Something Short

As I sit in my bedroom with the window open, the curtain is blowing back and forth rather violently for an afternoon. I can even hear the wind at times. For once I can sit here without the fan on in my room and feel pretty much comfortable temperature wise, even though it’s the hottest part of the day. This breeze we have today is very welcome after a week of very still, hot, humid weather. Last night I experienced the most sleepless night I’ve had since my arrival, because even with the fan on and the window open, there was no escape from the heat! As we get deeper into summer, the heat gets hotter. This week my physical energy level was much lower than in the previous two weeks, which helped me understand even more why few people go out in the afternoons.

My landlord and landlady work very hard to provide for their family. Arti has a large cart of sandals which he takes into town every day to sell, and Mariana makes berek pastry every night to sell to shops in the city. Now that beach season is here, they have begun taking food and drinks to the beach to sell to tourists to try to make a little more money. I did enough complaining about the heat this week for a whole family, but when I think about Arti and Mariana outside in that heat faithfully going out to earn money every day to support their family, it reminds me to toughen up and bear it.

Last night Danika and I attended our first authentic Albanian birthday party. Klesti is one of the little boys who lives in the house just in front of us and is in and out of our apartment all the time. He turned six yesterday, so his aunt and mother made dinner (darkë) for the family and a birthday cake (tortë). Enida and Redi (our landlord’s children) sang the happy birthday song in English, so of course Danika and I were able to join in. Then several of the family members pulled bills out of their pockets and gave them to Klesti… it is customary to give money to someone when they have a birthday. The family toasted to him, wishing him many more happy years. In fact, whenever you share a drink or a meal with someone here, it is typical to do a toast with your glass or coffee cup and say, “Gezuar!” which is similar to saying “Cheers!” Tomorrow Klesti and his little brother are going with their mother to Greece to visit their father who works as a field worker during the summers. We are going to miss them!

As of yesterday, it’s official that I am going to stay in Albania for two weeks longer than originally planned. The time is going by far too quickly, and since my future plans are still up in the air, I wanted to stay on just a little longer. Now instead of saying that I have two weeks left, I have an entire month!

This is a short post… okay, shorter than they usually are, but I’ll close with another cultural note: As an unmarried person I am still considered a “girl.” No matter how old you are, you are considered a child if you are unmarried – eight, eighteen, or twenty-eight. The other night I was at the Bishops’ house finishing some work while Danika came back to the apartment. Instead of leaving her alone, our host family wanted to keep her company because they didn’t want her to get scared, at home alone. If we’re out of the house past 9:00 p.m., Mariana always calls to see where we are because she doesn’t want anything to happen to her “girls.” You can rest easy, because we are well looked after :)