No Copyright in Tirana

Photos and short things about living in Albania.

[maddieonthings]

Coffee with Maddie. Atlanta, GA

[perpetualwanderer272]

I'm going to join the Peace Corps after high school

i don’t know why I feel so strongly about going, but I’m thinking 6months-a year. I need this.

[erhudy-blog]

I will never not be frustrated when people think you can do this.

[whatshouldpcvscallme]

BUCKET BATHS IN THE WINTER

DONE.

[erhudy-blog]

This brings back so many memories...

[slaughterhouse90210]

“I’d become one of those mistakes you sometimes find in an office, a not unpleasant but mostly unproductive presence bobbing along on the energy tides of others, a walking reminder of somebody’s error in judgement.” ― Sam Lipsyte, The Ask

[slaughterhouse90210]

“The important thing is moral choice.  Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate.  Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.” —Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

[erhudy-blog]

jesse's face.

[fyeaheasterneurope]

Veggies for sale in Tirana.

The long green stalked things are leeks, by the way.

[erhudy-blog]

One thing I miss about Tirana is running downstairs to the veggie guy outside my apartment, whenever I needed some more tomatoes or onions for something I was cooking. Siiiigh....

[junesunday-blog]

This has been bugging me.

Peace Corps is a 27 month commitment.

All of these “I think I’ll join PC for a year” posts are getting to me.

[erhudy-blog]

tell me about it. if it wouldn't make me look like such an ass, i would devote my tumblr to nothing but these posts about:

joining peace corps after finishing high school

dropping out of college to join the peace corps

joining the peace corps for one year

What I would love to point out to everyone who says these things (after pointing out that, you know, they can't do any of the three) is that you don't join the peace corps, you apply to the Peace Corps; and that if you can't even bother to visit peacecorps.gov to read about applying, you should not be a peace corps volunteer.

[erhudy-blog]

On dreams of joining the Peace Corps

On my 18th birthday (----, 2013) I am going to join the Peace Corps. I will finish high school then I will serve for approximately 27 months in a country who asks for help. After this, I will go to college[...]  

Every time I see someone write something like this, a little part of me dies. Not just because it diminishes actual Peace Corps Volunteers - who are well-educated, often with graduate degrees and years of work experience - but because it's based on the idea that the countries Peace Corps serves are so down on their luck that they would welcome even a teenager with no college education and no work experience. Before you get into foreign service you have to respect the people you're going to be working with; which includes understanding that these people, who are often highly educated and successful individuals, would be (rightly) insulted by the idea of taking advice from someone half their age and with no qualifications.

The spirit of this sort of statement is, I guess, positive, but is also naive and potentially harmful in promoting the image of the American coming in to "save" the natives. 

There are programs, like City Year, that are open to people who have not been to college. These misplaced dreams of joining the Peace Corps after high school, or of dropping out of college to join the Peace Corps (another perennial favorite, judging by tumblr and twitter) frustrate me because (apart from all of the above) they suggest that some people do so little research that they will never find the programs that may suit them and their goals.

[erhudy-blog]

Over the past week, a huge amount of "I love Chameria" graffiti has cropped up around Tirana. And yesterday, banners and displays all along the main boulevard. I wonder how this will go over with Greece. The link is to my "real" blog, where I wrote more and put up some more photos.

[fyeaheasterneurope]

Greek border guards have begun covering the letters “MK” on Macedonian car plates with a sticker, in Greek and English, reading: “Recognized by Greece as FYROM” [Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia]. The Greek liaison office in Skopje confirmed the new practice, saying the country had a right to do this under the 1995 UN interim agreement that regulates relations between the two states. They say this will affect only vehicles with the new plates containing the letters MK. Macedonia introduced new number plates in February, saying they were needed to meet EU standards. Unlike the old ones, the new plates feature MK in small letters in the corner. Macedonia’s Interior Ministry said it was surprised by the move and was still considering its reaction.

[erhudy-blog]

To ask the obvious question: doesn't Greece have other things it should be thinking about?

[fyeaheasterneurope]

In Tirana.

[erhudy-blog]

My host mom from Macedonia asked me if it's true that in Tirana the buildings are painted stupid colors. I had to say it is, but I really like walking along the river road to see the paint jobs.

[maddieonthings]

Maddie, the English Coonhound

[erhudy-blog]

It is taking all my strength not to pay another visit to petfinder.com.

[maddieonthings]

[erhudy-blog]

awesome.

[fyeaheasterneurope]

More than a decade after the conflict in the Balkans was brought to an end, a spate of violent incidents in the southern Balkans show that the ethnic and national tensions that erupted so disastrously in the 1990s are not a thing of the past.

Buses and public parks have been attacked, injuring children. Mosques and churches have been vandalized. Flags have been burned and racist slogans chanted in Macedonia, Albania, and Kosovo. On March 16, a Molotov cocktail was hurled at the Macedonian embassy in Pristina, the Kosovan capital. 

[...]

A standard explanation for this situation is the “ancient hatreds” line taken by then-British Prime Minister John Major in the early 1990s, one that Mr. Major used to justify Britain’s lack of active intervention in the wars of Yugoslav succession.

But Balkan experts say that while historical conflicts, or at least the most recent ones, are an important factor in the current situation in the Balkans, the machinations of local politicians and, to a lesser extent, the misguided, albeit well-meaning, interventions of the international community, are more immediate factors.

Continue reading.

[erhudy-blog]

A solid chunk of this article focuses on the last few months in Macedonia. It's just tremendously sad to read about ethnic tensions there, after two years getting to know both Macedonians and Albanians. And it's strange to see how an article like this interacts with my facebook newsfeed - a whole string of my former co-workers and students posted, last week, photos from a protest in Dibra's center, after two Albanians were shot by a Macedonian policeman. 

Anyway, the article gets a bit past a simple laying out of incidents (Macedonians dressed as Albanian women in burqas at an Old New Year's celebration; Albanians burning a Macedonian Orthodox church; Macedonians beating an Albanian child; a Macedonian policeman shooting two Albanians) into the question of why these things are happening, and to what degree they're orchestrated, which is interesting.

[erhudy-blog]

Context Clues Failure, Round 1

I often like to pretend I'm back in the sixth grade, relying on "context clues" to define words...mostly because I'm too lazy to use the dictionary. Some days this doesn't work as well as I like, and I can't help thinking I would be better off looking a word up the first time I see it, rather than the tenth.

Today's word, courtesy Noel Macolm's Kosovo: A Short History:

QUISLING

My definition: something small; example: "a small quizs"

Actual definition: a traitor who collaborates with an enemy force occupying their country

[erhudy-blog]

Some days you forget to look at your tea while you're drinking, and this happens.

[erhudy-blog]

It's Summer Day in Tirana! Schools are closed, offices are closed. Not sure I've ever seen so many people out walking, in the parks, drinking coffees in outdoor bars. There are even pretty new street decorations along the main boulevard.