Clara update

Clara Update:

She is doing fine.  It has been almost a month since her surgery and she is making  a full recovery, although to the surprise of my neighbors and co-workers, she still only has three legs!  Maybe they think she is like a lizard and someday that stump will turn back into a full functioning leg!  Who knows!  She is learning how to get around with just three legs and doesn't really seem to mind her handicap.  She runs, jumps and can climb stairs with the best of them.  Also, I think that she is becoming more accustomed to her new (mostly) indoor lifestyle.  Inside it's a little warmer by the fire and food and belly rubs are more easily accessible.

Nothing else is really happening here in Berat.  The weather is rainy but luckily not too cold, usually in the low to mid 50s during the days and low 40s at night.  I am becoming better at lighting my wood stove, just as spring is around the corner. Hopefully I can retain my new fire building and starting skills for next winter season.  Still working on tourism projects, as the Tourism Information Office prepare for the busy summer season. 

Back in Berat

Happy New Year 2009!  Hard to believe that my time her in Albania is already into the new year, and that I have 9 months under my belt.  Still feels like just yesterday when we first stepped off the plane.  Speaking of getting off a plane, I should let everyone know that my plane rides back to Albania went much better than the ride home.  No delys, no airline problems, no missing luggage, just an easy ride all the way back.  Perfect end to a great trip home for Christmas.

Things however were not so great when I got back.   The little dog the I have semi-adopted was not well upon my return.  I had received a message from a friend, while I was in Dallas, that Clara had been bit by a dog on her leg and that she wasn't doing very well.  Well.... that was a huge understatement!  I expected to come home to find her with an ugly cut on her leg that maybe should have had some stitches, but instead, her back leg was so mangled I knew that it would have to be removed, and quickly.  

I called my friend in the next city over, about 1 hour and 30 minutes car ride away, and the home of the nearest vet office.  We set an appointment for the next morning for her to have the leg amputated.  Sounds easy, but getting her there would prove to be challenging and, as it turns out, expensive (by peace corps standards).  I ended up hiring a taxi to take us and just wrapped in a towel, not knowing how she would react to her first car ride experience.  She did fine, although she did throw up about half way through our trip.

Got to the vet in Fier, and laid her out for an "examination".  Let me also say that this is nothing like taking your dog to the vet in america.  In fact, I'm not sure that this vet had examined a dog in quite some time.  Anyway, so there she is laying on the cold floor of this one room vet office, and Gensi (the vet) let's us know that he is not comfortable doing the amputation, and that he would just put her down.  That not being and option at this point, I ask if there are any other alternatives.  He calls his professor from university, and he agrees to do the amputation.  So we are off to Tirana, yes, in another taxi!  At least this time we have a dog cage. (Jack is my friend Stephanie's dog from America and he had his create from the plane ride that we borrowed)

So, once in Tirana, the vet there looked at her and listened to her heart and was worried that due to the infection spreading in the body, she may not make it out of the anesthesia.  Without any alternative, that was just a risk that we would have to take.  Stephanie and I left for about an hour and return to find Clara, leg cut at the mid thigh, u awake and ready to go home.  Albanian after patient care is also much different than in the states.  She would go home to Fier and get antibiotic injections from Gensi over the following 6 days, then we would be able to return to Berat.  

The next week she did a little better everyday.  Eating and drinking were big steps and she started to get more strength back.  She also started to hate going on her daily trip to the vet more and more, and with more energy was able to show us just how she felt about getting that injection!  At the end of the week, we returned to Berat.

Since being home, she seems to continue to make good progress towards recovery.  I think that she likes her warm inside bed at night, which is a new luxury, post surgery.  We are going to go back to Fier this weekend for the stitches removal, create return,  and final checkup.  Hoping that she will be a good patient and get a clean bill of health! 

Thanksgiving (s)

Some Friends at our Berat Thanksgiving

Karaoke in Tirana after our Thanksgiving Meal with the Cristina's.

This is the first time the I have been out of Dallas for Thanksgiving, so I thought that I would make up for that by having two, here in Albania.  Our first Thanksgiving was on Thursday.  Embassy and Ex-Pat Families invite Volunteers to their homes on Thanksgiving for some real food and heat... not sure which one I appreciated more! I ate dinner with the Cristina Family and seven other volunteers.  Steve Cristina, basically the Vice-Ambassador, and his Finnish wife Lea, had their cook prepare us a wonderful meal, with Turkey, stuffing, Pies, and even sweet potatoes that Steve brought back from his last trip home to NO, LA.  Everything was fantastic!  The night was topped of by a trip to the Karaoke bar with friends.  We spent the whole long weekend in Tirana with some of our friends from the Embassy and then on Sunday hauled a 15 lb. frozen turkey (from Macedonia) back to Berat on the furgon.  

