Muddy Shoes

Cultures judge people differently.

In the States one might be judged by the car they drive, the number of ports in their garage, the zip code on their address, the university graduated, or the letters behind one's name.

In Albania, you are judged by your shoes -- not necessarily by the label (though to be sure, that may be important), but by their care.  Are they good quality?  Are they maintained?  Are they clean?  It's common knowledge that if there are any doubts to whether a stranger is foreign or local, it can be resolved by a glance at the shoes.

Mud on your shoes means your street is not paved or you do not have sidewalks.  If your street is not paved or you do not have sidewalks, you must not live anywhere important.  You probably live in a village (gasp!)!  And if you live in a village, well, likely your family has little to no money and your education is not too different.

A picture of muddy shoes.  That's all I have as a pictorial documentation of Saturday.  

Saturday we woke to a call at 6:19AM announcing that a friend's grandmother had passed away in the night.  The funeral would be at 1:00 that afternoon.  Plans for the afternoon were rearranged and we selected appropriate clothes for the upcoming event.

It was not unexpected.  We had paid a last visit to her bedside on Thursday.  She had been in a coma for about 72 hours and family were already starting to gather, prepared that each breath might be her last. Later that day they came to borrow the center's stools for the hordes of expected visitors following her death.

Thankfully the rain held off, but it had rained all week leading up to the weekend. The trail up to her home was a muddy mess.  In spite of carefully stepping on the strategically placed stones and bricks, passing fellow visitors walking the opposite direction meant stepping aside into the soft verge.  

Panting with legs starting to burn, I took a break to catch my breath and couldn't help but wonder how long she had been held up in her hilltop home, isolated by arthritic knees and out of reach of vehicles.  There was a reason her family kept a donkey.

Here is a previously published photo of the last stretch of trail up to the home.  I think the angle of Nathan's arms pushing Reni's stroller somewhat conveys the angle

There are moments when I long to use my camera -- not to document an event for my own memory as much as to share it with others who have never experienced such a thing.  I think funerals are one of those events that are so extraordinarily different that words alone cannot describe them fully -- yet for reasons I don't need to explain, are grossly inappropriate for me to film.  

Nathan walked in one room with the men, I the other with the women.  It was already full and one woman rose to give me a seat in front of the cloth-draped coffin.  I sat down and nodded at the relatives I knew. It was too tight to walk around and give them any hugs or kisses.  

The next door neighbor seated to my left started a mournful tune, almost a chant in its repetition.  I can only liken it to something I've heard from Native American culture.  After several minutes someone else took over and for a while it was joined by cries and wails of sorrow.

I could sense more guests arriving behind me so I stepped out of the room to free up a seat and claimed a chair in the hall way with a view out the front door and gate to the hills beyond, each layer in sharp focus to the layer beyond.  It was surreal to see the earth's signs of new life -- white blossoms on trees -- while inside another life had reached its end and all the living were shrouded in black.  

Though the door was open, the air was full of tobacco smoke and buzzing with soft, low small talk amongst the guests.  Granddaughters and granddaughters-in-law walked in and out with trays of coffee and raki for the men.  Everyone was waiting for the arrival of the hearse at the road's end to take her body on its last journey.

But with children at home, I had to keep my visit brief.

It was interesting to witness a slight change in tradition this time.  This was our fourth village funeral in 10 months and the first in which a female who was not a child or spouse followed the men all the way to the cemetery.  Granddaughters and granddaughters-in-law fell in step behind the men, carrying flowers bearing their names.  I viewed the processional from my second-story living room window.  Nathan shared about the rest with me when he returned.

In America, the funeral flowers bear the name of the deceased as he was known by those left behind:  "Dad,"  "Grandfather", "Great-grandfather."  Here, the flowers bear the names from whom the flowers were given -- as if the spirit of the deceased were to return and want to know from whom they had been given. 

Everyone present touched the coffin one last time before it was lowered into the ground, then the family walked wearily to a nearby restaurant to take part in a meal.

March 2014

The next day we would make the trek up the hill yet again for the customary coffee.  The fatigue on the faces of our hosts was evident. I cannot imagine my house serving as nursing home, then hospital, then funeral home, reception space and hotel, as friends and relatives far and wide come home.   

We were served a cup of Turkish coffee and a cookie.  At the conclusion of our drink we would slip a cash gift under our saucer or cup and it would be taken back to the kitchen and recorded in a notebook.  In a world without life insurance, these formalities serve a practical purpose as well.

____________

My shoes have been cleaned. The stools have been returned to the center.  Life in the village will resume after this brief pause. 

