my favorite things

I want to preface this post with a couple of things. This past week has perhaps been the most draining week of my service thus far. I use the word draining because a word like, "worst" just doesn't pin this feeling down. It's not that things are going wrong, it's just that I'm exhausted in a way I haven't been in a long, long time. Don't get me wrong, this week has been a mixed bag like any other, and has indeed included some of the more frustrating encounters I have had here in Albania. However, I'm still chugging. The second note is that I began writing this post on January 22nd, exactly one year since my feet first touched Albanian soil. I didn't post it then, and I haven't posted it yet, because I haven't felt like I was done with it, like I had really reflected in the way I needed to. I also feel like these past few weeks have been trying, I had peaks and valleys much higher and lower than normal, and those felt more pressing to me to divulge, or in the case of the drafts that have never made it past my own computer screen, to work through on my own. Anyway, in this moment, I need to fill up my cup, so I am purposefully making an effort to make this post happen.

Year two, I'm ready for you.

Today marks one full year in Albania. Over the last year, there have been ups and downs. Some days I feel like there have been many struggles and few successes. There have been many days that I have questioned my abilities, my impact, or even my motivation for being here. There have been other days that have reinforced every decision I have made and barrier I have fought to climb. But today... today I want to reminisce over the little things that get me through. So now, I present to you, a compilation of my favorite memories, experiences, stories, over this past year.

During PST, I would run nearly every day in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid gaining excessive weight from the massive piles of bread forced upon me each evening. However, I also ran because, if I was running, I was alone. I could process the feelings that hit me the hardest in those first few months after leaving home. I could cry if I needed to, and no one would know if the watery streaks down my face were sweat or tears, at least this was the theory. I could also use that time to connect to my family in a way that was really crucial to me on the days where our schedules just didn't align well enough to make a call, because I could listen to the music that made me think of them and watch the sunset and the moon rise, knowing that I was handing them off to my family for a while. I actually organized a special running list with specific songs for each of my family members, and every day, I would run until the songs ran out. It was a time in my life of adjustment, of learning to let go while learning how to hold on.

The other day I walked into Niku's house and was like, "That's weird, why is there a bundle of blankets on the floor?", then this guy popped out, head on a pillow and all, and that, my friends, is the Albanian experience in a nutshell.

There are several other things during PST that really stick with me. The day I fell in the river, for instance, or the day we followed our youth group up the mountain to visit the church. There is the first time that an Albanian questioned my motive for being here, asking why anyone would want to come here, and letting me know that he was certain I was a spy. The hours spent with little Ledio playing catch or fetching toys as he threw them behind the couch.

There was the first time I got lost in Corovode, confused by the seemingly infinite sets of stairs and twisting and turning roads. It was late at night and I was soaking wet from the torrential downpour, desperately describing what I was seeing to my host father on the phone so he would know where to come looking for me, only to find I was a mere 30 feet from my apartment building.

Then there are the seasons of my life here like the hours I spent soaking in sunshine, sitting in the river, just to escape the horrid heat, or the miles I spent walking around town for no reason other than staying away from home just a little while longer. The little things like the Turkish coffees I have sipped in the company of my morning coffee crew just to keep myself occupied and in a good mood when I was locked out of my office for the umpteenth time or the mornings I splurged on breakfast, just to sit, eat, and read in the company of the sounds of the river. I remember the light of my days in the form of little Rosa the puppy, always excited to play with me as I ran by. I remember the day I ran by and was met by Rosa's mother, who told me Rosa had been stolen. I wept the entire way home, only to see Niku standing there holding four tiny puppies.

Pastrama, in all it's glory.

