Birthday visit and a buffet

This week I was able to experience two events, Albanian style.  The first of these was a visit to an Albanian home to celebrate a birthday.  It is considered rude if you don’t stop by to visit someone on their birthday.  Phone calls and Facebook posts do not count in this culture; you are expected to visit in person.  The boys and I walked down into the village, bearing a gift for the six year old girl.  When we arrived, we were invited into the house (sans shoes) and led to the sitting area.  Because I was the oldest, I was given a certain chair to sit in.   The boys had to sit on the couch.  We were then given homemade plum juice to drink, as well as some berries in sugar water to eat.  While the birthday girl sat on a chair nearby, the adults engaged in small talk.  The hostess then brought out slices of cake for the boys and me to eat.  To my horror, the birthday girl had to sit there and watch us eat her cake.  Her birthday gift sat right in front of her on the coffee table, untouched.  We were expected to eat the birthday cake; but not all of it.  We had to leave a small bit uneaten on the plate.  I’m not sure of the reasoning behind this.  Not every guest who visits receives cake; the family was honoring us by allowing us to eat some of their cake.  After we had finished, we went outside where our hosts loaded up a bag full of fruit from their trees and grapevines for us to take home to enjoy.  We then left and walked back home.  Only after we were gone, was the little girl allowed to open her gift.  As we were walking home, the boys explained to me that there are a lot of established protocols concerning celebrations and visitations.  Hopefully, we didn’t do anything to cause insult while we were there. 

Having toured extensively throughout Europe and Nepal for the past two years, I understand about cultural differences, especially when it comes to personal space and standing in lines.  There is no concept of personal space in Albania.  Period.  When someone greets you, it is not a handshake or simple greeting that comes your way.  Nope.  You get warmly embraced and air-kissed on each side of your face and their hands linger on your arms as they make sure that you are “shum mir” (very well).  For introverts like me, it is quite shocking to have to carry on a conversation with someone else’s face just mere inches from yours.  Also, the concept of standing in lines is quite simply not understood in Albania.  It doesn’t matter where you are, if you want something, you go directly to the person that you want to talk to and you interrupt whatever they are doing----even if they are talking with or conducting a money transaction with someone else.  I cannot recount how many times I have been checking out groceries in the store and someone comes up and breaks in while the cashier is ringing my items up on the cash register.  There are no lines; you simply push your way towards the front until you get what you need.  Both of these things—no personal space and the incomprehension of lines---played out during the other event I was able to experience this week, which was a buffet held at my church.  

The Church held a lunch buffet to celebrate the opening of their new church building.  As I made my way to the end of the buffet table, everyone was grabbing at the plates at the same time.  Continually, men were wedging themselves between me and the person in front of me.  Mind you, I know how to close the gap and I was touching more of the person in front of me than I am comfortable admitting to touching.  I really have no idea how these men were shoving themselves between us.  The man who was behind me was pushing me even further into the person in front of me—which I didn’t think was even possible at first.  Finally when two teenage boys tried to “cut in”, the man behind me lost his patience and intervened by pushing the teenagers’ heads and telling them to wait.  After doing this, the man behind me helpfully pushed me down the buffet line.  He was trying to be helpful and I am grateful for his assistance in stopping the flow of men who were jamming themselves into the line.  I must say that this was the most physical experience I have ever had while attempting to get my lunch.  I think I shall beg off the next time I am invited to an Albanian buffet.  

The birthday girl!

The walk home from the village.

This is their courtyard.  It is one of the prettiest places I've seen in Albania.

Lightning, Oregano, and Sheep!

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.

Here's the pile of oregano harvested off of our land.

Living Life out of a Suitcase

When I set off on this adventure, I wasn’t prepared for all of the ways my life would be changed.  Surprisingly, the most freeing of these changes was being forced to plan for a year abroad with a limit of one suitcase.  Imagine having to carry everything you will need for a year in a suitcase that cannot exceed fifty pounds. While condensing my life into a suitcase, I realized how intimidating this task was going to be.  Room had to be made for all of the following:  Shoes, sandals, boots, coat, rain coat, gloves, pants, shirts, socks, swimsuit, shorts, skirt, hat, scarves, pajamas, toiletries, journals, Bible, pens, tablet, notebook, phone, camera, and sunglasses.   There were some tough decisions that had to be made.  How many shirts are too many?  Did I really need a pair of walking shoes as well as a pair of sandals?  Could I survive with only an eight shirt rotation?  Oh, and let’s not forget about the medicines which I would need.  Medicines must be brought from home as overseas pharmacies are nothing like pharmacies in the US.  Some countries have common medicines like Aleve and Tylenol, but the dates are tremendously expired!  In other countries, the medicines are not even recognizable.  The chemist will look you and listen to your cough and you’ll walk away with a bag of herbs.  All medicines which I would possibly need had to be included in that fifty pound limit.  

