Going for Coffee

July 12, 2006

After four months, I can usually anticipate an approaching uncomfortable situation involving myself and Albanians. Sometimes these can be avoided, but usually it’s beyond my control and something that I just have to roll with. There have been a few circumstances this week that have left me feeling particularly ill at ease.

The oldest woman I have ever met has been staying at my host family’s house this week. On Monday the mother of my seventy year-old host mother came for what I think is a week-long visit. This is a woman whose grandchildren are my parents age and has great-grandchildren my age. I’ve tried to nail down how old she is but anything that Stergyshe, (great-grandma), has said to me is indecipherable, and neither her children or grandchildren seem to be sure. I’ve gotten ages ranging from ninety and a number in the hundreds that I’m unable to count to or understand in Albanian. She looks every bit of a hundred-and-thirty – although she still gets around pretty well – with apparently only one bad eye, corrected by an inch-thick monocle she wears making her left pupil absurdly magnified. She has a witches nose, long and hooked inward with a wart on the end, like exaggerated stage makeup meant to be seen by people in the fifth balcony.

The family has decided that I need plenty of alone time with Stergyshe. When I’ve been in my usual “Beni wants alone time” spots the last few days Grandma shepherds Stergyshe into the room and sets her up within speaking distance of me. I’ll look up from my book or game of Snake on my cell phone to be met by one enormous eye behind a monocle trying to focus on me. I’m positive Stergyshe finds this at least half as excruciating as I do, but, like me, she is helpless to the whims of my host parents.

I’m not sure of her name and have fallen back on calling her great-grandmother. “Si jeni Stergyshe?” – how are you great-grandma? I ask as clearly as I can. This is met by a giant one-eyed blank stare. We sit awkwardly for a few hours every day, a few brief outbursts from Stergyshe – which I can’t understand but are probably her recollections of the Ottoman Empire – punctuate the silence, I shake my head knowingly.

I do think that Stergyshe likes me. She tends to snuggle up close to me on the couch or at the dining table, doesn’t say much of anything, just hits me with her magnified eye, occasionally petting my shoulder or hand. I never not notice when she’s in the room.



Last Thursday morning a colleague from WV, my NGO work placement, asked if I’d like to get a coffee.

“Sure, where would you like to go Gjovoline?”
“Oh, maybe not now but maybe later Beni, I thought we get coffee and then I can get to know about you, because I have made this my homework when I am not at work to learn more about you and we can talk, okay?” he replied nervously.
“That’s fine Gjovoline, we’ll have coffee today sometime.”
“Yes, this is what I thought also, and then we can talk…..”

Gjovoline really likes to talk to me. At some point every day he’ll corner me at work and talk himself into a circle about the sandwich I’m eating or the shoes I have on. He has an anxious, panicky manner when he speaks English, – it is his third language – but we get a lot further than we would if we spoke Albanian. I do terribly at the office small-talk game in English, in Albanian I can get as far as “it’s hot today!” before I have to flee the situation.

So the day moved along, my coffee date with Gjovoline was still pending at four-thirty when I was getting ready to leave. “Gjovoline, do you want to get coffee after work, or maybe tomorrow?”
“Oh yes Beni, we can go after work today and have coffee maybe we can go and sit and talk with coffee that would be good today after work maybe we will go at seven this is a good time for you to have coffee?”
“Sure, that’s good,” I said, not understanding why this was being put off for two and a half hours.

I killed time over beers with my site spouse John until about six forty-five when Gjovoline drove by. Town was just starting to get lively with the early comers for the evening xhiro, there was good people watching to be had and a leisurely coffee sounded nice. “Where would you like to go Gjovoline?”
“Beni come, get-in, we will go and have a coffee now, we can go wherever you like Beni, get-in the car and we can drive to a coffee, do you think so?”

There were plenty of cafés within walking distance, but Gjovoline seemed to be set on driving somewhere, I wasn’t going to fight this battle. I’m usually pretty good when asked things like “where should we go, what do you want to eat, what movie should we see.” I’m not shy about saying what I’d like to get out of the situation, knowing that replying with “I don’t care,” or “whatever” will certainly lead to the one thing that I had no interest in.

