In the community

I had a good chunk of this morning off, so I took a walk with the camera. So here they are . . . Star Wars just a few hours ago in this galaxy. The one with the spikes represents eagles, a national symbol. It's actually the sports facility and has the football stadium next to it. The one that looks like bubble wrap is the national library where I'll be teaching one of my classes. I was told it was meant to symbolize white hats traditionally worn by Albanian men. So, this is what the brilliant architects came up with.

I've got to start meeting with the deans of the universities where I'll be working, but Public Affairs Officer at the Mission sets it all up and needed to go as well and apparently they were all in morning budget meetings. Oh darn, free until two. I took a bit of a walk around in the morning. There is a long staircase that leads up Sunnyhill to the US Mission compound so I headed that direction. You get a great view of the Eagle from there. On the walk back I wanted to stop and get some thing for breakfast and stopped at this little market that was stuffed full of some pretty good loot. They had Wasa Rye Crisps and some beautiful fresh produce. I've been told that doesn't last into the winter, though. Might have to resort to frozen veggies.

The woman who had my job before me, Michelle, has been great about getting me in contact with people she knew while living here. One of the guys that organizes an ultimate Frisbee team and all sorts of other things gave me a call and I met him for a coffee in the morning near my apartment. Thor and I started into the small talk and he asked the basic questions. "How are things going for you here . . . What did you do before this . . .Where are you from . . . Where did you go to college . . . " When I told him St. Olaf his next question was, "What dorm did you live in?" Yes, Thor is a former Ole. Of course he is . . . he's an American named Thor. There is another American here named Sven and his sister went to Olaf. Go figure. So the conversation went on with all ice broken. Apparently there was going to be a party in the evening with ultimate people and he invited me to join.

The afternoon meeting was good. I met Professor Gashi of the Political Science faculty where I'll have a few classes to teach. My Assistant Public Affairs Officer, Wendy, Ardian and myself were lead down a dark hallway of the Poli Sci building and I could feel the buzz you feel on every college campus the days before classes start. In a large frame on the main wall were the headshots of all the previous years graduates wearing their square black hats and red shirts - the colors of their flag. If you talk to an Albanian Kosovar about the University of Prishtina they will speak very highly of the quality of education there. Speak to anyone in the Public Affairs Office of the Mission and they would tell you not to send your children there. Corruption seems to rule here. Part of the PAO's is to fix these problems, but corruption runs deep. Students don't pay tuition, professors don't get paid the salaries they deserve (the majority have PhDs from what I understand) Many have other jobs and put little time into teaching. More times than not they are paid by the students for passing grades.

The discussion we had focused on what my schedule would be and how the English program worked. A placement test was established last year by Michelle and the other English teacher. The scores on those tests was extremely low, even for those students that were coming from the English lit. department. This year, due to the fact that every other department wanted to take the English portion of the University's entrance exam off, it's predicted to be worse. I'll hopefully meet with the other English teacher soon to discuss all of this.

That one hour meeting was my work day. I said good-bye, bought more grocery necessities and was picked up by Thor and Sophia - a former member of the Swedish national women's soccer team - and we were off to the party. A beautiful home lived in by an Irish man and a Belgium woman who were expecting a baby. 4 other women at the party were expecting too. Quite the "active" international community for sure! Seems to be a rotating crowd with no one staying in Prishtina much longer than three years. It sounded like a lot of them are on their way out come the first of the year. Kind of a bummer to start meeting people knowing they'll be flying off soon.