For those of you on the East Coast who are reading this, I am glad that you have survived the combined assault of the earthquake and hurricane.
Things here have been intense as well. As school approaches, stress levels are rising and feelings of being overwhelmed are surfacing. There are so many things that continue to arise as road blocks to progress. The Albanian culture can cause an efficiency shock when trying to get objectives accomplished. Nothing can be taken for granted and supplies are either not available or time consuming and expensive to acquire. With a limited budget, Mrs. Shahini and staff are struggling to gather everything needed to start a quality school.
One specific area of frustration has been with getting hold of the school licence from the government. For several weeks, we have been told that all the qualifications are met and that the we can pick up the license soon...we have yet to do so. Two weeks ago all the teachers went with Dini and Klementina to Tirana in order to check the status of our license and perhaps nudge the process along by stuffing several Americans into the small office of the official who was overseeing the process to ask how it was going. After this, we were told that the final details would be taken care of and it would be ready by the end of the week. After several more visits to the Department of education by Dini, we still do not have the document. We found out last week that the only thing remaining was a signature from the Vice Minister of Education during the weekly meeting...apparently like many other Albanian officials, he is on vacation. While he may be back this Wednesday (31) it is more likely he will not be able to sign the license until September 7th, the day after we had planned to start school. We have decided not to take any chances and push the start of school back a week to September 13th. However, this development has its advantages. We will be starting school on the same day that public schools here do, but--more importantly--we now have more time to organize everything we need for the start of school. The popular opinion around here was that we could have used more time to acquire supplies and plan for classes...now we have it.
Going back to the trip to Tirana, besides showing our presence at the Ministry of Education, many things were accomplished. We got to eat at a Christian American restaurant which meant burgers, fries, and ketchup. It was great...and while some of the girls stomachs were overwhelmed by this reminder of the big American lifestlyle, I showed no displeasure in finishing what they could not. We also found an educational supplies store and purchased two whiteboards and bulletin boards. We also found the correct size of fluorescent lights that my classroom was missing. Later in the week we hung the whiteboard and the lights in my room, which allowed me to finally finish the exhaustive process of hanging flags on the ceiling. Apart from the LCD projector that will be installed, my room is finally complete...and I must say it looks good.
The past few weeks have seen some changes in personnel as the last two teachers, Milt and Ann Troyer arrived two weeks ago. This couple from Ohio are some of the nicest people you will meet and they have something new around here...real experience in education. Milt has worked in administration and Ann has been an elementary teacher. They have traveled many times before and worked for three years in Tanzania teaching English. Along with helping out in preparing the school, they will be the leaders for the English evening classes. Anyway, after they arrived we had to quickly take advantage of having all the teachers present by taking pictures. This process was rushed because David would be leaving early the next morning. That night we also went to a concert in the city square and were surprisingly invited into an exclusive cocktail party with the Mayor and some other officials. After listening to some speeches, we took advantage of the high class free food. Apparently, at some point we were caught on camera and news of our presence made news throughout Albania. No one ever mentioned it again to me, so it was most likely minor news...but hey, we made the news. In the middle of the night I said goodbye to David and was left to an apartment on my own.
The weekend before the arrival of the Troyers, the whole group of us decided to hike up to the castle on the hill above the city. As a history person, I always love visiting historic sights especially when they involve possible past battle locations. Naturally it did not take me long to start dominating the landscape by climbing the ramparts and structures to get sweet views of the castle and the city below while feeding my adventuresome spirit. It is always interesting to standing in the ruins of the past, while modern civilization is continuing on around you. Also, Dini and I likely played the first golf that has ever been played within those castle walls. After chipping and around and giving the girls some lessons, we drove a couple balls out over the mountainside below...on the side away from the houses.
