worse Apple map app. Finding your way almost anywhere requires networking.

And there is no “Yelp” or “Urban Spoon” or “Open Table.” Even “TripAdvisor” info is rather sparse.

So networking isn’t so much a courtesy as a necessity (at least for newcomers).]

What follows are brief descriptions of some of the women I have met and why I think they are wise and wonderful.

The School Administrator. As I indicated above, the school administrator found me an apartment close to school with all the features I asked for. I was able to move in the second day I was here.

She has also been very generous with her time even though her position at the university is time-consuming and stressful. Moreover, she made special efforts to integrate me into the university culture, inviting me to various events, making sure I know how to get places, including me in ceremonies.

She is the epitome of what a good administrator should be -- she strikes the perfect balance of being warm and knowledgeable and professional. A wise and wonderful woman indeed!

My First Best Friend in Tirana. Another woman who welcomed me to Tirana long before I got here was the other woman my former colleague put me in touch with through his contacts. She emailed useful information about Tirana long before I boarded the plane to come here, and she was the first person I shared a meal with once I got here.

She is a young business woman with so much positive energy she literally glows. She and her two wonderful children and generous mother have taken me under their wings – taking me shopping, treating me to wonderful meals (more on that later), inviting me to Sunday coffees, teaching me Albanian, cooking me traditional dishes like speca të mbushur (stuffed peppers. Click here for a recipe.) and byrek më spinaq (spinach pie similar to spanakopita. Click here for a recipe.)

It was she who took me to the Castle in the Park for coffee my third day here; it as she who treated me to the best Chinese food I’ve ever eaten; it was she who took me to a fish restaurant where you pick out the actual fish you want to eat at the door.

It was she who helped me find a place to buy a filter coffee maker my second day here and took me to the best place in town to buy coffee.She has advised me on so many things. As I have met more people who are either expats in Tirana or fellow visiting scholars, many have marveled at how quickly I adjusted to my new life here.

I have my first best friend to thank for that. She took a chance on me and welcomed me with open arms. A truly wonderful gesture for which I will always be grateful.

I am also grateful to her for introducing me to the investigative reporter and a group of women collectively known as the Tuesday Morning Coffee Club (TMCC).

The Investigative Reporter. The night my first best friend took me to Juvenilja Castle for coffee, the investigative journalist met us there. She is a young woman who has a local television show called Njerëz të Humbur (Missing People). Click here for more information about her show. As I have written here before, during the communist era, many people lost track of their relatives who emigrated from Albania.

Through her investigative work, she brings families back together, many of whom have lost track of each other for decades. She also has been working to get those of Albanian descent in other countries to tell their stories of what they know of Albania.

Through her work, she is also both promoting Albanian culture beyond Albanian borders and reuniting families. What could be more wonderful than that?

The reporter will be making her first trip to the U.S. at the end of the month. I hope she receives a fitting reception from the people she meets.

Tuesday Morning Coffee Club. I personally could not have asked for a better reception than the one I received from the Tuesday Morning Coffee Club (TMCC), another group of women I was able to meet through my first best friend in Tirana.

Soon after I arrived in Tirana, I received an email from a friend and colleague back home asking, “Have you found the expats yet?” Well, I hadn’t, but through my first best friend I did. Boy, did I!

My first best friend encouraged me to join a women’s civic organization, which I did, which led to my meeting a group of expats who have been living in Tirana for years. This group includes a high school English teacher, an Argentinian /American artist, an American law enforcement consultant, the British Ambassador’s wife, and the director of a nonprofit organization that works with women and children in remote areas of Albanian, among others.

These woman have “shown me the ropes” in regard to where to find a yoga class, how to tell a taxi driver approximately where I live, and getting around the country by bus.

I have also shared coffee with them at the French Bakery and attended a lovely tea in ambassador’s wife magnificent (and quiet!) garden.

These women also engage in courageous and meaningful charity work that benefits women and children in Tirana and all over Albania.

And they have fun! Just last week, the high school teacher regaled me with the story of crashing a movie premier with an Australian conductor she had met that evening.

It is these kinds of stories that give me courage to step out of my comfort zone a bit, take a leap, try to negotiate buying vegetables from street vendors or asking for help in my rudimentary Albanian. Not quite the same as crashing a movie premier, but perhaps the first steps toward more courageous behavior.

