So to fill some of you new to this game in, I used to write long emails from the various places I wound up and sent them out to an inappropriate number of friends and colleagues. They were always a bit formulaic-- insert torrid love affair, messy political situation and existential crisis into third world location, add Leslie, some colorful anecdotes and stir. I got enough positive feedback that I kept them coming but I haven't sent one out in a few years and now there's a real hesitation as I write. I mean why does anyone ever send these things? Aren't they really just the email equivalent of glammer-shots reeking of “look at me I’m so hot, I’m somewhere else doing something you’re not” when we can all see through the heavy make-up and airbrushing that reads TACKY and TRYING TOO HARD in the end? And these things only seem to get worse as we get older probably culminating in pathological newsletters that detail trips to the dentist and family camping. Isn't this really just the same thing? Me sitting in a shithole town in Albania 3am somewhat homesick in a way I haven’t felt in years probably because I haven’t had a home to be sick over in as many years?
According to the template the first email should go like this-- arrive in new foreign city, storm expat scene, identify hot eligible men and enter into doomed relationship, drink too much, dance in improbable location as driven to by sketchy cab driver, begin working somewhat hard at some half-cocked mission to bring democracy and/or human rights to a population who are interested in the money that tends to go along with these things but are rightfully skeptical of my capacity to deliver any of them in the 2 months I’ll be treating their country like a playground in my 4 wheel drive car, express skepticism over my involvement in all of the above, manufacture pithy realization about how to do it differently the next time around and/or how futile the whole endeavor, i.e. life, really is.
And yet it seems there might actually be something different this time around. Maybe it's because I've been "rooted" in the States for the past two years-- living in the same apartment that I actually love ensconced in the full range of my belongings and books in a way that gives the illusion of permanence, digging and clawing my way through the throngs of pretentious people to finally assemble a collection of friends I adore who all live within a 10 block radius rather than scattered around the world (not that I don't love you all out there just that maybe there's something to living in the same zipcode and/or continent with your best friends after all)-- even though I've thoroughly *hated* what I've been doing as I've trudged through the first 2 years of a PhD in a discipline I despise and don't quite understand how I've fallen into-- and even though I've tried to fight the feeling of being settled, somehow this sense of place seems to be breaking the spell of my 10 year jag.
So maybe it is actually worth attempting to write another mass email.
Of course it's nearing 3am and I do have to work in the morning so this will have to be a first installment. But let's start the "what's different about this time around" analysis with the question-- is Albania
Yes, in order to find an apartment upon arrival in the small city of Korca set into the rolling mountains of Southeastern Albania, my Italian-speaking Swiss colleague Diana and I walked up a twisting cobblestone street, found an old lady named Valentina with broken teeth and a hairy mole weighing down her upper lip with whom we spoke pigeon Italo-Albanian until she led us to her friend Vasilika dressed in old widow's garb who had a house for rent. Upon touring the delightfully airy house that was thick with bad taste from the hot pink shag sofa covers and crushed velvet emerald green bedspreads to the faux-mahogany Chinese-made china closet displaying colorfully flowered glassware alongside glammer-shots of granddaughters, Diana and I insinuated that 400 euro might be too pricey a rent for us. Vasilika then went into a fury shooing Diana, Valentina and I out of the house with a broom, rushing past us to her own house and slamming the gate in Diana's face as she tried to negotiate a better price. This landed, Diana, Valentina and I in the trendy cafe across the street as Valentina called her daughter-in-law who called several other relatives one of whom had a 1980s mercedes into which we all piled to go visit two of their apartments which were also overcrowded with furniture and chachki from another era should we want to rent them. Neither of them were particularly homey so we spent the next day knocking on doors, being led around by the women of the city and finally found an unfurnished apartment that had been rented by the Greek consulate and then an NGO over the years. We had the choice of two floors both with balconies wrapping around to give a full panoramic view of the cathedral at the center of town and the mountains in the backdrop and a huge cherry tree spilling fruit up the outside staircase to each. Upon saying that we would take the top floor, the owner was shuffled in by relatives to inform us that we couldn't move into either apartment because WorldVision was coming to see them and sign a 5 year lease. Crushed we went back into the furnished abyss of other apartments only to get a call 3 futile hours later from the owner's husband who said that we could move in as long as we agreed to re-locate to the 1st floor that the family would vacate in order to placate WorldVision if and when they signed the lease. We intended to do no such thing but went back anyway and negotiated a deal in which we live in WorldVision's soon to be office for two months on the only slightly less appealling 2nd floor (it's still unclear whether we'll be awoken in the middle of the night and forced down a floor-- if so our plan is to refuse to budge). Immediately a flurry of furniture from the 1st floor family house was being carried up into our new apartment closely monitored to keep the shag and crushed velvet at bay.
Clearly this story fits my former third world model.
And yet, this morning I arose from said hard twin bed and sprawling apartment to go for a run in the hills that hug the town. As I was climbing up along the cobblestones I passed scores of people of varied age and gender doing the same thing-- walking and jogging together and individually in shorts and sweatsuits taking advantage of their beautiful scenery. Not one gave me, my bare legs or my female athleticism a funny or even second look. Though they did a few minutes later when in the distance I spotted a dog coming at me. I instinctively reached down and picked up a rock, tensed up and readied to feign throwing it at him as he passed me-- a crucial skill I've picked up over the years of living and running in crappy places-- as he gets closer and I'm running along, pulling back my arm, looking like I'm ready to strike, I squint to realize the dog is on a pink leash and his owner is looking at me like I'm a barbarian about to throw a rock at him. I thought it was a fluke and didn't drop the rock until I'd passed at least 5 more dogs on leashes and incurred the scowls of disapproval from all around me at my unconcealed weapon.
Who's the barbarian now?
which is as close to a pithy quip to end on as I'm willing to go in my new story telling mode and as good a place as any to pause and say goodnight and promise more tales (and less self-reflective bullshit) to come as Albania
with love from Korca,
Leslie
p.s. as bad as getting a mass email may be, getting an email from someone you don't know who decided to hit reply-all to a mass email is that much worse so please take up all complaints and requests to be taken off the list to the culprit directly