On the way down from the castle, I stumbled upon a fig tree that had been neglected and found some amazing soft figs. I mention this because since that point I have increased my fruit consumption because it is so good. I usually buy a few soft figs to eat at the produce stand and then take home peaches, nectarines, and grapes. Although more expensive then the vegetables, the fruit is still cheap and a fulfills the need for sweets. Last night, Jessica finally found out how to at least turn on oven in their apartment and baked a thrown together cake, which was quite flat because of a lack of baking powder. When I came to the girls apartment later that night, I was confronted by a smell that had become foreign to me...sweet baked goods. We ended up buying a container of ice cream and eating a dessert that reminded of us of home.
At the school we have continued to work on preparing the school by finalizing our classrooms, scavenging for books to put in the library, discussing school procedures, and creating the invitations/bulletins for the ribbon cutting ceremony that will be on September 2. The last week has been spent mostly lesson planning. We have reported to the school at 8am and not stopped planning till about 6pm when we got hungry for dinner. Since most of us have few resources and little experience, planning has been difficult. To add to the situation, because we are not sure how many students will join the school in the future we cannot know how many sections of students there will be, therefore we are not sure what elective classes we will be teaching. I mentioned last time that we completed the schedule...false, it has been ever-changing and not finalized. As of now we have not had many more students join after reaching our goal of 30. It looks like we will have enough students to open a second section for 10th grade, but there is not enough for a second section of 11th. It is the law that students be taught Albanian language arts by an Albanian, so with the hiring of an Albanian teacher, none of us will have to teach four blocks. However, if we do not get a second section of 11th to make four total sections, then two of us will only teach two classes in the morning, so we will have to teach an evening English class. Unfortunately, that would mean three preps and for a first-year teacher this can be overwhelming.
The craziness at school has taken up all the day and there is little time for anything else. This past week we took a break from our Albanian lessons to prepare for the beginning of school. Being indoors all day also means very few interactions with Albanians, so I have had little time to study or practice the language. It has been frustrating at times to be in a new culture, yet for the most part be contained within the walls of an American school. This also means a lot of time spent around the girls, but for the most part it has been good to get to know them. It is always nice to take a break from school with them and discuss whatever comes to mind.
Despite not feeling very productive after taking the majority of a week to plan and still not feeling prepared to teach my classes, I feel good about this weekend. Yesterday morning, I slept in till 11 then decided to tackle all of the tasks I had been neglecting. I started with a long stretching session to loosen up my back and legs, then I did two loads of wash, folded and put away all my clothes, wet mopped the entire apartment, cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen, and then made brunch before doing some studying and reading. Today, we again gathered at the small mennonite church down the street. There are three Brazilian missionaries who run the church, the staff of our school, and then a couple Albanians who come to the service. We have a time of worship in Albanian with a guitar, followed by a sermon or discussion interpreted by Dini or Klementina. I have enjoyed the experience attending this church to observe how culture can effect the sharing of the Gospel. After church, the teachers met at the Troyer's apartment which is on the 8th floor of one of the taller buildings in the city and is incredibly nice including perhaps the best view in Lezha. We ate a great Sunday afternoon meal and enjoyed a nice time of fellowship before returning to the school to get some more planning done. In addition to these two meeting times, we have also been gathering with the Shahinis once a week at the school to worship in English and share what is on our hearts. This has been a meaningful time of worship and experiencing community that has encouraged me.
The honeymoon period of first experiencing everything new has been coming to a close. The heat has continued to drain us of strength and there has been no sign of rain or a change in the season. We all understood that starting a school in another country was going to be difficult, but frustration has mounted as new problems arise and we feel like we are not making sufficient progress. We are thankful that God has called each of us work at forming this school as part of His plan and need to focus and depend on God to give us strength and encouragement. Please pray for each of the staff members, especially Mrs. Shahini, as we continue to work through this process. Also pray that the supplies we are depending on, such as computers and textbooks, reach their correct destinations on time in order for them to be brought here by the members of the school board who are visiting for the ribbon cutting ceremony this upcoming week.
