Uno and Origami

   Friday afternoon was a momentous day.  It was our first day of driving independently in this country! After half a day of homeschool, we packed up the vehicle (I still don't know what to call it -- I suppose it's like a minivan, but think "European delivery van" with seats) for an overnight in Vlashaj.  Armed with some out-of-date Google maps printouts, we satisfactorily navigated our way to co-op, then high tailed it to beat rush hour traffic in Tirana (while eating ham and cheese sandwiches on chewy Albanian bread) to drive across town, plus another 17 km beyond to reach Vlashaj by 5:30.  

   On Friday evenings there is an informal church service in the ministry center and we wanted to invite the youth to join us on the upper level following church for Uno and popcorn.  Somewhere the message was lost and nearly the entire group of attendees (about 25 individuals between ages 3 and 40) came upstairs for 'game night'.  Needless to say, we were caught a bit off guard by a crowd four times larger than we expected, but Jesus multiplied our 'loaves and fishes' to be just enough!

Poor Abby learned that the "house rules" here vary considerably from the way she's always played!  Of course she was more than good natured about it! ;-)

The crowd dispersed around 8PM and we made up our bunk beds, put the kids down, and collapsed with gratitude that we had made it though the day!

After watching a beautiful sunrise and our neighbors drive their livestock up our street, we ate a simple breakfast Saturday morning and headed downstairs for kids' club.  We told Reni that he had to wear his 'power boots' -- and he did for a while, but was extremely self-conscious in them.  After about 45 minutes we took them off and he was his old self again.

During one of the songs, the children march one way,

then change direction and march the other.

Ellie loved the singing so much that she started singing the songs in (her version of) Albanian on the way home.  It was so sweet!  I take it as a sign that she's trying to learn the language.  I even heard her chastise her bird in simple Shqip this afternoon!)

We learned earlier in the week that the lesson would be on the life of Abraham, so I put Anna and Abby in charge of coming up with a craft.  Anna had the idea to make origami stars (based on God's covenant with Abram in Genesis 15).

Lacking table space, Anna demonstrates the folds on the wall.

Needless to say, with translation, it took a bit longer than anticipated to walk through all the necessary folds.  The English class released and a few of those students decided to come in and take up the challenge too...

Eventually the younger kids (i.e. most of the boys) gave up and started playing their own games (though we were amazed how long they stuck with it).  One particular boy took a special interest in Reni and I can't believe I caught the moment below... be still my heart.  Reni has made his first Albanian friend.

Getting close to the end!!!

The boys (led by Reni) decided they'd much rather have paper airplanes... though a few sneaky ones made off with Anna's sample stars too!

We made it back home by mid afternoon and crashed with tired bodies but happy hearts!  Looking forward to many more weekends to come!

Camera Phone Dump

Prior to Nathan and Reni's arrival, a common refrain around here was, "We'll wait 'til Daddy gets here."

Ellie would ask a question, "When can we do this?" or "When will we go there?" and I would answer, "Wait 'til Daddy gets here!"

For more than a year, Ellie has been begging for a pet.  In the midst of our year of support-raising, that was obviously impractical.  I can't remember at what point, but somewhere along the way, we told her that she could get a bird when we got to Albania.  That is not an unusual pet for apartment dwellers here.  We thought a bird would be relatively low maintenance and she has always been very keen on the creatures, wanting one that would sit on her finger ever since she saw Mary Poppins sing, "A spoonful of sugar..."

Once Ellie and I arrived in Albania, I would get the question at least a couple of times per day, "How many sleeps until I get my bird?"

On Sunday we scouted the location of a pet shop.  On Monday we returned with our bird cage (which Nathan had bought here during his visit last December).

The pet shop

After a bouncy ride hooked to Reni's stroller, Abigail made it safely home.

(Above) -- I walk in to see the kids are showing Abigail a movie on the Kindle.  What is Abigail watching, I ask.  Ellie replies, "Angy Birds Break Out of Jail."

On Monday and Tuesday we had our first sessions with our language helper, Vera.

At MTI we learned some excellent language acquisition tools that are giving us a lot of confidence in our language study!  The four of us (Anna, Abby, Nathan and I) can understand (and mostly) say I/he/we/they am/is/are studying/eating/playing in the stairwell/bathroom/living room/bedroom.  Next session we learn past and future tense and we'll be throwing in more verbs and locations to boot!  It really is a lot of fun and a time that I look forward to!  We hope to do three sessions per week with Vera.  This will be outside of our formal language class which starts next month.  The are numerous bonuses to these kinds of exercises over a traditional classroom style of learning such as much more practice in mimicry and other forms of vocalizing, having the learner drive the pace of the material imparted, and learning in an atmosphere that encourages the language gates to 'stay open'.

