The list of things I love is for those bad days, those dark moments where I hate the place I am and want to get away. It's a list I can use to remember all the reasons why I should stay.
The list of things I hate is for the day I leave, that moment in the airport when I feel like my home is being ripped from me. It's a list I can use to remember all the reasons I'm glad to be moving on.
Albania ... such an easy place to create those lists. It can be a paradise or a hell hole. It's a land of opposites and paradoxes, and it can leave you feeling torn in every direction. So my lists will always be here, ready for me to return to anytime I need to be reminded of the reality of Albania.
Five Things I Hate About Albania
1. The weather that runs from unbelievably hot (did you know it hits 122 in Europe?!) and dry in the summer to bone chillingly cold for endless months of winter, while rain drizzles on and on and makes the entire country into a mud pit. It's not even really THAT cold (it usually doesn't go below 8-10F), but because homes don't have heat or insulation, it feels so much colder.
2. The power and water outages. When it's 120 degrees outside and the water goes out for five days, it's beyond frustrating, it's torturous. When the electricity goes out just when you're putting dinner in the oven or power cuts kill the internet right before an important skype call and then stays out for three days, it's beyond inconvenient. It's infuriating.
3. The cultural restraints on women are many, and for a women raised in a western culture, moving to Albania feels like abandoning freedom. Just having the ability to jump in the car to go out shopping or having coffee outside at a sidewalk cafe is something we take for granted, and it's not culturally acceptable here. After awhile a woman can start to feel trapped and crushed in this environment.
4. While overall the food in Albania is good, what it greatly lacks in is variety. I can only eat the same meals so many times before I long for a taste of something different, and it's just not here. Besides the lack of options, there are a few particular foods that are completely beyond the bounds of what any human should be forced to eat. Sickeningly sweet orange peels boiled down in gallons of sugar water and then jarred, served on a plate with a spoon and expected to be eaten alone without bread or anything to soften the assault on the tongue, teeth, and stomach. Don't get me started on brain soup breakfasts or sheep testicle dinners.
5. The overwhelming darkness and depression that covers the Albanian existence. They've been through so much that it's hard to expect otherwise, but still, it almost angers me that they seem to no longer care. I just want them to want, to try for something better. I want them to still care. I can't bear to see the empty, listless depression in their eyes. There's a reason that suicide is the second highest cause of death in Albania. Depression is their lifestyle.
Five Things I Love About Albania
1. The cafe culture, the smell of coffee in the streets as you pass the hundreds of tiny cafes on every street, spilling out onto the sidewalk as waiters pour into the street balancing trays filled with tiny cups of espresso to be delivered to local shops owners for their morning coffee.
2. The intrinsic beauty of the old ottoman architecture seen everywhere, especially in old cities like Berat and Kruja . The whitewashed plaster and exposed dark wood beams, thousands of windows and detailed carved ceilings ... they just don't put that kind of character into homes anymore.
3. The way Albanians put their hand over their heart when they thank you for something, and seem so much more genuine about everything they say and do.
4. The over-abundance of fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables available everywhere for pennies with taste and texture that makes American supermarket produce taste like wet styrofoam, and tempts you to invent new and creative recipes for the food that you know will only be here for a season, and then gone again till next year.
5. The ever present feeling of community and the way that people always seem to have time for each other even if it means stopping their car in the middle of the street to greet a friend, holding up the traffic for ten minutes while they ask about health and family.
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