Thank you once again to all those who have supported me and the school on this journey. Although things are difficult at times, I have full confidence that we will pull through and be a great presence in this community. I am sorry that I have not updated often, but days seem to pass by as if hours were minutes. Feeling like there is so much to do and having to take some time away from work leaves little room for much else. I hope you were all able to check out the picture album that I posted on Facebook a couple weeks ago...hopefully more will be added soon.
This is going to be quite an adventure and I cannot believe I have been here almost a month. The fact that summer is over and school is starting in the States seems crazy. It is beginning to set in how much time I committed to here and how much I will miss at home over the coming year. I hope that things are going well with all of you and would love to hear updates over email or Facebook. Despite the frustrations, I am still very much enjoying my time here and am so thankful for all the blessings that I have been given.
God Bless. Falemenderit. Mirupafshim - "Thank you and Goodbye."
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Beginning of the Adventure
Greetings from Albania!
Life has been non-stop for a while now and there has been no time to write a blog post. In addition to the preparations needed to leave home for a year my schedule was comprised of: a family vacation to New York, two days of orientation in Virginia, and two days of packing and saying goodbye before being back down in Virginia for a some commissioning services and preparations before leaving. It was crazy but I got everything accomplished and felt ready for my adventure.
On Monday afternoon, August 1, I was on the way to Dulles Airport with the three girls from EMU who would be my fellow teachers. We all had worries about our luggage being too heavy or too large, but these feelings were soon removed when the lady at the checkout saw our 9 bags and did not bother weighing them. We also did not have to pay the $200 fee for checking a third bag full of school supplies. However, after boarding our plane we sat for three hours before taking off because of inclement weather. We had no chance of making our connecting flight so we made arrangements to fly to Serbia and then into Tirana, Albania. We sat for many hours at both airports before boarding and did not arrive until 1am Wednesday morning in Albania. Our flight to Munich from Dulles was supposed to leave at 6:30pm and Albania is 6 hours ahead of Eastern US time...for those of you doing the math it was quite an exhausting day of travel. Fortunately, we retrieved all of our luggage and our ride was waiting for us to take us to Lezhe.
On the way to Lezhe I got to ride with Dini Shahini. Dini and Klementina are the couple that dreamed and formed this school from nothing. They were native Albanians who came to the US to seek a better life, but have now returned to start a Christian school in Lezhe. Although I was very tired, Dini and I were able to have a very informative conversation and I learned that he was a great man and would be someone who I could relate to. Upon arrival at the school, a few pictures were taken before I climbed the steps toward my room on the third floor. I was satisfied to see that, just like my room in Jerusalem, I had to walk out onto the roof before entering the apartment giving me a place to hang with a view.
As I walked toward my bed to sleep, I heard a voice in the dark say, "Welcome to Albania". I had met my roomate David Jost. David is another member of the team who will be teaching at the school starting in January, but he had come during the summer to teach a month of English classes to the students who will be attending the school. I immediately noticed that Dave is very cheerful, friendly, and inquisitive. After talking for about 45 minutes I decided that since it was almost 4am, it was time to sleep.
In the morning, all of us went to a restaurant which was great because we got to try a lot of different food and we had eaten little over the time we had traveled. The food here is good, but more importantly it is very cheap. I have eaten a lot of vegetables and fruit, bread, and cheese. There is sausage along with some chicken, beef, and fish, but I have eaten little meat. The other day I bought 4 tomatoes, 4 peppers, 4 onions, a cucumber, and garlic for $2.00. I have also had a lot of coffee (very strong, but small glasses) because it is an important social reality of the culture. In the evening most of the people walk on the street and socialize.
