My first two weeks here have been quite interesting. School has begun again and the boys are still
enthusiastic about the new school year.
I’m hoping this feeling lasts more than a few weeks. This year we are adding computer classes and
German and Hebrew language class to the class schedule. It looks like I’ll be adding German and
Hebrew to the list of languages that I know a “little bit of”. Soon I will be able to order food and barely
converse in seven different languages.
Last Thursday, the house took a direct hit from lightning
again. Yes, again. This makes four times in the past two years
that I have been in a house that has been struck by lightning. We were working on the computer upstairs in
the Papafingo (the upper level of the house where the schoolroom is located)
and lightning struck the house directly above our heads. When it hit, I jumped back and yelled and
Nick started speaking in tongues! When
we saw debris on the balcony, we realized that the lightning had struck the
chimney. The strike blew debris down the stovepipe and into my wood stove. Our chimney is now slightly twisted and askew
as well as missing a few bits and pieces.
Six feet away….that’s the new record for how close I’ve been to
lightning. I’m not anxious to break that
record any time soon (or ever). Fun fact: I am currently writing this while a vigorous
thunderstorm is passing overhead now. We’ve lost electricity but it will soon
be back on again. This is the new
normal.
It is the harvest season for oregano in Albania. All of the villagers have been in the mountains
harvesting their cash crop. It really is
a case of “all hands on deck”. This
harvest will provide income for the entire year. The rest of their crops are for subsistence
living, meeting their daily food needs.
With the oregano harvest, they will have money to pay for electricity
all year long. After helping with our comparatively
paltry harvest, I have a new-found respect for those who rely on this for their
annual income. It’s a lot of work to
harvest oregano. Once it is dry, the
oregano has to be cleaned of everything that isn’t---well, that isn’t oregano. I’ve spent the past week removing grass, seed
pods, bird poop, spurs, feathers, prickly bits, stems, snails, rocks, weeds,
and leaves. It all has to be done by
hand. The mountain of oregano is slowly
diminishing. I figure I only have two
days left before I am finished with the cleansing phase. While we only had a small amount to harvest,
the villagers have huge amounts to harvest and process. My hat is off to them, lots of respect for
all the hard work that they do
.
On Sunday, we traveled into Tirana to attend a church there
where Nick had been invited to preach.
It takes about an hour and a half to two hours to get to Tirana from our
house. The first half hour of the trip
involves traveling over muddy, potholed, gravel goat paths disguised as “roads”. We were nearing the end of this
leg of our journey when we happened upon a shepherd and her small flock of
sheep. She had around twenty sheep and most
of them were hesitantly veering off to the left while one sheep stood defiantly
in the middle of the road. Another
sheep, seemingly intent on committing suicide, ran full speed towards the
bumper of our van. It disappeared from
my view and then I heard the thump.
Luckily the sheep wasn’t hurt.
The shepherd told us that she would have been grateful if we had killed
that sheep. I guess there’s always that
one sheep (or person) who is always causing trouble for the herd.
I’ll leave you with
that. I am off to find my flashlight again.