In the car with Gjovoline I hesitated. He gave a few suggestions of places to go, and my fate was sealed as soon as I said “whatever you think is good.” He suggested we drive to the nearby beach town of Shingjin, I went along with the idea. The beach in Shingjin is crowded with hotels, bars, and restaurants, all of which I’m sure serve a fine thimble of espresso. We pulled onto the shore road and began to slowly cruise. At this point I was restless, ready to get out of the car and enjoy a quick coffee before heading home for dinner. We kept driving, to what I assumed was some destination Gjovoline had in mind, talking in our usual way.

“Beni, how are you finding Albania in this time that you have been here with living with families and do you find Lezha to be a good town I think you have lived and seen other cities in Albania do you have family in America that you can speak to about Albania the sea is very nice near Lezha I think….”
“It’s goodGjovoline, things are good.”
“Yes Beni, I think you will find Albania to be a nice place in the summer but winter can might be very cold outside but do you know Beni that the snow does not come to Lezha it is only very cold I think I have heard that snow will come to America in the winter…”
“I don’t like the cold.”

Gjovoline might have been wrapped up in our disjointed conversation, we continued to drive along the shore road for twenty minutes, the hotels and cafés disappeared and the road eventually deteriorated to a dirt path. “So Beni, whenever you find a place that you like we can stop for coffee.”

My reluctance to suggest a venue for coffee had come back to hurt me. Not only had I passed on the opportunity to determine where we would go, but Gjovoline was apparently just going to keep driving until I said “hey, let’s go there.” We might have just driven to Vienna, I’m sure they have good coffee there, hmmmmm.

I said we had better turn back towards civilization and just go to the first place we saw. This turned out to be a grass-roofed, open air beach bar, about twenty feet from the water. Uncomfortable backless chairs that looked like foot rests surrounded a dance floor, a few shirtless guys stood behind the bar, and atrocious euro pop completed the ambiance. Gjovoline and I were the only ones at bar, – why do places have to blast music when no one is there? – they didn’t have coffee, but margaritas were a welcome substitute. We sat on footrests and sipped our umbrella drinks, the music made conversation impossible. I’m sure that Gjovoline was thinking the same thing I was: “why did I ever want to get coffee with this guy?”

I think I'm going to Puke

July 4, 2006

I realized it was the Fourth of July about thirty seconds ago when I looked at my watch. I announced to my colleague sitting next to me that today is America’s independence day.

“Well then, happy fourth of July American independence from the French day Beni,” he offered rather disingenuously, shaking my hand.
“British.”
“Oh, I have seen that movie ‘Independence Day’ with Will Smith,” another co-worker added.
“But I thought the French were in America?”
“They were around, but I’m pretty sure it was the Brits that…”
“Have you seen that movie Beni? With the aliens and the flying ships? I thought it was a very nice movie.”
“Yeah, I did see ‘Independence Day.’ I’m pretty sure the President flies a fighter jet in that thing.”
“Yeah, awesome man!”

So happy Fourth of July, I hope the fireworks are nice. Moving on…

The form of ADD that I have manifests itself in my impatience with the places that I happen to be living in. It usually takes thirty-six to forty-eight hours for me to get bored with any locale, and begin thinking about where I’d like to go next. When I visit a place I compare it to wherever I’m calling home at the time, and, inevitably, come to the conclusion that I would prefer life in this other place. I could spend a weekend in Paris or in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania, and in either place I’d walk around town and picture myself living comfortably there.

I make excuses for places that if viewed objectively would be judged unpleasant by most people. “I like that smell. It’s earthy.”

I make distinctions between two places that are pretty much the same town by different name. “Yeah, but the diner in this town has really good home fries.”

I convince myself that I would fit in and really enjoy living in places that I’ve never been to, only maybe heard one good thing about. “I would definitely like Missoula, I mean the fly fishing is supposed to be great.”

Here, my ADD of place has meant that every weekend I’m cutting town for what I am sure of in my mind are the greener pastures of other Albanian cities. Last weekend it was a trip to the village of Puke – technically it’s pronounced “poo-kah,” but how can I not call it Puke. I wish that the humor in this wasn’t completely lost on Albanians. “I have friends that live in Puke,” has become my favorite thing to say in Albanian to people. This is usually met with:

“Actually Beni it’s Poo-kah, you have friends in poo-kah.”
“Right, I know. But in English Puke means…”
“Poo-kah Beni, please it is called poo-kah.”

No fun at all.

