My world is a loud lushness of fields and farms littered 

Sunrises cutting cold air into patterns more and less bright

Illumination easing into, over, and behind short grasses

Thick-trunked olive trees 

Vertical vine coral twisting in and out of view, in and out of reach

Meter wide concrete rafts made high and low at the corners

                Save shoes the slick treading rich earth

Planted saplings, rooted, snapped mid span by winds or speeding cars

Cold enough where the road bowls to frost breath

Sun’s eye bringing a quick sweat

Reverence both what can not and changes not ours the creature to make

Two fleeting days

My world is quiet, sterile laminate wrapped in a slow-blown, endless cloud

Brighter as the clock grows the morning late

The light a universal lifeless

Trees a universal lifeless

Rigid, tall, vertical as raging flame

Slicked mustard spores speckling the thin sheath delicate black

Clean are the gutters in the road, the road, the walks, grates, and walks

The walks so removed an idea of garden, of earth, of soil or rich or food

Of glory no sign, industry and all I can do making gray the earth as

                Sky above yet patterns come and swiftly God rebels rolling

Marble over marble high

Now that I am home, it is difficult to know what to write about.  I could write about taking the water bus to Venice, spending an evening in the Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, or sitting next to a woman who’s name means “Wife of Shiva,” in Hindi on the 10+ hour flight from Paris to Seattle.  I may write about those things in a later post.  For now, I think I will try to tackle talking about just how energized I feel today.  

Last night I went to bed shortly after enjoying my mother’s cooking and the company of my parents for the first time in over 8 months.  Upon reaching the 6AM hour this morning, I had been sleeping for about 12 hours, which was just the right amount.  I woke up singing, bright with a lively outlook, looking forward to every minute of today.  And I was right to think that today would be a great day.  I’ve been encouraging my closest friends to take the words which introduce the thought outlined by Psalm 96 and Psalm 98: “Sing to the LORD a new song…”  God created this day new, and He has created us to be new in this day.  What if the people you interact with on a daily basis were to meet a different person in you today?  What would it take to change the tone of conversations you never enjoyed having in the past?  And it has been a great day.

God has given me a wonderful family, and strong devoted friends.  He loves me, and He seeks for me to follow Him so that I will prosper in all ways.  It really is a lovely thing, being a human.

Today was the last day of work for me on the Fushekruje church jobsite.  The power went out in our neighborhood at the college some time last night.  The power goes out about once every other day, and so I didn’t think much of it.  This morning, however, I found myself waiting for a break in the rain to begin my walk to the bus stop.  I planned my exit of the school gate perfectly, getting rained on for the entire duration of my walk.  The rain coming down seemed cold, and the air was cold.  I thought a few minutes on the bus would provide a venue for all of the water in my clothes to evaporate, but the bus is more of an incubator than anything else.  I was going to be wet today.  

By the time I got to the jobsite, Visi had already set two of the posts for the fence around the children’s play area.  He and Pirin had been working in the rain up until the moment of my arrival, and then the three of us took a few minutes to stand under shelter.  Albania is just like the States, except there really isn’t a way to get dry after you’ve gotten wet, and today I found that once I got cold, the cold stayed with me.  During our coffee break, Visi had difficulty getting his hands to operate an ink pen.

At lunch time, Pirin went to his house.  Visi and I went to Cafe Bushi to meet Sajmir.  Sajmir has been working in Puk for about two months now, and if it weren’t for this weather we are having, he would have been pouring concrete today.  He looked good, fresh, happy, strong, clean, rested, and relaxed.  He seemed surprised to hear that I was leaving in two days.  I think my departure snuck up on everyone.  Sajmir made me promise to say hello to everyone in my family.  He told me that if he were to come to Amerika, that he would treat my family like they were his family, because he considers me to be a member of his family now.  It is good to have family.

The temperature got down to 3 degrees today, which is somewhere below 40 degrees in the States.  On the autostrat, waiting for the fugon at the end of the day, I was complaining in English, which is how Visi knows that something is really bothering me.  “I didn’t know you had cold like this here,”  I said.  “This is the Mediterranean, you don’t have any business getting this cold.”  I said.  Visi was looking away, not wanting me to see that he was crying.  He let me board the next fugon alone.  I don’t think he wanted to ride home beside me.  I think he needed to say goodbye to me then and there.

There is no easy way.

Yesterday, after I had spent some time studying the karkolec, I looked past the field behind our new church.  On the hill I could see the sunlight reflecting off of the windows of the buildings in the town of Krujë.  It reminded me of an observation I had heard another missionary make about the ancient strongholds of this land.  “A city on a hill,” he said.  He was quoting scripture about Jerusalem, but he was right.

