Site Visit - Welcome to Bajram Curri!

You know the feeling you get when you’re in your car on the way to your first day at a brand new job? You can feel the wings of all the butterflies filling your stomach will nerves. Yet, at the same time, you can feel your heart pounding with with excitement to meet everyone and show them your skills. You’re mind is racing as you think of how to present yourself, telling yourself to remember to smile and to not make a fool of yourself.  This is exactly how I felt last week as the week of our Site Visit began.

After the big announcement of our future sites a few week ago, all the volunteers could think about was going to their sites and seeing where they’d be living for the next two years. Who will I be working with? How big is the city? Will I have a turkish toilet? Will anyone speak English? These were just a fraction of the questions racing through my head in the days leading up to the Site Visit event. 

To make the introduction into the work life of Albanians, the Peace Corps staff organized a Counterpart Conference to take place the day before heading to our future sites. And, they spared no expense with this conference. The staff booked hotel rooms for all of the trainees and our counterparts at the most luxurious resort hotel in Durres, a city about 30 minutes south of Tirana. Now, luxurious in Albania is nothing like luxurious in America. But, nonetheless, the hotel was very beautiful with a buffet breakfast, a ginormous heated swimming pool, and pathways leading directly to the beach. Plus, I got to take an actual real shower (in which I mean continuous hot water and more than a slow drip of water pressure) for the first time since the beginning of PST. It almost felt as if I was back in the states for a night. 

We arrived in Durres in the afternoon on Monday. All of our counterparts had already arrived and had been in a few sections with our Program Coordinators. As I gathered my luggage and headed to my room, I kept peaking around at the groups of people chatting near the hotel restaurant, trying to anticipate which counterpart was mine. From the pack of information I received, the only information about my counterpart that I had was that it was a women named Valdete and that the past health volunteer in Bajram Curri enjoyed working with her. So basically, I had nothing to base my predictions on. :)

After an hour or so, it was time to meet our counterparts. And of course, all the Americans arrived at our meeting spot 15 minutes early, wearing their best clothes. And, just like typical Albanians, all the counterparts began to show up exactly on time. Right away, our Project Managers began pairing us up with our future counterpart. When Darina, my project manager, shouted my name, my heart began to race. “This is it!” I thought to myself, “The person that I will be working with for the next two years!” She guided me to towards a woman dressed in business-casual attire, with her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. I could tell just by her aura that she was a very polite women. “This is Valdete, your counterpart in Bajram Curri,” Darina said to me and then left to continue with the introductions. I immediately began reciting all the common phrases I had been practicing in Language Class for the past week. “Mirëdita! Unë jam Jenny. Unë jam nga Colorado në Amerika.” (Good Day! I am Jenny. I’m from Colorado in America). She responded back by telling me some simple information about herself. But after all the phrases I learned had run-out, I could feel the awkward silence, that I had secretly trying to avoid, start to creep up upon us. I looked around at all the other volunteers and their counterparts. I heard many of them reciting the same questions in Albanian that I had just said and others were laughing and speaking in English. I turned to my counterpart and asked “Flisni ju anglisht?” (Do you speak English?). She replied “Jo” aka “No”. We both laughed a bit at the awkward language barrier, I knew we both didn’t know what to say next. We continued to try and speak to one another until I saw Ian (who’s counterpart had to leave) standing on his own. I decided to introduce him to Valdete. Now Ian was reciting all the lines too. Haha, oh the perks of learning a new language! But eventually the awkwardness started to ware off. We met up with Luke (the other trainee show will be living with us in Bajram Curri) and his counterpart as well as Kat (another trainee that will be living about an hour south of us) and her counterpart since we figured we’d be spending a lot of time with them in the next two years. Both their counterparts spoke English so they helped us translate our conversations with Valdete. We all decided to eat dinner together a the dinner event the Peace Corps had set up for all the trainees and their counterparts. I could see how close our little “North” family was going to be. It was great.

After dinner, we said good night and headed towards the pool. It just so happened that there was a wedding going on the hotel the same night all the trainees were staying there. So many of the trainees stayed out and hung out with the party guests. I, on the hand hung out for a bit and then headed to take the shower I had been longing for. And, yes, it was AMAZING! haha :)

The next morning we enjoyed a luxurious buffet breakfast and then spent the morning a few workshops/meetings with our counterparts. At the end, we were assigned to meet with our counterparts and to discuss some of the activities they had planned for the summer. So Valdete and I went to go discuss over coffee at the hotel restaurant. That is when I really saw the effects of the language barrier. Not only is my Albanian language skills at their beginning stages, but on top of that, the northen dialect is quite different from what I’ve been learning. I was definitely struggling with understanding what she was telling me. But she seemed to be very understanding. “Avash, avash” is a common expression used by the Peace Corps staff which means slowly, slowly.  

