Tape Measure Incident

Sitting in the furgon on the way to Elbasan today started to laugh. I realized how good life is. I’m literally living my dream.
I’m in Albania, which is an incredibly beautiful country situated in, as far as I’m concerned, on one of if not the most beautiful bodies of water in the world: the Mediterranean. I’m near a ridiculous amount history (Italy and Greece) and am close to the East. Well... closer than I was in New York. Surrounded by this striking scenery, I get to meet and work with other likeminded Americans focused on working and helping others. Not that there aren’t American’s helping others in America. There are, but it’s just different being with an entire group of people who concurrently dedicated at least 2 ½ years of their life to service and living an ascetic lifestyle.
On that note, today I received a fantastic package from one of those American helper people individuals- my friend Will a doctor in New York. Will sent me Matzah, which for me during Passover was somewhat of a miracle in and of itself. Surely, it pales in comparison to sparing the first born or parting the red sea, but considering he was amazing able to send the package with extremely little information (I’m talking about my name and city) and have it arrive- intact- 4 days later it should at least receive mini-miracle status. In the package was regular, egg, whole wheat and chocolate matzah. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see flour and water.
Besides the package, my day consisted of the usual round of COD technical sessions. This morning’s session was led by Rob, a volunteer in Shkoder. While it was great to hear him present his work as a professional, I had literally already seen most of it when he took me and the other trainee, Bill, to his office in the Bashkia . After his session, a roundtable of various volunteers who worked at municipalities throughout the country spoke to us. It was interesting but based on my discussion with Diana the day before and site visit in Shkoder (I stayed with one of a select few NGO volunteers in the country) I started to have a sneaking suspicion that I was going to work for an NGO.
Unfortunately, lunch is not very exciting as it is Passover. I basically had yogurt and tuna out of a can. Not something I’d like to repeat everyday for a year, but isn’t that was Passover is about? Suffering a bit? It was during lunch that I was talking to some volunteers about general nonsense and used the phrase “new information has come to light”. I love this phrase. I really do. But when I went to reach for the source, my mind went blank. I could not for the life of me remember where it was from.
I tried pretty hard to remember the phrases origin but as the day passed and I occupied my brain with other issues I forgot to remember. In particular, there was a session with NGO volunteers, which included Becca the volunteer who had come to Seder and Wendy the volunteer I stayed with. That was followed by a diversity session that seemed all encompassing except for the fact that it excluded religious diversity.
During this time, I gave up on racking my brains on the phrase’ origin and went to a great outdoor café off a side street after class with some of my fellow trainees. As I sat in the café the Athens marathon came up. I had heard a buzz about it, but wasn’t fully clear on the details. This time I was given all the info and fully committed. I’m going to do it. After all, it is the original race- Athens to Marathon. I don’t know if I’m going to do the entire 26 miles, but I’m in for at least a 10k. Wimpy- I know, but better than nothing.
I returned home invigorated and went to my room to change. From my room I could hear English blaring from the TV. I went out to see what it was, and low and behold the Big Lebowski was on. Talk about full circle. Within 2 minutes, I realized the origin of “new information has come to light” I also realized that Shqip lacks the diversity of words for good and complete. Thorough- as in “He’s a good doctor and thorough. Very thorough” looses too much when translated at “Doctor Mire dhe [and] mire. Mire.” Or “He’s a good doctor and good. Good.” It’s just not the same. Nor is the Big Lebowski when all the Moses jokes are taken out. I understand the necessity given the audience and fit for TV format, but it’s really not the same without the Sandy Koufax line.
The novelty of watching the big Lebowski with Shqip subtitles having worn off, I went to my room to fetch my tape measure which caused quite a stir. I went to the bathroom to measure myself and emerged with the meter in hand. Immediately, Rina and my host mother wanted to measure themselves. I was a bit hesitance as I didn’t want to be revealed to be fatter than my host sister, but agreed as she is 14 years younger. Low and behold my waist was smaller. Well, I was pretty shocked as she is really thin. She was equally surprised, so we measure my waist and her waist again and discovered that yup, it’s true. I teased her a bit about it since I get teased and spanked on a daily basis by them and thought I should turn the tables a bit. Hey- if you’re going to dish it you gotta take it.

The teasing lead to a serious discussion on eating healthy- my personal concern but now one that I happily share with Rina. If I could teach her how to eat healthily I would be so happy. I explained to her that I eat very little oil or sugar. Oil, though good for you, is really fattening. French fries I explained aren’t exactly packed with nutrients and low calories. That is why, I told her, I didn’t want oil on my sald. She told me that she wanted to learn how to cook American food and I promised I’d teach her.

I also told them that the next morning I’d like to cook. This is because my host mother, who has absolutely the best intentions in the world, has started to make me fried eggs for breakfast. Normally I would love sunny side up eggs, however these come with salt and in a bowl (quite figuratively) of oil. So, I begged her to allow me to cook tomorrow. I hope it works!