Beautiful Albania | Shkodra

Editor's Note:  I know that most of our family and friends will likely not have the opportunity to visit Albania, so consider my "Beautiful Albania" posts to be an attempt to give you an arm chair tour of our little neck of the woods.

In my previous post I shared that Christmas-time traditionally would find us on the road, splitting our break between Illinois and Ohio.  After 15 years of this holiday tradition, it felt a little strange to be in our own home for Christmas. Since we finally had back-to-back days off we decided to go away for a few days beginning on the 26th, returning to Tirana before the 'craziness' of New Years Eve.

As to where to go, we decided on Shkoder, a city in the northwestern part of the country.  We heard that the former prime minister was from the north and had heavily invested in road improvements there so it wouldn't be a difficult drive. 

I don't want to say that my expectations were low -- it's just that sight-seeing in Albania is ... evolving.  For a worthwhile trip, one needs to utilize word-of-mouth recommendations and a good dose of self-education to know where to go and understand what you're seeing.  Historical sites aren't necessarily well-preserved, well-identified (though road signs have been popping up over the past few years which is super helpful) or well-described (few sites have tour guides or multi-lingual signage/markers -- the day they offer handsets I'll fall over). In spite of doing some research and going with some idea in mind of what we wanted to find, I was still concerned we'd be able to fill our time adequately.  Especially when I learned the ferry we wanted to ride (and I had devoted one entire day in our schedule to) had closed.

It turned out that we found in the north a great combination of natural beauty, rich history, decent food, new friends, and plenty to fill our days, yet also plenty of time to relax.  

A break was just what we needed and we returned with an increased appreciation for the history and culture of this country we now call home. 

I'm learning again that distance is relative.  Looking at a map, Shkoder looks so far away.  In reality, we made the trip in less than two hours.

Ura e Mesit (or, Middle Bridge)

Driving through town we saw signs for the Ura e Mesit, a bridge we had been told was worth visiting, so we took off in it's general direction. Less than 2km away, we started to doubt ourselves and pulled out the GPS.  We laughed when we discovered how close we were.

  

This was built in 1780 by the Ottomans when they realized what an important commerce center Shkoder represented.

Keep taking this road north east and one would end up in Pristina...

A cute, bright spot on a gloomy day.  Anyone remember the post where Ellie bought this umbrella 3.5 years ago?  Amazing she still has it!

Shkoder has a couple of pedestrian streets that are being refurbished (below).  

Crumbling buildings and old fashioned lamp posts are always a good photo-op!

We stopped for coffee, of course, but not before bumping into one of our friends from the Hope Center, visiting family in Shkoder for the holidays (I never cease to be amazed at what a small country Albania truly is, and how we seem to run into people we know almost everywhere we go).

We were humbled to be invited to dinner by the Zefi family.  We have several mutual friends but had never met them personally.  When we were inquiring about hotel recommendations, friends in the States and friends in Tirana independently contacted this family.  Fredi and Prenda both work for Hope For the World Albania in their orphanage ministry, so we knew we already had much in common with them! Thanks, friends (you know who you are) for connecting us!

The kids enjoyed a picnic on the floor.

 

Oh my goodness, Albanian women can cook.  The longer I am here, the more and more impressed I am with the women of this country.  They do so much and do it all well.

Another recommended site was the mask factory.  We were told that the masks produced in Shkoder were world-renowned, primarily sold and used in Venice and Las Vegas.

Visits are 'by-appointment-only'. While waiting for a reply from a local contact about arranging a tour, we stumbled upon a travel PDF for Shkoder online.  It contained a phone number for the factory which we called.  A gentleman answered the phone, welcomed us to come over right away, and offered to meet us at a major intersection in town so we could follow him to the factory grounds.

He shook our hands upon arrival, then excused himself after introducing us to another employee.  After reading this article and seeing his photograph, I discovered that none other than the owner of the factory itself had come and met us!

This factory now employs 60 artists which produce 20,000, hand-painted masks per year.  They use the best materials, including real gold leaf and Swarovski crystals which set them apart from the mass-produced, lesser-quality masks from Chin*. 

