A list of sorts

These are just a  few ideas I've thought of for when people start wanting to send me care packages.No, I don't know my address yet. I also assume ya'll can split stuff up among yourselves so I don't end up with  a million socks and nothing else.

packets of mexican spices

a can of old bay seasoning

some different card games like ninja burger (portable and light are what I'm going for)

a foldable map of ga and a foldable map of the us  (I plan on pinning these up in my apartment to show guests)

some action figures (iron man or yugio if you can find them I plan on giving them to my host brothers as gifts)

a few ga tech and assu shirts ( I wear a size medium or small depending on the cut)

some thicker socks

a few good graphic novels or compilations of them would be great ( I hear the Walking Dead and Y the last Man are almost done hint hint)

My copies of Maus 1&2, Persopolis, In the Shadow of No towers, and 300 ( I have some crazy idea that I might be able to use some stuff from these in my classes)

some buttons or stickers from assu or ga tech ( I am thinking about giving them out as prizes to my future students)

some random magazines that have good photos in them NatGeo, Time have good stuff too but really whatever grabs your attention ( I'm thinking of using them in my classes)

some poetry that uses fairly standard english and covers a wide range of topics and styles ( as much as I like shakespeare and beowolf I don't really see the point in having toil through yet another language with my students) There was one book of poetry that I read in middle school that was about a shooting at a high school that I remember really enjoying ( It was title something along the lines of The Taking of Room 213)

Randomness

Just a list of a few things I've done since the last time I posted.

1) Went to a bachelor party, was forced to drink a lot, circle danced, watched people set the husband to be's favorite sports jersey on fire as a sign that he was no longer a boy.

2) Had some language evaluations. I've been speaking in shqip a lot more since then because the feedback I received was very positive ( I'm getting the feeling that a large part of the evaluation was supposed to be a confidence booster). I've actually had a few fairly lengthy discussion in shqip with my host parents and some other people since then which makes me really happy. I know I've not hitting the grammar points exactly but I am able to communicate fairly well.

3) Learned where my permanent site will be. I'm going to be living in the south east of Albania in a city called Ersake. It's maybe an hour away from Greece and is situated on top of a plateau, which means that even though it's in the south it is much cooler year round than other areas in that part of the country. There are two volunteers living in Ersake at the moment, though one of them will be finishing her service in May so I won't be spending much time working with her. The other volunteer still has another year to go so I'm sure I will see her often. Another volunteer from my training group was also stationed in Ersake so I'll have a buddy going into it.

4) Going along with number 4, I learned what I'll be doing for most of the next two years. My primary assignment will be to work with English teachers in the high school. I would be following in the footsteps of the volunteer who is leaving May. They would also like me to try and build relations with the middle school that is close to the high school. The staff at that school has expressed interest in having a volunteer work with them but have never actually had one work in their school. From what I hear, Ersake hosts quite a few camps during the summer so I'm sure I'll send time working at those as well.

5)My host brother Vasi injured his collarbone after falling off his friends bike the other week. He had to go to the hospital in order to get an xray. He got a sling and is doing ok but gave us quite a scare when we first found out. A neighbor told me and my host mother a few minutes after he fell and we ran over to the field to check on him.

6) My practicum started this week, so I've been teaching classes in the high school and observing my sitemates' lessons. I taught 4 classes this week and will teach 4 more next week. It's been interesting because I've never really taught an entire classroom before and while we have a had few sessions on classroom management and the fundamentals of teaching, I know that I'll be learning something everytime I step in the classroom.

The day things slowed down

When laughter turns to shrieking in less than a minute you know something very bad has happened. Ten minutes later I found myself running down a dirt path into an unknown village in the hopes of finding help. I didn't know the exact phrase for broken leg but I knew enough to get the point across to the people I ran into.

Two trainees from Librahzd had come to Kuqan for the day, and we had gone hiking in the hills. Everything had gone well before that fateful leap. We had just finished a picnic at the summit and were making our way down when we came to a slight ridge were we could either slide through a large patch of Albanian stickerbushes or we could jump over them. The first two trainees had no problem vaulting over the brambles, although their landings left them a bit bruised.

Ben was not so lucky.

As soon as he hit the ground on the other side of the bushes, there was a loud SCHRICKT and Ben started screaming.

Those next few minutes were a flurry of action. I don't really remember bushwacking through the brambles but as soon as I got down I heard Eric on the phone with the PC medics, Lauren and Sam were talking to Ben in an attempt to calm him down. After making it down and helping to give Ben some aspirin, I grabbed my host brother and tore off down the rest of the hill to try and fin help in the next village.

Despite my broken shqip we managed to get a bag with some ice and some small pieces of wood just in case we needed to make a splint. After running back up the hill and getting caught in some stickerbushes, we made it back to the rest of the group. Eric and Lauren had carried Ben down to a lower part of the hill, closer to the road. After I made it back up, Sam and Eric headed into the village to get more help while Eric also talked to other PC Albania staff. Lauren and I needed to keep Ben from passing out so we kept asking him question after question so that he would have to stay with us. Soon, Eric and Sam returned with some PC staff and a taxi. After we all took turns carrying Ben down the rest of the hill and down the path to the taxi, Lauren and Eric rode with Ben to the hospital. The rest of us headed back to Kuqan and told everyone what happened.

Today I found out that Ben broke both the bones in his leg a few inches above his ankle. He will be flying back to America for surgery and is expected to make a full recovery. I really hope he gets better soon and that he is able to return to Albania. He's a great guy and a good friend, and I wish him all the best.

Te lumshin kembat!

