OK, so I am getting reprimanded for not blogging more often! I guess I have been a little lax lately, but then I never said I was good at this.
Albania is getting some international press right now regarding its power situation. Every year that we have been here the electricity in the winter is really poor. Albania relies on Hydro-electric power for all of its internally produced power, yet the demand has gone up so much since the fall of communism that it cannot produce enough. Add into the mix a significant drop in rainfall, lousy infrastructure, and rapid decay (with little repair or improvements) of the power plants themselves and you have a recipe for power cuts. This year the pattern for us has been that the power goes out from 8:30 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. and then another cut in the evening, usually from about 6:30 until 8:30 (give or take an hour). We actually have it pretty good. In other major cities, they are losing power for as much as 8 or 10 hours a day. Right now though, we are in the build-up to local elections so we have power 24/7 - I hate to think what it will be like once the elections are over.
A couple of weeks ago I went with a couple of co-workers up to Budva, Montenegro. We are going to have a conference there in the fall and we had gone up there to check out the hotel and begin price negotiations. We made great time getting up there and things were going very well. We accomplished all we needed to early, and had a chance to do a little sight-seeing and eat lunch before heading back. After we got back on the road, about half-way to the border the car suddenly started making some strange noises. We limped back to Albania and made it across the border, but about 20km after the border the vehicle just quit altogether. We sat there, midway between two major cities (Shkoder and Lezhe if you are intent enough to look it up on Google Earth), madly dialing on our cellphone to try to get some help! In the meantime, I managed to lock my keys in the vehicle as well, so there we were waiting on the side of the road as the sun went down, getting cooler and cooler… I called our co-workers back in Tirana and they managed to find a wrecker, rendezvoused with him to give him my spare keys, and then sent him on his way. The two folks who were with me hopped on a furgon (the ubiquitous – I have always wanted to use that word – private vans that shuttle people between cities here in Albania) and were back home in about an hour and a half. I, on the other hand, waited by my disabled Hyundai Galloper until help arrived. First it arrived in the form of two Albanian guys from one of the local churches. They came and let me sit in their car to stay warm, then took me for a coffee while we waited. Let me tell you, I got my language practice in! For the next 6 hours it was nothing but Shqip, and with the northern dialect being a little different from the central dialect I am accustomed to, it was a stretch at times. Three hours with my new friends from Lezhe, and then the wrecker arrived.
Sometimes it is a good thing that I cannot understand everything that is said. I told my co-worker (who has been working with Albanians for over 20 years now and speaks the language like they do) that I imagined that this wrecker driver’s vocabulary was probably every bit as “colorful” as wrecker drivers in the US. He told me it was even more colorful! I guess I won’t be using any of the new words I learned on the 3 hour trip back to Tirana! At one point we were pulled over by the police. Before the officer could get to the window, the driver pulled out some money, then when he shook hands with the officer slipped it to him. When the police asked about the vehicle, Asllan (the wrecker driver) told him I was with the American Embassy – that way the officer would not mess with us! I was so tired by this point that I did not really hear what he was saying. I was struggling with the fact that he was only going about 40kph and I was in a hurry to get home! Finally we made it back to Tirana, dropped the vehicle off at a mechanic’s shop that was highly recommended by a guy in our church, and then I got a taxi to take me the rest of the way home. I had left the house at 6 that morning; it was just after 9 pm when I walked in the door.
Albania is getting some international press right now regarding its power situation. Every year that we have been here the electricity in the winter is really poor. Albania relies on Hydro-electric power for all of its internally produced power, yet the demand has gone up so much since the fall of communism that it cannot produce enough. Add into the mix a significant drop in rainfall, lousy infrastructure, and rapid decay (with little repair or improvements) of the power plants themselves and you have a recipe for power cuts. This year the pattern for us has been that the power goes out from 8:30 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. and then another cut in the evening, usually from about 6:30 until 8:30 (give or take an hour). We actually have it pretty good. In other major cities, they are losing power for as much as 8 or 10 hours a day. Right now though, we are in the build-up to local elections so we have power 24/7 - I hate to think what it will be like once the elections are over.
A couple of weeks ago I went with a couple of co-workers up to Budva, Montenegro. We are going to have a conference there in the fall and we had gone up there to check out the hotel and begin price negotiations. We made great time getting up there and things were going very well. We accomplished all we needed to early, and had a chance to do a little sight-seeing and eat lunch before heading back. After we got back on the road, about half-way to the border the car suddenly started making some strange noises. We limped back to Albania and made it across the border, but about 20km after the border the vehicle just quit altogether. We sat there, midway between two major cities (Shkoder and Lezhe if you are intent enough to look it up on Google Earth), madly dialing on our cellphone to try to get some help! In the meantime, I managed to lock my keys in the vehicle as well, so there we were waiting on the side of the road as the sun went down, getting cooler and cooler… I called our co-workers back in Tirana and they managed to find a wrecker, rendezvoused with him to give him my spare keys, and then sent him on his way. The two folks who were with me hopped on a furgon (the ubiquitous – I have always wanted to use that word – private vans that shuttle people between cities here in Albania) and were back home in about an hour and a half. I, on the other hand, waited by my disabled Hyundai Galloper until help arrived. First it arrived in the form of two Albanian guys from one of the local churches. They came and let me sit in their car to stay warm, then took me for a coffee while we waited. Let me tell you, I got my language practice in! For the next 6 hours it was nothing but Shqip, and with the northern dialect being a little different from the central dialect I am accustomed to, it was a stretch at times. Three hours with my new friends from Lezhe, and then the wrecker arrived.
Sometimes it is a good thing that I cannot understand everything that is said. I told my co-worker (who has been working with Albanians for over 20 years now and speaks the language like they do) that I imagined that this wrecker driver’s vocabulary was probably every bit as “colorful” as wrecker drivers in the US. He told me it was even more colorful! I guess I won’t be using any of the new words I learned on the 3 hour trip back to Tirana! At one point we were pulled over by the police. Before the officer could get to the window, the driver pulled out some money, then when he shook hands with the officer slipped it to him. When the police asked about the vehicle, Asllan (the wrecker driver) told him I was with the American Embassy – that way the officer would not mess with us! I was so tired by this point that I did not really hear what he was saying. I was struggling with the fact that he was only going about 40kph and I was in a hurry to get home! Finally we made it back to Tirana, dropped the vehicle off at a mechanic’s shop that was highly recommended by a guy in our church, and then I got a taxi to take me the rest of the way home. I had left the house at 6 that morning; it was just after 9 pm when I walked in the door.
Wrecker service - $120
Auto repairs (replace valve cover, change oil and filter, replace timing belt) - $310
Culture and language lessons – priceless!
3 comments:
yay for adventures!! love the wrecker's name, that's awesome!! :) glad you made it home to your family safe and sound!!
Your "priceless!" at the end was correct, not the "priceless?" in the title. The task is to bring those folks from where they are -whatever form of lostness the culture has them in - to where they need to be - which is what Scripture defines as "knowing God!" That experience is excellent for getting you to the task. You've got to learn there form of lostness, as well as the language of lostness. The more you understand them, the better you can help them get to where they need to go! Amen and God bless! -keith, 18 yrs in Philippines, with mounds of experiences like yours!
That happened to my friend, Zoe (Brandenburg) when she shipped out to Nairobi the first time. She thought she was learning something she could use.
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