Week Two

This past week flew by. On Monday, I returned home from school and saw Shege (my host mom) working in her garden. I had no idea what she was doing, but it looked like she could use a bit of help, so I offered and she happily accepted. After changing into some grungy clothes I returned downstairs to help. Shege hands me shovel saying “hajde” (come). I enter the garden and she picks of her shovel and starts to turn the earth. I the mimicked her and so started my work in the garden. The soil in Pajove is very dense and is almost clay so it is extremely heavy. Soon al of the neighbors realized that the American was doing manual labor and they came out to watch/laugh at me. The 18 year old who lives in the house behind us could barely control himself because he was laughing so hard. It was worth the pain and the feeling of being an animal at the zoo because Shege and I really connected through that and she really respected me for my work.

The next day, I witnessed my first slaughtering of a chicken. It was actually a much cleaner process than I imagined. Shege pinned down the chicken and beheaded it quite effortlessly. I then learned (by observation and some commentary, which I didn’t understand) how to de-feather it and then butcher it. My family uses ever part of the chicken except for the intestines. We then made a gjelle (soup) with the chicken. I added to the new things I have eaten since being to Albania during that meal. I ate a chicken heart, which was actually better than the liver in my opinion. Shege was nice enough to see that I did not want to eat the gallbladder after having watched her clean out the last meal that the chicken had eaten. At the end of the meal, Shege said that I am going to make the gjelle sometime for the family (I am not sure if that includes slaughtering the chicken, but I kind of have a feeling it does).