The days here have been spent preparing for the start of school. We have each been working hard to decorate and equip the classrooms. There is a lot of mainetenance and furnishing to be done in the school and the girls' apartment, so I have often been working with Dini to run errands and work on the school, including a trip to Tirana. We have also been meeting with Klementina to discuss what needs to be done in order to open the school. Much time has been spent building the curriculum and it took all day yesterday to come up with a schedule of classes that will work for the year. There are four classrooms in the building right now and only four teachers for the first semester. The school has reached its goal for the first year of enrolling 30 students and has the potential to enroll 60 students. The school is only 10th and 11th grade for this year meaning that we would have two sections of students, 15 members each, for each grade. With four sections of students, all four teachers and classrooms would have to be used every period of the day. This means we will be working harder than we had orignially planned, but we are excited by the interest in the school.
This week, the girls and I have begun taking Albanian language classes every morning. Ever since I found out about this opportunity I have realized that learning the language was going to be the most challenging part of the experience. This is the first time in my travels that I will need to do language study because in Israel most people speak English and my other travels have been too short-term for language learning to be necessary. Very few people here outside of school speak English, and those who do are limited. If I want to reach out to the people of this community I am going to have to learn the language. It is a difficult language, but I am committed to overcoming this obstacle as well as I can.
On Saturday, we took a break from our work to go to the beach. There is a beautiful beach about 20 minutes away from the school. The Adriatic coast here has darker sand and there are few waves. If it is not windy, the water is quite still and incredibly clear. I could still see my toenails through five feet of water. We also went for a walk to a massive slope of sand that we fooled around on for over an hour. The only problem with the beach is that there is a lot of trash around because the people still often throw trash wherever they want. Today we went back to the beach for the afternoon but there was waves because of the wind. I climbed to the top of the sand and then kept climbing up the mountain that continued to rise high above the shore. I had a great time traversing the slopes with bare feet and finding good overlooks.
The summer English classes that were going on officially ended on Thursday, so we had a picnic at the school to give students mini-diplomas and celebrate with some of the parents. I got to meet a few of the students who will be attending the school and I was impressed with their intelligence and motivation. Most of them speak great English, but a few of them need more work before school opens. I believe that the students are capable of achieving much and I believe that our school will have a much higher quality of education than the public schools. Klementina, who is the principal of the school, is striving to equip the school with all it needs to be a top-notch school and has been able to find good deals on computers, LCD projectors, and textbooks.
My apartment has a kitchen/living area, foyer, bathroom, and one bedroom. We are making arrangements so that when David comes back in January, the large foyer will be converted to a bedroom leaving us with seperate bedrooms and work areas. All of the buildings here have tile flooring. The apartment is basic, but it meets all of our needs and is comfortable apart from the summer heat. The apartment and many of the rooms have no air conditioning, so I have been sweating and hot quite a bit thus far. Each of the classrooms is equipped with air conditioning. It should cool down later in August and then everything should be comfortable. The girls are sharing a nicely furnished 3-bedroom apartment that is a two minute walk from the school.
With the schedule made, we are currently finalizing our four year curriculum, for when the school expands, and a list of possible elective classes. We are beginning to work on a school logo and slogan. We should soon be able to work on building the structure and lessons for the classes we will be teaching. It may seem that coming over a month before the school year begins is a lot, but I think it was necessary because there seems to be never ending questions and preparations that surface when you are opening a school. The experience of administrating for the school will be valuable to go along with our teaching.
In comparison to my expectations, Lezhe is a lot more developed and urban than I thought. It is a growing city and there is no open space, not even space for a full size soccer field. I was hoping to play a lot of sports with the kids here to build relationships, but there is no room. I have played soccer once and it was in a caged-in half-size field where we had to pay to play. Also with the language barrier, it will be more difficult to do outreach than I had thought. With the full workload that I will have teaching, that will definately be my primary focus. With David arriving in January and the school being in motion, I hope to be able to spend some more time focusing on how to reach the community. It is my goal to have basic conversational ability in the language by that time so that I can communicate with the locals. However, with how busy I have been, I have not given much time to thinking about the future and have focused on what I can do to prepare this school.
