Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Water Pipes

My road is totally ripped up. Big, grinding saws, the type I hated in NYC, are now greeting me in the morning and night. All of this is very good. My neighborhood is getting new water pipes. Best of all, because of various reasons, the workers are literally working until 10pm at night to get it done. Fast. The project is going much faster than any project in NYC. For some reason, the road is not blocked off, another benefit. The all to familiar habit of construction workers of placing the orange cones so far down the road that one can't even see the work for miles, is non-existent here. People simple drive all the way up the street, see the enormous CAT, giant mount of dirt and must figure out how to turn around. Luckily, they are used to it.

Placing water pipes is the first step to bringing in clean water from the mountains for people to drink. Now, I only hope that the new buildings hook into it.

Remember when you thought counting to 30 really, really , really fast was only way to measure 30 seconds?

There are about 5 children in my building. Actually, that is totally incorrect. I honestly have no idea how many children there are in my building. I think a few live on the first floor and I know a few live next door. There are about 5 that regularly play in the stairwell and right now I can see about 11 playing hide and go seek and other games outside my window.

I love it. I love hearing children outside, I love seeing the games they make up, I love the way creative ways they find to circumvent boredom and the heat. Seeing the way the run around the small gravel area outside my building reminds me of what is was like growing up in the city. City kids don't have nicely trimmed soccer fields (or they certainly didn't when I grew up in NYC), lush lawns or cute cul-de-sacs to ride their bikes on. When they are pushed out side to play, by their parents or smallness of their apartments there is no tree to climb or perfectly assembled jungle gym. They have buildings, roads, gravel, dirt, stores, parked cars and a few neglected areas that a perfect for hide a go seek. It is in this dusty hard landscape that the children of my building area scream with joy and play for hours. It was on a similar landscape, albeit with a tiny bit of grass that I also learned to play outside and make up games with my siblings and neighbors.

I remember talking to a American-Indian girl 5 years ago when I was flying back from India. She was a graduate student studying policy or development and had been in India observing, writing and researching. She told me about the impression left on her from watching children in a third world country play. On and on she went about how happy she was to see children in her country playing with that they had- a stick, a deflated ball, their feet. It didn't really matter, they figured it out. They play with things American children easily scorn and take for granted. She recalled how poverty did not stop these children and how she would never see allow her children to have more then the simplest of toys (much easier said then done).

I also remember a conversation I had while teaching at a Grade 5-8 charter school in Newark. I was standing outside during recess, watching a bunch of well-developed adult looking 8th grader girls jumprope, debating whether I should join them. This girls, who knew absolutely everything- and I do mean everything- suddenly metamorphize into children, 12 year old chidren. As I stood there, one of the teachers said to me- don't you love watching children recreate? The question, so simple, was so insightful. Yes, I do. I love watching children recreate because watching children recreate tells so much about a culture and about the children.

Yes, my 8th grades, one of whom had a child at 12, turned into girls when they played. But equally important was the fact that the only object that turned them into girls was a simple jump rope. Just as the build landscape of buildings and gravel allow my neighborhood children in Albania to play and the deflated ball in India enabled those children to play. I've never been to Africa, but I'm guessing the children there play and with toys that cost less that $2.00

So, as I look at my window at the children who are still play hide-and-go seek, one hour after I have started writing I am reminded so clearly of why I left America. Fancy plastic toys, expensive bikes and video games don't really make childhood. Children get bored on their fancy plastic toys so fast. They master the video game and need another one. And, no mater what, as long as it has brakes and 2 wheels a bike is really just a bike. I have now watched these children, aged 7-12 play with literally nothing for longer that I have watched many American children play with their barbies, radio cars, and action figures.

Why is it that we continue to believe that children are deprived or neglected in they don't have buckets of toys? When will American's realize that all kids really need are a few other kids and some space to literally run around?

Friday, July 17, 2009

4 Months

Today marks 4 months that I've been here. I've been at my site (or as my Tirana counterpart says) post for 5 weeks.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Pictures from the Water

This morning I was graciously invited to a meeting of the social agencies of Vlora. The Italian government is helping the 3 larges municipalities develop regional social programs. I was hoping to speak a bit about sustainability- in terms of health and the environment, however the meeting mostly focused on women's issues. In the spirit of trying to be more participarity, people were asked to speak aafter the presentation of the social problems. To my surpirse, the moderator actually asked me to speak. I was pretty surprised, as I had just wanted to listen, but then did. One of the women graciously agreed to translate. I spoke about girls not going to school and how upset I was when I had arrived in the village to find out that my host sister wasn't allowed to pursue an education past 14 years of age. I also spoke about how, from my perception as an outside, I feel that the society places an unhealthy emphasis on thinness here really takes away from any value on intellectual
pursuits. I said that though I am from NY- an admittedly image obsessed city- and we
we do not value clothes and thinness to the extent it is valued here. I am frequently told that I am fat. In fact, it was the first thing my host mother told me after I t returned to Elbasan from my site visit.
I then hosted a meeting at the Aarhus Center to teach people about how to form Neighborhood Associations. It is my belief that it will be easier for the Bashkia to fulfill it obligations of reaching out to the public if groups were formed. I also think that if citizens formed neighborhood associations, then they as a group could focus on the few issues that are truly pressing for their community.
After work I went to the beach with my camera. That's right- after work, I walked down to the beach took a swim and then took some pictures.
It shows a bit of Vlore, and I particularly like that I was able to get pictures from the water. The shelf life is so shallow that I walked out pretty far before I with my camera.