First good day in a while

So the last few weeks I am been really upset with Albania. First:After a 1 hour talk with my director and supervisor, I realized that after 2 years and many conversations about grants, they had no idea that I could write grants and get money for projects for them, nor even comprehend the idea. Unless a project and money came from the main office in Tirana, they felt nothing can be done or is important enough to do that would warrent a change to their daily routine. To make it worse, my supervisor could not comprehend why she should even try to do extra work/projects/good for the community if it did not directly put money in her pocket. Number 2. Two of my favorite students came to me an said they did not want to do a project that we were starting to work on for Environmental Awareness day. and the other one who did want to, did not show up (feeling sick). Three: My key project worker (student)had not showed up for several weeks. When i asked her friends why they said her father would not allow her to come. Why? They would not say but nor has she informed me.
Yesterday I jumped ship and went to Tirana for a day of relaxation and hopefully a movie. The movie was one I had no desire to see so I headed off to one of my favorite locales to read. I saw Mirva there, who was then visited by her friend and Dianna Catci, former PC worker. After 2 hours of coffee, Her friend left, and Mirva and I had a great relaxing lunch and a local pizza joint. In all turned out to be a great day. Not what I had planned but better.
TODAY was a good day. In my business class I had 5 girls who showed to my last class. They ALL did their homework and showed up for class. The class went well and they all talked, participated, and came up with ideas that they had never thought much about. We talked about successful businesses, and bad ones on first and second impressions..etc...I was very proud of them and as of now wish I had met up with them a year ago. While my head is still full of cobwebs like yesterday. It was a good day.

3 more months and counting

It has been almost 2 months since my last blog entry. Since then I have been to Istanbul, Turkey, Sophia, Bulgaria and Orid, Macedonia. While it had snowed and had many storms the days before we got there, it was clear and cold during our days there. On Feb 4th, my birthday, Leslie and I had a very nice dinner just near our hostel. After 4 days we left wanting to see more, the mosks were incredible, especially the Blue Mosk, the history and culture monuments are worth the once in a life time visit and , the grand bazare was all we had hoped. Only one night I ventured out without Leslie. She just couldn' handle the wild life of a newly 47 year old. That night turned out to be my latest night, meeting up with a guy, then going to another pub, ditching him and hanging with 4 English ladies, the bar owners and some other dude until 4 in the morning. There went a healthy percentage of my travel money..to the bar tab and they wanted to go somewhere else, I however was pretty much done by then. At the Grand Bazar I finally bought my watch. A Panarai. Poor Leslie had to shop with me in many shops, giving her input, me only half listening and going on to the next shop. Finally on about the 3rd day, after I bought my watch she then shopped for pants making me suffer nearly equally...In the end, we got 3 teas, a tradition in the stores while we made or did not make decisions on purchases. On our next stop we met up with John a Peace Corps guy from Bulgaria at the youth hostel, and he showed us around town. Sophia has all the fixings. And was not suffering from the lack of anything...especially fast food and girl friends. For the Superbowl he set us up with reservations at a local "Mexican locale" We got there at 10:00pm had a few drinks and met up with another PC volunteer. Slowly other Americans started filtering into the Bar. By 12:00 am there were 30 or so Americans competing for team loyalty...After eating good food, greasy snacks and beer, 4:00 am rolled around and we all staggered out into the newly fallen 1 foot of powered snow. moving to our youth Hostel. It is so fun to find those pockets of America scatered through the world. The other at the bar, all worked for the government, NGO, or as business consultants, and all had good stories. The other highlight was we saw AVATAR in IMAX 3D. We don;t have IMAX or the 3D theaters in Albanai so this too was a treat along with KFC, Subway and Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks. The movie cost us about a day and a half pay but it was worth it. We took the 8:00pm bus to Orid, Macedonia and arrived in Orid at 3 in the morning, cold wet and very tired. After many discussions with Cab drivers we found one who spoke English and asked him to take us to a youth hostel. He took us to one that was clean, had a good location and a kind owner. He showed us our rooms, we got warm and went to bed. In the morning we found a breakfast on the table and no guy...Then we realized we were his only customers in whole place. It was raining and really windy outside so we sat inside and watched hours of TV. While it was raining and still cold we got stir crazy and went out for lunch then shopping in town. A great little town that I am still hoping to go to again someday. Our trip ended the next morning on a cab/bus/minivan excursion lasting about 12 hours and back in Lezhe. The wet and cold and sitting on buses cause a wicked rash on my butt...too much information...to bad. All in a days travel.

Our Close of Service COS was last month also. I felt it was too early but now I am glad we had it then. Before I got there I felt 3+ months was plent of time. Now am glad it was so early. I still have many things to wrap up, many things to think about, and many good byes to make before I go. It will be a sad and fast next few months.
I also took the Foreign Service Exam...I studied off and on for 6 months for it and nothing I studied was on the test. ARG..Next profession.

Projects: Started another business class. First day 15 kids, next meeting 0 but because the school had a party and no-one told me. The next day 4 and my flakey translators were playing volleyball outside and I had to pull teeth to get them in. After 3 weeks of telling the Director that I needed 15 copies of my lesson for the kids, it finally go done but put me behind another week.

OA kids..I am ready to pull their hair out. I am having a difficult time to get them to work together, or to work at all. I said last time no trips unless they completed a section of our project. One day, after our meeting and much having not been done, they went home worked on it and called saying they had completed all that was supposed to be done. The also said they had 10 kids together to go to the beach and wanted me to take them. I said yes, they all had their parents sign the permission slips and were at the meeting place almost on time. I later read their work and when I saw the quality of what they had done, I had to have them do it again. For Earthday, (April 22) I got some of my former and best students together from the OA group who did not have a job to do and were relyable, to do a project for that day. NOW after 4 meeting, 2 of the 4 are too busy....ARG these kids are just like the adults.
Speaking of which.....my director and Kozeta and I had a sit down talk about my experience with them. While I had for the most part a good experience, I have been forever frustrated and felt I was not utilzed. Having found out why, hell there was no way I could have been utilized in that environment. They insised that work only existed if the main headquarters in Tirana told them to. IN otherwords, even if I could have gotten grants, no-one unless headquarters ordered it, would write joint grants or even do what was required to carry out the project. Needless to say, I left the meeting very pissed off at the entire situation. If I got anything done with them, it would have been 100% on my own and that is not the PC way or sustainable. OK... so my latest adventure was March 22...About a 2 hour walk from my house, but just out my window, is a mountain with telephone transmitter towers. Because of its vantage point to the ocean, to the city, to the world, the communist build bunkers with 100s of yards of tunnels to defend it from the Americans. When we (a volunteer and her Albania boyfriend) hiked up to the top and when we got there, we were greeted by the security guard. After about 30 minutes of political discussion, he showed us the living quarters he shares with the other security guard (72 hour rotating shifts) It was an old underground bunker built to hide from the Americans. Cool for me, but not too clean or comfortable . After that little visit, we left him, then headed to the bunkers that I can see from my house. Very cool treat. Inside were several hundred meters of tunnels/caves connecting to one or two or three others....Unlike American caves/bunkes they had little graffiti, and besides being 30 to 80 years old, were in their original state. For that reason I am clad for two things....Albanians are very lazy and would never think of such a hike...and going inside a communist structure is like appreciating a part of their past they would rather avoid. The real reason is the first. Anyway, inside were old instructions on how to fire the cannons once placed there, rooms, and halls going nowhere and I came across about 30 or so bats just hanging out. I got a good photo of them.