Weekend memories

Sunday, April 08, 2007:

I find myself accepting the fact that this place is my home more and more every day. This is my third full weekend in country and the people and country is growing on me, more than I probably know. This weekend several of us decided to host our first volunteer social; inviting all the other volunteers to our city in hopes to sit around, have some wine, good food, and conversations that could be about anything and everything.
Yesterday we had 17 people come, which is about half of the whole group. There is a nice little restaurant on the end of the lake that is away from town that has a very nice patio. We sat outside for a few hours to just socialize. More often than not I found myself in between groups of conversations just listening, just watching, just taking in everything; it was a comfortable seclusion. It was great to see other volunteers, and have an event that was not mandatory for the Peace Corps.
Today Rob, one of my site mates, and I took the hour furgon trip into Elbasan for a tour of the city from a volunteer who is currently serving there. I’ve tried to think about how to describe the city, but I’m afraid my words won’t give it justice. The history of this place is phenomenal.
On the way home we happened to catch a furgon home with an English speaking Albanian. After answering many of his questions on the drive home we invited him to coffee to continue the conversation. It is very humbling to hear some of the stories these people have to share. This particular man is married, his wife lives in the same village as I do, but he is forced to work in Greece 9 months out of the year because of the lack of jobs in Albania. He rarely sees his family and works as many hours as he can. Sadly this story is one of many that exist in Albania. It is so difficult to respond to someone who is searching for opportunity, while I’m handed an opportunity of a lifetime on a silver platter. How can I not come off as condescending or arrogant?
While the lack of money and the existence of poverty punches you in the face when you step off the plane, what you learn once you’ve spoken with a few Albanians is that they are very wealthy in love. The pride they have in their country, the love they have for their family, and respect they have for the people and culture is worth more than all the money in the world to these people. And I cannot begin to describe how much I admire that.