My Office Mate. Besides the women I have met through my first best friend, I have had the pleasure of sharing an office with a wise and wonderful young woman who is working on her PhD, doing loads of administrative work, teaching classes, planning a wedding,  and serving as my link to those at my host university that do not speak English. She is one busy woman!

As noted above, my office mate is an incredibly busy woman. She is also incredibly patient, imaginative, and smart. As far as I can tell, I was stationed in her office because of her excellent English and translation skills. She actually speaks four languages: Albanian, Italian, English, and French (although she would modestly say she is only ‘basically competent’ in French, not proficient. My guess is she is better than she thinks J).  She is completing her PhD in political science with an emphasis on human rights at an Italian university.

One of her most endearing qualities is her fancifulness. She can weave stories so well and just make you laugh and be happy. I have encountered few storytellers who are as good as she is – and she is telling the stories in English! Which leads me to another of her outstanding qualities.

She has the patience of a saint. She is constantly having to translate for me on top of all her other duties, and she does it with cheerful aplomb (can aplomb be cheerful? Why not? Language is flexible and always evolving J).

She has on occasion told me, “I am tired today, I don’t know why.” I have told her I think that having to deal with me and having to constantly be translating may contribute to her being tired. She has laughed off that explanation saying, “Oh no! No!”

But really it must be tiring always having to think and talk in at least two different languages, if not three.

One last amazing quality I must relate about my office mate: She is fearless when navigating her way on foot (in high heels!) through traffic. She and I went to look for wedding dresses the other day after work, and she was weaving in and out of traffic like it was nothing. She took my hand and led me through.

She explained that she had been independent for some time and learning how to navigate the traffic came second nature to her. “You just have to have confidence,” she stated.

I doubt I will ever have the confidence of my office mate, but I am grateful to call her my friend and my protector.

My Official Contact. There is one more wise and wonderful woman I will to highlight here. She is my official contact to the Fulbright scholarship program, but she is far more than that.

My first day here in Tirana I could not use my phone locally. I figured out later (much later—about two weeks later) that it was because I was adding an extra zero into the numbers that didn’t need to be there. For example, I had written down several numbers with the following format: +355(06)99999999. What I should have written down was +355(6)99999999. [Just a little thing to know in case you are ever in Tirana and want to make a call on your U.S.-based phone J]

So I was a bit panicked. I could call my Aunt and my son at home to let them know I had arrived. [Although I messed that up, too, as I awakened my aunt at 5AM. For some reason I thought CDT time was AHEAD of my time by 7 hours, not BEHIND by 7 hours. I haven’t made that mistake again!]

But I couldn’t call anyone locally to let him or her know I had arrived. I found a place with free wi-fi and dashed off an email to my official contact, hoping for the best. She immediately emailed me back, said she would meet me where I was, and set my mind at ease.

Not only did she meet me, but she patiently answered my questions and showed me where to buy a local phone. All this was after her usual working hours. So she had definitely gone above and beyond the expected. And has continued to do so.

She also met me on a Saturday to take me shopping at an open air market and will take me to apply for a residency permit. She seems to work at least twelve hour days and every time I have seen her she is cheerful.

What makes her efforts even more amazing is the fact that she has just come back to work after dealing with some major health issues. You would never know it from her demeanor or her work ethic.

She is one courageous woman!

So those are some of the wise and wonderful women I have met since I came here.

Mother Teresa. I will close with the presentation I prepared for Mother Teresa Day coming up on October 18. I will not be able to deliver the presentation in person as I will be at a conference on teaching mediation in Ohrid, Macedonia that day (which I will surely blog about!), but have been told someone else will read it.

If you contributed a word, phrase, or reflection about Mother Teresa when I sent out a call for help, I hope you see your contribution in what I wrote. I know I could not have written anything without the help of all the wise and wonderful people who responded to my call. In the actual presentation, I mention several people by name to thank them for their contributions, but I did not think it was appropriate to do that here. Do know, however, that I gave credit in the presentation that will be used.

Until next time when I will relate the experience of my first time in a classroom here and how it caused me to reflect more on the nuances of the English language.

Shihemi më vonë! (See you later!)

Mother Teresa as an Inspiration to the World

I want to begin by thanking Professor S. for graciously inviting me to take part in this momentous occasion and Rector S. for his support in allowing me to make these remarks.

I also wish I could be here in person today, but sadly, cannot.

I have been asked to say a few words about Mother Teresa as an international figure. In order to prepare my remarks, I sent out a call to friends, colleagues, and former and current students around the world to gather their perceptions of Mother Teresa. I was overwhelmed with responses, more than sixty in all.

