Gained in Translation

And it's Albania! Never in our planning did we think of going to Albania. We considered passing through it, but never did we think about staying here. I think I remember the conversation. We laughed. Albania! we said, chortling and making a joke about backwards people. Borat was quoted liberally. We'd never spend time in Albania. Well, the joke's on us. There is no goddamn way to go straight to Croatia from Athens without renting a car. At least one overnight stop is needed. We spent that night in Tirana, the capital and largest city of Albania. Er, well really we spent 1 night on the bus to Albania (a night bus from Athens that left at 8pm and arrived at 10:30PM), and one bus in an incredibly cheap hotel (2500 Leke a day, the equivelent of 20 euro or $28 dollars. For two people. That's lower than rent in Seattle. Or DC. Amanda). This entry will entirely concern our time in Albania.

You know you're in a poor country when: 1.You look out the window of your bus and the driver of the donkey cart next to you waves hello. 2. Oil drills are right next to village water sources (we saw some ex-streams soaked in raw oil) 3. Every third building is an unfinished skeleton and people are camping in it. 4. You have more money in your wallet than most people do in their entirety. 5. You look out the bathroom window and a dog is chasing chickens about ten feet away.
BUT!

We made more friends in the last 24 hours than we made in the entire previous ten days. Let me tell you about Adriatik Ramanjaku. Adriatik is a 35 year old from a small town near Tirana called Luchnaye. He has been living in Athens for the last twenty years and working as a painter. His father's name is Bahir, and his mother's name is Lute. He has a girlfriend, or a wife, we couldn't quite tell, named Dona in Romania. He loves America, and thinks George W. Bush is a swell president. He also tried desperately to tell us that George W. Bush was coming to Tirana to speak on the tenth, the same day we were there (that's another fun story. What are the chances? They had the entire city center decked out in signs that said "Proud to be Partners." We saw Bush's motorcade glide passed, the second time I've seen it. Strangely, it seemed less heavily armed than it was in Indiana, but maybe that's because they had the entire Tiranan police force between Bush and the populace.) We didn't get it for a couple of hours though.

Adriatik knew maybe tens words of English: Good, bad, dollar, Madonna, George W. Bush. A few others, most pop related) We communicated by drawing pictures and words in the back pages of my accounting book. Thank God I had it, and a pen. The conversation became much better with that. We drew each other pictures and laughed that we did not understand. We tried again. One of the first problems was that we had no way to tell the person that we understood. "I understand." Such an important couple of words. Here are some of the pictures of our conversation.

Not all of them though. There are pages of stuff. We talked about restraunts and politics and girls and money and all sorts of crazy crap. And it was fun. If we'd both spoken the same language, I'm sure it would have been a very plain conversation. But, as it was, it was almost a game. It is suprising what complicated ideas you can get across with just pictures. Adriatik started the conversation off by trying to tell us that we would be crossing a huge bridge into Albania. We eventually got what he was talking about, but then had to discern that it was future tense, not present. We spent a long time trying to find a bridge that wasn't there. But you get things eventually, if you keep trying. When we got to a small restraunt where we stopped for a break in our 12 hour bus ride, everyone (they were almost all Albanian) chipped in to buy us some local dishes. We don't know what they were called. We tried everything to get names. We asked. We pointed to ourselves and said our names, and then to the people and said their's, and then to the dishes. That aroused a pointing motion and expression that I believe meant "eat it, stupid." We were everyone's pet Americans. Here are some pictures.

That's the local food on the left. They kept getting it for us. It was pretty good but very greasy. Adriatik is in the middle picture in the Puma shirt. That's Olti on the right. Olti spent some time studying in New Jersey, because he has an aunt who is a schoolteacher in the US. He was kind enough to show us around Tirana and act as a translator. He showed us to the hotel, where this picture was taken. He was the only one on the bus that spoke english, and he didn't get on until very late in the ride.

So anyway, Tirana was fun. Tirana was a good place to go, and I'm glad I came. Plus, I now no longer fear our chances of getting people to help us when we bike. People like helping, in general, although I'll admit that the city folk have so far not lived up to the hospitality that those on the bus have provided. The leading picture, by the way, reflects what I was suprised to learn. Albanians love the US. Love it. And Bush. Go ahead and look it up on MSN. Bush Gets Hero's Welcome in Albania. I got the impression, though, that it was because he was the US president. Any US president would be popular.

Must be off. We have a long day ahead of us. Spencer was out checking for busses to Croatia while I was writing this (these take a long time!). He couldn't find any. No buses heading north at all. All they had were cabs. Damn cabs. Gonna cost us about 160 euro. Yikes. Maybe we could try hitch-hiking? So, we're off to find a bus. Hope we aren't stuck here.

Last thing. There have been stray dogs all over Europe. In Greece, for example, there were at least two per city block. And they were fat fat animals. Very well fed. In Albania:

Not so much.