The city on a hill is a place, but it is also an idea, a metaphor.  Jerusalem was a city which existed outside of the reach of many of the evils of this world.  Jerusalem is a city which will exist outside of the reach of all evil some day.  Once a community had built it’s stronghold at an advantageous height, at the end of a winding path or just beyond a narrow pass, it’s members could live assured of their safety.  The city of Krujë successfully repelled three sieges by one of the most formidable militaries of its day; the Ottomans.

Today Krujë serves as a metaphor specific to the Albanian way of being.  It is a metaphor of preservation and self-reliance.  It will forever be the seat from which the Albanian people galvanized their identity under the careful direction of one man, George Kastrioti Skanderbeg.  Without him, and the sacrifices made by those who served under him, it is likely their would not be an Albania at all.

We can not know the significance our lives may have to those who still live after we have died.  Legacies are in blood, but also in the stones of hillside cities.  While Kingdom building, if you handed a mallet to a glazier as he worked to set a pain of glass, Jerusalem belongs to you.

On the 28th, while waiting to catch the last bus into town around lunch time, I could hear people asking “will there be another bus?”  I thought it might be nice to walk down the hill into Tirana.  That way I could see if anything was happening at the monument of the woman holding the torch near the cemetery in the Sanitorium neighborhood.

A few minutes later, when the bus arrived at capacity and then began to load the two-dozen people I had been waiting with, I started walking.  The road down into the center was blocked by police so I cut through the trees into the park.  To my surprise, a large crowd had gathered in the square near the statue.  I walked around a bit, taking photographs and generally keeping to myself.  There were quite a few foreigners in business suits there to meet with other foreigners in business suits.  A group of men in bright red outfits stood ready to play instruments, and others stood as honor guard to wreaths of flowers.

I had almost decided to head on, down the hill into Tirana, when people began to clap for someone.  Sali Berisha looks like all of the videos of him I’ve seen on television.  I dispersed with the crowd down the hill at the conclusion of whatever ceremony I had stumbled into.  Four abreast we made our way, taking up one of the lanes intended for vehicles.  Rruga Elbasan is under construction, the going was slow.

At the base of the hill I called a friend of mine from outside of the U.S. Embassy.  In order to receive clear counsel, it is best to make calls from a commonly known landmark.  Tirana was full of people wearing their nicest blacks and lots of reds.

Flags were on cars, hats, scarves, peoples’ backs and flying from banners, poles and windows.  The air was reserved, slow walking, respectful; a people doing all they could to honor those around them.

I saw and heard a man crack something hard and black over the crown of a seven year olds’ head.  Red faced with anger, the little boy tried to lash out in response, but his father was holding his hand.  The black thing was a toy machine gun and the man was probably the child’s uncle.  This was not a day for pranks and plastic guns.

I watched most of the parade from the steps of the Opera House near Sahati.  Behind me, at the top of the stairs was a platform with the remains of what had been a four ton cake atop it.  People were calmly helping themselves to the strawberry frosted sweet.  Cake and plates, napkins and sticky were everywhere.  The floor felt like it was that of an old movie theater.  At some point in the day the people providing help for cake lovers had ran out of forks.  Frosting covered fingers made for careful walking and watching out for who you were standing near.

The parade honored members of all of the armed services as well as some of the less appreciated services carried out in the city of Tirana.  Near the end of the parade was a march of international flags.  Each flag had its own moment of honor.  My friend Ben and I hooted loudly for the United States.  We were not alone.

You may or may not know, but this little nation of 3.2 million people has troops on the ground helping out the United States in it’s mission in Afghanistan.  They are not merely allies in word, they are allies in deed.  Congratulations on 100 years Shqipëri, we love you.

The sense of urgency around a concrete pour is a thing which has to be experienced in order to be either understood or appreciated.  Pouring concrete has a gravity akin to that of getting married.  Once the commitment has been made it cannot, and should not, be easily unmade.  There is a great deal of expense both in the doing and undoing of concrete.  Concrete takes a lot of planning both for the day of the pour, and for the preparation of the site for weeks and even months before the pour is made.

What I saw in Fushekruje today was a smooth and choreographed dance of experienced, skilled, determined, hard-working men.  No one shouted, mistakes were taken care of quickly and in a professional manner.  The men were obviously hungry for the work and happy to be working.  Yli was the overall foreman on the job.  I don’t think I heard him give a single command all day.  A watch battery will feed the gears to moving the hands of the watch; any other action would simply get in the way of the watch’s proper operation.  