Almost immediately after the meetings had ended, everyone began to depart to their future sites with their counterparts. The North Group, however, had to stay another night since buses only left for those places in the morning. Pull my arm, right?! Another night in the luxurious hotel? How could I survive?!

So I spent the rest of the day walking around Durres and hanging out by the pool with Kat and Ian. It really felt like a mini vacation. It’s funny how PST works like that. At certain points you’re super stressed about adapting to the culture, learning the language, and preparing for your future work, whereas, at other times you’re relaxing on the beach at a resort. Just another curve on the emotional roller-coaster of PST. What was really cool about the resort was that we were basically the only people there. After the wedding guests had left, it was just the four of us trainees and a random professional soccer team that seemed to have been at the resort for quite some time. It was very nice.

The beach in Durres at the Tropika Resort

Another view of the beach in Durres

The best part of the day had to be the dinner we had. Luke had returned from hanging out with his counterpart in Tirana when the four of us decided to go together as a group to find a bite to eat. We found a little byrek shop (typical Albanian food) and spent the evening talking about future plans and joking about how “mountainy” and “hardcore” we all were going to be by the end of our Peace Corps service. 

We woke up early next day to head to Bajram Curri. Ian’s counterpart, Shyrete, was waiting at the resort gates with a bus going directly to Bajram Curri. 

From past volunteers and other Albanians, we had been told that the journey to Bajram Curri was very long and that the road wasn’t very nice. We heard it took around 7 hours to get there from Tirana and that the road wasn’t very developed. Therefore, I was prepared for a rocky trip. But, to my surprise, the trip was amazingly easy. They had just finished building a new, multi-lane road which cut the trip duration down to nearly 4 ½ hours. I couldn’t believe. The road went through Kosovo which was pretty awesome. I hadn’t been to Kosovo before so I was really excited for that. We didn’t stop there, but I found out that Bajram Curri is only about 10 miles away from the border so I’m sure I’ll get to go there at least a few times during my service. 

The furgon (what Albanians call buses) dropped us off in the center of town, next to the well-known Museum of Bajram Curri. As soon as we stepped off the furgon, Luke’s counterpart was directing us to the police van parked behind us, telling us that the police wanted to escort us to our apartment. For a minute, I was a little skeptical. Why the heck would the police want to “escort” foreigners to their new apartment? But one thing I remember learning about in PST was to just go with the flow; everything works out in the end. So without hesitation, we began to pack the police van with our baggage. We hopped into the van and the two policemen began to drive us away. I’m not kidding you, they drove around the corner and down a small road, and then we arrived. We definitely could have walked it in like 3 minutes. I later learned that one of the past volunteers had worked closely with the police department and even designed the official badge that they all wear on their uniforms. So I guess they have a lot of respect for the Peace Corps. It was definitely a nice, warm welcome to the city. 

First it was Luke’s apartment. We helped him carry his luggage up the stairs to his apartment that was located on the third floor. There, Valdete was waiting for me. With much energy and excitement she called for me to follow her so she could show me my apartment. We rushed down the steps and started walking away from the apartment building. She called out to the policemen to follow us. We literally walked to the next building over and we were there. We grabbed my bags and headed up the stares. Our apartment was on the 5^th floor. Let’s just say I got a real good workout dragging my overfilled suitcase up five flights of stairs. When I reached the top, I saw a lady at the door who welcomed me to Bajram Curri. I knew right away that this was my landlord. She opened the door and told me to look around. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My apartment was really nice! And when I say really nice, I’m not saying it was anything compared to anywhere I had lived in the US, but it was nicer than any of the other apartments I had seen in Albania. I mean, all my furniture matches! That’s rare for Peace Corps housing! 

I have one bedroom with a ginormous bed, a living room that doubles as a kitchen which has a stove that is half gas and half electric (perfect for when the power goes out), a bathroom with a turkish toilet (typical for the north of Albania), and a small sunroom/closet which has clothes lines to hang up my clothes. It was much nicer that I expected! Very clean! 

After taking a quick look-through, my counterpart left and told me to spend the rest of the day relaxing and settling in. At just like that. It was quite. It was like a half hour of crazy, exciting moving in to silence. I got to look around my apartment a little more. I have a working refrigerator and freezer, a washing machine, and some other small erks. OMG, you’ll never believe what I found in the closet. A box for a juicer!!!! That’s right. For those of you that don’t know, I’m a dedicated juicer back home in the states. In fact, I debated on taking my juicer from back home with me to Albania but ran out of room in my suitcase. I settled with only bringing my Vitamix, my beloved blender, which I have yet to use but I’m sure I will as soon as I get settled in for good. 

