Ancient Apollonia

Last Saturday we had the pleasure of visiting the site of an  ancient Greek settlement some way down the coast, near the city of Fier. Apollonia was established over 2,000 years ago and within a few generations had developed its own distinct identity as a small city-state, neither Greek nor Illyrian. At its height, the population was around 40,000 people. 

The archaeological ruins have only been 6% excavated and explored. What is visible is this partially restored temple, an amphitheater, and the foundations of several homes where families (counting enslaved people) averaging around 30 members lived. 

The major river that was this city's main access highway and irrigation source for the lush farmlands all around was diverted by a major earthquake (I forget when), after which the city declined. 

In the 13th century, an Orthodox monastery was built on the ruins of the city, and it still stands today. We briefly saw a priest in his black robe standing under a tree as we came up the hill. 

It was very dark inside, but we were able to see ancient frescos, stone carvings, and a beautiful floor mosaic that has been partially uncovered.

The layers of history run deep here. 

One of the most fun parts of the excursion was the company of two other families, whose sons are classmates and good friends of Gabriel. The boys were so happy to spend time together on a Saturday! 

After the visit to the archaeological site, we all went out for an amazing fish and frog leg dinner at a nearby restaurant. It was a bit of a drive to get there, but so worth it - a place I'd been wanting to see for a long time! 

 

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.

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. 

Southern Africa

Continuing to fill in the blanks... in January I got to visit southern Africa for 2.5 weeks, where I added two new countries to my life list and nearly filled the last blank page in my passport. When I got back there was literally one blank side left. 

Bear with me, this post has a LOT of photos!

Lesotho - man in the background is my colleague Vuriyayi Pugeni

Again Lesotho, Growing Nations Trust

Debating details of conservation agriculture

Some food

A bit of material culture - I am fascinated by missionary subcultures; these books in a mission guesthouse really  index a time period

A farm in Mozambique

The Zambezi, view from the hotel we stayed at

Future garden site for a school in Zambia

This was a work trip, but we had some fun too, managing to squeeze in a half-day at Victoria Falls.

Bulawayo 

I didn't get many photos of Zimbabwe - I think I was just really tired by then. This is part of the Cape to Cairo thing. The African continent is really, really big. 

It was a good trip; it felt like way too long to be away from the kids and Terry, but it was a good trip. 

Conferencing

At the end of November, I went to DC for the annual anthropology conference; we also like to call it the nerd circus. I made incredible progress on my current sock project!

knitting + Star Wars = happy!

I also chaired a panel, that I was really proud of. We had 7 papers on reception of immigrants in rural US areas and there was really great synergy between the presentations, plus we had about 30 people show up to our 8 a.m. panel which is a really good showing (I have been at panels with 4 or 5 attendees, so that was what I was expecting). We didn't even have to add "in the age of Tr*mp" to the panel title (although that was kind of a secondary theme of the conference, so many talks had that as a reference point). So I'm looking at how to mobilize that energy and take it the next step (i.e. something published collectively). 

Ready to chair my panel
(75% repeat outfit from last time I presented)

I also had a couple days in Harrisonburg which was super helpful to start getting over the jet lag, connect with a bunch of people, update my ethnographic material, and pick up about 2/3 of our Lego collection to bring back to Tirana.

It's a lot more than it looks like

I've given the kids 3 of these bags and am holding back the rest for actual Christmas, along with a few other things. Legos are surprisingly heavy! But worth it - in addition to Lego Bethlehem, they've already created 4 or 5 different sets of their own, each with its own cast of characters and dramatic storylines. It's fun to be back.

Central Africa

I got back about 10 days ago from a trip to central Africa, my fist time in that region. It was amazingly beautiful. I flew into Kigali, and spent the next 2 weeks traveling around Lake Kivu - first to Goma, then Bukavu, then back to Kigali via a retreat center called Kibogora.

Leaving Kigali

My experience of Rwanda, and what I heard from most other expats living there, is of a very orderly, clean place. Plastic bags are totally banned, so people either bring their own cloth bags or use paper. On the first Saturday of every month, one person from every family goes out for a neighborhood clean-up day. There are wide new boulevards throughout the city. Security going into any big building was like going into an airport - metal detectors and bags x-rayed - but the mood on the street was relaxed and felt very safe. 

Ginger!

Entering Goma

We ate out a lot, I had some really amazing Indian food one night; I only got sick because I foolishly used tap water for brushing my teeth - rookie mistake. I was really ill for about 2 days and then slowly got better.

We had a lovely 3-hour boat ride across this lake

If I had to be sick though, this view more than made up for it:

Yes, this lake - now seen from Bukavu

I'm leaving out photos of the many interviews and meetings, but I just could not get over the beauty of this spot specifically (below) - there was something so perfect about the precise temperature and humidity of the air that just felt delicious on the skin. Although I recognized most of the ornamental garden flowers and plants I saw, the birds were something else - I'm not a birder but even in my ignorance I could tell I had never seen or heard these particular species before.

Retreat center in Kibogora

Such a blessing and privilege to be able to travel to this area.

We Are Here

Albania - Shqiperia - when we had the chance to go pretty much anywhere in the world this year, we chose this place. I don't think I ever quite got over leaving in 2012. I have to keep reminding myself that this isn't re-living those years, this is a new chapter. But I am so happy to be back.