After letting it defrost for a few days, on Tuesday we began to prepare for out Berat after-Thanksgiving day feast.  Me, Marisa and Corrine, invited Albanians that we work with or teach, or just friends.  We thought that it would be a nice time to share some American culture and get to eat more stuffing!  Corrine helped me prepare the turkey Tuesday morning.  Bear in mind, this is the first time that I have ever cooked a turkey.  I don't even remember the last time that I even watched my mom prepare one.  So the pressure was really on not to ruin this big bird. In the oven at noon and out about 4, the turkey was a success!  Accompanied by stuffing, cranberry dressing, pumpkin pie and pecan pie bars (all from the USA), we laid the table and our guests started to arrive.  

Our Turkey feast got mixed reviews from our Albanian friends.  This is some thing that we are used to by know, after offing up many baked treats, then often times told that they need more salt, or the my banana bread taste too much like banana!  We were just glad to have everyone over and, for the most part, everyone enjoyed the meal.  We sure did!   And in typical thanksgiving style, there are plenty or left overs for turkey sandwiches for days to come! 

My Hands are like Ice Pops!

My back yard...view from my kitchen window.

This week it got really cold!  We had very little power (outages from 9 am to 6 pm), but lots of rain! I am really glad that I have my wood stove to keep me warm.  Sometimes I think that (with out heat) it is warmer outside of my house than inside!  Looking forward to my trip home to American, where there is central heat!

My wood stove

Who ever thought that a girl from Texas would have to learn about installing and maintaining a wood stove!  Well because of the cold winters here without heat in the homes, we are forced to use other means to keep our little bodies warm in the winter.  

Several heat producing options are available to volunteers.  We can use electric heaters, but they use a lot of electricity, and therefore are very expensive.  Plus when we are without electricity, which is frequently in the winter, they only serve as towel racks and dust collectors.  Another option is the gas heater, which is fine, if you don't mind death by asphyxiation on carbon monoxide fumes!  That may be a little dramatic, but the small of the gas tends to be responsible for many headaches!

So the best option, for me, is the wood burning stove.  Problem is that my house was not set up for the appliance.  You have to have a hole to the outside for the smoke to ventilate, you have to have the pipes to connect the stove to the outside, you have to have several cubic meters of wood to burn throughout the winter, and you have to have the stove... none of which I had before a week ago!

So I began my quest to acquire all of the necessities for wood stove construction.

I found a wood stove, that was used, but I really like it and it is kind of cute, not like some of the other stoves that I looked at.  I had some of our guys friends carry it up the three flights of stairs to my apartment.  The girls were on hand to supervise.  Next, I had to arrange for a hole to be blasted out of the side of my wall.  This was to the displeasure of landlord, Pirro.  I am not sure that he had full confidence in my General Contracting abilities.  With the help of some friends from work, I arranged to have some workers come and make the hole.

They arrived on time, equipment in hand.  I had bought the pipes by this time, so that they could accurately cut a precise hole.  I left the room as they began to drill, because the noise from the electric jack hammer was too loud, and there was a lot of dust from the concrete explosion. (luckily I had moved all my furniture and covered it with a sheet)  When I returned to admire the work, I was less than thrilled to see that a huge hole, at least double the size of the 12cm pipes was their best work.  In typical albanian fashion, they left with promises to return the next day to then patch the hole, and applying what I know about Albanian's and promises to work, I knew I may not see these men for a while!

Sure enough days went by, huge hole remaining the new center piece of my wall.  I stuffed it with plastics bags, to keep the birds out, but as luck would have it, the temps dropped and the cold weather blew in, dislodging the bags from their proper place.  Big Mess!

Days later the men arrived and to my surprise, patched the hole with meticulous detail, fitting the pipes seamlessly through to the outside.  I had my wood delivered a few days before and spend some hours hauling it up three flights of stairs.  Now that the stove was ready, I was excited to see how this thing performed!  I wanted to see if all my efforts were worth the wait!

I found that fires are not that easy to light.  It is not as simple as just holding the match to the wood as i had hoped.  I put all my girls scout training to action, and built my little fire pyramid, and then stuffed it with paper and small wood.  When that effort failed, I abandoned my GS teachings and bought fire starter from the supermarket!  With their help I had a fire raging in no time.   I burned my first fire for about 2 hours that night, and was totally disheartened by the lack of heat it produced!  Not willing to raise the white flag without  a fight, I called in the troops the following morning!

