Travel Stories >> Albania >> July 15 – 19: Skodra: Rozafa castle, eels, and some excellent beer

ALBANIA – Summer 1996
July 15 – 19: Skodra: Rozafa castle, eels, and some excellent beer

Monday, July 15, 1996

So after this long, dreadful, sleepless night, I met up with Gertrude to find that she was in as foul as mood as I. The funny part about this is that we both put on our false-bravado sort of "I don’t care" faces... like, no big deal. We head down to the lobby for a quick breakfast, which we’ve been told is included in our room charge, and we sit in the hotel lounge and wait. We are figuring a quick coffee and some bread, then it’s off to the room to go over our training plan for the day.

Well, no one seems to know what to do with us. So we sit, and sit, and as we sit, we notice that everyone else who has come into the place is getting served. And the tension is building, and building, until Gertrude suddenly jumps up, and loudly growls, "that’s it, I’ve had enough of these people!" and stomps out of the place.

Well! I had no choice but to follow… And so we trudge back up the 3 million stairs to our hot, dusty rooms. I offer her a fat-free granola bar (since that’s all I have) and she snaps, "I don’t want a goddamned granola bar". Sweetheart that she is….so I sort of huddle in my room, drink my bottled water and enjoy MY goddamned granola bar. All of a sudden, she appears in my doorway with a smile on her face and says, "ahem, breakfast is served." So I follow her down to her room where there on a tray are two cups of coffee, plenty of bread, butter and jam. Gertrude thinks this is them responding to her snit. I think they have a room service of sorts, and that the hotel lounge was serving folks from off the street (at least that what it looked like). Who cares what the hell it was, we had breakfast.

So there we are, unshowered, tired as dogs, no prep, and the students begin to filter into the conference room (I use the term loosely) that they’ve given us for the course.

It is a terrific group. They seem so glad to see us, and Gary tells me that the policy training (remember Tim and Amber) was a bust with these folks. It was just awful, and so they are really glad to see people who are not from Iowa. Gary mimics Tim, "Missouri...." and points to his right, and "Mississippi..." - points to his left, then, "Eye-Oh-Wah" and pounds on his chest. Gary snorts, "hello? Did it occur to Tim to think these people have any freaking idea (or care) what the Missouri River is? First lesson Tim could learn might be, "m-a-k-i-n-g i-t r-e-l-e-v-a-n-t", how about trying, "Drini...." "Bunë...." "Sh-ko-dra". Duh…", Gary grumbles.

Anyway, it is a nice mix of RBA (Regional Business Agencies - the business centers here) types, grad students from the University business faculty, businessmen, and a couple of bankers. They are really great, and seem very eager to listen to what we have to teach them. Our translator is a super-bright young man named Florian, educated in Italy in an American high school. His English, and grasp of business concepts is excellent (and we discover later, better than any other translator we have on this trip).

Although I have plenty of training experience, I always wonder before the first session – how the participants will respond to the training. I was somewhat unsure about my own training style here until I watched Gertrude. She treats these business people and students like they are a classroom of unruly 8 year olds. She is very dry and hard with the participants. Gary put his finger on it when he said, "Gertrude is a teacher, not a trainer, there is a big difference." She doesn’t look comfortable in front of the room, she misses a lot of the dynamics happening in the room, she barks at the participants when she gets frustrated because they miss something or are talking among themselves. She will pick on someone and embarrass him/her in front of the rest. The wild thing that she really knows this stuff. Too bad we can’t teach her how to be a trainer... in most cases you either have the personality or you don’t.

Oh, at one point after Gertrude snaps at someone, Gary leans over and whispers to me, "did you and Gertrude arrive at the same time?" I look confused and respond that of course we did, we were on the same flights, and why did he ask, and he said, "wow, I didn’t know her broom could keep up with a 747." It’s all I can do from chortling out loud.

After class - at 2pm (because that way they get the same amount of training they’d get with two longer breaks and a lunch break, but this way they can get back to their businesses, etc.) We (I) hold a brief training of trainers session for the university grads and the RBA and Business Center people whom Gary believes will be doing training in the follow-on. They all speak very good English, and are eager to train. Once it’s over, we pack up ALL our stuff, and move to Gary’s house.

It is really nice to see Gary again, he and I have been good friends for some ten years, and he likes this job, but after all those years in Africa he is used to living frugally and even primitively. He has a poor water situation. It is only on sometimes, and it is only "hot" sometimes (rarely at the same time), and there is never any pressure, even when it is on. We’ll be taking sponge baths.