We were a little overwhelmed at the volume and variety of mask designs available for sale in their shop.

On a side note, a few nights a week, Abby, Anna, Nathan and I will watch an old episode of The Amazing Race on hulu.  Imagine our surprise last night when we saw the contestants compete in a challenge involving identifying these very masks on actors during the contestants stint in Venice!  (Season 3, episode 2)

Genti told us to drive around the edge of the lake (Lake Shkodra is the largest lake in the Balkans, bordered by three countries) to the village of Shiroke.  He said there would be a handful of restaurants and any of them would have a lovely view of the lake.

It was off-season, but we managed to find a place to eat.  The menu was... seafood. ;-)

As promised, the lake was stunning and beautiful in its raw, rugged state.  We kept remarking how much tourism money could be pumped into the economy if someone would invest in development -- but then I can't help but think it would lose a big part of its charm.

No visit to Shkodra is complete without a trip up to the fortress.

And like the legend we heard related to the landmarks surrounding Berat, the Fortress/Castle Rozafa has it's own tragic legend.  You can read it here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rozafa_Castle#Legend

This fortress hill dates back to the Illyrians, but the present walls date back to the Venetians.  It's been sieged several times, which isn't hard to imagine when you see how imposing it is from below.

I didn't take many photos since this was my second visit (click here to see more pics from my 2009 visit when the weather was better).

They did say 'selfie' was the official word of 2013, right?  There were lots taken by these two on this trip...

 The fortress grounds are quite immense.  We discovered this little stair well that led down to some tunnels requiring flash lights for illumination.  Pretty cool!

Ellie and Reni were good sports in spite of visiting yet another place built out of 'old rocks'.

Above -- my favorite souvenir from the trip

My next "Beautiful Albania" post will be from Lezhe... (Layzh)

Christmas Day | Traditions Old and New

This actually wasn't our first Christmas in Albania (#4 for me, #2 for Nathan and Ellie), but it was our first with out other family with us... As we have entered this new phase in life where much of our life is characterized by transition, I've come to realize the importance of creating family traditions for our children to create at least a sense of predictability. We anticipated that it would be a day to start new traditions for our family, incorporating the old where we could.

Abby made us a cinnamon roll for breakfast (one of her family traditions) then we headed to the village for the Christmas production put on by the youth.

Arjan wrote a script that was sort of a modern day version of the Christmas story.

Imagine my surprise when Mary walked into the room wearing one of my old dresses (from the late 90s)!

We had a full house, but sadly not a single parent -- one of my expectations blown out of the water.  Pray with us about turning this around for next year!  We gleaned a little insight later when we learned that Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes have been distributed after this program in the past.  That also explained all of the new faces in the room (and shows us that there are many more that we could be reaching on Saturday mornings).

In the drama, the hotel owners had numerous individuals knock at their doors and ask for shelter, including, unbeknownst to them, Mary and Joseph.  Nathan challenged everyone to consider Revelation 3:20 (Behold I stand at the door and knock...) to listen for Jesus knocking at the door of their hearts and to welcome Him in.

Following the production, the cast served refreshments and soft drinks.

(Below) here we are with Pastor Genti and Shpresa...

We came home and enjoyed a yummy Christmas dinner of roast (I am SO thankful for having a wonderful crockpot here -- these haven't always been available for purchase in this country!), mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, rolls, and green beans.

Here we are doing our 'gezuars' (cheers) with peach iced tea (from the States).  So happy to have our neighbor "Teta" (aunt) Vera with us (she doesn't have any immediate family and fills a place in our hearts for another generation present at our table).

Ellie read the Christmas story from our Albanian/English children's Bible (a tradition from Nathan's family -- to have the youngest reader in the family read

On the last day of school, we gave the children some cash to spend on Christmas gifts.  It was a hoot to see what they picked out for us.  I think you can guess which photo will be going in this frame...