The ground has been ready to receive its 12 centimeter liquid stone shell for months.  We had been on hold due to the production of a poor product by the first crew we hired.  After the forms had been set for an area, the race began.  Besmir cut and fit the welded-wire mesh in place, staying just ahead of the wheelbarrow men Piarin and Edison.  Gazmir and Flamur never stopped hauling one bucket of water for every half bag of cement and one dozen shovel loads of sand-rich gravel to the spinning hopper of the mixer.  As soon as the mixing was done, the wheelbarrows were filled and the mixing process started again.  

A fast wheelbarrow man can catch about one-and-a-half minutes of rest between hauls.  Yli spent the entire time screeding and finishing the freshly placed mud.  

By day’s end we had about 40 square meters of new concrete in place.  Yli will be back tomorrow morning to give the surface one last hard-troweling.  His crew is off tomorrow for fest, pushim; the entire nation will be celebrating 100 years of independence.  It is a blessing to watch a professional at his craft.  Yli is a rare sort of fellow.  

Today’s meeting at the worksite will probably be my last.  I will be leaving for Seattle next Wednesday  morning.  Two days from now will mark the 100th anniversary of the creation of Albania as a nation.  Wednesday and Thursday are both to be national holidays.  As we walked the site today, looking at what needs to be done and those small projects that are almost finished, I found myself staring off over the surrounding fields and houses.  The passing of my responsibilities here should be simple enough.

 At the conclusion of our meeting, the Plagenhoefs took Visi and I into Kombinat and dropped the two of us a few blocks from the factory there.  I placed our order for fence posts with Arjan, the engineer on site who has become my point of contact.  It was Arjan who threatened to call the police the first time we met, because I was taking photographs in the yard of the factory where he works.  As Visi and I left I said “Can I get a picture together with you?”  “Of course,” he replied.  “Where should we stand?” I asked.  “Anywhere you like,” he said.

No one really wants to be at war.

At church in Fushekruje this morning we were getting off to a very slow start.  Twenty minutes after service was to have begun, Fatjon told me that Visi was at the jobsite working with Yli.  Yli is pronounced like the name Julie without the J sound.  Yli had agreed to help us line the flower beds with a bituminous wrap on Saturday, but evidently that got pushed back to today.  With service in a holding pattern I decided to head up to the job site to lend a hand.  We call roofing that goes down with placed flame “torchdown,” in the States.  Yli is one of those men who has a bank of both tools and skills which are rare in Albania.  He gave his time today out of respect for Visi and myself, out of friendship.

Besides being a skilled tile man and overall good guy, Yli also has a torch, a large grinder, and a powerful chorded drill.  When you hire a craftsmen to come on site, one of the things you are paying for is his tools.  He let me borrow his drill to set the bolts which are now holding the galvanized roof structure I had fabricated in Kombinat in place.  

One of my frustrations while working here has been the simple lack of good backup plans.  Its possible to make just about anything work when you spatch it together with found materials and let gravity lend a hand, but those kinds of solutions are rarely appealing to the eye.  Here in Albania I feel fortunate when the power is on.  I have been spoiled by my time working in the States where I can expect to find any tool I could ever want either in the back of my work truck, at the nearest big box hardware store, on in Greg Vammen’s garage.  I can understand why so much of the work I see appears to be a good first try, and not a professionally finished product.  The law of entropy is as real here as it is anywhere, and when things break, they aren’t repaired.  There simply isn’t the wealth.

This morning I went back into Kombinat, an old, old industrial part of Tirana.  There I picked up the galvanized frame and hood for our outdoor water pump at the church.  While boarding the already crowded orange bus to head into Kombinat from the center today, I had to settle for a place on the steps of the bus, right next to the folding doors.  At least I had a secure place to hold onto while we traveled.  I would have gone onto the bus proper, but there wasn’t enough room.  We must have taken on an additional 20 passengers after that.  I have heard rumblings about a pending hike in the Tirana bus fare.  Maybe its time.

From the factory in Kombinat I had to hire a dumdum to transport the steel and myself to Zogu i Zi. Dumdums are three-wheeled light trucks with cabs like miniature Isuzu cabs and hauling beds about the size of a large kitchen table.  They are the life blood of small construction projects in Albania.  At Zogu i Zi, I had to purchase four seats for myself and the mercury triangle.  It is nice to have the funds to convince a driver to accept work he would otherwise refuse.  On the way out of town I took note of all of the red which is enriching the color of buildings, cars and people.  We are four days from celebrating 100 years of Albanian independence from the Ottomans.

At the church project, I was surprised to see Pastor Alban there with Visi and Fatjon.  He had brought Fatima along for a bible study and prayer meeting.  Wherever two or more people are joined in the name of Jesus, there He is also, and so I am going to say that today was the first meeting in the new church.  I feel like the church in Fushekruje will be doing God’s work for generations to come.  It is nice to be a part of something that is sure to outlive me.