Television here is as weird as anywhere else in Europe. No real strong Albanian stations (a couple of regional ones), just a lot of schlock from every other country (Oprah Winfrey in German, ER in Spanish, etc.). We are not going to miss the Olympics because we can watch it on the Eurosport channel.

Shkodra is a neat little city. It is small enough to be plenty manageable, and Gary lives in the old town, where people actually lived in houses instead of state owned apartment buildings. If you are in a house, and you survived communism and you get your house back, you start right in on modernizing and renovating it - which is exactly what people are doing (kitchens and bathrooms are priorities right now). If you lived in a state run apartment complex, then you do NOTHING to fix it up or make it look nice because they have no concept of condominium, or a condo board to make decisions about whether to paint the damn thing, or what happens when the neighbors upstairs flood the bathroom, and it runs down and destroys your place.... What a mess this is. The process of helping Albania rejoin the rest of the world will have to take place in stages, and in such a variety of ways, most of which cannot be imagined.

That afternoon, we all "giro", and I send out postcards, which will likely only get where they are going because Gary slipped the woman a little money, ‘for coffee’ and a wink. Everyone tells me that most postcards end up on the walls of people’s homes. Is that wild? This concept that something belongs to you, or that you are owed any consideration or privacy, is completely foreign. Mark (the deputy chief of party, describes the Albanians as the most hospitable and yet the rudest people he’s ever met. There is no such thing as a line here.... it is a rush of bodies, and if you can’t keep up the fight, then you shouldn’t try. The children will pick through stuff you have in a bag, people will rifle through papers you have set down. No private property for forty years is a tough concept to re-teach!

SHKODRA - Tuesday, July 16, 1996

Up early, good coffee.. Gary is a generous host, but he declines our invitations to eat out with (I think it’s because he gets enough of Gertrude during the day!) .

Our translator, Florian, is just a great guy. Gary has had him translating business texts, and so he is really good - this exercise has also left him quite fluent in the trickier business terms. Gertrude is rough on these folks. They are young and bright, and I know they learn from her, but she barks at them, snaps at Florian, and makes inappropriate jokes (about the condition of their businesses, that all Albanians just want to drink coffee - not work). It’s almost like we should have Gertrude work on product development, needs assessments, and curriculum development - certainly not up in front of our potential ‘return’ clients. It would sure be nice to find someone who knows what she knows but who has a more accommodating personality.

It is striking to me how really bright the women are here. Gary says they are much smarter than the men. He said, "look, go out and interview 100 Albanian women, then go ask 100 Albanian men the same questions, you’ll be dumbstruck - pun intended" I am convinced that my mother’s theory about women as survivors is relevant in this case. Women in most countries have been oppressed, generally, for so long, that they learn to survive, and sort of thrive surreptitiously around the oppression. In the Arab harems, for example, they built strong internal social and political structures. The men rule the roost, they get powerful, they get lazy, they get too big for their britches. And suddenly the rules change. Women will respond by blooming, growing, and feeling liberated, men will respond by getting angry, being frustrated and suddenly having to struggle to figure out where they fit in, what they do or don’t have or can do. In that funny show called, "Defending The Caveman" in the US, Rob Becker says, "Guys are good rule-followers, just tell us the rules - and we’ll do real well. Change the rules on us, and we screw up!" Interesting principals at work, and the Albanian women have the potential to rule the world!

Once class is over today, Gertrude and I return to Gary’s, change clothes, and go find a place to get lunch. We are running out of things to talk about. I am tired of hearing the repeat stories of Washington DC theater or banking or her precocious eight year-old, and she doesn’t believe I could possibly know anything she’d find interesting so we don’t do too much small talk. I ask her about her past overseas trips which are mildly interesting, and give her something to run her mouth about. As she’s talking I cringe about all the other ethnic populations she offended and who now think this is what Americans are all like.

After lunch we wander again... this time to the north side of town, a slightly rougher looking section. The weather is oppressively hot, which adds to the filthy feel of the streets. We begin to pass kiosks and tents of people (mostly men) selling anything they can: Plastic bags, beach balls, light bulbs, towels, lots of fake flower arrangements and plastic plants, rubber shoes, bottles of olive oil, unwrapped bars of soap, old tacky furniture, new tacky furniture. (Gary tells us, and we later see it’s true, that the communists gave everyone the same issue furniture, basically the factory made one kind of table, one kind of bed, one kind of bureau...can you even imagine living in a country where even your furniture is identical to your neighbors’?)... some of this stuff gives the impression that some really old cruise ship ran aground in the Adriatic and the thing was stripped clean - parts ending up on the streets of Albanian bazaars.