A Tribute to Grandpa

NOTE: This is a week or so later getting up on the blog than I planned.  And really, I'm only posting it for my own sake.  This blog is sort of my digital journal, a filing cabinet of records, a scrapbook of memories... so I'm posting the tribute I shared at my grandfather's memorial service two weeks ago today before I misplace it  (photos added later).

On behalf of the Whiteford family, we want to thank you for coming this morning.  Your presence is a great source of love and encouragement to us. My name is Cydil vanOrman Waggoner.  I am Lawrence and Marguerite's eldest grandchild...

About a month ago, I decided to solve the dilemma of filling the empty space on the wall over my bed by enlarging a photograph I took a few years ago.  It's a silhouette of three, strong mature trees, symmetrically placed in the frame -- left, center, right.   While I appreciate its graphic qualities, that's not why I chose to enlarge it.

It was actually taken on the family farm one foggy autumn morning.  It's Grandpa and Grandma's front yard.  Through the mist you can see the faint outline of the mailbox before the fields beyond disappear. 

Living far from home these days, I appreciate this virtual window to my roots.  Out my actual window on the opposite wall I can see red tiled roofs and fig trees... and a billboard for an international cell phone carrier.  

If I look I at this image though, I feel like I'm looking out the window of a more familiar home.  I look at this image and memories of Whiteford-Rewalt reunion picnics under these trees flood my mind.  I expect a pick-up truck to roll by and I remember the feel of walking on this feathery grass with the occasional bumpy mole tunnel under my feet. 

Home -- that's what Grandpa (and Grandma) represent to me.  Coming into their presence was to be known and welcomed by someone who loved you -- the feeling you get when coming home.  And I still get that feeling every time I pull into the driveway of the farm.  Though they haven't lived there for more than a decade, the house and buildings remain a part of our family life and Grandpa's presence is so indelibly linked to every inch that you half expect to see him step out of the shed in his customary overalls and seed corn hat.  It's one of the few places in my life that hasn't changed, where our presence is welcome, where we are not trespassers, where the memories spring up like the seed corn and soy beans that grow around it.

I grew up just a couple of miles from Grandpa and Grandma's, so their home was almost as familiar as my own. The central station of farm operations, we ate many a meal around their kitchen table.  It was a great place to ride our bikes, to take water breaks from walking beans or mowing the cemetery, or to meet up with teams of de-tasselers.  More significantly it was the site of many a family gathering, of dying easter eggs, opening Christmas gifts, and enjoying summer reunion picnics. 

Grandpa taught us how to shuck an ear of sweet corn and how to pray in King James English.  He schooled us on the histories and genealogies of our family and the connections to all the families around 'the neighborhood.'

But he also taught us about living a life of contentment and gratitude.  It was no secret that his early life had its share of hard times.  But for Grandpa, it was more important to be holy than happy -- not in the legalistic sense -- but that he knew there were more important things to be pursued than in acquiring possessions or aspiring to the world's approval.

Simplicity, hard work, fairness, honesty, generosity, and devotion to family and God were the pillars of his life. These principles governed his decisions and defined his character as he sought to follow the Lord.  Grandpa rarely expressed worry, just an abiding trust in God's faithfulness and provision.  These are the gifts he has given us through the example of his life that are far more valuable than any material goods. 

When I think of that young man, growing up through the Depression on a small sandy farm in central Illinois, caring for his younger sister by assuming the responsibilities of the farm after they were orphaned as teenagers.... He probably could never have imagined how his family would multiply one day -- a legacy that literally extends around the globe.

Now his time on earth is done and we get to celebrate that he has reached his eternal home.  I know his prayer would be that every single person in this room can join him there. I say this not only because of his love for you, but several years ago I actually got to visit the place where he and Grandma, someday, will be buried.  Much to my surprise, the tombstone had already been purchased and inscribed, short of the last dates. 

Included on their stone he had chosen to inscribe as his 'last words', you might say --the words of Jesus, as permanent, public testimony pointing all to heaven ... "I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live..."

And then there are those kind of days...

I know you know it's not all peaches and cream.  This morning we had one of those moments.  A few hours after it transpired I received a wonderfully encouraging e-mail from a special prayer partner with just the words I need to hear.  To let her know how timely her prayers were, I wrote her the following account, which I've decided to copy and paste here. 

We had a rough morning with a couple of boys who are at our center more than any other of the village kids.  Their home life situations are not great -- their parents pretty much let them roam all day and they only come home to sleep at night.  I'm not sure they get much to eat either.

