Monday, May 25, 2009

Post Practicum Pics

                              View from the top with some lovely purple flowers- how's that for artsy?
                        Daryoush and Carrie Ann 1/3 of the way up the mountain trek.
                          Me kicking it at the top of the mountain- b.e.a.UTIFUL view

Post Practicum

In order to celebrate the end of our hard work of Practicum- we decided to hike the highest mountain in Bisqhem. It took us about 1.5 hours to reach the peak, and had the most beautiful view of the surrounding cities in Albania. Enjoy the pictures... and for you Michigan grads... "wherever you go, GO BLUE!"

Friday, May 8, 2009

Practicum Pictures

Teaching about Breast Cancer in the Health Center
SUCCESSFUL TRASH PICK UP... until they started using it as a weapon!

Tyler and the boys painting the school yard!

Yes, this IS a mountain of trash... lovely right?
Teaching first grade pedestrian safety & playing games outside.

Practicum

Contrary to popular belief due to the current content of my blog, I AM actually required to do some work during training. This work is also known as "Practicum" and the tasks to be completed are divided by sector, thus the Health Volunteers have different guidelines than Community Development and TEFL Volunteers.

The HE Practicum consisted of multiple class observations in the villages and Elbasan as well as teaching a 1) first grade class 2) seventh grade class 3) community class and 4) completing a community project based on the needs and wants of the village.

I was paired up with Carrie and Ben for my 1st & 7th grade lessons where we taught road/pedestrian safety and drunk driving respectively. The classes we gave were a mix of things- broken Albanian with much help from the HE coordinator, a series of things that worked and things that were unsuccessful, and a huge learning experience. Overall I was pleased with the classes- especially our drunk driving class because I feel that the older kids took a lot of information and will use it in the future. Speaking in Albanian is still very difficult, but I tried my best and I think they understood me for the most part.

For our community practicum, all 5 of us worked together to make a health information bulletin board for the new health center in Bishqem and give a lesson on Breast Cancer. The session went crazy, and we ended up fielding a million questions from the nurses themselves!

Last but not least we completed our community practicum yesterday. We went for a "School Beautification" approach, but the director of the school in very uncooperative at times, so I'm pleased to announce it all came together okay. We divided the kids into 3 groups: one played a game about the environment, one painted the school, and the other picked up trash. At the end of it all, we were trying to take a picture of the kids with all the trash bags (we DID get one quick one) before they started BEATING each other with the trash bags, they ripped open, and the trash we all picked up went flying. Things got out of control for a short while, but we never could have seen that coming, so I just have to laugh about it.

Yes, success.... still learning a lot over here, still learning the language, still shocked I've completed 7.5 weeks, and so very excited to go meet my future work counterpart and see Berat next week. Until then... I hope to hear from all of you very soon!

Fotos

Group field trip to Kruja to the Skanderbej Museum
On the beach in Durres with my teachers Entela (L) & Suzana (R)

Yes, an Albanian monument located in Rochester Hills, MI!
Brett, Me, & Lindsay on top of the Castle in Kruja

The castle and the surrounding mountains in Kruja- beautiful!

The Bread of Life

Since so many of you have been asking me about It, I think it’s time for a brief look into the Albanian food & diet. Since I live out in a village- almost every household has their own field in which they mainly grow lemons, oranges, grapes, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, and of course olives. The women mostly tend to fields during the day and use the “in season” crop in meals every day- it’s actually really impressive how self-sufficient they are here, and yes, their fruits and veggies are extremely fresh and delicious and I eat them every day!

My host mom, again following along the patterns of my previous host mothers abroad, is a wonderful cook, and serves me a wide variety of food. One of the classic dinners I get is a tomato-based soup almost always served with “mish baby cow” as my family jokes about which, you guessed it, is veal. They LOVE veal and it’s usually the only meat we eat. Every once in a while, they make the slit across the neck motion and I’m served chicken for a couple days to follow.

On special occasions (especially when I am invited to other peoples houses for dinner or guests come over) I am served a “meza” which is a plate consisting of a meat (lamb, chicken, pork, or fish), a salad of cucumbers and tomatoes, cheese, French fries, olives, and byrek. Byrek is an amazing creation of light flaky dough, stuffed with cheese and spinach, and brushed with egg to make it kind of flaky. Side note: the CHEESE HERE IS AMAZING! Other side note: since olives are a huge hit here everything is made with olive oil… sometimes a LOT of olive oil, though my host family is good about holding back on the oil.

Albanians love to share their food. Most meals, the salad and “tarator” – a homemade yogurt with garlic and cucumbers mixed in (I LOVE THIS), are placed in giant community bowls in the middle of the table and everyone digs in with their own spoons. It’s definitely different, but it doesn’t even phase me anymore.

Oh top of everything I must tell you that they love bread- plain old white sliced bread. The family eats at least 3 pieces of bread each per meal and they find it really weird I barely eat any. In fact, the word for bread and they word for food are both the same, buke, literally meaning bread. Thus, they consider bread a staple food, clearly an idea still holding strong in the post-communist society of Albania.