The trip to the land of Puke was a harrowing, mountain clinging, two-hour furgon ride along a road that was about six feet wide. The first twenty minutes were scary, then I settled into a calmness of knowing that there was nothing I could do to prevent us from driving off a cliff, which I was sure was going to happen. I attempted an Albanian crossword puzzle from a newspaper left in the furgon while John, who had been left with the dreaded front seat, dug is fingers into the dashboard and wet his pants about seven different times.

John and I crawled out of the van and took in the sights, sounds, and smells of Puke. Surrounded by mountains in every direction, downtown is one windy, up-hill road, maybe four or five blocks long, it dead ends at a hotel, the standard Albanian cafés surround the kind of cul-de-sac turnaround. Furgons congregate in front of the hotel, the drivers filling the cafés, giving the center of Puke the kind of bustling feel of European plazas. Charming would be a stretch, but for all the harshness of the Stalinist architecture Puke is still a pleasant town.

Friday night John, and I and our two friends we were visiting in Puke, Joe and Kevin, made dinner – Kevin brought Mrs. Dash from home. I think I want to marry that woman – and watched futboll at one of the local watering holes. Saturday we spent hiking around the mountains of Puke.

Joe is from Colorado, and lives up to the stereotype I have in my head of a guy from Colorado. He’s into hiking, rock climbing, kayaking, mountain biking, snowboarding, and has all the designer accessories that seem cool until you see the price tag. He seems to have about three dozen different “packs” – he buys these things like my mother buys shoes – including the one with a “bladder” and a little tube that allows him to drink water from his pack the way a calf would suckle its mother’s teat. He also has all the appropriate ultra light, breathable clothes, hiking shoes, shades, thirty-seven carabineers for who knows what, and other accoutrements.

We had with us as our guide a local kid that Joe and Kevin had met named Genci. Genci spoke excellent English, he had gone to school in Austria. He looked, and, when he spoke English, sounded like the German exchange student that lived with us in high school. Joe showed up in full regalia. Water bottles hanging off of everything, a larger than seemed necessary pack, and something that he claimed was chair but was really just two plastic flaps hinged together. This “chair” probably cost more than any piece of furniture I’ve ever owned. Genci came in a typical Albanian uniform of tight jeans, shoes that look like they’re for women, and a WWF Smackdown t-shirt.

We headed off to the mountains for what was a pleasant day of hiking. Ten minutes by foot from the center of Puke and we were in the middle of stunning scenery. As we suspected, Genci was not the best hiking guide. One, Albanians just don’t do things like climb around in the mountains just because. This meant Genci didn’t really know his away around the hills like he gave the impression he did; two, Genci was generally adverse to doing things like walk uphill or veer off the road we were walking on; three, he was wearing women’s shoes.

“Oh Joe, I think maybe this way here is the way to go.”
“I kinda want to get off this road. I see a path up there going into the mountains.”
“Oh yes okay then. Whatever you want to do. But to my opinion walking in the road is more easier, there aren’t as many trees in our way, and we can see the mountains nicely from here”
“Yeah, we kinda want to hike up the mountains for a little bit. It will be nice on the trail going through the woods. What do you think Ben?”
“I’m with Genci on this one. I didn’t bring enough carabineers to go hiking up in the mountains. Can I get a pull off your backpack bladder.”
“You can just go fuck yourself Ben.”

We did manage to trick Genci into hiking through the mountains. He made it clear throughout the day that he didn’t really want to be doing this, but did so in a “I think maybe this would be a good way, but it’s whatever you guys want to do” way. We enjoyed his company, and I enjoyed his German accent.

Mrs. Dash was once again the guest of honor at dinner Saturday night, that woman just makes things delicious. Followed up by more futboll matches in a smoky café, the only kind of nightlife in Puke.

Sunday was rainy. Given Puke’s elevation, it seemed like we were in the middle of rain cloud, adding another variable to our descent from the city back to Lezha. This time we could see about ten feet in front of us, I just closed my eyes and tried to forget where I was. Only four months ago I would read tragic stories buried in the international news section about a ferry that had 800 people crammed on it that sank, or a goat stampede that devastated a village. Stories like these used to seem far off, the prospect of me ever being one of those 800 people on the ferry was inconceivable. After four months in Albania, and several rides in furgons like the ones to and from Puke, the odds seem to be that I’m bound to be a part of some calamity. My name stands a good chance making it into the New York Times, or at least on the CNN scroll bar. So I’ve got that going for me.