Today in kids' club they got up in the middle of the Bible lesson and walked out of the room in a very disruptive manner.  Nathan saw out the window that they were just sitting on the steps of the center so he went out and told them they could come back in, or they had to leave the yard altogether -- they could not be inside our gate, but outside of the building, unsupervised.  They chose to leave so we locked the gate so they couldn't come back in and we could finish kids club without continually chasing them out.

After the Bible lesson I remembered that we had a pan of brownies left over from church last night so during games I went upstairs to our apartment kitchen to cut them up and put them in cupcake liners for handing out (my economical alternative to plastic disposable plates).  I came back down with a tray in my hands and re-entered the center.  The layout of the building is such that the stairs to our apartment is on the outside of the building so the boys outside the gate saw me carrying the tray of food inside.

In anger that they were missing out on a special treat, they used some items on the corner missed by the trash men that included a not-quite empty jug of motor oil and a chalky stone used for making white paint -- it doesn't come off with water.  They wrote some obscene words directed at us with the chalk and sloshed a big splash of oil down the wall.  They also took stones to chip away at the cement on the wall corner -- the wall which we just had neatly plastered last spring.

When Nathan was locking up the grounds at the conclusion of post-kids club free play he saw their vandalism and came inside to tell me about it.  

Our first response was anger and frustration (we strongly suspected that one of these two boys had already started 'decorating' the wall on Wednesday and we had employed a group of boys with brooms, buckets, and bleach to clean it up, albeit unsuccessfully). 

I looked out the window and saw the boys in the street so I went outside to confront them, not sure what I was going to say.  I knew they would expect an angry response, so I tried my best to refrain. 

Initially, they didn't want to come to me (a sure sign of their guilt), but they could see I wasn't going to let them walk away. I told them that I thought we were friends.  I told them that we were really sad at what they did.  I reminded them that it was their choice to come to the program or to leave, but that they shouldn't be angry at us for the choice they made. I told them that what they did would cost money to fix and that would mean that we would not have money for other things.  That coming to our center to play every day is a privilege and that they would not be able to come and play for one week.  One of the two boys got tears in his eyes, the other one just left (no surprise).

I have no idea what impression it made on their hearts.  One of the two culprits shows up an hour early every day, he's so anxious to come (or bored, not sure which).  I'm sure the penalty will only serve to make them more angry each day as they face the consequences of their actions.  The last time we imposed this consequence, one of them took it on himself to throw rocks at the gate to make sure we knew of his anger.  I feared, though, that he would break out a headlight on our van or crack the windshield.

We have also have a dilemma about dealing with their vandalism -- is it good for them to see a reminder of their impulsiveness, or we should spend the money and paint over the offensive words, only to create a blank slate for future vandalism?  

Sigh.  Keep praying! ;-)

We Have Hope!

On February 3 my grandfather, Lawrence Whiteford, passed away at the age of 93.  We were so glad to have said our goodbyes in August.

I never expected to be able to attend his funeral, however my mom graciously offered to trade her ticket for a winter visit to Albania for me to be able to go home for the memorial service.  Nathan  remained in Albania with the children.

The trip was incredibly good, for so many reasons.  I cannot imagine having missed those days.

Our Whiteford family, after the post-funeral luncheon provided by the church.  It wasn't until later that we discovered that Grandma and Aunt Viola didn't know the photographer was in the balcony above!

Two weeks after his passing, and three days after returning from a week in the frozen prairie of central Illinois, I was back in the village preparing for our weekly women's Bible study.  Warming the tea kettle and setting out dessert, I was still struggling to figure out my plan for the evening's gathering without the help of a translator.  Shpresa, who usually facilitates, was representing Planters at a conference, and my usual go-to, Eda, had a conflict (she never misses Bible study).  At the least, we would fellowship and have a time of prayer.

One by one, the ladies started arriving and chatting while I set out refreshments.  They started asking about Nathan and the kids and about my unexpected trip to the States to be with my family.  (This is the kind of conversation I can maintain sans translator -- getting into deeper level conversations about theology?  Not there yet).

Then, because we are friends, they started asking more curious questions.  Obviously, I did not get there within 24 hours of his death, so surely he must have been cremated?

No, he was in the tokë (ground), in a kuti (box).  Note to self: learn the Albanian word for 'embalm.'

Was he buried on family property or in a public cemetery with other people around him?

I shared that he was buried in a community cemetery, where he had bought a place for himself and Grandma several years ago.

