this Albanian life

I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday, spewing out all of the thoughts and feelings I have had as of late in response to his simple, "how are you?" There was a certain moment that really stuck with me in that conversation. I said, "I never in my life thought I would want time alone!" There are so many things about culture that make life different in ways that are unexpected. These are the things that manifest in grovelling about the mundane, sudden outbursts over seemingly nothing, and deep divisions that can never fully be crossed. Over the past year, culture has been the single biggest isolater for me. So let me give you a little window into what this looks like.

This is my new office and my KEY to said office. What a ride it's been.

When I arrived in Corovode, it was less than 24 hours before my host family mentioned that I should just stay living with them. When I went out for solitary walks in the evenings, they would ask me with whom I was going. When I first mentioned that I have lived alone for several years in the United States, people asked me what happened to my family. In the beginning, I assumed they meant to ask what was my family up to, jobs, school, and the like. After a while though, I realized that people thought either my family had suffered a tragic accident, or that I had been kicked out. That's the thing, independence is not a thing here. It's a concept that isn't even considered an option on the table for people, and therein lies the problem. See, I love my independence, and I can explain that all day long, but when people don't have a concept of independence being a good or normal thing, their immediate reaction is to associate me with the reasons for independence here. I am not close with my family, my family has disowned me, I am hiding decisions from them, or just that I'm a cold person. That last one has been the worst. I can prove that I talk to my family and that they approve of my decisions, but I can't prove that the love I feel for them is just as strong as the love people feel for their own families here because the way that I show it doesn't look the same as familial love looks here. So, all of the sudden, I'm just cold, uncaring, distant, and that's why I don't want to live with my or any other family for that matter. That's why I had it in my heart to move halfway across the world. That's why I value independence.

Just making sure I'm still apart of my family things. Also Keegan rocked at State Swim! Very proud sister. Will badly photoshop myself onto the podium with you very soon, dude.

Then there are things like, "I don't like that". I was brought up by parents who taught me to observe the niceties. The basics like please and thank you were drilled into me from a young age, but also things like, clean up after yourself, you always "like" and eat the food you are given, and never let anyone think you are the slightest bit picky. In Albania, there is a lot of honesty. If I eat a piece of cake one day, I swear the entire town notices a microexpansion of my stomach, and boy, they tell me. They also will upfront say their critique of food. The thing is, I don't. No matter what is handed to me, I eat it and I say it was delicious. About a month ago, I was handed piece after piece of pastrama, a dried meat with enough salt to me feel like every water molecule has been sucked right out of my body with one bite. With every piece, I said, "That's enough", but was just handed another piece and told to eat more. When my throat literally could not swallow anymore from lack of moisture, I finally didn't reach out to take the next piece coming my way, and instead, repeated myself, "that's enough", and just stared Niku down until he realized I was mad. Later, he asked why I had refused, and at wit's end, I told him that I do not like pastrama. He asked why I did not tell him this information sooner, to which I replied that I am a polite person, and for me, that means never being picky. He was actually mad at me for this, calling it torturing myself for the sake of others. Anyway, we had to make a compromise. A compromise in which I tell him in private all of the things I do not enjoy, and he does what I consider impolite when issues arise, with me still blushing furiously in the background.

My coffee crew came in clutch again, because after months of frustration, Xhuli, the one in the middle, took me in and gave me a new office!

Then there are the gender roles that really get in my craw. I could give you hundreds of examples, but there is one in particular that sums it up best. I am a perfectionist, so naturally I have mastered the art of Turkish coffee brewing. Regardless, the fact that I am skilled in this particular task has only very little to claim in why I am now entrusted this task every time I darken a doorstep. I am a woman, a young girl actually, which means that here, I should be doing the tasks like, cooking, cleaning, and making the coffee. Until recently, I was exempted from these tasks because of who I am, where I come from, and most importantly, the perception of what those things mean. It has always been expected of me to be "above" these things, for lack of a better word, but maybe a more accurate statement would be that it is assumed that I, an American, have others to do my cooking, cleaning, and coffee making. Anyway, I loathe that it is assumed that I am incapable or that my existence is seen as that of a spoiled queen, so I go out of my way to do the work and learn the ways. It was a great plan, in theory, then comes the biggest however. People know I can do the work and learn the ways. Months of following along, doing, learning, however, have landed me in the kitchen, watching the Turkish coffee bubble. Why? Because I have wiped away the American stereotype, all of it, including the part where gender roles don't land me behind the stove while Niku builds a fence. There is always so much work that I never noticed I was doing the work beside women, I was just happy to be allowed off the couch and to get my hands dirty. Now, I just sit there, gears grinding, doing my young girl work as I am called to do it because there is no in between, I can either be what is the Albanian perception of Americans and sit on the couch never cleaning up after myself or fetching my own water, or be what is the Albanian perception of Albanians and stand beside the women doing what women do. To be fair, maybe there is an in between and I just haven't found it yet. Or perhaps a more accurate statement is that I am in the in between, it's just that the in between I have landed in is not what I expected or hoped for.

So these are the hard things, just to name a few crucial ones that make me grovel on a daily basis, because believe me, there are many more. However, I want to leave you with one more cultural difference that has made my life difficult because I think this lesson is one that I have learned and hope dearly to never forget. This morning I was writing my semi-annual report and was faced with a question, "What is one thing you wish Americans knew about your host country?" I pondered for a second, but it hit me square in the face that it was so obvious the one thing I wish Americans would be able to learn and embrace about the culture here. You see, Albanians work on a schedule. At the end of the workday, they go home. At home, they don't talk about work. Instead, people spend their time with their families and friends, and they do the things that are important to them. For me, this was and is frustrating at times. I am an American, and a hard truth to that identity is that so much of who I am is wrapped up in what I do. Meeting an American means that while the first question will always be, out of need for the perception of politeness I would argue, is,"What is your name?", but the second, and the beginning of the rest of the conversation, is, "What do you do?" Sometimes in Albania, I haven't even been asked my name, but rather, the second question comes first, "What's your family like?" Anyway, this is a part of culture here that has really impacted me, not only in how I live my life here, but in a reflection on who I was, and who I fear I will return to being in America. It has made me reflect on what we have become as a people and as a nation. It has made me reflect on what we call a successful or even a good person. So often work is at the center of who we are, what we do, and our perception of how well we are living this life. So, my biggest hope is that I can carry the idea that who I am is more than my job title, and actually has very little to do with my job title at all, wherever I go for the rest of my days.