Trench Foot

April 8, 2007

Happy Easter. I’m not counting on the Easter Bunny making the trip to Lezha. Buuuuut, maybe.

A consolation is that Albanians are into dying and coloring Easter eggs. (This is something I didn’t notice a year ago, and am pretty sure is a new development. So what’s coming next? I’m pulling for St. Patrick’s Day and Green Beer). So this was a pleasant surprise, of course, it’s very likely Albanians have been doing this for three-thousand years, I’ve probably been told this, and I’m just an idiot.

My former host family is Muslim, so no dying eggs happening in that house, but I was invited to dye some eggs last night at my neighbor’s house. It was fun, a lot like the egg dying of my childhood that involved balancing an egg on a paper-clip-thing while dunking it in colored water, getting bored with how long it was taking, trying different colors, becoming frustrated with the paper clip, and ending up with a brownish-colored egg.

After drowning a dozen or so eggs I was ready to make my exit and began the routine of saying goodbye, knowing full well this would be met with resistance and I likely wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. There was a crowd at the house, all of whom I needed to say goodbye to and probably chat with, plus, there was definitely going to be an attempt to force dinner on me. To my surprise, I got through the cheek kissing and head bumping and I managed to beg off dinner, compromising for a coffee and raki. The family offered me one of the hard boiled eggs we had dyed, “thanks” I said, putting the Easter egg in my pocket. “No No Beni,” someone said, “it’s for you to eat. You want to eat the egg?” “Soooo, now we all just eat the eggs we dyed a minute ago” I thought to myself. This was a little different. I usually opt for the chocolate over the egg flavored eggs on Easter, but when in Rome I guess.

I peeled the unidentifiably-colored shell – let’s call it mauve – and found that the dye had penetrated through the shell and colored the egg white the same color as the shell. “Should the weak Easter egg dye be able to seep through an egg shell? Was this “dye” really oil-based garbage truck paint? I got this stuff all over my hands! My skin has got to be more porous than an egg shell. What has gotten into my bloodstream?!!” I was panicking.

I looked up to a room of expectant eyes. “Oh man. They really want the American to eat the Easter egg. How much of an insult will it be if I don’t? I gotta finesse this one somehow. What would not eating the egg do to my reputation? I thought. After awkwardly trying to express my gratitude while also saying that “I just wanted to save it,” I got my wits back and explained that “in America, we only eat the Easter eggs on Easter Day” (this was the evening before). My story was considered, the neighbors glanced at eachother with “so you believe this story?” looks. Finally, they accepted my excuse. I finished the raki, gave a few more smacks to some cheeks and came out having made a good impression on my neighbors. I have gotten so good at lying.

4-20-07

I’ve been lucky in that in the last thirteen months I have been free of the viruses and parasites that seem to afflict so many Americans in this country. Stomach issues are the most common ailment. There are lots of horror stories of people being bed-ridden for days, becoming convinced that they need to be cut open and have an alien removed from their stomach. I know people that have had mysterious eye problems and developed allergies that they had never had. John, my site spouse in Lezha, lives under a power-line tower and is confident that he has brain cancer. While my laptop and iPod have been victims of Albania, as far as my own health is concerned, I’m doing fine.

The strangest medical matter that has afflicted Americans that I’m aware of is something called “trench foot.” It’s was common in the First World War among soldiers from both sides who spent days standing around in cold, wet trenches. Their feet would become numb, black and blue and eventually gangrenous. This is a nasty picture: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWfoot.htm

Now, I don’t think anyone’s feet have become gangrenous, but I do know of two Americans that have been diagnosed as having trench foot. It’s only two, but I mean, trench foot?! Doesn’t this seem like something that shouldn’t happen to people? We’re not standing around in frozen mud all day. I’m wearing flip flops right now. It’s strange, Americans come to Albania overly prepared for a place that we anticipate being something akin to a WWI trench – we’ve got serious boots, coats, all manner of fleece and The International Badge of being American, Nalgene water bottles – and people still get something like trench foot.

Now, it can get a little sloppy, but overall, Albania is a lot like Greece. I call it “Diet Greece,” not exactly the white-washed buildings and turquoise water, but not Stalingrad in 1942.

So I don’t know about this trench foot thing. Actually, I do know. It’s really funny. Was this pointless to write about? I’m hungry.

4-27-07

I’m lucky to work in an organization in which most of my colleagues speak English. Of course, this has meant that my Albanian language skills have not just plateaued, but regressed. This probably owes to the fact that I spend most of my time with Americans and Albanians that speak English. I don’t have a host family anymore to chat up and the encounters on the street or in cafés with curious Albanians don’t seem to happen anymore. I suspect that these days when someone around town sees me who doesn’t know who I am there’s someone else nearby who can explain what the guy in flip flops is doing here.

“Hey, who’s that guy?”

“Oh, that’s the American. You’ve never seen him around?”

“No, let’s go talk to him. Does he speak Albanian?”

“Well…., he can tell you he’s from Michigan, his name is Ben, he’s American and he likes ice cream. That’s about it. I’ve talked to him before, he’s really not that interesting. Just kind of stares at you a lot.”

At least that’s what I would say about me. There’s a pretty standard script that I follow whenever I’m speaking Albanian. I can explain the basics about who I am, but if the conversation moves beyond myself I’m done for – some have said that the fact that I can only talk about myself is reflective of my personality, whatever. – so people in Lezha must just be bored with me.

One guy who I hope never loses interest in talking to me, and this is for purely selfish reasons, is a co-worker of mine named Andi. Andi speaks English well, but he has dialect all his own. I cannot imagine what he has read or TV shows he has seen that have shaped his English such as it is. For instance, I present an actual exchange Andi and I had this week, which inspired me to write something about it:

“Now, beni. What am I thinking right now you ask.”

“What’s that? Oh no, I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes, well, of course. So am I hungry? Yes, this is true. So what I am doing for this? I will be going to lunch, and will I invite you? Yes, Beni, I think we should have lunch. Now, where will we have lunch? Yes, so, there are many places to have our pilaf. But, ahh, Beni, what is the best maybe? I say we can go to Café Nostalgia. And why? Well, because, Beni, because Nostalgia has the freshest meat. So, when to have lunch Beni?

“Ummmmm, so you want to have lunch?”

“Yes, of course. Why have I argued this to you? Because I think we should have lunch.”

“How about in twenty minutes or so?”

“Oh Beni, come on man. I’m no spring chicken! And, and, that is how the cookie crumbles.”

That is how Andi talks. And love it. His favorite device seems to be the rhetorical question posed to himself. He can never quite bring himself to asking or suggesting something with out first posing a series of questions to himself. He also throws in a healthy amount of idioms and metaphors that make no sense – and I’ll be personally devastated if they ever do.

I get so much out of my English conversations with Albanians that I think I have a fine excuse for neglecting to improve my Albanian language skills beyond “my name is Ben I am twenty-six.” But, I think I might try to learn Italian.