We walk by the tobacco sellers (love the word in Albanian, "tarabosh") and pass by lots of groups of men, all squatting around their card games. We watch them play dice. We listen to them call out information about the fish they are selling - caught in nearby Lake Shkodra. They are selling sausages (that you could not PAY me to eat), and stuff that I assume is cheese (although for the stench I cannot get close enough to confirm this). It is a wonderful walk.

After returning to Gary’s for a nap, we meet Jim (Peace Corp). Jim and his wife, Patty are here from the DC school system (imagine leaving the DC schools to join the Peace Corps), he is a delightful man. We chat for a bit, then head out to dinner - sans Gary. We eat at the same pleasant restaurant we had lunched at the day before (remember there are only a couple of restaurants in the whole town). On the route to and from, we pass an orphanage - one run by the Danes. There in the late afternoon, on the second floor balcony, all the little children sit - all in identical blue or pink pajamas, on the floor of the balcony with their little legs between the grating, swinging them like a kid in the back of a grocery cart, their little bodies encased behind that grating like prisoners. It is absolutely heart-wrenching.

SHKODRA - Wednesday, July 17, 1996

We are having really good sessions - Gertrude really carries the financial stuff - I do the easy (fun) pieces on marketing. Today we did advertising and had an absolute blast. I love this group, they are bright, animated, and the older businessmen start out so proper and stoic. During the advertising campaigns they climb on tables and scream with laughter - did we have fun! But without Gertrude, this isn’t taking place - I may not like her training style or her personality, but she sure can wade through this shit.

After class we head back to Gary’s - stopping on the way to get a cheese sandwich at one of the kiosks near the hotel (one we frequently go to during class breaks for cold soda), owned and run by a gorgeous man named, Johnny (I’m sure). It has been an absolutely beautiful day, the humidity broke, and it is crisp and clear - even the dirty streets of Shkodra look nice! It really is a impressive place, geographically speaking. A glance down any street reveals an absolutely striking mountain in the faded background.

According to the Lonely Planet (url here), there are 3 million Albanians actually IN Albania. And they really distinguish between the Ghegs of the north and the Tosks of the South (apparently the Ghegs have bigger noses). During our drive up from Tirana, we saw a number of people along the side of the road in traditional dress. The men wear a fine embroidered white shirt and what look like knickers (and in the North, a white skull cap). The woman (particularly the older ones) wear a white blousy shirt with wide sleeves and baggy white pants tied tight at the ankles and a large dark apron over this whole get-up. They also wear head coverings like white towels that are sort of tight over the top of the head but free flowing over the ears and the back.

I digress! So at about 7pm, as we had planned, the gang from the RBA (Simon, Ulvi, Terezina, and Angie) came by to get us to take us to see Mark’s brewery north of town. Mark Mrnaçi is one of our businessmen. He is thirty today (!). He and his wife, Kristina, are two bright young Albanians who, with the help from SME loans and a rich uncle in the USA, have refurbished and run a small brewery on the North side of Shkodra. It is one of the cleanest, finest, well-run establishments I have ever seen (forget completely that this is in Albania), and they are tremendously proud of it. Mark and Kristina serve us all their beer with pretzels and munchies. It was super, some of the best beer I’ve ever had! All my beer-drinking friends would really love this stuff.... and Mark and Terezina and I spent a little time trying to figure out how I could get a small barrel home for my softball team. Since they don’t pasteurize the beer - it would have been impossible. Shame! So we drank and got gigglier and gigglier. It was so sweet - all of us about the same age, some of the same moments in our lives - I could really live with these people - wonderful.

After our little beer fest, we are whisked off to the best Italian restaurant in Shkodra, possibly in the country, called, "Cristal". We ate and giggled and teased each other, and have a ball, the food is amazing, and the wine is wonderful. At one point, Simon snuck out to get a birthday cake for Mark, and we sang in both English and then in Albanian. And of course, as is her style Gertrude knocks on the table to announce that it is 10:30, and we have class tomorrow and we’ll just have to pass on the coffee that Simon has just suggested. Promptly shutting down the joviality, we trundle into the cars and go home. I sat up for two hours catching up on pricing and costing for class tomorrow.