So, I went through all of my clothes and I picked out what I thought would be the most appropriate for living away from home for an entire year.  Yes….four seasons worth of clothes that cannot exceed fifty pounds.  This was quite a daunting task.  Clothes suddenly became all about functionality and durability rather than fashion and brand names.  What I quickly came to realize is that I have a lot of clothes.  That’s shocking as I actually have the least amount of clothing of everyone that I know.  Spending an afternoon, I went through everything and kept what I could use on my trip and gave the rest of it to Goodwill.  After doing this, I looked further throughout my home and started going through the rest of my possessions.  It’s amazing how many bits and pieces that one can accumulate over a few decades.  I started getting rid of everything ….furniture, clothes, jewelry, books…basically all of my “stuff”.   The end result was a sparse collection of things that meant something to me such as photos, a few books, and yes…. my rock collection.  

 Living in remote areas of the world has changed me.  The things that mean the most to me now are good health, hot water, Western style toilets, daily food, and a bed with a blanket.  These are the things for which I am extremely thankful.  I’ve seen too many people without these basic necessities and I realize that I am one of the lucky ones.  Looking around, I realize that I have never been happier than I am right now, living an amazing life with only fifty pounds of “stuff” in a suitcase.

People frequently ask me how difficult it is to work overseas away from my family.  It’s hard to explain and put into words how I feel when I leave my family and go abroad to work with missionaries.  Of course it is hard to leave my children behind.  They always walk me up to the security checkpoint at the airport and watch until I get through security and disappear from their view.  As I am waking to my gate, I am a blubbering mess.  And I remain that way as I board my flight.  Somewhere over Nova Scotia, I manage to get my emotions into check and begin to focus on my destination and my mission.  While I am in the States, I miss my Albanian family and the mountains.  Likewise, while I am in Albania, I miss my family and the familiarity of home.  Regardless of where I am, I have one foot at home and the other foot in Albania.  Both families are wonderful, remarkable, and loving.  

 I am one of the lucky few who have discovered their true purpose in life.  Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I KNOW that I am doing what I was created to do in this life.  I help people.  This has always been an inclination throughout my life.  I’ve been lucky enough to find opportunities to do what comes naturally for me.  And I am very blessed to be able to help others in exotic, foreign locales.  I am fortunate to be able to experience all sorts of cultures, languages, customs, foods, and peoples.  I’ve met people from all over the world representing dozens of organizations.  Similarly, I’ve met people all over the spectrum of wealth and privilege; I’ve visited amazing people who live in slums as well as dignitaries in their stately houses and have always received an overwhelmingly friendly reception from both ends of the spectrum.  Three different times I’ve been fed a meal by people who were literally cooking all they had in their houses to feed us.  The poor give sacrificially to show their appreciation.   It would have been rude and insulting to refuse their gift of food, so we accepted their gift.  It is very hard to enjoy a meal when you know that you are consuming the family’s weekly food supply.  Forever, I will remember their loving sacrifice.  Hospitality has always been shown to me in overabundance and I am so grateful for all of the relationships which have been formed during my time overseas.  

I have been able to participate in a wide spectrum of experiences while serving missionaries.  In one instance, we have visited villages carrying a basket of eyeglasses.  As we visited each house, the villagers would try on eyeglasses until they find a strength that was adequate for their eyesight.  If they had eyeglasses they weren’t using, they tossed them into the basket so someone else could possibly use them.  This is a simple, effective solution for providing some relief for those who can’t afford food, yet alone proper eyeglasses.  Another experience involved distributing aid to villagers that included shoeboxes filled with gifts (Operation Shoebox) as well as clothing aid from Danish charities.  It is hard to adequately describe the joy and gratitude from those who are receiving this aid.  