I've learned a lot of things here. I have integrated into life here a bit differently and more completely than I thought was possible. There are a few memories that really stick with me as moments where I really felt Albanian. The day I fell out of the olive tree, for instance, while helping with the harvest in the olive orchard. The hours of shivering next to giant barrels atop a massive fire, watching and waiting for a piddly stream of raki to fill up a giant bucket. The day I learned how to make pastrama, incidentally also, the day I first witnessed the slaughter and subsequent skinning and cleaning of a sheep. I was still in shock as I sat on the floor of a small cottage in a nearby village, working salt and oregano into strips of meat with my fingers, listening to the music of a homemade pipe, and lying that the smoke of the wood stove was causing the puffiness in my eyes and the tears running down my cheeks.

I set boundaries after that night, and I have never been called to witness a slaughter again. However, I do still participate in the process of preparing and curing the meat afterward. The other day I requested one of my favorite foods, kukurec, and soon found myself in the kitchen, learning the process. When I say kitchen, though, I mean the front patio because, unbeknownst to me, kukurec is just all the innards of an animal cut into strips and tied together with intestines. I still love it though.

I remember the day I found my house and finally felt at peace with my living situation, like the light at the end of the tunnel was finally enough to keep me going. I remember the weekend I moved in, and the joy of sweet freedom and independence. I hold my house so deeply in my heart that, despite having issues with it nearly every week, I defend it and my decision to stay living in it like that house is my child.

I'm the kukurec queen.

I remember watching the seasons change sitting under the grape vine canopy, working through English practice tests, at Iva's house. I remember the phone calls after each test, listening to the concern and anxiousness in her voice slowly turn to pride and confidence over the months and months of practice and preparation.

I remember walking Orena to the bus, on her way to her college entrance exam after weeks of working together on test prep. She stopped me, hugged me, and said, "thank you for believing in me". I cried ugly tears that day. Now I get to watch her live her best life at college in complete jealousy, and be that old grandma who always comments on how mature and different she is every time she comes home.

I'm entirely sure I could continue for hours, but that's not entirely the point of this. I don't need to exhaust my happiness too, so I'll let the other happy memories come for me when I need them. Hopefully this is enough to keep me from interrupting my mother's meetings with weepy admissions of how thin I have allowed myself to be stretched, and how much I just need my mom. You see, I've gotten cocky. I used to cut off Shqip and Albanian living in general at 8 pm every night, and purposefully do American things, read, watch movies, and talk to my friends in English. I had to, because it is exhausting to live a life that isn't fully mine, isn't fully comfortable, and to do it in a language that is constricting to expressing myself fully simply due to my elementary ability in it. I've gradually let that schedule go, both out of general convenience but also because I thought, "I've got this. I've got this language. I've got this culture." Over time those hours of Americanness and English every day turned to an hour, minutes, sometimes missing days here and there. This week, I let that boundary go completely. Yesterday it caught up with me. As I made dinner alone in the kitchen for the first time that I could remember since being alone in the airport on my way back to Albania, the exhaustion hit me. I hadn't been at my own house before 11 pm for a week because work on the farm had piled up, Niku had to help, so I had been tagging along.

*makes joke about being in the hen house*

The problem is that expectations are so different here, especially for girls, and even more for girlfriends of a son. So, my people-pleasing midwestern self is stressed from the get go. I don't know how to cook Albanian food, and Albanians are not used to the flavor and spice blasts of American food. I don't know how to clean and pluck chickens. I don't know how to build a fire. My American and asthmatic lungs can't handle people smoking near me. My mind can only handle so much Shqip before it shuts everyone and everything out, and I can only laugh and shrug off so many comments that make my American mind grimace. The problem is that I so desperately want to make others happy that I do things like sit in the smoke, force myself to continue conversations when all I want is to scroll through the news just to read some English, or allow myself to be the stereotype instead of letting my Americanness challenge it. I broke last night. Offhandedly, Niku's dad said, "come back tomorrow!", my stomach dropped, I all but ran home, and found myself desperately calling my parents.

So today, I will set some more boundaries, I will make time to keep my mind in a healthy place no matter how inconvenient it is. I will do what I need to do to be the best person I can be because sometimes it's selfish not to be a little selfish.