Thursday, April 12, Albania - a pretty good day

Today was a pretty good day.  We got a late start, as usual.  By the time we headed out of the hostel (after breakfast, hanging laundry, checking e-mail and posting pix, it was almost 1pm.  Yes, we stay up late and yes, we are slow.  But the kids enjoy hanging out in the hostel and playing chess with people, so it's easy to linger.

We tried to find some pants for Nathan in the market near Genci's mother's house, but were unsuccessful.  I must admit, although I packed most of our stuff 3 weeks ahead of time, I made a huge mistake.  I only packed one pair of pants for Nathan - the one in the carry on, in case of spills during the flight.  As for the suitcase, I had left myself a note to pack them later, but the note fell out, and I didn't see what it said until later (after we flew!).  At the time of packing, I knew better than to bring any pants with holes in them (holes in the knees of a boy's pants, anyone?), so I was waiting until the last day to pack those, since Nathan only had a few pairs that were good enough for the trip, and they were what he preferred to wear to school.  So, anyways, he does have 2 pairs of pants with him - 1 to wear while the other is being washed or drying.  So he's OK.... but another pair would come in handy.  But he didn't like the ones he saw. 

After lunch (at Gysha's house), the sun came out, so we headed to the park!  We played soccer there for quite a while.  It was so nice just to feel the warmth of the sun.  Then, instead of heading home, we went to a little mini-amusement park that we used to go to last year.  The kids and I jumped on the trampoline for about 20 minutes.  The first 5 minutes I just watched, then I decided to join in, and had a ball.  What a nice feeling.  The trampoline "ride" has about 12 rectangular sections of trampoline all joined together with padding in between.  I tended to stay on one and just jump or do splits.  The kids like to jump from one to the next, or do flips between one and the next.  Luckily no one got hurt and we left sweaty and happy.  We then did the bumper cars for a few rides, watched a worker guy (young guy) kick a soccer ball around the amusement park.  He was very skilled, but he almost whacked people a bunch of times.  I'm wondering if the boss doesn't visit the park very often. 

On the walk home, we bought some flowers for Gjusha.  We got a tiny little yellow and red flower/plant, a medium plant with red flowers, and a larger set of purple flowers.  They were all beautiful.  She loves flowers and colors and pretty things.  Last year we got her a flowering cactus, which I wasn't sure if she would appreciate, but she loved it.  Yesterday, when she saw the photo of the flowers at the zoo, she asked me to return there and pick some of them, but make sure the roots were still on.  Rather than steal the flowers and vandalize the zoo, it made more sense to buy some.  Total expenditure: $12.  Not a big deal.  Do you sense some foreshadowing, some hint that these flowers may not have been received as well as expected?  If so, you would be right.

I'm not exactly sure what the objection was.  As soon as she saw them, she commented on the black pots that they were in.  I thought the problem was the color.  But once inside, she started going on & on about how she hadn't asked for pots.  Genci was trying to explain that plants come in pots.  (We're dealing with the cheap plastic pots that plants come in.)  Anyways, her tone started to get nastier and nastier, and her complaints started to spread to other topics, so I quickly did what I needed to do in the bathroom and got the hell out of there.  I took the kids to dinner at a nice restaurant nearby.  We had a lovely time.  We brought cards to pass the time, but we had barely shuffled them when the food started coming.  Nathan had biftek and rice pilaf.  I had some sort of meat soup/stew, but thicker, almost like gravy, and a mixed salad.  Luke had french fries, and ended up sharing Nathan's biftek.  I also got to have some well-deserved wine.

After dinner, we returned to Gjusha's house and she was past her tirade and in a better mood.  She was going through items that she has stored in plastic bags, pulling them out one by one, to see if we want to take them home with us.  The same-old, same-old.  But she wasn't yelling.  I sat with her and said "yes" or "no" to things while the kids played with toys and did their journals.  It's amazing the things she keeps.  One of the things I said "no" to was a large empty coffee pot that Genci had rescued from his work (restaurant)'s trash bin about 17 years ago.  She had 2 of them.  I suggested that we bring it to the trash, but she said she'd see if Genci's cousin wanted it.  She had scraps of material, plastic plates, Genci's short shorts from high school, Genci's shirts from high school that she thought might fit me now, and other odds and ends.  We go through this every day.  Until we leave, she will be pulling things out for us to look at and hopefully take home.  This used to drive me absolutely crazy, but I am used to it.  I have gotten better at saying "yes" sometimes, even if I don't want things, and "no" to things that are really crazy.  Some things I will get rid of before we leave Albania.  Other things perhaps I will put to use.  An item has a better chance if it small and light.  I try to get rid of the ancient clothes, since no one else would want them, and I'll just have to look at them next year when she pulls them out for me again.  Seriously.  Some of these things were never good, never in style.  But in a super-poor, isolated, communist Albania, they served a purpose.  Now, they make no sense for anyone anywhere.  But she is invested in them emotionally.  She is a hoarder.  She does want to get rid of things, but they can only go to a family member.  Giving them to a stranger is like throwing them in the trash to her.  To me, if someone else wants something that I don't want, I'm happy that the object is not totally wasted.  It found a home.  For her, helping people outside the family is absurdly wasteful.  It seems extremely selfish to me, but I understand that she grew up in a long period of extreme want, difficulty and gritty survivalism (is that a word?).  So she can't help herself.  But it still is hard for me.  And she doesn't see that all this hoarding or forcing people to take things they don't want, doesn't help anyone.  It would help her to have more space and less things in plastic bags to have to sort through every time we visit.

Perhaps I am babbling...

It was a good day.  Having nice weather in the afternoon helped a lot.  I felt freer. 

Gjusha was starting to get into another angry tirade at some point, so I quickly gathered up our stuff and got the hell out of there.  She tends to get into bad moods right before we leave, and tomorrow we're headed to Austria for 5 days, so she might just be upset about that and going off on other things.

It's supposed to rain for the whole time we're in Austria.  I hope the weather report is wrong.  It's so much more fun to be able to be outside and comfortable.

We're trying to pack light.

We're going to be staying with my friend Ursula and her 4 kids.  JoJo is Nathan's age, and the other three get younger from there.  We've all been looking forward to this.  Internet access might be sketchy, especially the first day or two. 

I hope all my family and friends are well.  Thanks for following along, even if this is mostly a family a visit, and not really a travel trip.