Marisa came to the house at 10am the next morning, determined to get the house as warm as an oven.  I was the perfect day for a fire, dreary and wet outside, and we were also facing another day of 9-6 power outages!  We got the fire going after a few tries, and loaded it up with wood.  Together we decided that as soon as we could no longer see our breath, that the stove was beginning to prove its worth.   Over the next 4 hours, and several Phase 10 card games later, the room did heat up, in fact it was so warm that we were able to sit without blankets for the first time that week!  Very pleased with our work, we were eager to share the warmth with our friends that were coming to visit for the weekend.  All were very impressed and appreciated the warm room we had prepared!

So, now that it is all said and done, I am proud of my new purchase, and look forward to defrosting next to my stove all winter long! 

Mom goes Home; A summery of her visit

Many of you know that my mom came to Albania for a month long visit.  I think that she got a pretty good taste of the life of a volunteer.  She was so good about email updates of the things that we did during her time her that I have been a little lazy!  So, time to get back to it.  Here is a summary of the things that we did during her visit.

We made a trip to Bogove, a town only about an hour and a half bus trip from Berat. The town is the water source for the whole Berat region.  There is water flows crystal clear out of the mountain.  My mom and I are pictured at the waterfall, where the fresh water first pools before cascading down to the river and out to the town.  We hiked in to this serene little picnic spot and then met some of my Albanian friends for some lamb back in the town.  They also offered to give us a ride home in their private car, which is a much better alternative to the bus!
You may have heard me mention the garden that our youth group is creating at the local mental facility.  During the time that my mom was here, we funded our project and began some of the initial gardening and and preparation.  Since mom was here, she offered her assistance.  This is a group shot after our firsts days work, in the soon to be, Garden of Hope.
Several cities in Albania are home to ancient castles.  I think that my mom saw a hearty helping of them during her visit.  We saw the really well maintained castle in Gjirokastra, the ruins of the oldest inhabited castle in all of Europe, which is in Berat, and then the castle in Shkoder, which mostly offers a nice birds eye view of the city below.  This is us inside the castle of Shkoder.
Our weather was really perfect during the whole trip.  Days were in the 70's, sometimes even 80's, and the nights were pleasantly fresh.  Nothing sleeping with a hot water bottle couldn't cure.  This is us at the beach, and if we had our swimsuits, we would have been hard pressed to stay out of the water!

All in all it was a great trip.  It was really fun having my mom around in a otherwise sort of lonely place.  I am glad to say that she made it back safe and sound after her 22 hour trip to the USA.  I have been back to life as "usual" here in Berat.  Keeping busy working on a tourism project and still entertaining guest that come in to see our wonderful city!  Looking forward to my trip home in only a few weeks!

Mom's visit to Albania

My mom got here on Sept 29th for a long visit.  We have been able to make a lot of fun trips since her arrival.  From the moment that she arrived, it has been really interesting listening to how she views Albania as a new visitor.  Things that she sees as odd or different, I have just grow accustom to.

We made a beach vacation to the south of Albania and then got to see the country as we drove back up to Berat.  The beaches are really gorgeous here, it's just a shame that Albania does not do a better job of keeping them clean and marketing them to travelers.  Guess that's why I'm here!

We also made a visit back to Belsh, my training village, so that my mom could meet the family who took such good care of me while I was in their home.  We arrived about 2 and spent only one night.  It was really the perfect amount of time. My mom got to see the town, and of course my albania family had prepared a huge feast.  Lots of animals died to create this festival meal!  We had meat and fish and turkey, as well as salads and potatoes, amongst other things.  I am glad that everyone got along (as was to be expected) and that my two families enjoyed each others company.  

This week, Berat is celebrating their invitation to become a UNESCO World Heritage City.  We are hosting quite the party and the Prime Minister of Albania came!  That is a pretty big deal.  It was interesting to compare the difference in security that the prime minister here had to that of Bush, when he makes appearances.  Berisha (the PM) just rolled into town, very little security detail, walked right into an uncontrolled and  unscreened crowd of people and proceeded to make a speech to a crowd of Albanians with no microphone.  That's Albania for you!  Guess you don't know to make all the security arrangements until you have had an incident to learn from.

For the weekend we are going to head to the north and see some of my friends from training.  Then next weekend my mom heads back state side.  Hard to believe that five weeks is over already! It's been a good time.