Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Getting on top of that Shqip

How should one start a piece about hiking up a mountain? I don't really have a clue so I'll start in the middle and see how it pans out from there.

So there I was leaning against a cube like block on the side of a mountain about 5 miles west of Librazdh. Ben and I were were both trying to push ourselves back onto the path and make our way up the last leg of the mountain. On the way up the mountain the group had split and Ben and I were now the tails of the group which had fallen behind. We had to do something to get our minds off how tired we were and how far we had yet to go. Being that nerds that we are we turned to movie quotes. Soon I was singing “I love block. Block, Block, Block. There it goes down my throat” while Ben asked           “What is this? Why is it here? What does it mean?”. Those ridiculous lines sparked enough laughter that we were able to break free from our lethargy and return to the task at hand.

We had already bushwacked our way up through the foothills close to the highway and crawled our way up a rocky hillside and were now taking an old mining road that wound its way back and fourth across the mountain. The two other volunteers in our group, Sean and Zoe, were further up the path than we were but that was mostly due to Sean's indomitable will ( Zoe was quite the trooper but had only managed to order a plate a fries at the resturant we had a lunch at hours before which meant she had very little energy). Ben and I quickly catch up the the pair and we head up the rest of the path together. We keep thinking that the path must end soon and that we'll be with the other group in no time. Sometime later we here a few distant yells and look around. There on the spire stood some of the other members of group. They were waving at us and telling us to keep going but honestly when we rounded the next bend and saw how much further we had to go Ben and I seriously thought about stopping. Instead decided that perhaps the best way to go on was to try checkpoints like in many of the video games we played before we flew to Albania. So we pointed to a turn in the road and said ok let's go there and then take a break (we were joking that maybe the guy with the mouse would forget about us for awhile while he checked on some other stack of volunteers as we headed towards the corner).

About 30-45 minutes later we finally make it to the base of the spire and the final section.  When we arrived we heard someone talking on a cell pone only to find that Narith, another volunteer, had received a call from a family member and so decided not to tackle the last leg of the hike. We talk with Narith  for awhile and then began our way up the last leg. We had to do some more bushwacking and scramble up some more lose rocks but we made it.

Or so we thought. It ended up that we arrived not at the spire but at a grassy knoll somewhat below it. Here the other volunteers had a made a pseudo basecamp where we found them much on fresh apples and hunks of cheese. Ben and Sean decided to make the final push to the summit but Zoe and I said to hell with it and set about getting some much needed rest.

It's really too bad I hadn't thought to charge my camera the night before. The views were awesome. I'll have to grab some pictures from some of my fellows and put them up here.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Jumping Shqip

So Monday was the first day of school for me and the rest of the volunteers here in Kuqan. I was looking forward to it and while I wasn't sure how it was going to go I would have never guessed in a million years what happened in the first 20 minutes of school.

I walked in to the sparsely decorated chilly classroom and grabbed a desk. They're pretty small because they are made for younger students but you work with what you have right? Anyway as I'm unpacking my shqip ( we're quite puny here in kuqan) my stomach starts acting up and I realize that I really need to run to the bathroom. SO I asked our teacher and she said it was at the end of the hall. I run into the the bathroom and pick the last stall. As soon as I close the door I realize that theres no handle on the inside but I couldn't stop to think about that because of my current status. As i'm finishing my business I start hearing female voices. Thats right I was in the womens bathroom. To make it even worse the door was locked.

So there I am trapped in the womens restroom of high school in a country halfway around the world. I really didn't want to ask for help from the girls because I was think about how the people at the school and in the town would see me. Would they see me as some kind of perv stalking the girls restroom or just an dumb American? SO I text my sitemates and our teacher telling them that I was locked in the last stall of the women's restroom and couldn't get out.

After waiting for what seemed like an eternity ( it was really like five minutes) I start looking around for a way to get out and as luck would have it theres a window right next to me. I check to see how far the fall would be  and seeing that it wasn't anymore than 10 feet I climbed up the sill and jumped out. I landed square in the middle of another volunteers host parents backyard. Her host father then came over started asking if I was ok and what was wrong. I tried to explain but my shqip was pretty bad and I was kinda discombobulated so I just said that everything was ok.

So yeah until there's a lightsaber duel between Darth Vader and Darth Maul at your school my first day of school story beats yours hands down

Monday, March 21, 2011

There will be more later

I promise there will be more later but for now know that everything is really freaking awesome. We spent three days in a hotel in Elbasan and am now living with my host family in Kuqan. The family I am living with are very generous and kind and very friendly. We play cards every night. I hoping soon to know enough shpiq ( albanian) to introduce them to uno. I spend alot of time hanging out with my host brothers who are 5 and ten years old.

Like I said I promise to put more up soon bye for now

Saturday, March 12, 2011