Through my work, I get to experience the joy of helping people.  Many times, these people face insurmountable odds that would simply crush my spirit.  Because of my encounters with the poorest of the poor, I have become much more grateful for everything I have and enjoy.   Being able to do this type of work has changed my mind set, my reality, and my perception of life for the better.  I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything.   I am grateful to my family for giving me encouragement but most of all, for giving me “wings” to pursue what I was made to do with my life.

This post is from Mid-September; apparently I neglected to upload it at the time.

I made it to Albania safely without any problems.

After I left the States, I landed in Rome and took a high-speed train to Naples, Italy.  On the train was a group of four wild middle-aged women from New York City.  They were on vacation without their husbands and they were raising all kinds of hell.  We had a blast on the train!  Once in Rome, I then hopped on a slow local train to Sorento.  No A/C, rats, standing room only....and the train stopped at EVERY station.  Lots of gypsies (beggars, thieves, scammers, pickpockets) along the way.  Finally arrived in Sorento after passing Pompeii.  I went into Sorento with my tour group and had a chocolate and limoncello tasting.  Limoncello is an alcoholic liqueur.  It tastes like grain alcohol mixed with lemons.  The chocolate, however, was divine.  we sang some Italian songs with the Limoncello Master, Anthony. Mostly songs by the rat pack (Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr,) I found my way to the harbor and sat down on a bench to watch the sunset.  An adorable Italian grandmother sat down next to me and started talking...in Italian to me.  I responded with what Italian I knew (probably 20 words or so), but she kept on talking to me.  After a few minutes her daughter joined us.  She could speak English fluently as she is a tour guide in Spain.  So we all three laughed and talked together while watching the sun go down.  I love how friendly Italians are and how they will happily engage in conversation with others.

The next day we took a boat to the Isle of Capri.  The water along this coast is the bluest water I have ever seen.  We visited the Blue Grotto which is a water cave which is accessed by a small four person boat.  Once inside, when you turn and face the cave entrance, all of the water eerily glows iridescent bright baby blue.  It was an incredible sight; I'm not sure it was worth the 20 Euros to see it, but I am glad I at least got to experience it.

After this tour, I started the second part of my tour in Eastern Europe.  Eastern Europe is not generally a tourist destination, even less so now because of the mass migration of people fleeing the Middle East and Africa.  I flew into Prague, Czech and ate a meal at a restaurant that served me my drinks via a train.  Yep.  They put my drink on a flatbed car and delivered it to my table.  Tom would have never left this restaurant!  It was so much fun.  I admit I ordered more drinks than I would have just so I could watch the train come, stop, allow me to take off my drink and put my empty glass in its place, and watch the train disappear down the tracks into the kitchen.

Our first stop on the bus tour was Kutna Hora.  Kutna Hora is a church which is decorated with the remains of 70,000 humans.  Way back in the day, it was a monastery.  One of the monks went to Golgatha and brought back some dirt form the mountain.  Everyone heard about it and decided they wanted to be buried at this church with the holy dirt.  Needless to say, the church soon ran out of room.  So one of the more 'artistic' monks started making decorations out of the human bones.  Another thought it would be neat to construct pyramids of human skulls.  Anyway, the result is an interesting, very creepy church which has made it onto the list of UNESCO heritage sites.

The next day we traveled through Poland, parts of which look a LOT like Switzerland and Germany.  Who knew?!  Now I understand why so many countries have tried to invade this land over the centuries.  We made a stop at the Auschwitz and Berkenau concentration camps.  The experience was quite sobering.  It is chilling to see mankind at its worse.  We then made it to Krakow, Poland which turned out to be one of my most favorite cities in Europe.  The city is absolutely stunningly beautiful with a very large city center square, cobblestone streets, ornate four-story buildings bordering the square, and a beautiful cathedral.  I took a bike tour of the city and in the afternoon I visited the Krakow Salt Mine.  Down deep in the salt mine, the workers have carved out statues, rooms, and even an enormous chapel out of the rock salt.  It is amazing to see that these things were carved, not built.  It definitely was a highlight of the trip.  The next stop was in Zakapone, Poland which could pass as a Swiss ski village if you weren't aware you were in Poland.

