This marks the end of my first week in Tirana! What a wonderful week it’s been. I was born in Pogradec, Albania and lived there until my family moved to the United States when I was eight years old. Although I’ve visited Albania almost every summer since then, I’ve spent little time in Tirana (sticking more to my hometown), so visiting and living in the capital of my home country has been amazing! This is the view from our apartment, and I love it.
My internship at the National Coastal Agency has been great so far. Our director, Auron Tare, is working to improve the tourism in Albania by managing the coastlines, as well as the island of Sazani, which he plans on turning into a sustainable tourist attraction and a research hub. The other interns I’m working with have been very helpful, especially given the fact that I was the last arrive in Albania this month and had to learn the ropes! Everyone has been very welcoming. My projects have included some translation work from Albanian to English, but I’ve been mostly helping to create a framework for reaching out to people and institutions that may be interested in conducting research on Sazani Island. My goal over the next week will be to reach out to various university programs that perform research and ask about their framework (such as the Bio Station and Camp Davis) in the hopes of creating these similar opportunities for students and universities in Sazani! Below is a photo of the boulevard we walk on to get to the office (which is just outside of the picture)!
The first weekend in Albania, I decided to go home and spend time with family. It’s been great seeing them. However, over the next few weeks, I’m hoping to join Auron and the other interns in exploring the coastlines and Sazani itself! This has been a great week, and I get the feeling that the rest of the summer will only top it! To say goodbye, I will leave you with my favorite food in Albania (and the reason that I keep coming back, my friends joke): it is called sufllaqe!
Yesterday marked the my first week in Albania. It feels like time here is going by so quickly because everything is so new and interesting and exciting. Time really does fly when you’re having fun.
So far, I’ve been introduced to a completely new work environment, moved to the capital of a very uncommon country (and as of now have survived a week without hot water because the land lord is hard to get in touch with), driven all over Montenegro on a weekend trip, learned various phrases is Albanian all of which I have to say 50 times to pronounce correctly, met a lot of great people and have become addicted to Albanian street food and cappuccinos.
Surprisingly, although Albania is not a common country for people to travel to let alone intern in (Albania doesn’t really have an internship culture at all), I feel very comfortable here. I’m living with two other Michigan students, William and Peixin, and there are also two other Michigan students living in another apartment, Siri and Eni. I think everyone here definitely makes the overwhelming feeling of living and working in a different country comfortable.
Work is definitely a really welcoming and comfortable environment too. I’m working at the National Coastal Agency in Albania which in a part of their Ministry of Economy, Tourism, Trade, and Entrepreneurship (try saying that 10 times fast). The office is awesome and my co-workers are great people. (See pics below) The mission of the National Coastal Agency is to protect, preserve, and promote Albania’s coastlines. So far, my main project is drafting letters to send to University of Michigan representatives asking if they would have interest in conducting research or fieldwork in Albania.
Albania has a very rich historical past with connections to ancient Greece and Rome. Albania was also completely isolated from the rest of Europe until 1990 under a dictator. The country is now an emerging democracy and is striving to become a member of the European Union. Because Albania is still undergoing many changes and development in the country, there is not much structure to my internship as there is for internships in the U.S. There isn’t even a word in Albanian to translate the word internship. To some extent, this is makes going to work hard because I have no clear or set standards of what is expected of me at work let alone official tasks. This may also be a good thing however. I think this internship is allowing me to not only adapt to a very different work environment that I am not used to working in but it is also allowing me to be more creative and utilize my own strengths and experiences to contribute, even in a small way, to this country.
One of my favorite aspects of Albanian work culture is that everyone in the office loves to go out for coffee breaks. When I say coffee breaks I don’t mean the typical American, let’s go grab a coffee for 15 minutes. Here everyone takes their time to go out to coffee, sit at a cafe, and talk to each another. Every time I go to get coffee with a UM intern or an Albanian co-worker we’re not looking at our phones at the table (which also may be due to the spotty WiFi) but we’re enjoying each others company. In Albania, I feel a lot more free to not rush though the day. The culture is definitely slower paced and more relaxed.
This week I feel like I haven’t gotten much work done because I’m still getting a feel for how business is conducted in the office and I’m still in the process of deciding what types of projects I want to work on this summer. I’m picking up a good amount of basic Albanian phrases to say to my co-workers (Good morning is “Mirëmëngjes”, goodbye is “Mirupafshim”, thank you is “Faleminderit”). Although I can’t speak Albanian very well people seem to appreciate my effort to communicate with them. Many of the younger co-workers speak English very well so communication with them is never a problem.
Overall this first work week has been great. I’m learning to adapt to a new environment, figuring out how I want to contribute to the Coastal Agency this summer, and really getting to know my co-workers and the other Michigan students I’m with. I could write pages and pages of my observations, experiences, language struggles, and food obsessions in Albania but I’ll try to end here and write other blog posts about specific topics and experiences. For example, this past weekend I went to Montenegro with the other Michigan students and our Albanian friend, Erjon. I’ll definitely write a separate post about that trip because it’s another amazing experience that I could talk about for hours.
