Without Measure

Today is my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, a golden day of worth and value without measure. In Spanish, the word for "fifty" is "cincuenta," which can be a pun for "sin cuenta," without measure. Infinite. Uncountable. 

Two years ago I had the honor of sorting through decades' worth of letters that my grandmother Beth Phelps had saved, letters from my dad in college and later from Viet Nam, then piles of letters from Peru. Beginning in 1971, there were letters from my mother as well, and eventually letters from me and Anita. 

This treasure of family history took my breath away.

There was one word that emerged as a theme from these carefully folded missives: 

Thankfulness.

Over and over again, these words emerged: Thank you. 

And these are the words that I have for today: Thank you. 

Thank you for giving me and Anita an upbringing of immeasurable worth, experiences across continents and countries, a life among the Quechuas - these beautiful and marginalized and beloved people - our own heritage. 

Thank you for your steadfastness, with each other, in your faith, towards us.

Thank you for your generosity and selflessness towards others.

I love you, sin cuenta.

The Road Goes Ever On and On

We went on a great hike on Sunday, up on Dajti Mountain and around to the back. 

When we walked through this tunnel, I told the kids "We're in Narnia!" 

It's such a relief to have the US election called. It feels like we've all dodged a bullet collectively, and I hope we have. 

I guess it's what you would call and mountaintop experience! 

 I don't think I take enough pictures of Terry :-) I'm thankful for everything he does for and with us. 

Shpella Pëllumbasit - hike to a cave

We had this week off from school, a nice long Fall Break, so it seemed like a good opportunity to head out of the city and explore more of Albania. The weather had other plans, however, so we spent Monday and Tuesday hunkered down with books and Minecraft while it rained, and rained, and rained. 

Thankfully, Wednesday dawned clear and beautiful and we were able to borrow a vehicle for a lovely day trip to Petrela Castle: 

We had gone a few years ago when my parents came to visit, but this time the weather was nicer and we're all in better shape so made the short climb to the top to see the amazing view from the top. It was pretty amazing to envision the people who built it, strategically located to look along the valley to Durres.

After that we made our way to Pëllumbas, a small village where we got a bit of lunch to eat before following a well-maintained trail along the mountains to an amazing cave called Shpella Pëllumbasit (the cave of Pëllumbas). 

The silence of the mountains was only disturbed by the rushing sound of the river below, and the occasional braying of a donkey from the village. The trail was not too muddy, and there were handrails and steps installed in the trickiest spots, as well as a few benches at lookout spots like the one above. We saw a lot of mushrooms, beetles, and grasshoppers. 

I was about to give up when we finally got to the cave - it was pretty impressive, having been inhabited by humans since the Paleolithic! (well, not continuously - I don't think anyone lives there now)

There were steps carved into the cave wall here near the entrance.

Apparently you can rent lanterns and helmets to do a proper spelunking, and hire a guide, but we just moseyed around the entrance and imagined being ancient humans living there. The cave floor was quite dry, so it seemed like a perfect ready-made place to hunker down in bad weather between hunting and foraging trips. 

 We don't know much about mushrooms, but there were a number of different kinds visible and I imagine some are edible. 

It was a beautiful, amazing day trip and I'm so glad we did it.

A hot minute

Hello! 

It's been a hot minute since I've posted here, actually more like 1 million thirty thousand minutes (give or take...). Basically I spent a year after that last post processing a lot of "life stuff" internally that I wasn't really comfortable making public, and then this past year I've been super busy teaching. Plus, the kids are at an age where they're a little more aware of what gets posted about them on social media, so I haven't felt as free to talk about them as much here. 

But here we are, and I thought it might be a good time to rev up the ol' blog again. 

We have started school online this year!

We had hoped to begin in person on the 20th, then on the 24th, and then got word that permission to open face-to-face was denied by the Albanian Ministry of Education. But, we could start online, and then transition to face-to-face once all the Albanian schools open on September 14. 

It seems like everyone connected in any way, shape, or form to formal education is struggling with the pandemic and all that implies for the ways that we do school, at all levels. It has been a learning curve, for sure, but I've felt a lot of confidence in our administration - the thoughtful planning, consultation, and decision-making that has gone into preparing for this year gives me a great sense of optimism.

And, so far so good! There have been tech issues and glitches, to be sure - on Tuesday, four of my 9th-graders living near each other lost power! But students, teachers, and families have shown themselves to be adaptable and resilient. The four 9th graders got together at one home and used 4G to connect on one laptop to their class. It looked to me like they were actually really enjoying doing school together. 

We have had our own little family "pod" as well. 