SHKODRA - Thursday, July 18, 1996

Got up earlier than I hoped - I hate when that happens - and since there was no water, I heated a pot of reserve on the stove, and sponged down in the bathroom. It was actually a nice experience - a little alone time. I don’t particularly like being tied to Gertrude. I was really irritated by the fact that I didn’t stay out with the gang last night. I need to stand up and tell her when she is out of line. Maybe she’ll react well to the in-your-face approach. It was a long, hard one today, and even though I spent time earlier in the week, and then time last night working on this stuff, I really bombed. Costing and Pricing - long and ugly. I really have to learn to avoid the subjects that I myself don’t like. Finally at about 1:30 after watching the student doze off, I escape as best I can. After class is over we are interviewed by three young people from Radio-Shkodra. They seemed nice enough, and spoke enough English to ask a couple of good questions.

It is great to be free for the afternoon, and we have arranged with Florian and Gary’s taxi driver friend (named Ded, Gary calls him Dominic (?)) to the famous castle which overlooks Shkodra, the Rozafa Fortress. A mile SW of the city, this magnificent structure looks over the convergence of the Drini and Bunë Rivers and down on the little city of Shkodra tucked into the valley just below Lake Shkodra.

It took us a little while to climb the old stone drive which hairpinned up the steep side of the mountain. The car could only go so far, and we walked the rest. The geography on all three sides of the castle that borders on the river was dramatic. Great, steep precipices, a little like the wonderful butte/mesa of Les Beaux in Provence. It was very cool to look out over the edges of the ramparts (such as they were), and look down hundreds of feet to the waters of the rivers surrounding it. It was a clear, warm summer afternoon, and I felt like I was God. The views were just breathtaking. We could even see the sunshine blinding us from off the lake. To the east of us was Shkodra and the great mountain ranges beyond. To the North were the mountains across the river, and beyond to Yugoslavia (Montenegro).

The first walls of this fortress were built/set by the Illyrians and rebuilt later by the Venetians and then the Turks. In antiquity it was Shkodra that ruled over much of the land that is today modern Albania and Montenegro. As you enter the ruins (remarkably well preserved) you first pass through a ruined church which was first converted into a mosque then into a stone palace.

The Rozafa Fortress was named for, well, Rozafa, of course. The legend goes that the brothers who were building the fortress would finish every night, and every morning they would return to find their work had fallen. They were told that they needed to make a sacrifice, and build a woman into the walls to satisfy the gods. They decided that to be fair, whichever of their wives delivered them their next meal would be sacrificed. Of course the older brothers got word out to their wives not to come. The youngest brother was an honest man, and was unaware of this betrayal. His poor heart was broken when HIS young wife appeared with the next meal. As they bricked her into the wall, she begged them to leave exposed her right eye, her right hand/arm, and her breasts so she could continue to see, hold, and suckle her small children until she died. The Shkodrans hate this story because it demonstrates such familial betrayal.

As you enter this large passageway into the fortress, the walls leak a strange white stone (probably limestone) which runs down the curved ceiling and walls like stalactites. When you rub your fingers on this stuff it is dry, but pull your fingers away from the wall and they come away wet. Very cool and a little creepy!

Once we’d walked around a bit, seen it all, and shot lots of film, we entered one of the standing buildings. There, in all this ruin, was an absolutely delightful restaurant - surreal, almost like they were there just waiting for us! We have been super lucky to have Florian with us. He is so bright, and talkative. He fills in the stories with great history, comments, and anecdotes. So of course, we are the ONLY ones here, so we sit out back under the thatching on the terrace overlooking the Drini River. It was the most perfect setting. I was reminded suddenly of the commercial we are seeing a lot on television about this poor businessman who is stuck in the romantic city of Paris with a dry, unromantic cost accountant. Here I am in the most perfect setting in the country, I look across the table and there is Gertrude, my own little personal cost accountant (the beast).

The owner of the restaurant is also our waiter - He is dressed in a tank top, and like so many Albanian men he is has tanned skin and piercing green eyes. As we discuss what is on the menu, and ask for his advice, he tells us that when the ‘American Ambassador’ comes to eat, I just prepare the special meals for them. FINE WITH US! So he leaves to get started, and Ded tells us that this guy used to be the most celebrated chef in all of Shkodra. Of course, under Communism, he could only cook for the Party muckity-mucks.