At this they shook their heads.  No, here we do not have to pay.  It's community ground!  Why would anyone have to pay?

Then came the next question.
So when and where did everyone sit and drink a coffee with us?  At grandmother's house?

I explained that we have different traditions, and that our friends, family and neighbors gather at a large, fancy house run by a funeral agjencia.  A date is set and announced in the newspaper and people come during a two-hour block of time to give their greetings to the family, or they send a card if they cannot attend in person.

Oh, they nodded slowly, eyebrows raised as they tried to digest this information.

But if you do not have a coffee, how do they give you money to pay for the funeral?

I explained that my grandfather had paid the agency for his funeral several years ago.

At this explanation, one of the younger ladies let a laugh escape and asked incredulously.  "He paid it himself?"

I could see why that would be surprising. No one here would trust an agency to hold your payment for several years and honor that contract. And few people here could save enough money to pay their own way, even if you could make arrangements in advance.

But what about the meal after the funeral?  Who paid for that?

I explained that my grandparents' church provided the meal, but that it was primarily only family and friends who had traveled a great distance who stayed for the meal.

That didn't seem so hard to believe because who would expect to be fed if they hadn't given cash to the family of the deceased?

At this point I sent off a quick message to Nathan to bring down the laptop.  I had to show them photos as I could only explain so much in Shqip.  They curiously gathered around the computer screen, remarking how young my 91-year-old grandmother looked.  I agreed.

But she's not wearing black!  someone pointed out, aghast at what would probably be considered here to be the height of disrespect for the deceased.

I smiled, thankful for the open door to share something that has been on my heart since my first Albanian funeral experience.

I explained that my grandfather was devoted to Christ from his teenage years until the end of his life, and that our family knew we would be reunited with him in heaven some day.

Ne kemi shpresë!  We have hope! I explained.

Again the heads nodded as if they understood, but in their eyes I could see the wheels were turning.

Someone even affirmed this novel idea, that the widow shouldn't have to wear black, and I think she understood my point -- it's not just because "Americans know better than we do."

I clicked through more images.  The flowers at the visitation.  The pallbearers carrying the casket.  The tent at the grave site (could they even imagine a temperature of 5 degrees Fahrenheit, without windchill factored in?).

The pastor at the graveside service had arranged a woman from church to sing I Walk Through the Garden.  At the sight of the singer, I identified her as a këngëtare.


Do you have special songs for funerals?
Not really, I explained.  We sing songs from church that praise God and remind us of the promise of heaven.
Did you have a professional cry-er?
Again I could understand this question.  While we had serious expressions on our faces, you could see in the photos that our family was not really a weepy bunch (to be sure, we had our tears, but we did not wear this expression on our faces continually).
At this point I wanted them to understand that this particular funeral was not just an AMERICAN funeral, but the funeral of a Believer.  Again I reiterated that we have HOPE.  I read from I Thessalonians 4, how we do not grieve like those who do not believe.






None of these women had ever attended the funeral of a Christian before. For most of their lives, their Muslim traditions and beliefs did not offer them assurance of eternity with God.  Death was a scary, sad, awful end with no consolation.

But what I wanted them to see, to understand, is that when we, as Children of God lose a fellow believer, we have HOPE.

Before I knew it, our hour had passed.  As everyone filed out of the center to walk back home in the coming darkness, I could hardly believe the way the evening had unfolded, better than any plan I might have devised. Even today I marvel how God continues to give us open doors to share His truth and the promises from His Word.

Not Quite the Schwann's Man

One of my favorite visits growing up came in the form of the Schwann's man.  We lived in the country and ever-mindful of the cost of gas and mileage on vehicles, Mom and Dad limited their grocery shopping in town.  But the Schwann's man?  He brought food to us.  I remember Mom perusing their colored leaflet to make her month's choices, then pulling out her checkbook for whatever special treats fit in the budget that month. In those days there was no Sam's Club or Costco -- just Schwanns' chicken strips, frozen pizzas, ice cream and orange push-ups, to name a few. 

Now imagine you lived in a country where less than half the population had their own personal vehicle.  Imagine you had to walk or take public transportation every time you needed to shop.

We hadn't lived in the village long before we started noticing trucks and vans that would slowly drive up and down our street with an indistinguishable voice blaring out a loud speaker.

Eventually we started to understanding the words of the purveyors:  "Onions!  Potatoes! Chickens!"

The light bulb lit up in our head -- the free market was at work right here in our sleepy little village.  If the customer can't get to your store, bring the store to the customer!  Especially if you are selling an item that is too heavy or bulky (or wiggly) to carry in hand long-distances or on a bus.