Some people simply sent a single word: “wise,” “inspirational,” “genuine,” "holy," “selfless,” “sincere,” “saint.”

Others sent quotes that they attributed to Mother Teresa, such as, “"I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples."

And still others sent even longer responses, some of which I will share with you here today.

In compiling the responses I received, one thing became abundantly clear:  The overall vision of Mother Teresa shared by most of those who responded was that of a woman who was a champion for the poor, a messenger for the voiceless, a Catholic who practiced humanism;

A woman who possessed fearless grace and the courage to be unorthodox;

A woman of compassion and generosity;

A strong, caring, and kind servant.

As one of my former students wrote: “She brought not only hope, but a chance for survival to those who had neither.”

Now, keep in mind that the people who responded to my call had been introduced to her through media portrayals or through lessons learned in school. Their impressions are of the idea of Mother Teresa, but it is an idea that runs deep and influences people in many different ways from serving as an inspiration for social justice work, to being an international icon of goodness that changed perceptions of institutions and people, to a beacon of hope.

In regard to her influence on social justice work, a friend of mine wrote, “When I think of Mother Teresa, I think of the tireless in every part of life—especially the educators.  I know some of these people; they give every thought and every hour to their work; they are tireless in their efforts.  They believe—they really do—that they can make a difference. Though they get no reward for this extra effort and not much success data, the effort rewards them in the doing.  They can do nothing else.  It's not as if Mother Teresa would rather have gone bowling or shopping.  She would rather serve humanity than do anything else.  It is a bent.  She was touched by passion to serve.  I think of the old political activists I have known, who keep on keeping on, when they can hardly see and hardly move, trying to make a difference.  The poor, the uneducated, the politically misguided—these are always with us.  Yet someone, somewhere is always chipping away.”

Just as Mother Teresa did, although she did not consider what she did political acts. As she wrote, “I do not care about politics at all . . . I do not deal with any political purpose. I want everyone to know that the most important thing in life is love. Here is the beginning of human rights activity.”

While Mother Teresa is seen by some as an inspiration for social justice work, others see her as an international icon of goodness, a symbol of forward thinking who changed perceptions of institutions and people.

As one of my students who worked in Indonesia this summer responded, “Mother Teresa: There are a lot of things that come to mind when someone says Mother Teresa: loving, saintly, self-less, compassionate, activist. I think she was also more than that. I think she is an international symbol, just as Martin Luther King and Gandhi are. She put a new face on not only the Catholic Church but also charity in general. She affected people directly and indirectly and most importantly, she still does. Just two years ago a brand new Catholic church opened near my home in Topeka, Kansas, and sure enough, it is called Mother Teresa of Calcutta Catholic Parish. So just like all the various Martin Luther King high schools, she is being memorialized.”

Another person who responded to my call, a woman who directed the Center for Public Collaboration at the University of Arkansas for many years, wrote, “The words that come to my mind in relation to Mother Teresa are ‘selfless service.’ She is different from old-time saints who achieved sainthood by suffering various horrible types of martyrdom.  Her type of sainthood has an emphasis on process—looking at someone's whole life rather than one moment of courage.  Perhaps this is one reason she has such broad appeal.  To me—not a Catholic, not even religious—it makes sense to honor someone who spends her life serving those in need.  ‘Feed my sheep’ is a Christian teaching that expresses a value integral to many ethical systems.”

“Do ordinary things with extraordinary love and devotion,” is a saying often attributed to Mother Teresa. It is a saying that sums up the idea of her as an international symbol of goodness.

The last theme I wish to explore briefly is that of Mother Teresa as a beacon of hope. A friend of mine who works in the mental health field summed up this impression beautifully: “When I think of Mother Teresa, I first think of blue and white because of her robes.  I think of her face, which was so wrinkled and weathered, and how it stands for all the good works she has done.   I think of human compassion and the purity of the white among the dirty, dusty streets of Calcutta and how loud the white looks against the filth and despair—like a beacon.  I know she was very human and had failings but was a symbol of God's love and mercy.”

In sum, Mother Teresa lives on in the hearts and minds of people around world as an inspiration for social justice work, as a symbol of selfless service, and as a beacon of hope. People everywhere are grateful to this woman who was in her own words by blood an Albanian, by citizenship an Indian, but who also continues to belong to the whole world.

Thank you again for allowing me to contribute today to the celebration of this great Albanian woman.