"Nuk e di" means I don't know in Albanian and it is pretty much what I feel when someone ask me what I am doing on any given day. My counterpart does seem to have a regular schedule, however; it seems much more variable as we near the end of the school year. Classes for the seniors will end on May 16th, so many of the seniors in both the gymnasium and the vocational school are not showing up to class.
On Monday, it was Orthodox Easter Monday and there was not school. That was holiday number two since arriving in Kaçanik. As we had a busy day on Sunday, we did things around the apartment and took some walks, but we did not do much on Monday. We did go to the coffee roaster and we got some freshly roasted coffee and talked with the shop owner.
Tuesday is one of the days that Gazmend is filling in for a teacher at the gymnaz and we were there for four class periods in the morning. We were in the middle of the third hour, when the quality control manager for the school came to the classroom door and asked Gazmend and I to join him his office. I don't know what happened with the students in the class. I am guessing they just got free time. Gazmend explained that he (quality control guy) and the director (principal of the school) felt bad that they had not welcomed me to the school and they wanted to do a presentation for me. Gazmend was there to translate.
I spent about an hour there learning about the system that the quality control guy had set up in Google classroom to track school information including grades, lesson plans, and statistics on staff performance. These are equivalent to the grading, attendance, and professional development systems that we have in most schools in the U.S., but here they are only beginning to use them. There will eventually be a nationwide system, but they are still piloting the system in a few select schools in Kosovo. It was interesting to see what this one person (with the help of a few math teachers) put together using Google classroom and spreadsheets.
By the time, we finished in the office we were done for the day in the gymnaz and headed to a cafe for coffee with Teuta (Gazmend's wife) and their older daughter, Ullija (I am not sure of the spelling). Thom met up with as well, because he was at a nearby barber getting a trim up. After coffee, we headed back to the apartment for lunch and then I had a chance to relax for a bit before heading to the vocational school at 4 pm for second shift classes. All the schools in Kaçanik run two shifts of students. The morning shift is from 8:30 to 12:40 and the afternoon shift is from 2 pm to 6:10 pm. While physical education is a part of the curriculum, the rest of the classes are purely academic and there are no electives. Students and teachers can have different schedules each day and if a teachers doesn't have a class during a particular hour, they just leave. There are always teachers arriving and leaving during different hours of the day.
On Tuesday afternoon, I joined Gazmend for his 11th grade class. The students are studying in the area of auto mechanics and most did not have very good English speaking skills. The entire class was male students. Several did speak English well and Gazmend translated for the rest. I did ask them why it was important for them to learn English and one of the students, whose English was quite good, told me that the computer systems on most cars that they work on are in English.
The rest of the classes that Gazmend had the vocational school were senior classes. In the breaktime between classes, Gazmend and another teacher went to walk around the grounds and make sure all the students were behaving. They came back and said that all the seniors were gone. Teachers that had senior classes just packed up and left. So did we. On the way home, Gazmend let me know that there was a school picnic for the vocational school on Wednesday.
The picnic was at a village called Shtraza and the picnic area is Shtrazha. They are located in the foothills of Mt. Ljuboten. The students were taken up to the picnic area by charter bus and each student paid the teachers that morning before the buses arrived. Teachers were assigned a certain group of students and they were responsible to make sure they paid, were on the bus, and that they returned to the bus at the end of the day.
I, once again, received very few details about the picnic and as always just went with the flow. I did not know when it would end and if there would be food and drinks. But I packed my water bottle and a few snacks and was ready to leave at 8:15 am. I rode to the picnic with Gazmend and the director. We stopped along the way to pick up food (chips and drinks) at a market. This was for the teachers. It seems the students were left to fiend for themselves. When we got to the picnic area, there were food stands and a restaurant off in the woods, so students could buy things to eat. It seems some students brought snacks. There were only 4 buses which means about 200 students (there are around 400 students at the school), but it seems some students drove themselves. I learned from other teachers, that some of them are not yet 18 years old and they were driving illegally.
We spent the day at the park. In the morning, I spent most of my time with 4 teachers. One teachers at the vocational school part of the day and her English was quite good. Mostly, I listened a lot and tried to pick up as much as I could. We four went to the restaurant for coffee in the morning and then came back to sit with the rest of the teachers. I needed a restroom and one teacher told me it was at the restaurant and she would go with me. But then two other teachers got up to go and we instead went to one of the teachers car and drove to another restaurant "Ljuboten Restaurant". This restaurant has a really great view of Mt. Ljuboten and the restaurant was probably cleaner than the one near the picnic area.
