Wednesday, 4/28, Berat, Albania

We finally went somewhere new in Albania!!! We rode in a minibus to Berat, a little over 2 hours from Tirana. The town has an ancient fortress/castle, with an old church and ruins from a couple of mosques in it. It also has some old house built along the hill/mountain. The weather was beautiful. Sunshine, relatively warm, nice breeze, fresh air. Very peaceful. I'll post pictures.

You'll notice that Luke has a soccer ball. We bring it everywhere with us now. We attach it to our backpack. When he's restless, we kick the ball around for a bit. Cheers him up. Of course, it sometimes leads to squabbles between him & Nathan, but everything seems to lead to squabbles between them lately. I guess they've been spending too much time together. They miss their friends. Nathan, in particular, has mentioned missing his friends a bunch of times. What can we do?

There are people who still live within the walls of the old fortress (someone told me 300 families). Many of them have little businesses there. We had a nice lunch at a tiny restaurant there. The kids were being particularly picky today. Even though he was "starving!", Luke wouldn't eat anything, which Genci found not just annoying, but embarassing. One of the things that's different about Albanians, is that they give you their opinions and advice, emphatically, whether they know you or not. They don't hold back from praising or criticizing or warning or whatever. They let you have it. It can be totally charming when they're showering you with praise & bestowing blessings on your family, or patting your kids' heads (again, I'm including strangers in this, not just family). But it can be not as pleasant when they're expressing their disapproval of you. The restaurant incident reminded me of this observation. The restaurant owner was exuberantly friendly. He treated us like we were family, and would do anything to make us happy. But, he started making comments that made Genci feel bad. First he was disappointed that the kids didn't understand him - i.e. that they didn't speak Albanian. He specifically blamed Genci for this. (This is not the first time we've heard this, and Genci does feel bad about it, so he takes it to heart.) Then, as Luke & Nathan's (especially Luke's) pickiness revealed itself, he kept commenting on how if we were cooking Albanian food for them, they would know/like/eat the food. I don't know exactly what he said, but he wasn't pleased that they weren't eating much/anything, and he blamed us. Now, perhaps we are just bad parents, and especially bad at imparting Albanian culture to our offspring, but we just wanted to eat. And yes, we too, were annoyed that our "starving" child wouldn't even try his food, even though he probably would have liked it. But Genci was embarassed, and a little mad at me for picking this SMALL restaurant, where people give you too much attention because they've got nothing better to do. He just couldn't wait to get out of there.

It wasn't as big of a deal to me, because I don't know this man (the owner/waiter), and to me, the important thing was to make sure we all ate so we had the energy to see the fortress. But the guy made a big deal of it, so I can see why it bothered Genci. He told me that I'm not supposed to tell anyone from now on that he is Albanian. (His hope is that they will stop scolding him if they don't realize he's Albanian.) Ay. It's too bad. Here we are, trying to introduce our kids to their father's country, and the people in it make their father want to leave because they try to shame him. Not conducive to spending more time in their country or to helping our kids learn more about their culture. Definitely counterproductive. Also not helpful for our family harmony.

So we left there with Genci in a pretty bad mood. Luckily, it was an absolutely gorgeous day, and there weren't many people around, so the beauty of the place won out. We wandered around, exploring. There were great views wherever we went.

When we were done exploring, we walked down the hill to the city. On the way, I stopped in to see the Ethnographic Museum. The pictures of interiors of a house are from there. They are set up to be how it looked 100-300 years ago. I forget when. I got there 4 minutes before the place was supposed to close, but they didn't care. The woman gave me a personal tour of the house/museum, in broken English. She was very sweet & helpful. The museum is in the former house of a rich family. The photo taken through a criss-cross wooden mesh is from the upper room where the women stayed/hid and watched the men socializing below. Definitely had to keep those men & women separated!

The kids slept on the minibus ride home (they needed that!).

We spent the late evening at Genci's mother's house. Genci was in a bad mood again, barking at Nathan. I found myself in the funny position of telling him to chill out & stop yelling, and realizing that his mother was saying the exact same thing to him in Albanian. Kind of ironic. We so often find ourselves on the opposite side of things, but we were both sensing the same problem & trying to get him to see what was going on. He's having a very hard time. Well, not as hard as usual, since he gets to relax at night, but he feels the pressure here continually. Pressure to eat, pressure to perform how people want him to perform. He does not react well to it. I think this hostel has been more important to/for him than it has been for me. There is no pressure to do anything here. He will probably not enjoy me analyzing him in public, but we'll see if he reads this blog. (Is this a test?) For me, his reaction to this trip and to people is an interesting a study in cultures and culture clashes as anything else I see. He is pretty Americanized, and when he comes back, it's a struggle to figure out who he is and where he fits in and how he feels about that. I am a lot more at peace on this trip than I have been on past trips, so I can feel his tension and not take it as personally as I usually do when I'm also feeling the pressure.

Speaking of his mother, I must say, she is trying pretty hard. She has been very nice to me, and she is loving, as usual, with the children. She hasn't been getting on Genci much, except when she was telling him to lay of the yelling, and save it for things that matter - like preventing dangerous things from happening. She does talk continually, even when the kids are also talking, so I can see why we feel the need to escape. And she does talk in minute detail about stuff that we don't really care about, but that's not malicious, so I'm feeling very sympathetic to her right now.

OK. I'd better get to bed. Thanks for listening. I hope everyone out there is well!