Teta Vera knows our girl Ellie.  She gifted her with a fake dove.  Ellie went wild over a 'new friend' for Squanto (her cockatiel)

On the 23rd we put together cookie boxes for our friends, including our neighbors in our stairwell.  On Christmas Day, after opening our gifts, we marched up and down the stairs singing 'We wish you a Merry Christmas" (the only carol we knew in Albanian) and delivered cookies to our five sets of neighbors!  We got three invitations to come inside, but in the interest of time only took up 1 of those invites.  One neighbor gave us a chocolate bar in return (in spite of our protests).  All in all, it was a success!

And thus ended our Christmas celebrations!  Going to bed a few days later the kids asked, "How many more sleeps til Christmas comes again?"

Until this Christmas, we had always woken up on Christmas morning at either my or Nathan's parents, so we never had need for stockings.  In January of last year, knowing we were headed here, I ordered these from a woman on Etsy.  It was fun to see Ellie and Reni's eyes when they spotted their personalized stockings.  I look forward to using these every year from now on! 

2013 Recap

2013 has been one of those significant years for our family that merits some reflection.

For the sake of structure and time, I'm going to swipe some questions from another blog... I think answering these questions will be a good exercise in processing all we learned and experienced.

1.) What did you do in 2013 that you had never done before?
Hmmm... where to begin?  Let's see, how about moving our family overseas, beginning a new career in missions, beginning formal Albanian study...

2.) Did anyone close to you die?
In November we lost Nathan's grandmother, Dorothy Champion.

3.) Did anyone close to you give birth?
Most of our friends are at the age where babies are coming less frequently... however we have been blessed to see a few families from the States adopt Albanian children.  My cousin, Elyse, delivered a baby boy in September.

5.) What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?
More discipline/structure/balance/rest/fun.

The smile on my face belies the heaviness in my heart.  More likely it's from watching Ellie try to wield a heavy camera in the middle of Terminal 5 at OHare...

6.) What dates from 2013 will remain etched in your memory and why?
September 9 -- the day we were to fly together as a family to Albania, but received the news that Nathan's mother was critical from a severe stroke.  We made a difficult decision for Cydil and Ellie to fly on to Albania but for Nathan and Reni to remain behind and travel to Columbus to be with Mom until her prognosis could be known better. We had to make a decision with little time to think. All of our expectations of what this transition would look like went out the window as we prayed for Mom's life to be spared and for her subsequent recovery.

7.)  What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Not really sure what to consider an 'achievement' (and I'm not trying to be falsely modest).  There is no achievement without God's grace.  May He always get the glory for any 'success.'

8.) What was your biggest failure?
I'm too chicken to post that here.  Or maybe that's something I need to work on?
I probably could have read more, especially considering all the miles spent on the road.

9.) Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing except a cold here or there.  We have been blessed with good health.

10.) Where did most of your money go?
Don't laugh, but this won't be a huge surprise. Our money went to new tires, a new transmission, and a lot of alternator belts for the Winnebago (and probably more that I can't remember).

Art imitating life -- this is us passing time at a Hardees while a local shop repaired a radiator hose that got cut when the engine cover was put back improperly by another mechanic.

11.) What was the best thing you bought?
We splurged this year and bought an iPod and Bose Mini speaker.  We use them ALL the time for listening to music and sermon downloads.  The Bose mini has an impressively long battery life (rechargeable) and has been fantastic for taking to the village or plugging into a laptop (for watching movies) or the electronic keyboard to give the volume an extra boost.  The blue tooth technology means no cords (more often than not) and it's small size means we can drop it in our back pack and it takes no more space than a water bottle! Normally I don't like to spend a ton of money on electronics because technology changes so rapidly, but we use both daily and I haven't regretted this purchase.  I only wish we would have bought it before we went on HMA and not at the end so we could have used it in our presentations.

12.) What did you get really excited about?
Oh my goodness, so much.  Seeing God's care for us during our HMA travels, the coalescing of our prayer team, His answers to specific prayers, His provision in the month of July as we saw our funds come in for us to leave for Albania 'on time,' anticipating our training at MTI in August, starting Albanian class, reconnecting with old friends in Albania and making new ones here...

