The Craziest Day

Today we had the oddest day. Mom went to have coffee with two of the friends she has made and we next heard from her about two hours later when she told me to get ready to go to volunteer at the local pre-school. We went there and learned multiple things about school in Albania. One is that this current generation of kids are taught English from a very young age. The kids who were there that day spoke a small amount of English. Two, that day was effectively a snow day as it was too cold (apparently 60 is too cold) so many kids did not go to school. Three, All school in Albania lets out at noon be it pre-school or high school it all lets out at noon. Finally, there are many kids in a single small classroom. This class has 24 students in a classroom about 12 feet by 25 feet.

As school was letting out we walked up to the road and our friend who lives here in Albania stuck her hand out and the first car that came by pulled over and lowered his window. After talking for a few seconds she said “This man is letting us ride with him. Mom, her friend and I all looked at each other in astonishment. We were hitchhiking in some random Albanian’s car. We drove to the high school and we thanked the man for driving us. We went into the school and walked up to one of the floors to where the Director was finishing teaching. She came out and saw our friend and looked very happy. We went to her office and found that the reason we were here was that the school had a gym that had walls I could use for lacrosse. They talked for a few minutes and then we went to see the gym. It was perfect so we agreed that I can use it on weekends from 9 to 10 am. We thanked the director and kept moving. We went to see our friend’s childhood home. Many families have one or more children who have managed to move to the U.S. and sent money home over time. This money is used to build apartments so one building may contain an apartment for each family member on a level. We got to her house which was a beautiful villa. She is fixing it up to make a museum about the history and life of people in Albania. We got a great tour of the house and the back yard which some of the steepest steps in the world. We thanked her for an amazing day and went home. Our day had turned out to be much more exciting than we expected.