I have been getting out of my place earlier and earlier with every morning. I am finding that I am less soaked through with sweat if I reach my first bus by 6:15 and that the forgone from Tirana to Fushekruje typically leaves more promptly the earlier I board it. Any time lapse of more than five minutes is spent on my duff sipping a macchiato e mathe me një shequer at one of the countless cafes around the city.
In every city I’ve visited in Albania, one out of four businesses is a cafe. My father bought me a Lonely Planet Eastern Europe Phrasebook before I left the States. I can always spend time with either that or my journal when five minutes makes itself available. Five minutes in Albania often reads twenty-five on your timepiece.
Today was very frustrating for a number of reasons, and I am certain that all of you have frustrations of your own. If you will indulge me for a paragraph or so, I will explain. The work to install the sewage lines went quite well. In hindsight we might call that beginners luck, but I could feel the momentum of our progress when that phase was completed. The next step was installing the drain lines for the rain water. In my mind, rain water systems aren’t nearly as technical as the systems for handling human waste. This is Albania, and I do not know what I am talking about.
Although this second system is going to run over the first system, we were told by the engineer to fill in all of the canals. The engineer then instructed my crew and I to dig new canals at 40cm deep by 40cm wide around the entire building.
Done.
So today when the topograph came out to give us our proper trench depths I was dismayed to learn that about 50 meters of trench never needed to be dug in the first place. This composes about a third of our total trenching. Our work for the last week or so has consisted primarily of two combinations of tools: first: shovel and pickaxe, second: pickaxe and shovel. Aside from some heavy clay deposits in the glacial till fields around Ballard Washington, I have never carved out earth as dense and as heavy as the soil on the site of our new church. Has anyone seen the movie Cool Hand Luke?
To their credit, my crew did not waste any time complaining about all that we had accomplished for not. As in the States, the only person in the building process who knows less than the engineer, is the architect. These kinds of disappointments are part of any major building project. I may have been the most frustrated person of all. Thankfully, Siamir took the lead to salvage the day from total ruin.
An increase in caloric intake helped me get over the slump in my eagerness to do anything but go home early.
When you visit, I know the perfect place to take you for byrek.
albaniacalling 