I hope you had fun figuring out what a gomar is. Being that I live in a small village I see them almost everyday. So why did I want you to think of a one legged crab with the rhythm of a gomar? Because that's exactly how I dance when I'm sober. I know this because in our cross culture classes we've been learning traditional Albanian circle dancing, and I figured today's post would be about this phenomenon. I know that I won't be able to talk about this in too much detail just because I haven't done much research on it but I thought ya'll could look up more about it if it tickles your fancy.

So circle dances can occur pretty much whenever people want to dance. Outside of my classes I've witness people do it at a bar in Elbasan last Friday and at a wedding I crashed my first week of being here. In Albania, weddings can last for days and for a good chunk of that time the bride and groom lead the party in a circle dance. During that dance guests stuff the bride's dress and the groom's suit with money to help them begin their new lives together. At one point a few minutes before they cut the cake, the bride and groom perform a couples dance. During this dance the husband twirls a handkerchief which is eventually set on fire to show that he is now a man. The couples dance is interesting because from what I could understand in class there are no real assigned moves and it is almost an interpretive dance the shape of which depends on the dancer.

The group dance's on the other hand do have specific moves which everyone must follow or else the circle will end up looking like a slinky. There are multiple styles to choose from. A few are slightly akin to the hokey pokey in that you take a few steps and then push a leg out into the middle. Other versions include leaps and turns are can be quite beautiful depending on the dancer. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that I will probably never attempt such dances as if I did I'm sure I'd end up breaking someone's nose on accident. 

Oh Zot!

So it's my third (almost fourth) week here in Albanian, and I'm having trouble coming up with something to write. Not that I have nothing to talk about. In fact, my problem lies in the opposite direction entirely. I've observed many aspects of society in my short time here ( I've crashed a wedding, taken a tour of a Orthodox Cathedral, seen tons of dolls used to ward of the eye evil hanging off the sides of buildings, even learned some traditional dances) and whenever I sit down to type something everything pops up at once. After much hair pulling, I finally decided to write a bit about how my language classes are going.

During a typical week I have at least four classes on Shqip. For three of those classes I and my sitemates head to a classroom in the high school in Kuqan. The fourth class is in Elbasan and that is where sitemates are broken up and people from different sites are split into groups of about eight. Those classes take place at different locations in Elbasan ( three are held in a high school, one is held in our hub space, and the last is held in the training office). The classes in the villages are taught by two teachers who rotate depending on the day. The sessions in Elbasan are co-taught by two teachers. Each session is about four hours so.

Well that was a bit more technical than I meant it to be so now on to something a little more interesting. I am pleasantly surprised by the amount of Shqip I've managed to acquire so far. Sure I can't hold a conversation on anything all that meaningful yet, but I can buy stuff in a shop, get a ride from one city to another, order food in a restaurant, among other things. I've been able to read quite a few things inside and outside of class because I can get the meanings through context even if I don't know exactly what I'm reading. I do have some problems with pronouncing new words because I'm not sure where the syllables break up. My teacher has told me just to slow down when reading because I've been pronouncing most of the letters surprisingly well. I still have some problems with listening because most people speak very quickly, and because I can't see the words on paper to help with context, I have some trouble understanding long spoken sentences. Outside of the fact that my vocabulary is fairly limited at this point, my other big problem is conjugating verbs. Shqip has three types of verbs and each is conjugated slightly differently depending on the case and the tense. When I start busting out my Shqip my conjugations are always off but most people get what I'm trying to say.

Lately, I've been thinking of was to increase my fluency, and I've come up with a few things I'm gonna try. First and foremost, I'm going to make sure I set aside at least thirty minutes a day to do my homework and go over what I learned in class. I've been really about about working outside of class and I need to stop that now before it bites me in the ass.  I'm also going to make myself learn five new words everyday, not including stuff in my classes. I feel like this is a pretty achievable goal especially since I hear tons of new words and phrases each day. I'm also thinking of picking up a newspaper every time I'm in Elbasan. Seems like a really good way to work on my reading skills that's much cheaper than buying books. Last but not least I'm going to start a reading trade with my host mother, Marsela, tonight. I'm really excited about this because she has old textbooks from when she was in university, so I'm not going to be starting out reading children's books. I know that sounds kinda of weird, but the way I see it I'm going to be reading aloud to work on my pronunciation, and I'll gain new ( and useful) vocabulary from the more advanced books. During my sessions with Marsela, I going to help her work through the exercises she skipped in her books during her English classes.  

Well damn

So I spent a good amount of time writing something to put up here when I was at my house earlier. So I walk to the internet cafe to upload it only to find out that the computer I sat at doesn't have a working usb port. So I guess you'll just have to wait for that one.

For now I will leave you with an image for you to ponder. Imagine a one legged crab with the rhythm of a gomar.

No I'm not gonna tell you what a gomar is you'll have to look it up. Just keep the image in your head until you read my next post and I'll let you know why I told made you think of that.

Let that shqip flow

So as many of you know I've never been the biggest fan of pop music. I've always been more of a rock n roll guy and I probably always will be. Sure there was the occasional song like "Replay" by Sean Kingston or "Empire State of Mind" by Jay- Z that I found to be quite quite catchy, but I've never found much of the genre to be that good.

Having been in Eastern Europe I can say that I am definitely changing my mind about that. I hear tons of pop music everyday; Albanians guzzle American pop music like it's going out of style here. I've often heard my little brother singing bits and pieces of "Boom- Boom Pow " or other songs. Like most Albanians he sings the lyrics without understanding them, which is a good thing because many of the songs are not very appropriate for anyone under the age of 13 or so. Most of the songs remind me all the times Michelle and I would put her ipod on shuffle and play cards or tackle that ridiculous puzzle we bought . It's so funny what reminds you of home when you won't be seeing it for such a long time.

Till next time