On Monday I had the pleasure of meeting a couple fresh off the plane to meet their new son, a little guy who has been living at Reni's first home in Elbasan.  I can't believe it's been nearly 7 years ago since we were traveling over here to meet Ellie the first time! I can completely remember the bundle of nerves and excitement preceeding 'the first meeting'.  Kerri is helping them out much like she assisted us during our stay in Elbasan so I know they are in good hands.  If you want to follow this family's story, they blog over here.



I posted a lot of these images from a mobile device so they're not in proper, chronological order... Following Ellie's visit to the clinic about her swollen eye, we met up with a couple of sweet fellow missionaries here.  Krystal was so sweet to treat Ellie to her favorite (which I think you can only find at Qendra Stefan): a brownie!!!

Until they got here, Skype was a great way to keep in touch!  So glad I thought to snap this photo as a memory.  Though Nathan may not love it so much... it was rather early in OH.

Alas, our snail is no longer with us.

Ellie was celebrating to find chocolate chip cookies.  Yes, she definitely has a big sweet tooth!

Yesterday we were finally at a place to unpack Ellie and Reni's homeschool curriculum and resources.  Today they will have a half day of school with their teachers (Ellie can hardly wait!).  This afternoon we are all going to ride along with Nathan while he goes to 'driving' school with Mandi in our 'new' Caddy.  Nathan knows how to drive a stick shift, but he's never before driven in Albania.  We'll just say the unofficial rules of the road can be a little non traditional.  Also, the girls have not been out and about since landing on Saturday night so we thought this would be a nice opportunity to see more of the city, plus for all of us get us out to a larger shopping center to pick up some essentials.

Seriously, though, when you pray for us, please pray for our safety when we travel.  The roads here can be treacherous (and it's not comforting to think that we have had our drivers licenses longer than 99% of the drivers on the road).

The team is complete!

We had been looking forward with great anticipation to Nathan and Reni's arrival as well as the girls, but especially the boys after the disappointment of them having to delay another 48 hours.  Saturday morning we went to the village for kids' club.  Ellie actually tried to sing a few of the songs (in Shqip) and befriended a few of the older girls.  They were very sweet and patient with her.

A game similar to Pictionary was good for picking up a few new Albanian vocabulary words!

We look forward to contributing a bit to the program ourselves next week!  We can't wait!

I thought Saturday night would never come, but it turns out my list took me longer to complete than I expected (as everything here usually takes me longer than I plan for) and I was scrambling to dry and put away the last of the clean dishes before we had to scoot out the door at 7:15 to catch our ride to the airport with Arjan.  We saw their plane fly right over us while we drove down the autostrada.  They were so close to making their landing, I could read the Turkish Air logo (in the dark) on the tail wing.

I wish you could have seen Ellie's squeal and rush to greet her brother when they finally made it out of customs.  They were both all smiles and laughter that didn't stop til they went to sleep.  They didn't stop chattering the entire ride back to the apartment.

Nathan said over and over what an amazing trooper Reni has been these past 12 days.  He said when they finally got on the big flight from Chicago to Istanbul, Reni literally fell asleep during his first bite of supper and didn't wake up until breakfast was being served.  He reportedly was quite confused.  That "breakfast" was served around 1:30PM Albania time, so when he went to bed here Saturday night, he only stayed asleep about 5 hours.  Then he was up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 4:15!

It was a huge help for Nathan to have the help of the girls in getting his carry-ons on and off planes and through airports.

Today we wanted to take a walking tour to acquaint Anna and Abby with the neighborhood so they would know where they could buy what they needed, take the children to the park, and go for a run.  We strategically planned our route so we could take a coffee rest at the Skytower's revolving coffee bar which has excellent views of Tirana and is an easy way to point out where important landmarks lie in relation to each other.

As we walked back along the Boulevardi, I noticed a new-to-us memorial in a corner of the park.  I've mentioned before that the bunkers which used to be so prevalent throughout the country (about 24 in every square kilometer) are now becoming a rarity.  There was actually one preserved and created for visitors to walk inside and see.  As we were about to leave another rarity appeared... a guided group of tourists!  I knew the day would come, but it was still a surprise (this was actually the 2nd batch I've seen in 3 days).