13.) What song will always remind you of 2013?
 "Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)" by Hillsong United.  I first heard this during worship at MTI in August, then I bought it on iTunes and played it over and over in our early weeks in Tirana.  "You called me out upon the waters, the great unknown...in oceans deep, my faith will stand...  Your Sovereign hand will be my guide... when fear surrounds me, you've never failed and won't start now ... Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, let me walk upon the waters, wherever you might call me.  Take me deeper than my feet may ever wander and my faith would be made stronger...I will keep my eyes above the waves,  when oceans rise, my soul will rest in your embrace..."



14.  Compared to this time last year, are you richer or poorer?
Probably slightly poorer (refer back to #10) :-)
  fatter or thinner? 
I think about the same -- we are walking a ton more, but thanks to the diet here, eating more carbs and fats than ever before and subtle stresses can't help the metabolism
  happier or sadder? -- I feel happier in the sense that we are more settled than we've been in a long time and we are so glad to be in Albania.  I'm sadder in the sense that the Waggoner family is in the midst of a valley with Mom's health and we feel helpless to contribute much from our side of the ocean.  But just living cross culturally has definitely amplified my emotional sensitivity and requires more intentional care than before.

15. What do you wish you would have done more of in 2013?
-Visited our public library in Illinois sooner. There wasn't much close to the farm house, but this little gem was within reasonable driving distance and a highlight for the kids to visit.
-Shot more video of Reni talking.  Photos just don't capture it all.  He's grown up tremendously in the last year and our 'little boy' is more and more grown up.  I told him last week he's not allowed to lose his smushy cheeks which I like to press up against with my own.

16. What do you wish you had done less of?
Worry

17. How did you spend Christmas?
Christmas Eve we were up in the mountain village of Darshen, then we came home and had a special supper at a Chinese restaurant before watching The Nativity Story.  Christmas morning we attended a Christmas program put on by the youth of Vlashaj, then had a Christmas dinner back at our apartment with our neighbor and dear friend, Vera, before opening gifts.  Afterwards we knocked on every door in our building's stairwell, sang a Christmas song and delivered Christmas cookies.  I think we were all a bit nervous, but it was so worthwhile.

18. What were your favorite books of the year?
If you remember #8, then you know that this will be a short list. The first two books that come to mind are I, Saul (Historical fiction thriller that alternates between the present day and the last months of the Apostle Paul's life, I felt it really personalized my reading of his epistles for me, having a better understanding of his life, training, intellectual background, etc.) and (after re-visiting many Lincoln sites during our stint in Illinois, Nathan and I checked out the audio version of) Team of Rivals (Kearns-Goodwin).  Great for all of you poli-sci junkies, like me.  Thanks for the recommendation, Mark Landerholm!

19. What was your favorite film of the year?
This may tell you something about our stage in life, but I think Despicable Me 2! Sometimes you just need to splurge on a bucket of popcorn and slap on some 3D glasses with your kids.  For me, it was more the experience than the film itself -- it's probably the best film I've seen in 3D.

We haven't made it to the movies much in the past couple of years!  And it doesn't look like that's going to change much in the foreseeable future!

20.  Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013...
   I think I have already elaborated to a lot of things I learned through our pre-field training.  They were gifts that I don't want to forget. Then add all of the ways in which living in a different culture turns the magnifying glass on one's own set of values, expectations, needs and wants... Yeah, we'll just say a book could be written about what we've learned this year.

   So because I can over-think some of these types of things, I'll just keep it light and say:  Instagram is the bomb for remembering the best of every day life -- it doesn't require a 'big camera'.  Just looking through my instagram pics from this year felt like a great recap of not just the big moments, but all the little things that make up every day life. Anyone out there have a favorite Instagram book binder/publisher?

I think 2013 was one of the most stretching years I can remember in my entire life, but it has also been one of my favorite.  Thank you, Lord, for the gift of 2013.