I have been having a great time so far and have seen that God is behind this school. I am very encouraged by the motivation and talents of the people involved and by the success that we have had in drawing students. It is likely that more and more students will join as we near opening and the people know that this is for real. Please respond with questions if you are interested in something specific. I will try to post pictures soon to give you a better idea of the context that I am working in. I know many of you have been praying and I think your prayers are being acted on. Thank you for all the support that you have offered to me or to this school. We certainly will continue to need prayer and support throughout the year.
That is all for now. Naten e mire - "Good Night."
Life has been non-stop for a while now and there has been no time to write a blog post. In addition to the preparations needed to leave home for a year my schedule was comprised of: a family vacation to New York, two days of orientation in Virginia, and two days of packing and saying goodbye before being back down in Virginia for a some commissioning services and preparations before leaving. It was crazy but I got everything accomplished and felt ready for my adventure.
On Monday afternoon, August 1, I was on the way to Dulles Airport with the three girls from EMU who would be my fellow teachers. We all had worries about our luggage being too heavy or too large, but these feelings were soon removed when the lady at the checkout saw our 9 bags and did not bother weighing them. We also did not have to pay the $200 fee for checking a third bag full of school supplies. However, after boarding our plane we sat for three hours before taking off because of inclement weather. We had no chance of making our connecting flight so we made arrangements to fly to Serbia and then into Tirana, Albania. We sat for many hours at both airports before boarding and did not arrive until 1am Wednesday morning in Albania. Our flight to Munich from Dulles was supposed to leave at 6:30pm and Albania is 6 hours ahead of Eastern US time...for those of you doing the math it was quite an exhausting day of travel. Fortunately, we retrieved all of our luggage and our ride was waiting for us to take us to Lezhe.
On the way to Lezhe I got to ride with Dini Shahini. Dini and Klementina are the couple that dreamed and formed this school from nothing. They were native Albanians who came to the US to seek a better life, but have now returned to start a Christian school in Lezhe. Although I was very tired, Dini and I were able to have a very informative conversation and I learned that he was a great man and would be someone who I could relate to. Upon arrival at the school, a few pictures were taken before I climbed the steps toward my room on the third floor. I was satisfied to see that, just like my room in Jerusalem, I had to walk out onto the roof before entering the apartment giving me a place to hang with a view.
As I walked toward my bed to sleep, I heard a voice in the dark say, "Welcome to Albania". I had met my roomate David Jost. David is another member of the team who will be teaching at the school starting in January, but he had come during the summer to teach a month of English classes to the students who will be attending the school. I immediately noticed that Dave is very cheerful, friendly, and inquisitive. After talking for about 45 minutes I decided that since it was almost 4am, it was time to sleep.
In the morning, all of us went to a restaurant which was great because we got to try a lot of different food and we had eaten little over the time we had traveled. The food here is good, but more importantly it is very cheap. I have eaten a lot of vegetables and fruit, bread, and cheese. There is sausage along with some chicken, beef, and fish, but I have eaten little meat. The other day I bought 4 tomatoes, 4 peppers, 4 onions, a cucumber, and garlic for $2.00. I have also had a lot of coffee (very strong, but small glasses) because it is an important social reality of the culture. In the evening most of the people walk on the street and socialize.
The days here have been spent preparing for the start of school. We have each been working hard to decorate and equip the classrooms. There is a lot of mainetenance and furnishing to be done in the school and the girls' apartment, so I have often been working with Dini to run errands and work on the school, including a trip to Tirana. We have also been meeting with Klementina to discuss what needs to be done in order to open the school. Much time has been spent building the curriculum and it took all day yesterday to come up with a schedule of classes that will work for the year. There are four classrooms in the building right now and only four teachers for the first semester. The school has reached its goal for the first year of enrolling 30 students and has the potential to enroll 60 students. The school is only 10th and 11th grade for this year meaning that we would have two sections of students, 15 members each, for each grade. With four sections of students, all four teachers and classrooms would have to be used every period of the day. This means we will be working harder than we had orignially planned, but we are excited by the interest in the school.