Over the summer, our kids have had regular playdates with a couple friends from their respective classes, and so when school started we decided to keep the friend-pods going and invited the other kids to join us at our house. We hired a recent high school graduate to look after them while Terry and I work, and so far it's been going really well. 

COVID-19 stats in Albania have not been great this summer. We are up to 101 deaths per million, which is lower than the global average, but not by much. After lockdown lifted on June 1 (after a whole month of *no deaths*), people seemed to feel quite free to do whatever and also seemed to be trusting in the summer weather to knock out the virus. Daily cases soared - and are only now just starting to come down again as people seem to have realized the consequences of their actions. 

So, we will see how things go. That's all we can do, really - prepare and plan, but be ready to flex at a moment's notice. 

Japan

Last week I visited Japan for the first time - it has always been on my bucket list but somehow way off in the misty future. But then my nearly-youngest cousin was getting married in Tokyo, to a man from Peru, so suddenly it made sense to go - and my parents helped make it happen ;-). It is rare for so many of my maternal relatives to get together, scattered as the family is across the world (Peru, US, Canada, Japan, and other random places like Albania).

The bride cooks lunch

downtown Tokyo

Two aunts and an uncle

Big in Japan

Apparently tourists can rent a geisha costume for the day

Mother of the Bride adjusts the bouquet 

After the wedding and reception, the family gathered on the 41st floor of the building another cousin lives in; the views were spectacular and it was a good time just to talk and reconnect.

These are my cousins Sachiko and Tani; it had been 18 years since we had last been together! In fact 18 years since I had even seen either of them (it was at Sachiko's wedding in Vancouver that time). It was so much fun to catch up, at a very different stage in our lives, reminisce about our childhoods, learn about our each other's lives now. So grateful. 

Ten - Dhjet - Diez

Valerie is TEN years old!

She had gifts in the morning and cake at school (not pictured), then we sang to her in the evening as well. (My parents are here!)

Then on Friday, we invited some friends over for a cat-themed party with games and more food.

This is the first actual birthday cake I have ever made for either of my kids - carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. It came out perfect! 

I think she liked it! 

Jantzi Christmas

When this post goes up, I'll be on my way to Japan for my cousin's wedding! Meanwhile, I realised I have very few photos of the Jantzi grandparents during their visit to us for Christmas and New Year's. The kids were extremely excited. 

I think there is a grandparent hiding in the photo below: 

I think Terry has some more photos - I'll have to bug him for them...

The Return to Sotira

Six year ago, almost to the day, we attempted to join some friends in a hike to a waterfall called Sotira. It... didn't quite work out as planned... but the event took on the warm sheen of nostalgia over the years thanks to the lovely photos and the intercultural adventure of it. I had literally forgotten that we didn't eat a real meal for 7 hours (with a 4 year old and a toddler), and that the kids and I all threw up on the bus trip back to Tirana. But the friend who organized the original trip always felt bad about the "disaster" in her mind, so this year she organized our triumphant return on the May 1 holiday, only to have things.... not quite go as planned. 

Same group as last time, minus 100 random hikers and plus two more kids

The kind man who carried Gabe for part of the hike last time (husband to our friend Ledi) now has 2 kids of his own and threw out his back the evening before our hike while playing tennis. You can see hi looking pained above. So instead of driving 2.5 hours past Gramsh to get to Sotira, we instead drove about 1 hour up Dajti. 

Apparently everybody else in Tirana had the same idea as we had to drive around a bit to find a picnic spot, but eventually we found one.

The kids really had a great time wandering around in the woods and finding flowers. Val got upset about all the trash she saw littering the ground. It was really nice being out of the city, in a higher and cooler spot. So even though we didn't see Sotira (again) a good time was had by all.

More Spring

I have to take a pause in the belated revelry to post some more recent photos - last Saturday we borrowed a car and took a wonderful day trip to a dramatic little peninsula just north of Durrës,

 Nearing Cape Rodon

The weather was just perfect. Well, the kids said it was too hot to hike but we made them anyway. There were a lot of young people out playing volleyball and barbecuing meat.

There were also some strange, gigantic bunkers - the small single-serving size bunkers are everywhere, especially along the coastline, but I had never seen any this big, and with weird spikes on the back that made them look like gigantic fossilized battle-tortoises or something sic-fi like that.




There was just something so Albania about the bunkers by the church by the sea (we could see Montenegran mountains from the peninsula), with the scrubby wild brush and young people playing volleyball in the middle of it all.

This is a medieval church there that was apparently built (or made to be built) by Skenderbeg's sister.

We weren't planning to get in the water, so didn't pack bathing suits or anything but on the way back we stopped at a more developed beach and the kids couldn't help it, they just had to jump in. (The resulting mess of wet, sandy clothes stressed me out but we got it sorted.)

And a good day was had by all.