Next we moved on into Slovakia.  More mountains, more beautiful scenery.  We stopped and rode in a Russian tank with a kindly, a-little-bit-crazy Slovakian man named Joszef. The tank ride was the best 15 minutes of the entire tour.  He took us straight up mountains, slid down the other side, through a river......nice and muddy of course.  It was a blast!

From Slovakia, we made our way to Budapest, Hungary.  Budapest is a HUGE city, lots of fun, too much to see.  It would take a week to see all of the historical places, monuments, museums, and sights.  We took a dinner cruise on the Danube River.  We then headed over to Croatia.  Getting from Hungary into Croatia is difficult.  Hungary has erected barbed wire fencing all around its borders to keep out the migrants.  They stop every vehicle and search it.  Our bus was there for over three hours while they inspected everyone's passport, searched the bus interior as well as the luggage holds.

The next destination was Plitvice National Park.  It is an unblemished, amazing
natural wild area filled with tall waterfalls and beautiful lakes colored teal and green and blue with waters so clear that you can see the bottom of very, very deep lakes.  We ended the tour in Split, Croatia where I got to spend the night within castle walls.  It was a fun tour and I am glad I was able to experience Eastern Europe.  I see a return trip to Krakow in my future.

Starbucks Red Cup

One of the worst things about social media is the hysteria is creates over the silliest things.  The latest hysteria involves the Starbucks red holiday cup.  Apparently Joshua Feuerstein, an American evangelist who is known for polarizing people using religious topics , posted a short video rant against Starbucks for not placing the words "Merry Christmas" on their cups.  This video lasts barely longer than a minute, yet has managed to offend both Christians and non-Christians alike.  The posts on Facebook are once again portraying Christians as idiots who don't think.   So, well done Mr. Feuerstein, you've increased your Facebook presence at the expense of common sense and civility.  What I'd like to know is who appointed this man as the official spokesman for Christianity?  Why do so many people believe that because this man expressed his OPINION, that every Christian in the country shares his OPINION simply based on the fact that we are Christians?  This is getting ridiculous.

Seeing the posts on Facebook bashing ALL Christians and spewing false information really sets me off.  When people who have a problem with the color of the cup that their $5 coffee is poured into, they really have no idea what real problems are.  They are definitely suffering from first world problems.  I'm serving in a country where women have no rights or value in society.  They are restricted in everything they do from the clothes they are allowed to wear to the places they may go.  I live in a country where the poor have to sneak out at night to get firewood from the forests to heat their homes because if they did this during the day they would be arrested.  These people work from sunup to sundown on their land trying to produce enough food to feed their families.  They can't work any longer or harder than they already do.  Yet their food production frequently falls short of their needs.   This results in crushing hardships for them such as not being able to afford shoes for their children or medical care.  These are not lazy people.  They are people trapped by poverty, low education, and idiotic, centuries-old mindsets.  These are real problems.  If you gave them a cup of coffee, they wouldn't care what color the cup is; they would be grateful to have a coffee.

This paragraph is for those who insist sharing inflammatory posts.  The next time you feel led to share a post whose purpose is solely to inflame emotions at the expense of a group of people, please stop and ask yourself if the subject of your post REALLY a problem. Please fact check your post also.  So many posts are filled with misinformation or even worse, made-up information.  Sharing misinformation and falsehoods makes you look like a fool and you are simply perpetuating the problem of ignorance.

This paragraph is for those people who can see the big picture.  If you truly want to make a difference, do it behind the scenes.  You don't have to go and serve in a foreign country. Take $5 per month from your coffee budget and at the end of the year, use that money to support an organization whose sole purpose is to lift people out of poverty.  Do your research on this and choose your non-profit wisely.  I highly recommend Heifer International.  After visiting a slum five years after Heifer International had provided the residents with ducks,  I saw firsthand how the income from duck eggs has changed the lives of the residents.  The money saved from one or two cups of coffee a month can buy flocks of chickens, geese, or ducks as well as rabbits (the world's cheapest form of protein and quickest turnaround from birth to slaughter) or even a goat.  Please note, I do NOT recommend water buffalo, cows, or sheep because the children are the ones that watch these animals during the day and this means the children would not have an opportunity to attend school.

So, if you're seeing red over this stupid controversy about the color of a disposable coffee cup, I encourage you show your love by helping someone out of poverty.  Another alternative is to just be nice.  And civil.  Let's stop perpetuating stupidity and ignorance.