I don't feel like writing, so I'll try to just give highlights. We spent some time at Genci's mother's house (a couple of times), which was a little more trying than it has been, but OK. In the late afternoon we went on a cable car ride up to the local mountain, Mt. Dajti. The cable car (teleferiku) ride was beautiful. As we went over hills & up the mountain, we saw sheep, goats, donkeys, houses with some farmland, bunkers, trees, etc. and heard lots of birds chirping. It was peaceful & beautiful. Luke found it a little frightening, but was fine as long as one of us held him securely.
At the top of the mountain, the kids played on a playground, then we went for a walk in the woods on a pathway that went around the mountain. We didn't make it all the way around to the end of the path, but we did walk for a long time. I was very proud of the kids & relieved that we didn't have to deal with the "I'm tired" whining routine. It was a beautiful walk & we made lots of little discoveries. The highlight was a train of caterpillars. I don't know where they were going, but they were head-to-butt, head-to-butt in a long line (like elephants at the circus), moving very slowly, but steadily. I'd never seen them do that before.
His mother called, and was mad that we went there & that we weren't at her house, since the weather was nice (she wanted to hear the kids playing in the yard). So we sped home to her house & I went & picked up some food. She is currently in the process of going through everything she has & finding things to give to us, as well as buying new things for us to take home. She does this every time we're here. Besides the fact that we came with full suitcases (although small suitcases since I was trying to travel light), it's very time consuming to look at all this stuff, because she makes a big production out of everything & gives long explanations for each item. A few of the items that I refused were scraps of material that I could theoretically sew into a bag, miscellaneous buttons, and elastic for sewing. I have been saying yes to a lot of things I normally say no to, and just asking the woman at the hostel to find homes for them. She did buy the kids some nice shirts that she showed me tonight, but I was confused as to her intentions, so we almost had a major problem. She was showing me 6 shirts, and seemed to want me to choose from them. I didn't know if she wanted me to choose 1 shirt for each kid, or 2 each or just give my approval to all of them. So I asked how many she wanted the kids to have. Well, this question got misunderstood, and even when I brought Genci into it to try to explain my question and my confusion, she just got madder. We finally were able to talk her down & all was OK. Yikes. Language issues combined with other issues - not easy. I'm trying to remember why she was mad. First she thought I wanted to know how much they cost. I explained I didn't. I don't know what her next interpretation was, but it doesn't matter now. I think we're cool. All I know is that it is getting very hard to get out of her house (30-45 minutes perhaps after you start trying).
Genci was in a better mood today. His stomach is not feeling well, and he is tired, but he seemed more relaxed. We're trying to figure out how to go away for a few days to go down South. He is really afraid of how mad his mother will be. We have been putting it off until we did all of our required visits. We'll see what happens. We're aiming to head down South on Saturday.
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