But, will all the excitement, I couldn’t bare to just sit and relax in my apartment for the rest of the day. So Ian, Luke, and I met up and got so

lunch. 

The rest of the day, Ian and I walked around the city meeting the shop owners and basically introducing ourselves to anyone we spoke to. And let me just say, Bajram Curri is absolutely breath-taking. The city is located in a valley surrounded by mountains. Some of the mountains even have some snow on them still! And it’s not nearly as dry as it is in Colorado. There’s lots of green fields and vegetation in and around the city. The city is much bigger that I thought. I think I heard so many negative things about Bajram Curri before going there that I really thought that it was going to be a terrible place. But I can’t tell you how much I love it there. There’s so many markets with fresh produce, there’s a street which we call “the gabbi” because it has lots of open-market-like shops that sell clothing and things like that, there’s lots of nice restaurants and cafes, and there’s like three hotels. There’s even a nice “gjiro” which is like a wide-sidewalk path that people like to walk in the evenings. I was really impressed at how developed the city actually was. 

But we did get one bad experience while we were there. That night, Ian, Luke, and I decided to walk the gjiro for a while before going to bed. As the sun went behind the mountains, we headed back towards the center of town. We encountered a group of young boys, which Peace Corps volunteers call “chums” because of their mischievous behavior, who said hello to us in English as we passed by. We replied with a friendly “Hello” and continued to walk. Unfortunately, this sparked their interest and they began to follow us. We ignored, thinking that we would be back in the town in about five minutes and they would eventually leave us alone. However, they continued to follow us and began to throw rocks at us. And they weren’t small rocks. These were rocks the size of their fists and they were aiming at the back of our heads. We all were kind of in shock, not knowing how to handle the situation. It’s funny because we had talked about this exact situation in one of our safety workshops during PST, yet we still didn’t know the right way to handle this situation. We walked a little faster until one of the rocks hit Luke’s leg. He turned around and shouted in English, “Hey! That’s not okay.” I think this intimidated them a little because they stopped throwing rocks. But instead they were just came closer to us and asked us a whole bunch of questions as they followed us back to the center of town. I was so happy when we arrived to one of the main streets. I knew that we were safe now. We finally got rid of the chuns and headed to our apartments to get some rest. Gosh, but it was a little scary to experience such a situation. 

The next morning, I woke up with lots of excitement. It was the day I was going to be introduced to my future workplace and all my colleagues. My stomach filled with all those butterfly feelings and excitement. I met Valdete at 8:45 where we head to get a coffee before going over to the health center (very typical for Albanians). I could tell that my counterpart was much more confident here in Bajram Curri than she was back in Durres at the Counterpart Conference. She was definitely on her game! 

After practicing some more of my Albanian over coffee, we headed to the health center. The health center is a huge building. The top half is dedicated to all the health workers and the bottom half is a laboratory. We went to each of the doors, introducing myself (which Valdete did most of the time) and attempting to have small, simple conversations in Albanian. But it didn’t stop there. We headed all over town, meeting everyone and their mothers! We went to the hospital (which is huge!) and met all the financial/administrative workers. I also got to meet the ambulance driver (yes, Bajram Curri has an actual ambulance which is rare!) who happened to be the brother of my counterpart. We headed to two of the four schools in the city where I met the directors and some of the teachers, and we stopped to meet random people as we passed them in the streets. I was so exhausted by lunch time. At that point, I was so happy that Albanians only work for half the day because I needed a break after all that running around. But overall, I was so happy with how the day went. Everyone was so welcoming, kind, and excited to work with me. I couldn’t ask for a better place to live for the next two years. 

Unfortunately, that was the only day I got to spend in Bajram Curri because of the travel restraints. So the next morning, we schedule a furgon to leave at 11:00 and spent the morning outside of the high school where the city was celebrating “Olympic Day.” Ian and I had got all decked out in sports gear thinking that their was going to be a lot of sports going on. But instead, all that happened was a parade with all the students with one person carrying an Olympic torch around the city. We definitely looked goofy but oh well. Good times!

Dita Olympica në Bajram Curri

So overall, I am over-the-moon happy about my Site Visit. I’m am so unbelievably excited to move to Bajram Curri to start my service. Now, if only I could become fluent in Albanian in the next two weeks, then everything would be perfect! haha. Yeah, not happening. But avash, avash. 

If anything, I think one of the most valuable things I have learned so far is to take everything I hear as a grain of salt and to not jump to conclusions. I was so worried that I was going to hate Bajram Curri and now I can’t imagine a better place. Bajram Curri, here I come!