Life's a Beach

June 25, 2006

One week down at my new site of Lezhe. The adjustment curve to living with an Albanian family has been much lower this second time around. Three months ago I showed up at the doorstep of an Albanian family able to say “my name is Ben,” and “thank you.” My language skills now allow me to say things like: “thank you very much; in the morning I eat breakfast; today I went for a walk; I have a pet dog in America;” you can imagine the engaging conversations I’m able to have with Albanians.

Just about every conversation I have with my host family – or any Albanian for that matter – advances to a point where I am no longer understanding what is being said to me or what we’re talking about. In the instances that I’m in over my head, I try to keep up appearances and give the impression that I’m following right along. When the Albanian stops his monologue and indicates that it’s my turn to respond I just fire off a few “mires, shume e mires, pos, kuptojs,” and “ska problems” – “good, very good, yes, I understand,” and “no problem” respectively. In English, the typical conversation I have with an Albanian probably sound something like:

Albanian: Hey Beni, how are you today? Good?
Me: Good, very good, beautiful morning.
Albanian: Beni, what are you doing today?
Me: I am going to work now. Later I will eat lunch. Then I will return to my house.
Albanian: Very good. Hey, did you see the futboll match last night? It was a pretty exciting game.
Me: (hesitating for several seconds, picking out the word “futboll”) Yes, I like futboll, my favorite team is America.
Albanian: Yeah. So how has your time in Lezhe been so far? It’s a nice town, not too small, close to the sea. Have you found the good markets yet? I really like this market down the street, and you should try the café on the corner over there, they do a great pilaf.
Me: (smiling as if I completely understood what was just said to me) Very good, very good, yes, no problem.

This will usually give the poor Albanian that’s trying to talk to me the impression that I’m in agreement with him and we can stop talking about that now, allowing me to escape the conversation.

My host father, who apparently enjoys creating awkward situations, doesn’t let me off the hook as easily. Not only will he continue to prod me with questions, statements, maybe even jokes, that I don’t understand, but he also mocks my propensity for saying “shume mire, kuptoj,” and “ska problem.”

“Oh Beni,” he’ll blurt out whenever I enter a room. And then, barely able to contain his laughter, he’ll add a mocking “ska problem Beni!”
“Si Jeni Baba?” – how are you Baba – I’ll answer.
“Shume Mire Beni! Shume Mire!” Again mimicking my favorite response to any question.

At this point Baba has pretty much brought the house down, Grandma, and whichever of their children and grandchildren happen to be hanging around will double over in laughter. I’m not really bothered by this that much. At least I’m a source of entertainment.

June 27, 2006

A couple of stories from the first two weeks in Lezha.

The Keymaker
John, my site mate in Lezha, and I got a P.O. box in. The Zyre Postare, (Post Office), only gave us one key, this gave John and I the project of figuring out where to go to make a copy of a key. Little tasks, like figuring out when the buses leave, which dyqan, (like a bodega, pronounced “du-chan”), occasionally restocks its shelves, and how pharmacies work – you actually just walk in, say something like “morphine” and they sell it to you – are challenges that offer either a great sense of accomplishment or that of total incompetence. John and I started by trying a few dyqans that had screwdrivers, nails, and other hardware-looking things.

“A mund te ben celes,” – can you make keys? – we would ask. We never got out with a simple “yes” or “no.” We were met with either a drawn out response that left us nodding and smiling, or an interrogation as who we were, where we were from, why we were in Albania, did we like Albania, and would we be interested in marrying someone’s daughter. A few tries yielded directions to a place that we thought could make a copy of a key. We found the appropriate dyqan, inquired about the key, and sure enough, the guy disappeared in the back for a few minutes and returned with copy of our P.O. box key. Success!! We chatted for a minute and the guy didn’t even charge us.

I wasn’t expecting any mail, and hadn’t been to the Zyre Postare yet. I decided yesterday that I’d stop buy just take the celes for a test drive. The key didn’t work, not even close really. It wouldn’t even slide in the key hole, I got down real close to the key hole, examined the key and the slot, turned it over, tried every possible way, nothing. I’m not a locksmith, but this key didn’t seem to be remotely close to the right shape to fit in the key hole. I was literally trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

Did the “key maker” just find some key he had laying around his shop and pass that off on us? Did he cut this thing with any kind of machine or did he just eye-ball it? I’m glad we didn’t get charged.

Plazh Camping
Last Saturday, myself, John, and four other friends from Northern towns decided to head to the plazh, (beach), in the nearby town of Shengjin, about six kilometers from Lezha on the Adriatic Sea. As the plan came together it evolved into a romanticized vision of a campout on the beach. I want to emphasize that it was, for the most part, a enjoyable day and evening, but also one of those ideas that sounds fun and low-maintenance but comes with unforeseen tribulations that require a good deal of maintenance.