We hear such terrible stories from everyone about the horrors of living under Hoxha (pronounced Ho-ja). Families destroyed, homes and gardens looted, uncles killed while swimming Lake Shkodra (largest in the Balkans) to the Yugoslav side, Ded’s father was imprisoned for ten years for being "accused" (not even caught) of listening to Voice of America. Families never spoke to each other about anything lest the neighbors overhear and turn them in for some imaginary crime against the State. Crimes included: ‘owning’ something, receiving radio and TV signals from anywhere but Albania... the list is endless. The wealthy and well-educated were killed, imprisoned, or in Mao-like cultural revolution style - stripped of everything and sent out up into the mountains or to the very poorest rural areas - many didn’t survive. Mishel tells me that at every workplace there were Party people who did nothing except sit in on meetings, and float around to spy on the workers, and keep tabs on people, and make the decisions on who would advance, who would work where, etc....

And these people - they are so open and loving - so friendly - they have just tremendous senses of humor. Their laughter is genuine, they hug and kiss barely knowing you. They are MUCH more emotional than I ever expected. They are tremendous to have lived with such terror and fear, and survived resiliently! Every day I amazed by some situation in which their fortitude and spirit is proved. Astounding.

Ok, enough general awe, let’s move to more specific awe. So this meal comes after some times has passed, and it is a piece of meat which is tender and grilled to perfection, an eggplant/garlic/onion sort of glop which is divine, a salad of tiny cauliflower, peas, and red peppers - all cooked al dente. And fine Albanian white wine to drink. After we stuff ourselves silly on this holy fare - the ‘second’ plate arrives - grilled eel! This eel was one of the best meals I have EVER had. Also grilled to perfection, the meat was flaky and sweet…the experience was unparalleled.

We finish this meal after indulging our appetites and filling the space with animated chit-chat on 100 subjects. We pay our bill, kiss the owner, leave the cave-like ruin of this spectacular little find, and notice the resident docent of the museum in the next little building is standing in the doorway - waiting for us! Florian says he has lived in Shkodra all his life (19 years now), and he has never seen it open, so of course, we must go in.

It is a clean, airy, beautiful set of large, long rooms on 2.5 floors. In chronological order we inspect 2000 year old pottery and other Illyrian objects, Venetian coins, Turkish swords with pearl handles and gold and silver inlays, a telescope from 1450, cannonballs, maps, a ‘flag’ over 500 years old (!), a mosaic table, oh, the list goes on...

All of our tour was given by this little old docent - a historian from the University of Shkodra (Florian tells us) without a single tooth in his upper bite! I know this because when Florian translated what I’d written in the tourist book the docent gave us, he gave me a lovely gaping grin!

Anyway, we are just so damned impressed that we sort of leave the museum, and wander around the fortress ruins numb from our good experiences, and occasionally stopping to peer over the crenelated walls to check out a stunning view of the surroundings in the late afternoon sun. No gift shop, no film vendors, no one hawking ice cream or postcards at the entrance. Clean, bright, free of capitalist, commercial schlock.

The guidebooks all say, and they are right, get out here QUICK before it’s all destroyed.

So we make our way back down to Ded’s big old, dusty, chartreuse Mercedes, and we creep back down the mountain. At the base of the mountain, we are interested in driving a little along Lake Shkodra, so we are forced to cross the Bunë/Drini River just before it reaches Lake Shkodra on a very old, very small, very rickety bridge which makes Gertrude a little green.

We cross the river and drive up the southwest side of Lake Shkodra - up to a kilometer from the Yugoslav (Montenegro) border. We are in an area where, Ded and Florian tell us, Albanians were NOT permitted (not just not permitted, but shot). There are a number of beautiful new little bar/cafe/restaurants long the shoreline, and so we stop at the last one and sit in the waning afternoon sun. It is another precious spot. I went down to the lake edge to dip my toes in - the water in this part of the lake is very clean and clear but there are no bathers or fishermen. It would seem that the Yugoslavs - the Montenegrans, have an enormous aluminum plant on the north shore which pollutes horribly into the Lake... ah, the injustices of living downstream.

I have forgotten an extra roll of film at this point, so I will have pictures of Shkodra from the lake, nor any others of this place, for that matter. Gertrude takes few to no pictures. She does not have a particularly good eye, and has learned over the years that unless the pictures are of people, they aren’t worth shooting. Of course I see 10 beautiful shots along the lake and on the ride home. They will have to live forever in my mind.

We get back to Gary’s by 7pm since we are expecting that promised phone call from Tirana. It does not come, although remembering the quality of both the phone lines, and Rich’s memory, we are not surprised. Gertrude, Gary, and Jim (the Peace Corps friend from DC) go out for the last ‘giro’ in Shkodra while I stay home and write in this journal. It is a luxury to have an hour or two alone with my thoughts. While the gang is out, John, our next RBA host calls. After a rather quiet evening (Gertrude printed handouts, I used my calligraphy pen to fill-in certificates of achievement for tomorrow’s class graduation), it’s off to bed - our last night with Gary.

