i said hey, what's going on

I was wondering if I would have time to get some writing done today. It has been a long few days, weeks, nearly a year really, but at this particular point in my journey there are a few things that really stand out in my days as being a stamp of sorts of what my life is now. Today is just another day. It's raining a rain that hasn't relented for weeks, the kind of rain that sounds like cattle stampeding down my cobblestone street, the kind of rain that makes me wonder how the riverbeds are keeping up as the river swells ever higher with water, murky with the fall it is washing away with it from the earth. Life stops here when it rains. I can walk down the street, fighting the current of the waters too heavy to fit into the drains, and feel completely alone, like the town, the raging river, the lights, the fresh smells, are all mine. So today, I walked home in the rain, making mental predictions of how many students would brave the rain to make it to English lessons, and as it turns out, my afternoon was full of cookie baking, music listening, fuzzy blankets, and a lot of alone time.

Taken 0.4 seconds before I fell face first out of this tree.

It has been just over a month since I moved out on my own in Albania. A lot has happened in the last month. I've learned a lot, cooked a lot, cleaned a lot, and been incredibly frustrated... a lot, so strap in.

There is a whole category of quirks in my life that I just call "Albania things". These are the things like, having a payment due date, but being told that the bills still haven't been received, so come back tomorrow, just to have the same conversation every day for a week and counting. These are the things like, stopping in on a friend to say an early-afternoon hello and ending up in an olive field in your Converse, filling up buckets with fresh olives, all the while wondering what conversation, action, what have you, got you to said olive field. Did you consent to this, or was this one of those things, like so many others, that you just followed like an unknowing dog because you were absolutely not paying attention to the conversation? These are the things like, walking into the market, seeing wild mushrooms, and buying the lot because you haven't seen mushrooms in months, despite having no clue what you're going to make with them. These are the things like, walking into work on time, only to find that everyone is out for coffee, and sitting around in the lobby thinking about how much more time you could've been sleeping.

Fall in the Vodë.

I've been frustrated, felt disrespected, and felt disheartened. However, I took matters into my own hands recently and started a project that can fill my days with something meaningful when it feels like this maze I'm in is filled only by dead ends. One of my biggest challenges here has been working to make this area tourist friendly in many ways, but one big one is working with businesses to create multilingual menus. I realized a while ago that it wasn't just the menus, because whenever I am around, people call on me to translate small talk with tourists. It's this hospitality mindset here that is so much more than making tourist's experiences easy, but also making their experiences meaningful. The people here want to communicate. So, I created online classes to help people to learn the basics and be able to have those conversations. Anyway, it has been really fun and exciting to make, but even more exciting to watch these people grow. The other day, my mom made a comment on the phone that Niku has developed a good accent, and she can tell that he is learning a lot. I don't want to brag, but my mom's approval of my teaching skills is like... come on, where is my degree already?

Glorious waffles.

So in other news, I broke a mirror the other day. Unfortunate really, but I'm unsure whether that had a hand in the fact that the next day, I came home and pulled the handle clean off my front door. I am also unsure if the mirror is responsible for my having fallen out of an olive tree shortly after fixing my door. I'm not superstitious, but I am growing a little suspicious.

However, perhaps the most exciting thing in my life right now are the two bottles of maple syrup that have taken up residence on my kitchen shelf. After patiently awaiting a call from the post office, it took a solid 45 seconds for me to retrieve this legendary package from the legendary Mom V. Anyway, coupled with the mini waffle maker I recently received from my family, I can confidently say that my life here in the Vodë is fundamentally better these days. It's funny the things that make you feel truly at home when it comes down to it. It's funny the things that I have truly missed and the things I really, truly have not. It's true, you don't really know what you have until it's gone. So do me a favor and cherish that Swiffer, the ample selection of cream cheese, actually, just cheese, especially melt-able cheese, and, of course, the glorious aisles of syrup.

So yeah, I made queso and home made chips in honor of Allyson's birthday. I made it out of knock-off laughing cow because it's the only cheese that melts, and it was good, by the way, but she said it looked gross. Happy birthday Allyson, sorry your queso sucks.