We enjoyed a cup of coffee and the view. As we were sitting out the outside tables, three cows wandered up with loud cowbells clanking as the grazed the grass around the restaurant. Eventually, one of the teachers got a call from another teacher back at the picnic site. They were getting ready to cut into the flija and wanted us to return to the picnic to joined them. We headed back and got there in time to enjoy flija (they said it was dairy free) and tomato wedges. After lunch, some teachers went for a walk and invited me along. We got photos with groups of students at picnic shelters hanging out. Most students hung out with the class, as the same group of students are in the same class for all their classes throughout high school and they are very connected.
Gazmend also introduced me to several students who spoke English well and we talked for a bit. They are both seniors and I have not had a chance to be in their classes.
When we got back to the picnic site, some teachers were playing Pishpirik which is a game that I learned to play with the family in Kamenice. There was also a chess game between students and teachers. Chess is very popular in Kosovo. We hung out among the pine trees in the picnic area until around 3 pm, when the students loaded back onto the buses to head back. However; a group of teachers headed to yet another restaurant (Sharri Restaurant) for tea, coffee, or Schweppes (Schweppes bitter lemon is really popular here). They said this was a good restaurant as the teachers on the buses would be able to see us as they drove by and they would be jealous. We sat and talked for a bit. They one teacher has a cabin on Mt. Ljuboten and enjoys back country skiing. Matthew has taken up the sport as well in Flagstaff and I enjoyed seeing the teachers video of his skiing trip last winter.
There was still a bit of snow on the mountain last Sunday. I could see it on the trip to the waterfalls. It was mostly melted on Wednesday. After our break, Gazmend, the director, another teacher, and I left to head back to Kaçanik. We started driving back a different way than we came. It was much more windy and it offered amazing views of small villages and the valley below. At one point, Gazmend showed me two villages off in the distant valley. He said the closer village was in Kosovo, while the distant village was in Macedonia. We went a little further and there was a break in the pass to the south. Gazmend pointed to the buildings in the distance. It was Skopja and we could see it from this mountain road. The views were amazing along the drive. Gazmend pulled over at parking space along the road. It seems we drove this way, because the flija pans needed to be dropped back at the restaurant that was on this windy road. After dropping the pans, we continued back to Kaçanik. I am lucky we had to drop the pans as the views were so amazing.
Thursday was holiday number three for "European Day" and we had the day off. I actually needed the day off after the picnic. It was raining hard in the morning. We did go out to have coffee with Teuta and to talk about have Albanian lessons with her. I will this summer, but Thom will start before then. We had our lessons with Shpresim in the afternoon and we both like him a lot. I don't really want to travel to Ferizaj for lessons, but I think during the summer it will be worth it. I took a walk while Thom had tutoring and I met Annie (the nearby volunteer) and we had coffee together. It is always nice to talk with her.
Friday is the day that we have only two classes in the morning at the gymnaz. Those went really well and then I had coffee at Liburna (a coffee shop close to our apartment) with Gazmend and the director. I mentioned that it was a really short day with only two class and Gazmend made arrangements for me to go back to the gymnaz in the afternoon to go to some classes. Once again, I don't know much about the plan, I am just told to show up at 2 pm. I show up and another English teacher named Bajram is waiting for me. He said they would wait until the second hour for me to go to some classes with a student teacher. While we were waiting, the director comes in they ask me to go and talk with a few seniors that actually came into school. We got to the gym teachers office space where there is a couch and some bean bags and about six students. They are seniors and their English is really good. We sit and talk for a bit. We have discussion about Peace Corps and the three goals of Peace Corps. I find out that the one students is a member of a group that met with Gjethi on Tuesday evening to do a project with them. Thom met him and the student remember talking with Thom. It was great talking with the phenomenal students.
The student teacher shows up and tells me that we will do some classes together, so when the bell rings we head back to the teachers lounge. We are going to do some tenth grade classes. Gazmend has told me that the afternoon students have better English than the two classes we meet with in the morning. He is right. These students speak English very well, they have brought their books to class and they are much further into the book than the morning students that I have been with. When the read paragraphs in English, they also translate them to Albanian. What a really good skill to have. I visit three classes and I am at the school until 6 pm. Each class is excited to have an native English speaker. In the last two classes, they ask to have a discussion rather than the regular lesson and we do. It is a lot of fun. The last group even asked to have a photo with me. The 10th graders have a field trip next week to Prizren and asked if I could go along. I am not sure that is possible, because I am really never sure of my schedule until it gets here.
When I got done at 6 pm, I was really happy that we had leftover curried vegetables and rice. I was really tired and didn't feel like cooking. We took a walk after dinner and stopped at Prime Bar to see if we could find out more about the hike on Sunday. Between Sami and the young man at Prime Bar, we have the information for the hike and we have Peace Corps approval to go. Tomorrow will be an all day hike to a waterfall. Should be fun.
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