Valbona Monday

Last week at work, one of the only things I could really understand was that my counterpart and the Hygiene Specialist were planning an environmental health promotional event in Valbona, a beautiful, mountainous touristic town 20km away from Bajram Curri. I was super excited to go! I knew I wouldn’t be much help since I didn’t know the language but I was so happy to see them in action. So, all week, I was translating and studying all the vocabulary I could thing of that had to do with environmental health with the hopes that I might be able to contribute some to the event. 

When Monday rolled around, I headed to work early….too early. No one was there yet. haha. But after I waited for about a half hour, people started trickling in. Little did I know that everyone in the health center was going with us. In fact, they even rented a minibus to drive us up there. 

It was a beautiful ride up! The road winds through the mountains, along the crystal blue Valbona river. However, about 90% of the road leading to the town is all dirt and only wide enough for one car at a time. So instead of taking what should have been a 20-25 minute drive, actually turned out to take about an hour. I thought it was very interesting that the road wasn’t paved yet. Valbona is probably the #1 tourist destination in the north of Albania. People all over the world (mainly from Europe) travel there to experience it’s natural beauty through hiking, camping, and swimming in the cleanest river in Albania. Yet, the road going to Bajram Curri is perfect! Haha. 

Just before getting to the town itself, we stopped at a small local on the side of the dirt road. This was my first real look at the river. I’ve never seen a river as blue as this one! All 20 or so of us strolled into this hidden local, which I thought was for a short coffee/raki break before heading to the town (it’s very common for furgons to take short coffee/raki/food breaks in the middle of their travels). However, when we all took our seats at the tables and couches inside, my counterpart looks at me and calls our “Hajde, hajde Jennifer.” (Come, come). So I stood up and followed her and another specialist that I knew in our office to the bartender/local owner. There, my counterpart handed her a sheet with information about water safety and proper sanitation for preparing food (which I thought was about environmental health before getting there). Her and the other specialist continued talking about the topic (or so I believe) for a few minutes and then my landlord, who is also one of my co-workers, came up the the bar with two small, empty bottles. He filled each of the bottles with water from the tap. As I stared at him in confusion, my counterpart turned to me and said “Laboratory” and then it all came to me! We were here to test the water levels of different locals, not a promotional event! 

So after taking a few photos, we headed back on the bus towards Valbona. The rest of the day, we stopped at each of the locals and did the same routines. Some of the locals were restaurants and hostels as well. So, part of our job included going to one of the guest rooms and evaluating the cleanliness of them. This basically consisted of taking a quick walk through of the rooms and looking at each other for confirmation that it was clean. “Mirë, mirë” was usually the response (Good, good). Oh, and of course my co-worker took pictures of all the rooms and bathrooms….for official documentation of course ;). It was quite an interesting experience.

One of the stops we made was at the main tourist information building which had a basketball court outside. While many enjoyed a coffee break, a few of my colleagues and I decided to play a game. I has dressed all nice since this technically was a work event, but that didn’t stop me from running around that court, kicking some booty. :)

After visiting a few more locals/restaurants, we headed back to one of the first places we stopped and had a HUGE lunch feast. We ended the meal by doing some traditional Circle Dancing around the dance floor. At this point I could tell that this was a big event for my office. Only about 5 of us actually did work, and the others just came for the ride. But I could tell that this was a great way for community bonding in the workplace. Everyone was enjoying themselves. 

After circle dancing for about an hour, the electricity went out, which means time-to-go in Albania. So we all packed into the minibus and headed back to the city.

So yeah, that was my day at work yesterday. :)