We are staying in a third-floor flat in an old villa, in an old neighborhood of twisting rrugicës and tiled roofs. It is a quiet neighborhood, especially since the school across the street is not yet in session and the heat of summer rises all day long. The pattern of sounds: a rooster, a dog barking, voices talking in the rhythmic, emphatic rise and fall of Albanian - Shqip, the odd motorcycle passing by. The Muslim call to prayer, but even closer to this house Catholic church bells in the morning and evening. A doppler-ized Despacito from a passing car.

Our hostess/landlady brought us a dish full of fresh figs the day we arrived, and her grown son cut us two bunches of small, sweet seedless green grapes from the vine that curls around the bannister of the outside staircase and up over our balcony above it. Huge wasps linger over the sweet juice, especially at mid-day, so Valerie makes me walk in front of her up and down to the patio below where arugula and parsley grow alongside the walk out to the street.

We hauled seven suitcases and five carry-on bags up two flights of stairs on Tuesday afternoon, and just as Terry brought up the last two, heavy drops of rain began to splatter by our feet. For the next two hours it poured rain, mixed with hail. The cool air felt so fresh after 18 hours of travel and the hot truck ride from the airport when Valerie fell asleep on my shoulder.

~::~

Yesterday was a long day, and the kids were done, and done in, by evening. We walked 1.7 km to their new school and took care of business there, then walked back to the house in the midday heat. We had ice cream and then went to see Shpresa, their former nanny, in the same small house she has lived in for thirty years. After two hours of snacking on popcorn and çibuk, playing with the dogs, and listening to me talk with Shpresa and her husband Berti in Shqip, they were exhausted. We had one more agenda item, dinner with Terry's colleagues from before (they still call themselves "the family" even though most of the original team have moved on to jobs in other countries or other NGOs) - they brought a bunch of helium balloons for the kids! Gabriel lasted longer than Val did; it was just too much for my introverted girl. We took the pizza home and ate in total silence while she read Calvin & Hobbes comics.

~::~

School starts on Monday. Terry has already been working on various projects for his various affiliations since before we left the US; I am eager, so eager for this new chapter to start in my life too. I am so thankful.

Indonesia

Right this minute I'm in Frankfurt, on my way back to Colombia after almost 2 weeks in central Java. It has been an amazing trip, not least because of my "entourage" - three young people who accompanied me throughout. The purpose of this trip was to interview people about our youth exchange programs, I think I talked with close to 100 people, and ate mounds of amazing food. 

Soto, cooked before our eyes in a street-side cart diner

2/3 of my Entourage! in yellow, Stephannie my interpreter and handler; in white next to her, Anielle my PR rep and agent. Not pictured: Alan the driver! This is at the Soto food stand

One night we stayed with a pastor and his wife at what they call the “pond house” – our only homestay on this trip – and there were so. Many. Critters! What you might expect from a pond house… to get there we drove and drove and drove on little country lanes with rice paddies stretching out all around on all sides and views of spectacularly pointy mountains around every bend. Little villages with elaborate tiled mosques and fish markets. We got lost and had to ask directions several times. The roads were narrow and bumpy. When we found the house the pastor and wife were waiting on a covered verandah waiting with hot jasmine tea and fried tempeh snacks, wearing matching batik button-down shirts. Behind the house was a 7-hectare fish pond (yes, it was enormous). This was the only place I stayed on the trip where there was no A/C and no Internet, it was kind of refreshing… but also got really hot!

The pond behind the pond house!

 When we went to bed, I saw about a thousand mosquitos on the ceiling around the light but Stephannie said they weren’t mosquitos. I put on a ton of repellent anyway. Then an enormous flying cockroach buzzed around the room. Stephanie killed it and then found another and killed that one too. The next morning while interviewing the pastor I saw a centipede on the floor. But it was so nice sitting on the bed for the better part of the day with my puffy feet up, the floor fan slowly rotating, looking out over the pond while my clothes dried in the sun and I typed up interview notes.

The bathroom system here is different. Every bathroom has a tiled water tank in one corner, with a spigot and a plastic dipper (about 2 liters size). There may be a squat toilet, what Albanians call Turkish style, or a regular sit toilet, but there is always a hose with a spray nozzle for washing your butt. What I can’t figure is how you are supposed to dry your butt after washing? There is never any toilet paper. The proper thing is to bathe twice a day, morning and evening, using cold water dipped out of the tank. Despite the poshness of the hotels, in only two of them has there been truly hot water for showering. (You know how I love my hot showers…)

 I feel like my body odor has changed from all the spices in the food.

Fried frog legs! I also had them in the soup version which was delicious. Add enough garlic, lemongrass, and spices and anything tastes amazing!

After a dozen of these lunches I think I gained at least 10 lbs on this trip:

beautiful countryside. It also rained every day.

This Christmas tree was made entirely out of plastic water bottles and cups cut into flower shapes!

It was a really amazing opportunity to see this country and meet so many people. Sadly the only phrase in Bahasa Indonesian that I really learned was "Terima kasih," which means "thank you." But I sure got to say it a lot :-)