This week, the girls and I have begun taking Albanian language classes every morning. Ever since I found out about this opportunity I have realized that learning the language was going to be the most challenging part of the experience. This is the first time in my travels that I will need to do language study because in Israel most people speak English and my other travels have been too short-term for language learning to be necessary. Very few people here outside of school speak English, and those who do are limited. If I want to reach out to the people of this community I am going to have to learn the language. It is a difficult language, but I am committed to overcoming this obstacle as well as I can.
On Saturday, we took a break from our work to go to the beach. There is a beautiful beach about 20 minutes away from the school. The Adriatic coast here has darker sand and there are few waves. If it is not windy, the water is quite still and incredibly clear. I could still see my toenails through five feet of water. We also went for a walk to a massive slope of sand that we fooled around on for over an hour. The only problem with the beach is that there is a lot of trash around because the people still often throw trash wherever they want. Today we went back to the beach for the afternoon but there was waves because of the wind. I climbed to the top of the sand and then kept climbing up the mountain that continued to rise high above the shore. I had a great time traversing the slopes with bare feet and finding good overlooks.
The summer English classes that were going on officially ended on Thursday, so we had a picnic at the school to give students mini-diplomas and celebrate with some of the parents. I got to meet a few of the students who will be attending the school and I was impressed with their intelligence and motivation. Most of them speak great English, but a few of them need more work before school opens. I believe that the students are capable of achieving much and I believe that our school will have a much higher quality of education than the public schools. Klementina, who is the principal of the school, is striving to equip the school with all it needs to be a top-notch school and has been able to find good deals on computers, LCD projectors, and textbooks.
My apartment has a kitchen/living area, foyer, bathroom, and one bedroom. We are making arrangements so that when David comes back in January, the large foyer will be converted to a bedroom leaving us with seperate bedrooms and work areas. All of the buildings here have tile flooring. The apartment is basic, but it meets all of our needs and is comfortable apart from the summer heat. The apartment and many of the rooms have no air conditioning, so I have been sweating and hot quite a bit thus far. Each of the classrooms is equipped with air conditioning. It should cool down later in August and then everything should be comfortable. The girls are sharing a nicely furnished 3-bedroom apartment that is a two minute walk from the school.
With the schedule made, we are currently finalizing our four year curriculum, for when the school expands, and a list of possible elective classes. We are beginning to work on a school logo and slogan. We should soon be able to work on building the structure and lessons for the classes we will be teaching. It may seem that coming over a month before the school year begins is a lot, but I think it was necessary because there seems to be never ending questions and preparations that surface when you are opening a school. The experience of administrating for the school will be valuable to go along with our teaching.
In comparison to my expectations, Lezhe is a lot more developed and urban than I thought. It is a growing city and there is no open space, not even space for a full size soccer field. I was hoping to play a lot of sports with the kids here to build relationships, but there is no room. I have played soccer once and it was in a caged-in half-size field where we had to pay to play. Also with the language barrier, it will be more difficult to do outreach than I had thought. With the full workload that I will have teaching, that will definately be my primary focus. With David arriving in January and the school being in motion, I hope to be able to spend some more time focusing on how to reach the community. It is my goal to have basic conversational ability in the language by that time so that I can communicate with the locals. However, with how busy I have been, I have not given much time to thinking about the future and have focused on what I can do to prepare this school.
I have been having a great time so far and have seen that God is behind this school. I am very encouraged by the motivation and talents of the people involved and by the success that we have had in drawing students. It is likely that more and more students will join as we near opening and the people know that this is for real. Please respond with questions if you are interested in something specific. I will try to post pictures soon to give you a better idea of the context that I am working in. I know many of you have been praying and I think your prayers are being acted on. Thank you for all the support that you have offered to me or to this school. We certainly will continue to need prayer and support throughout the year.
That is all for now. Naten e mire - "Good Night."
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