Part of our original "plan" in this transition was that Nathan was going to fly to Germany on the 15th with our colleague, Mandi, to purchase our car.  I know it probably sounds a little odd that we would leave the country to buy a vehicle, but there are a couple of very good reasons.  The first is, the selection of quality used vehicles in Albania is quite limited.  The roads here are VERY rough and so any used vehicle would come with a higher-than-average risk level for future mechanical problems.  The second, more serious issue is the fact that many vehicles in Albania are purchased outside the country's borders.  To avoid paying import tax, many individuals will immediately claim their vehicle was stolen upon entering Albania.  Then, the VIN number is put on a registry of stolen vehicles and any attempt to drive said vehicle out of Albania will result in the vehicle's impoundment.  We've heard a percentage as high as 3 out of 4 cars having been claimed as 'stolen'. To be good stewards of mission resources, we followed the advice we were given by numerous friends to purchase one-way tickets to Germany (a country with a good selection of used vehicles with low mileage and driven relatively lightly) to find our wheels.

Obviously Nathan missed the flight on September 15, but Mandi went ahead and purchased a vehicle on our behalf.  Nathan had found it online and Mandi acted as our purchasing agent.  He returned to Albania with it late last night and brought it by this afternoon for us to see (he has to drive it to an office on Monday to finish the paperwork on it).  The kids were over-the-moon excited to see it (in their lifetimes, we have never purchased a new-to-us vehicle).

We are so grateful for the gifts of our generous supporters which made it possible for us to buy this 2009 VW Caddy!  She is going to give us so much more independence to travel between Tirana and the village in this season of living here in the city!  She holds 7 and has plenty of room for Reni's stroller in the back!  For practical maintenance reasons we purchased a manual transmission.  If I'm ever going to drive it, I'm going to have to go back to driving school!

The kids had to check out every square inch of the interior.  I think she passed!  We're going to call her Qershi (Chair-shee) which means cherry.

It's SO good to be altogether again.  We have a good bit of work in front of us to sort out the kids school books and plan out our school year, which is getting a really late start already.  I've registered us for language classes, but we're still waiting to hear when classes are going to be offered.  We have a starting date, but we're not sure yet if class will be MWF or Tues/Thursday and I'm more than a bit curious to know this detail as it could affect the children's ability to attend co-op.

HGTV, Albania edition

There's a show on HGTV that I used to enjoy in the days when we had cable.  It is called House Hunters International.  If you're not familiar with it, the premise of the show was to follow a couple as they toured homes for sale in various places around the world (think everywhere from Paris,Sao Paulo, Tel Aviv to Dar es Salaam or Melbourne).  The featured buyers for any particular episode were either relocating for work, retiring, or simply wanting to purchase a vacation property outside of their passport country.  The formula for the show was pretty standard: the prospective buyers would tour three properties, select one, and the episode would conclude with an epilogue recorded several weeks later showing them living in the home they selected.

While the show was somewhat predictable, I was nevertheless fascinated.  Who wouldn't want to see how these homes or apartments were laid out, what one could buy for their money in that part of the world, and what kind of arrangements were included with each purchase (was the furniture included? was the parking space extra? how much was the monthly maintenance fee)? 

While thankfully with this move we were spared the stress of touring potential homes, choosing a place to live and dealing with rental contracts, I'm kind of living in the 'epilogue' chapter of the episode.  I'm in our new home and yes, it's quite different than where I came from!  I'm enjoying all of the new things that are different and exciting but I'm also learning how to take care of a place that is very different than anywhere I have ever lived before.

Kerri vacuums the dust out of Anna and Abby's couch

This week Kerri and I have been working, not only to unpack our belongings and set up house, but to also clean it and the apartment below us, where the girls will move in.  Just the experience of cleaning has been a learning opportunity for me as Kerri has shared (while squeezing out mops and scrubbing down shower cabin doors) what she's learned from three+ years of living in a similar kind of home.

We live in a commy condo.  It's a 40+ year old, four-story "pallati" (translated it means palace but while it's not bad, it's not exactly a palace).  

Everything in here is built out of bricks, covered with plaster on the inside and stucco (?) on the outside. If you nick a painted wall (which is very easy to do), it's immediately evident by the exposed white plaster behind the paint.  I'm petrified to drive a nail and hang a picture on the wall -- there's no going back very easily.

The floors are concrete covered in tile. Every square centimeter. I hold my breath when carrying something breakable.  One drop on these floors and they do not forgive! An interesting thing I learned from Kerri is that she has been frequently asked by her friends in Elbasan about the floors in her home -- much like a home in the States might be judged by the number of cars the garage can hold.  Here, tile floors mean one isn't poor. Nice carpets mean you have money to spare.

