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."