SHKODRA - Friday, July 19, 1996

We are up rather early, this being our last day in Shkodra (I have really liked it here!), and we do some preliminary packing because it is going to be a long and rather full day, if expectations are met. I can’t wait to get to Tirana (and the ‘Tirana International Hotel’, if only to shave my legs in that wonderful shower!).

We get to class and almost everyone is there - it has been a really great week - and I know that this is not a popularity contest, but I really like these people, and I am proud that I am as affectionate and eager as they are. I am glad that they see America is not all "Gertrude". I do my section on distribution and expansion, and after the break, Gertrude runs them through another case study. Before it is all over we hand out our evaluation forms. At one point, one of the businessmen, the fellow from Lejhe, beckons me over with a grin, and pointing to the piece of the evaluation which has to do with the trainers, and he puts his fingers together, kisses them, smiles at me, and says, ‘aktris!, aktris!’. So I guess I got a pretty good rating from him!

We let the local RBA Manager) know that he should say a few words, and hand out the certificates to everyone. He does, and it’s actually a fairly touching little speech. The classmates cheer on their peers as he hands out the certificates, and it is obvious that there have been a couple of good networks built here. Shkodra is a bit behind the other regions because they got their regional business agency later than some of the others. This combined with the fact that their manager is about as NONentreprenurial as they come, means that they still have a ways to go to get to that point where they are really capable of giving their own courses.

Anyway... our businessman from Krujë (one of our class’s favorites) has brought his truck up this morning (he is a cheese processor and distributor) and has brought along samples of all his cheese for us to try. Everyone - students, businesspeople, bankers, and RBA types - all crowd around the center table, and giggle and cut up cheese and ohh, and ahh about how good it is. And it really was. As the business people and the bankers take off, we huddle for the last time with our RBA and university students, the people who should actually be giving these modules to future groups of businesspeople. Albana quietly hands me a bracelet she has made for me from dried watermelon seeds - such a sweet moment! Terezina had missed class on Thursday because she was taking her driving test (a woman! In Albania!!).... so back on Wednesday night when we were all out for Mark’s birthday, I took out one of the keys to my suitcase, a silly little thing, kissed it, and handed it to her for good luck. Since I asked her first thing this morning if, indeed, she HAD passed, when she laughed and told me she had, well, I told her to keep the key as a memento of my hope for her luck. We laugh, wink and hug each other. This is the sort of thing I just love. This is why I so loved these folks.

Anyway, so we finish with the small trainer group. I can’t believe that they are near ready to go on and be trainers, but I do know that they got a real dose of information this week, and if they have any gumption and are a little entrepreneurial, they will be ok.

We finally say good bye to everyone, and start off back to Gary’s house for the last time. As we approach the little kiosk across from the (in-your-face) Mosque, for a bottle of water, one of the woman bankers who was in the class approached Gertrude and me with an ice-cream cone in each hand and a smile! So we thanked her profusely, and licked our ice cream cones en route! As we passed Arben’s retail grocery store, we went in and I gave him his class certificate. He beamed, and quickly handed us both a cherry juice (as common here as orange juice is to us). He knew little to no English so we did a lot of smiling, and actually bought a couple of bottles of wine to replace the ones Gary and Gertrude had been drinking in the evenings. What good people!

After finishing the packing, Gertrude and I hurried over to Simon’s house. Simon is one of the RBA trainers, and is also a neighbor of Gary’s. He is bright and funny. He also has his own construction business, so our class was important to him in terms of his own business skills and knowledge, in addition to his ability to train other businessmen in the basics.

Simon and his mother hosted us for a half hour, filling us with beer, cake and at his mother’s insistence, creme caramel (for which the Albanians are apparently famous). She was terribly embarrassed because it had been made recently and was still warm (it hadn’t had a chance to gel). It was still magnificent!

So, 3pm rolls round, and our friend, Ded, pulls up in that box-y chartreuse Mercedes. We ask if he would swing by the Rozafa Hotel and pick up Angie (Enxhi in Albanian) so our party is complete. She is heading to Tirana for the weekend - where she lives. He disappears to do this and we finish saying good-bye to Gary and Simon. We finally get on the road at about 3:30pm.

Copyright © 1996 by Rachel Peterson

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