The plan was to hike about 30 minutes to a more secluded beach, spend the day relaxing in the sun and swimming, bring some food and beverages, and build a campfire during the evening to sit around and stare at. Easy, relaxing, stress free

We spent the morning in Lezha doing our shopping. It was one of those situations with too many people trying to do something that really one or two should have been assigned to. No one wants to step on any toes, but getting six people moving in one direction to decide on supplies for the day was frustrating for everyone. We were impatient, it was REALLY hot, and we wanted to get to the plazh, this lead to us not buying nearly enough food, WAY too much wine, and forgetting entirely about water.

The walk to the plazh was hot and sweaty through woods that resembled Northern Michigan. We came over a hill, the trees opened up, and below the dune we stood on spread the Adriatic Sea. If our day had a soundtrack this moment would have required a women’s chorus hitting that one open “Ahhhhhhhh” note. We dropped our loads, kicked off the shoes, and ran towards the relief that water offered. The sand was painfully hot on our bare feet. As we ran our strides changed to a kind of sideways high-step in an effort to make as little contact with the sand as possible, I still think I got first degree burns on my feet.

The water was refreshing, after a frustrating morning we were at the beach enjoying ourselves. At this point it was about 10:00 in the morning. Another oversight was failing to think about how much beach, sun, and heat we actually wanted. I have to confess to being the ringleader and demanding that we get an early start so that we would have the entire day to enjoy the oppressive heat. At about noon, I had had enough sun – it doesn’t even get terribly hot until 3:00, and we have daylight until about 8:00 p.m. – and was ready for a snack, a nap, or, ideally, a combination of the two. Our rushed grocery shopping had yielded two kilos of hotdogs, six rolls, a few apples, five bottles of red wine, and a watermelon. I didn’t want any of that.

A nap in the shade was going to have to be good enough. This didn’t work out because of bugs. Mosquitoes are in Albania in a big way – why do these wretched things only fly around in nice, shady places? I tried ignoring them, mind over matter, but after about forty-five seconds I couldn’t take it – it felt like I was literally being eaten by thousands of little bugs. I grabbed my sleeping bag and spread it on top of my entire body. The solution of hiding under the 30 degree, down sleeping bag almost led to me suffocating. A refreshing, shady nap was not in the cards.

At about 4:00, having weathered most of the afternoon, we were all sick of the heat, starving, and thirsty for anything but the now hot red wine that had been laying around all day. Joe and I decided that we would walk back to town and buy the supplies that we didn’t get the first time. We went to the first dyqan we came to, bought them out of snack food and water, – we drank about half the water on the spot – and indulged in some completely melted ice cream bars – they felt like Capri Sun juice bags, we tore them open and pretty much poured melted ice cream in our mouths.

At about 7:00 p.m. the day began to cool off, the sand was safe to walk on, and the beach was very enjoyable. A final swim, bottles of wine we chilled in the Sea, a campfire, and two kilos of hot dogs to look forward to for dinner. Between the six of us we ate maybe a third of the dogs – at the time of purchase I was grumpy and stepped outside of the dyqan, I accept no responsibility for buying TWO F---ING KILOS OF HOTDOGS! Whatever.

The sun went down, the bugs returned, and we all doused ourselves in a combination of insect spray and insect cream – I prefer the spray. The campfire, as they always are, was truly hypnotizing, the only reason I like camping is because it offers the opportunity to stare at fire. When the wood ran out it was time for bed. We all woke up with the sunrise at about 5:00 a.m., feeling quite disgusted by the combination of sweat, salt water, sunscreen, bug spray, and un-brushed teeth that we had going. None of us slept well and we were ready to get the hell away from the plazh. I mentioned how back home after nights like that one I always had a sloppy breakfast at some grease spot to look forward to. This prompted a comparison of our favorite hangover breakfast joints back home.

“This place in Denver, it’s called the Omelet Palace, but you go for the pancakes. Just delicious.”
“We used to go to the Heritage Diner. Great sassy waitresses, terrible coffee, but they had this one breakfast that consisted of everything on the menu for like three bucks.”
“You remember tearing out of the dorms at about 10:28 Sunday morning, half awake, half drunk, trying to get to the dining hall before they closed the omelet station?”

We shared a furgon back to Lezha with a few guys that smelled slightly worse than us. John and I were home, we pointed the others in the direction of where the furgons congregate, I was glad not to have a few hours in one of those things between me a shower, and a bed.

So, again, a few days later the campout at the plazh can be judged as fun. But, typical of things like sleeping in your car and canoeing, camping on the beach is something that sounds really attractive, but for some reason causes one to overlook the work and discomfort that come with it.