Welcome to the Zone: An Ode to PST

You may be wondering why I haven’t posted for a while. I ran out of space on the website and took time to adapt. A free website has limited storage, who knew? This post in particular will be a compilation of an unpublished post written halfway through PST and a summary of subsequent events.  

Whoa, We’re Halfway There

We are halfway through PST! Things that used to be novel are, most of the time, now normal. I usually know what's around a street corner and I've figured out shortcuts to get there. I've experienced some definite highs and significant lows. Often, both occur in the same day. My Shqip is progressing well enough that I can go into shops and engage in elementary communication. 

For example, I went to the parukiere (hairdresser)! Don't get too excited; my hair looks almost exactly the same as before. I did not possess the vocabulary to describe my vision, so after some confused banter, I just repeated "drejt, drejt, drejt" (straight) to the hairdresser. While I sat in the chair, the two women present asked me questions. Whether or not my responses actually answered their questions shall remain one of life's greater mysteries. In the end, only ~2.5 cm came off the ends, and it was a 10/10 experience. 

I also know enough Shqip to ask if a product contains certain ingredients. Anyone with dietary restrictions knows that this is a real win. I have therefore finally tried byrek! Byrek, a famous Albanian dish, is a phyllo dough pastry filled with ingredients like mish (meat), djathë (cheese), qepë (onion), spinaq (spinach), et cetera. You can find it in practically any furrë buke (a bakery with a focus on bread). If you have the opportunity to try it, I highly recommend doing so.

A recent highlight has been our recent trip to Krujë. After unloading from the autobus, my cohort toured the Skënderbeu Museum. Gjergj Kastrioti, nicknamed Skënderbeu, is memorialized throughout Albania for his rebellion against the Ottoman occupation. Kastrioti's contemporaries likened him to Alexander the Great; "Skënderbeu" is Turkish for "Lord Alexander." After the museum, we wandered the market streets. For the most part, the stores sold similar goods. There was a good bit of intricate silver jewelry for sale. Rugs are a big craft here. One store even had a rug in progress on a loom. As you'll see in my photos, these rugs hung outside shops where they swung in the breeze. Their dancing color was one of the most beautiful sights yet. Then there were the mountains. The mountains were unquestionably my favorite thing about Krujë. One of said mountains is named after none other than Skënderbeg, so he's kind of a big deal. 

The Second Half of PST

The rest of PST was a blur. We had practicum for about a week and a half. Because I am in the TEFL program, our practicum entailed co-teaching (with another volunteer) English classes to Albanian students. We constantly rotated between different age groups, different classrooms, and three local schools. I was assigned the maximum amount of classes to teach, so for about a week straight, I was grinding either making lesson plans, teaching classes, sitting in Shqip language classes, or doing language homework. Midway through, I fell rather ill. I am not going to lie, practicum was hard. It made me wonder if PST actually stood for “Patience and Stress Test.” Looking back, however, I am grateful for some of the more challenging aspects. For example, I regularly bounce between age ranges in a single day, and I am thankful to have had early exposure to that kind of environment. 

After practicum, we also had two more sets of hub days. One set was in Montenegro (Mali i Zi), so I got to visit a new country! At the last set, we were assigned our sites! This much anticipated moment ended with sweets, cake, and dance practice for those of us performing at the Swearing In Ceremony on April 4. We also resumed our normal language class schedule in preparation for our LPI (Language Proficiency Interview). For me, the end of PST was filled with many emotions. In addition to excitement, there was also sadness. I’d miss the river walks, the hikes to the castle, and our classroom. Pulling all of our language posters off the class walls felt symbolic and emotional. Most of all, I was going to miss the people with whom I’d formed relationships: other volunteers, my host family, and my language teachers. There are few people in the world who understand what it means when I say “welcome to the zone” and “çfarë është?” All that to say, I am thankful for PST and, to this day, I have some PST nostalgia. 

Photos: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UBU6OF8V_HYEkU4cPPA1HptsdUz9rB7LAN-yoXaQ2xo/edit?usp=sharing