Per Vizit

We awoke Saturday morning to the sound of voices in the living room.  We dressed quickly and went to see – it was already noon!  There was a couple [a relative – please don’t ask me which one.  Albanians keep in contact with second and third cousins of their grandparents on a regular basis. I tried to keep track of people at first, but it quickly became an exercise in futility for me.  I was happy to have our first “visit” Albanian style.  I learned that they had been there for two hours already; it seemed special that these people couldn’t wait to see us that they came over first thing in the morning.  At first, there was a bit of translation going, but as the visit wore on, there was not as much.  I smiled and looked at the people talking as if I could understand them, trying to be polite.  I tried to understand, I really, really did!  But the Albanian language is so different from English, that as an outsider, you essentially have to have a teacher to learn it.  The visit lasted about ½ hour, so it didn’t seem so bad.  Little did I know that this would not be typical visiting for the remainder of our trip.

            Each day we would wake up, eat a bit of breakfast (just enough to hold us until the first visit, it made me sad, because Silva, Dritan’s aunt, had made us several jams and marmalades that were delicious.  Oh, that I could start the day with bread and jam like that every day!), and start the visits. 

They all started in the same way for me:

“Si jene?” *kiss* *kiss* *kiss* *kiss*

“Mire. Shum mire. Si je?” (gripping my hands and arms tightly)

“Mire, shum mire. Faleminderit.”

“Shquiptare?” *looking at Zamira or Dritan*

“Yo. … ” (they or I would answer)

Basically, “Hello, how are you? Good, good, how are you? Good, very good; thank you. Is she Albanian? No, she just knows how to greet people in Albanian. Oh, ok.”  I would smile and say “Faleminderit.” (Thank You) as they pronounced their blessings on us.  We would remove our shoes and they would give us slippers, we would sit in their living room and chat for a few, and then someone would get up to get us drinks and a sweet. 
          Let me pause to say - Albanians know how to entertain!  Always we had a gold-rimmed wine glass, served on a beautiful silver or gold tray. The drinks varied – sometimes it was a cordial, sometimes it was a special soda or juice (we never chose, they always served us the best of what they had).  There was always a sweet – either from a bakery or sometimes homemade.  Then there were cookies, on a decorative glass platter.  Then fruit, nicely cut up and served in glass bowls, with small dessert plates.  If it was a short visit (2-3 hours) this might be it. For a longer visit, there was always a meal.  By meal, I mean several hours and courses of food.  Dining is a social experience by all standards in Albania.

           
          Once again, I tried to follow the conversation, but my Albanian is quite limited.  During these visits, I would try to act engaged in the conversation, and the rare word I do know would clue me in that the subject had changed.  My mother in law tried to draw me in a few times by telling stories about her husband, Besnik, or Nexi, their dog, that I would get to tell the punch line (it was always the same), but of course I would have to be translated.  Dritan would try to translate in the beginning, but this was also difficult, as sometimes the conversation moved too fast, or sometimes you needed more background to get the joke/funny story, and sometimes he was just too wrapped up in actually visiting.  I’m told that they asked questions about me, but usually to my mother-in-law.  Dritan told me that she told them I was a “simple” woman - a compliment in their culture (I have to pause here and remember the time, right before our wedding, Zamira said to me “I think a strapless [wedding] dress will look good on you.  On the models, the [collar] bones are always sticking out. They don’t stick out on you, you have more flesh there.” I smiled, knowing she meant it as a compliment, thinking about how that sentiment didn’t really translate in American culture.) 

The families were quite welcoming and very hospitable (Albania is a *very* hospitable culture) and kind to me.  Despite this, the kind of visiting we did was much more difficult than I imagined it to be.  I had pictured us going out to coffee or having a simple dinner or lunch with family on most days.  Which is what happened, but I was thinking more like 1-2 hours per visit, maybe 3-4 for family, a whole day here or there, with plenty of free time between visits to explore the city or see the sights.  I imagined people trying to make conversation with me, despite the language barrier, with the help of Dritan or Zamira to translate.  Dritan also mentioned that we wouldn’t have to make all the visits his mother made, and that we could pop in and out at times.  We would be here 2.5 weeks, after all –that’s plenty of time to see everyone, right? …RIGHT?

We were more like a strike team, with carefully coordinated daily moves.*  Every morning I would ask my husband “What’s on the agenda for today?” And every day he would answer with three or four families that we had to go visit, all coordinated by his mother. These visits would last from 3-8 hours each (usually about 12 hours each day overall). At least, that was the first five days.  On the sixth day, we had a day off.  By “day off,” I mean, we only visited for 5 hours that day, and had the rest of the day free.  In the days after, it slowed down to maybe 6-10 hours or so each day, with either shorter visits with several families or full days with the same people going to different places.  Some days, we would be on our way home when suddenly we would take a wrong turn and I would realize we were on our way to another visit. 

 I have to say, as happy as I was to be doing this for my husband, it was quite isolating at times.  Which doesn’t seem so bad, since I’m kind of a loner anyway, but the problem with being a loner is that you really, really need your down time; you need time to decompress, to reenergize, and time to be alone.  I’m also a bit Type A, so the fact that I wasn’t in control of my own schedule, and couldn’t take that time alone that I needed, or that the whole schedule for the day could change without notice, was…jarring for me.  I would be mentally preparing for one thing, and all of a sudden we would arrive somewhere else and I would be like “Wait, who is this? And what are we doing here? What is expected of me?”  I tried my best to learn about each family we visited, to ask a question or two and to show genuine interest, and they didn’t make it difficult to do that in any way (again, very hospitable), but I’ll just say it was an adjustment and a challenge for me.  I think I met the challenge well overall. 

Learning Albanian
          After several visits where the questions and answers were all the same, I began to recognize certain words that were used again and again.  I would tap Dritan and repeat a word and ask him what it meant.  He was good about translating these words for me, and I picked up several new words this way (and after two weeks, I can now follow a simple conversation in Albanian. I can’t tell you exactly what they’re saying, but I can tell you what subject they’re talking about).  After the [copious amounts of] food, when everyone would retire to the living room again, I would pull out my phone and play Sudoku as unobtrusively as I could (which was not very subtle).  Every so often, I would look up and follow the people talking for a minute, and when I made eye contact with people, I always smiled.  Several people made sympathetic comments about not understanding anything when they traveled as well, or feeling badly that I didn’t understand.  I’m just glad they didn’t think I was rude!  After 3-4 hours of pretending to understand and acting engaged, and 1-4 more hours of visiting left, what else could I do?


* I have to give my mother-in-law credit here, as apparently there was a careful calculation to these visits - older relatives first [respecting elders is a cultural norm that I rather enjoy about his culture], those with recent deaths in the family take priority, closest family next, anyone you have a reciprocal obligation to (maybe you hosted them or their kids in the U.S. or got them a job or did them a favor of some sort), then friends.  Many people got 2 or 3 visits over the course of the time we were there. 



Ahhh, good times.