For months I've been wanting to photograph such an experience to share on the blog, but I'm a bit too shy to just step out into the street with my camera. Thankfully, the event above transpired last week right in front of our building so I could capture it from the privacy of our living room window.  

There is no professionally-painted vehicle.  There are no attractive glossy leaflets, just a husband and wife selling used clothes out of the trunk of their car and our neighbors stopping to peruse the merchandise with their own eyes and hands.

Another time we returned home to find a scraggly-looking flock of nearly feather-less chickens in our yard.  Someone who had been making a repair at our house had heard the street merchant (a local egg farm with a truck selling its old hens) and decided with his crew of workers to surprise their families by bringing home the evening's chicken dinner -- still alive.

And lest you think we haven't been brave enough to sample the goods, you'd be wrong.  One late afternoon almost a year ago, Nathan and I were preparing to hop in the car of some friends from Tirana  to go scout a location for an upcoming event when one of these trucks starts driving up the hill into our village.  Curious, our friends asked us the nature of the truck and what the man inside was shouting out his loudspeaker. We listened and told them that this particular truck was selling potatoes and onions.

Excited to be in a 'village' where we are so much closer to the source of the produce sold in the city markets, our friends said they wanted to buy some potatoes and onions to take back home to Tirana.  We waved the truck down and he stopped, opening the tail gate to reveal 10 kg (24 lb) bags.  It was way more than either of us would eat, so we agreed to split the cost and the produce 50/50.

A few days later I went to clean the potatoes for our evening meal and discovered they were full of eyes and overall quite old-looking.  I was embarrassed that my friends did not get the 'fresh' produce they were hoping for.  Then it dawned on me.  We had just bought planting potatoes and onions.  Duh.  We later put them in the ground for a summer harvest, laughing at our misunderstanding.  It was even funnier when we later ran into our friends and not wanting to be wasteful, they explained how much work they spent cleaning and cutting those potatoes to get something edible!

So no, the Schwann's man hasn't made it to Albania (yet), but his distant cousin has.  Sort of. 

Another Cultural Stumble

Nearly two and a half years into life in Albania and the learning continues.

The other night I was at our friends' home in Tirana.  Nathan was speaking at a church service and rather than ask the kids to sit through their third Albanian service in 24 hours, I thought they would enjoy the treat of seeing some American friends whom they hadn't seen since well before Christmas.  

The grown-ups were on the couch in the living room while the kids played upstairs.  I remarked about their family photo hanging over the fire place, asking where they had it printed and framed.  

My friend answered with the name of a nearby store then added, "They did great, except the guy re-cropped the photo."

My ears perked up.  What did she say?

In my opinion, photo cropping is reserved for the artist or client. Cropping can change the whole story of an image.  It directs the focus of the picture and can change the perspective of the viewer.  How a photographer chooses to crop an image is entirely personal and unique to the photographer's personal style and artistic approach.

The printer changing the cropping of the image is not unlike the server deciding the chef's food wasn't good enough the way it was plated before delivering it to the table, then adding elements to or removing items from the dish.

If I had taken the portrait of my friend's family that was arbitrarily altered... well, I'll just say I would have been perturbed.  

My friend continued, "Yeah, he re-cropped the photo so [my husband] would be in the center of the image, instead of the center falling in between us. You know, here the man of the house is supposed to be in the center of every portrait."

I gulped, thinking of the 50+ family pictures I took last year in our village.  How had I not known about this local "rule" of portraiture?  

I think I have a slightly more egalitarian approach to posing my subjects, not to mention I try to follow rules of symmetry, framing (like the "rule of thirds") and practice complementary posing to help the subjects look like the best version of themselves.  

Undoubtedly I had broken this other rule MANY times.  

Was this a big deal?  Had I unknowingly offended the heads of nearly household we visited? 

As foreigners, we are given passes when we unwittingly create cultural blunders.  But as foreigners, we are outsiders and that's not a place we want to remain.  We want to earn the right to move closer into the center of the circle, to have a seat at the table, to be heard.  Breaking unspoken rules only serves to remind everyone of the outsiders we are.

Unfortunately, as Americans living in an honor/shame culture, we have also learned that we will rarely be told when we are making mistakes.  This doesn't help in our desire to adjust our behaviors into culturally appropriate ways.

I'm pretty sure this will not be the last time we break a 'rule'.  Next time it won't be failing to frame a photo around the head of the household, but something else entirely.  Hopefully we won't have to wait so long to find out!