A lot...

This week was a lot.  There was nothing too big or major, but many little things can make it a lot.

Inside the bookfair venue

For starters, last Sunday we went to Tirana, Albania for the day to the Tirana Book Fair with Thom's counterparts, Sami and Valon.  When we travel to a Peace Corps country, we must follow the Peace Corps rules for that country.  In Albania, volunteers can't travel the roads after dark.  So that meant, the guys picked us up at 6 am and we headed to Tirana bright and early.  To get to Tirana from Kosovo, we first headed toward Prishtina and then down to Prizren.  The drive in Albania was beautiful.  The roads through the mountains are amazing feats of engineering and the rugged mountains were breathtaking.  To top it off, the temps in Tirana were around 65f (18 c).  The book fair was entertaining and the crowds at the fair were large.  I got two small cookbooks, Salads and Vegetables that were in Albanian.  

The drive from Kaçanik to Tirana

The entrance to the book fair

The view from the second floor

Leaving the book fair

After the fair, we walked to the tourist areas of starting with something called the Pyramids of Tirana.  Click on the link, because the aerial pictures are much better than anything I took.  Although there are still many buildings reminiscent of the communist era, the architecture of new buildings is very interesting and we enjoy walking the wide tree-lined pedestrian sidewalks.  There are many things we will want to visit the next time were are in Tirana, such as the underground bunkers, the parks, and possibly the zoo.  We just did not have time.  We went to Skanderbeg Square which is the large city center space.  There was a beer fest going on, so we stopped to have a beer, before moving on to the Tirana Castle shopping area.  The castle is also known as Justinian Fortress and dates back to the Byzantine era.  Within the fortress walls are small shops and restaurants that incorporated into the walls of the fortress.  Here we stopped to "pi kafe" or drink coffee (or whatever) at a cafe in the fortress shopping area.

A view of the pyramid as we are walking toward it

A sculpture in front of the pyramid

The stairway up

The view from the top

The view towards the mountains

On top of the pyramid

An interesting building that we see from the pyramid

Another pretty area of Tirana

Wide tree-lined walkways

The entrance to the bunker museum

We will tour it another time as we don't have time today

The mosque near Skanderbeg Square

Really large Albanian Flag

Sign for the beer festival

Interesting food cart

Entrance to the castle shopping area

Inside the castle shopping area

One of the shops

Its already decorated for the holidays

An elf on the castle wall

After that we started our walk back to the car, as nightfalls around 6 pm now and in the mountain passes, it can be even earlier.  So we needed to start the trip out of Albanian before dark.  From Tirana, we drove to Prizren where we stopped for quick bite to eat and then we headed back to Kaçanik.

On Monday, there was nothing unusual.  I did finally make it to all five classes.  I have two in the morning and three with the other English teacher in the afternoon.  The past three Mondays, I was not able to make it to all of the afternoon classes as I had other things going on. 

At night, I have been working on writing a small grant through USAID and Peace Corps.  I was behind on the timeline I had set for myself, because of the rollover accident.  The good news is that I have completed the grant and one of our grant committee volunteers reviewed and it is ready to submit as soon as I get prices from my counterpart.  The grant will help us to create an English Language Lab with technology at the school and also create a mobile lab (with a projector and computer) for use by the other English teachers if the lab is being used.  We plan to purchase smartboards, a printer, two laptops, a projector, speakers, and English materials to be used at the school.

This week, my counterpart had a conference in Finland, so from Tuesday through Friday, I was on my own.  Most of the classes went really well, although some were a little noisier than normal.  I was definitely much more tired at the end of the day after doing the classes on my own.  Some of the classes were just amazing and I enjoyed the conversations with the students.

Me with one of my students, she is an identical twin 

and they are both in the class together

Me with students in Electric Installation (this is an all male class)

Thursday, it snowed during the night and we woke to a little snow dusting of snow.  It was a wet, messy snow, but the students still managed to have snowball fights between classes.  We made an unexpected trip to Ferizaj and although it only took 1 1/2 hours, it was just one more thing in an already busy week. 

Friday, was an interesting day.  It started out with whistling winds and in the first hour class, the boys kept saying that it was the devil.  After finishing the worksheet, one students asked me if I had any nieces his age as he really wants an American girlfriend.  I am afraid I can not help him.  I had the same students for first and second hours.  I went down to the teachers' lounge after first hour and when I came back, I saw some of my students coming down the stairs.  They said one of the windows had broken because of the wind and that they were going to look for the director (principal).  I envisioned broken glass all over the place, but when I got to the room, one of the top windows had blown open and the latch was broken.  The students were standing on desks to fix it.  OSHA rules like not climbing on furniture don't exist here and one student was even standing on the ledge of the window.  The students came back that I had seen on the stairs and they had not found the director.  The room was getting very cold and they were not able to keep the window shut, so I went looking for someone to help.  I found the director and he sent a maintenance person and another guy with a ladder.  They brought a drill and screws.  With the help of the students, they permanently screwed the window shut.

Students helping to fix the window

A student holding the window shut

While this was all going on, I got a message from the East Warden volunteer.  The volunteers in Kosovo are divided into three groups and in the event of emergency, our group meets up in Ferizaj. One of the volunteers acts as the warden and sends out messages with the help of the assistant warden.  We knew that we were going to have a drill sometime this fall and it seemed likely to be this week or next, so I was not surprised to see the message that the drill was taking place.  This meant that I needed to leave school without finishing the classes and head back to the apartment.   All of the volunteers are supposed to have a bag prepared that they can grab that contains emergency items.  For the drill, we were to take the next available bus to Ferizaj and meet our group at the Cherry Bar (our consolidation point).  

My director does not speak a lot of English, so I had a little script in Albanian to let him know that I had to leave for Peace Corps reasons and that I could not stay to finish out the last three classes.  My counterpart received the message as well, although he was still at the conference in Finland.  It was unfortunate that my counterpart was also not in class, so I was not sure what would happen with the rest of our classes.  I saw a few of my students and I let them know that I had to leave and that I would not be in class.  I headed back to the apartment and got my things together.  Thom was already there.  We had about 45 minutes until the next bus to Ferizaj.  When it was time, we headed to the bus station and once in Ferizaj, we took the short walk to the Cherry Lounge.  We arrived to find our two Peace Corps staff, Adrian and Arsim, and two volunteers, Noah and Michael.  We waited for about an hour for the rest of our group to show up, Sarah and Cory were on the same bus from Gjilan.  The last to arrive was Paul from Kamenice.  Once everyone was there, we had a short debriefing and then we went to lunch with the other volunteers to McDonals Grill House (not to be confused with McDonalds) even though they use McDonald's napkins.  I was pleasantly surprised with their mixed salad.  After lunch we headed back to Kaçanik.  

The holiday tree in the square in Ferizaj

Thom's macchiato at the Cherry Bar and Lounge

It was an exhausting week.