There is no insulation in these walls, hence no moisture barrier. That means damp from the outside (either from a leaky pipe on the outside of the building, from the foundation below, or a leaky water tank above) soaks in and peels paint, crumbles plaster, grows ugly mold and buckles walls.  This is a constant battle, especially in ground-level apartments.  I saw this first hand during our cleaning.

Thankfully now there are alumil/metal windows and interior doors that have a longer life than the original wood-framed creations, and open and close and (relatively) seal as they should (without warping). We have no screens to keep the bugs out, but we do have metal security shades to lower for privacy, and bars beyond that.  We are so blessed to be on the end of the building to have windows on three sides.  We love our natural light!

The biggest surprise it the dust.  Living on the prairie we had dust, but it was no surprise in an uninsulated ages-old farmhouse surrounded by open fields with lots of wind. Here we are in the middle of the city with barely a breeze. Yet somehow, these buildings create massive amounts of dust.  It's like the walls are shedding epidermis as the plaster breaks down.  I hear it's even worse if a room was painted with the powder-based paint-- it rubs off or just falls off over time leaving powder on the floor around the edge of the room.  During my first 10 years of visits to Albania, all of the streets around this pallati were dirt roads. Thankfully now they are all paved, yet the dust remains an issue.

We don't have such a thing as central heating or cooling.  Each room can be closed off to heat (or cool) as needed with a little space heater or wall mounted AC unit.  Open floor plan?  Not very practical here, unless you don't mind freezing in the winter or boiling in the summer. That means to walk from our bedroom to the children's bedroom I have to open and close four doors. That may not sound like a lot, but it's different for me where I'm used to being closer to the kids and not having as many barriers in between us.

About every spigot that dispenses hot water has its own hot water heater.  There is a hot water tank in each bathroom and one under the kitchen sink.  These suck a lot of electricity and it can be a balancing act to operate any two simultaneously to avoid blowing fuses.  While this is an issue in the village center and for Kerri at her house, thankfully it's not as much an issue for us in Tirana.  Nevertheless we try to be mindful of our consumption for the sake of our utility bills and unplug the tanks if we're going away for a few days.

Thankfully we have water on demand because of the foresight to install roof-top tanks to store water when the city water is not on.  The tanks fill while the water flows from the city, and we draw from those tanks as we need.

I'm also thankful we don't have to rent.  I've heard that it can be difficult to get a rental contract therefore the terms can change quickly, and I don't just mean the price (e.g. our daughter is home from Italy and needs to use your second bedroom while she's in town or, my mother will be your housekeeper and will let herself in when need be to clean for you, or, you don't really need that third bedroom so we'll use it for storing vats of olives).  While most units come furnished down to the pots and pans, if an appliance or utility goes kaput during your lease, as the renter, it's your responsibility to get it repaired or replaced, at your expense since you were the primary user.

Oh the things I am learning and it's just the second week...

I feel kind of bad posting this as I know how badly rain is needed back home, but this has been the view out of our kitchen window many an evening... (this was from last Thursday)

 

Sadly I didn't get the sound of thunder and lightening in this particular clip! It's very different sounding in a concrete jungle than out in the wide open prairie!

New Signs

They told us at MTI that upon arriving at our new homes, we'd be bombarded with indecipherable signs and symbols that would trigger higher stress levels and things like culture shock.  I was envisioning street signs, business placards, restaurant menus -- you know, signs out in public.  Can I park here? Is this the line I stand in?  I didn't expect it to start across the hall from my bedroom.

This is my clothes washer.  Tell me, friend, how you would start a load of laundry?

The first clue is you have to push the button below the picture of the key.  That will open your door.  The next button over will turn the machine on or off.  I remembered that much from previous visits.

From there, I just start turning the dial until I hear it start filling with water.  Some numbers start short cycles, other cycles are long.  They will stop and soak and at some point, then I turn it one more click and the water drains, followed by the barrel spinning.  I haven't been terribly rushed so I'm just kind of learning as I go.  The clothes and sheets come out clean, regardless of where I seem to start the dial.

The smaller dial (above left) controls the water temperature.  Since it's in Celsius, it all seems 'HOT' to me!  If I want 'cold' I turn it to the tap water picture.  See?  I'm learning!

Then Kerri pointed out the handy instruction guide that I had somehow not seen (on the silly door frame!)  All the help I needed -- right in front of my eyes!  Voila!

Next, you'll have to see our microwave!