Thursday, the 8th, Kumar and I headed for Tirana. We got on a Furgon that was supposed to leave at 9am. It did not depart Fushe-Arrez until 9:45, however and then it headed toward Puke and we did not leave there until 10:45 or 11am. At this point we would usually be about two-thirds of the way to Tirana and instead we were only 20 minutes away from home. It turned into a 5 hour-long trip! When we finally arrived in Tirana, we tried to find “Freddy’s Hostel.” We arrived at the hostel and they didn’t have our reservation. I didn’t think much of it, since I had to make the reservation on the phone and maybe there was a misunderstanding. We later found out that there are two Freddy’s Hostels on the same street. We went to the wrong one, but as we had already paid, we had to stay put. We then headed to the PC office in order to pick up our tickets for the US Embassy Fourth of July party on Friday. We stopped for lunch, where we had crepes with pulled chicken, avocados, and Philadelphia Cream Cheese. They were fantastic! I didn’t realize how much I missed cream cheese. (I realize I talk about food a lot, but it really does make me happy when I can eat something else than pilaf or makaron (pasta). We met up with Alicia (the volunteer in Krume) and we spent the rest of the night with her. We went bowling and then we went to a bar and had some good dark German beer.
The next day Kumar and I got up and met with his landlord, who lives in Tirana. We had coffee and talked about different things. She is a teacher in Tirana. She got her degree for teaching in the 1990s, even though she should have received it much earlier in life. It was when we were talking about this and how I studied diplomacy and focused mostly on Europe that she told me this story about her family during communist times: One day when her father was receiving his food rations, he complained that the food was bad. This statement was enough to sentence him to seven years in prison. Afterwards, no one in his family, kids, nieces, or nephews, were allowed to go to university. I am telling you this because at the end of my conversation with her, she said that she wished someone would tell the story of Albania during communist times. It was a very difficult time and very few people have tried to tell what happened during that time.
When we left the coffee, Kumar and I went to the Albanian History Museum in Skanderbeg Square. It was a great museum. It showed the history of Albania from prehistoric times until the end of World War II. It did not cover the communist time at all (in fact there is no real museum in Albania that does show the history of Albania during communist times. One is being put together in Shkoder, but that is the only one that I have heard of.). It did a great job showing artifacts and telling the story of Albania. My favorite fact was that during WWII, Albania is one of the few and maybe only country, whose militia fought off the Italians and Germans by themselves with no help from the outside. Albania also saved thousands of Jews. They didn’t send any of their Jews to concentration camps and even allowed the Jews of the surrounding countries to enter Albania and even gave them citizenship and papers, so they wouldn’t be deported to camps.
Then at 6pm, we met up with other volunteers and headed to the Wilson School in Tirana for the Embassy party. We ate hot dogs, hamburgers, coleslaw, potato salad, baklava, apple pie, and brownies. They set off fireworks and we talked and caught up with volunteers who we hadn’t seen for a few months. It was a great night!
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