Stay tuned for another post about my hostel experiences (including my mad skills at floor tennis) and our car ride through the black mountains of Montenegro.
Over the past 10 months since I made the decision to intern in Albania this summer I’ve been asked a lot of questions from family, friends, and classmates. Where is Albania? Is that in the Middle East? What language do they speak there? What kind of government do they have? Why Albania?
My answers: Above Greece and across from Italy. No it’s in Southeastern Europe. They speak Albanian. Parliamentary democracy.
That last question however does not have a simple answer.
Why Albania?
There are many reasons why I decided to go to Albania this summer but what stands out most in my mind is that I’m going because it is completely out of my comfort zone.
Albania is far away. It’s not the typical European country that you travel to like France or Italy. It was an isolated country up until 1990 under a communist regime. It’s uncommon and unexplored. It’s an adventure.
So now the final countdown has begun and I’m leaving in 10 days. I’m sure that my experience in Albania will give me even more answers to the question, “why Albania?” so stay tuned.
I’ve been in Albania for more than a week now. Thanks to Will’s strategic plan we moved in pretty smoothly. On the first day we were picked up by someone from Auron’s office, signed the lease, got the key for the apartment, which is located just near the center of Tirana, and we got our Albania SIM cards. (I’m glad my phone is not on contract so I can simply switch in the new SIM). We even walked around Skanderbeg Square which is very nicely constructed.
As a Chinese national, my first impression about this country is it has a strange similarity to China. If it were not for the appearance of the people and the Albanian language they are speaking, this could be a third-tier city somewhere in China. The way people walk on the street, the clothes they are wearing, the overcrowded buses at rush hour, the style of advertising in the stores, and the way they clean their streets are all very similar to aspects of China. Even in the apartment, the way they boil water with a whistling kettle and the way they hang their clothes on the balcony are all similar. That’s why I haven’t really experienced much culture shock.
The only reason I feel out of place here is due to my Asian face because there are not many Asian people in Albania, (everyone that I talk to seems to point out that there’s a “Chinese market” here). I get many stares every single time I walk on the street. I can’t tell whether they are being friendly or not, but even if it’s out of curiosity, that’s too many stares for me. I will admit the staring makes me feel uncomfortable and to some extent makes me aware of my personal safety. On the third day of my internship, I finally started wearing my sunglasses during the day, which is an extremely useful strategy. Still, when I was walking around by myself on Friday afternoon, I was very conscious about the way I stand out of the crowd. I definitely tried not to look like a tourist in town but I guess my camera suggested otherwise.
That afternoon was also the first time I went out to the street and bought bread by myself without knowing much Albanian ( I have no idea how to say “wheat bread” and basic numbers—all I know is “bukë”=”bread” and “Sa kushton?”=”How much”) The clerk didn’t know any English either (in general I haven’t met too many Albanians that can fully speak English). I pointed to different breads on the shelves and struggled to express what kind of bread I wanted. All I could do to communicate was to make weird gestures at the clerk (Yes it’s my surviving skill). Luckily, a young girl around my age came into the store and solved my problems with fluent English. Mission accomplished! I can buy food in a foreign country without speaking its language!!!
Speaking of my internship. I’m interning at National Coastline Agency under Ministry of Economy, Tourism, Trade and Entrepreneurship. (It’s a long name I know). Auron Tare is my boss. As a journalist and historian, he’s been doing a lot of tourism promotion around Albania from coastlines to national parks. Most of the time, he is referred to as the “Burtrint Guy” because he is the one who integrated the Burtrint National Park and turned it into a successful UNESCO site. He is a very interesting person and the only one who responds to emails according to American standards (aka reply within a maximum 24 hours). Other people in the country I have worked with (especially when I was dealing with my Albanian visa), email responses took three days, a week, or even longer. This may be due to the laid-back, more relaxed Mediterranean culture. Same thing with punctuality. I’ve been told that there’s no break between 8am to 4pm at work. But the fact is I arrived at the office at 9 and there’s only one girl there. I was shocked, and later on realized that even though I go out for a morning coffee or take a coffee break at noon that’s totally acceptable. Apparently, they have a very flexible schedule and punctuality is more relaxed than Chinese and American culture.
I’m still very confused, or to some extent, anxious about my project because what I’m working on right now is largely independent from everyone else’s. My goal is to do whatever I can to attract more Chinese tourists visiting Albania as well as the Balkans. This is a topic so huge and so ambitious that even breaking it down can be hard. I’ve been “thrown in at the deep end”, with zero experience about the tourism industry, and I have to learn everything from scratch. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—it’s just tough.
What I’ve done up until now is doing research on Chinese outbound tourism market, trying to contact travel agencies in China by phone (because they don’t really use email that much — thank the Lord the Albanian mobile plan for oversea phone calls is really cheap), talking to a Chinese tourist from Xinhua News Agency in Tirana, and even pushing through the Chinese tourist visa issue with Auron (if Chinese tourists are not applying for an Albania visa directly, they need a multiple entry Schengen visa/American visa to enter Albania, and the visa has to be used once before entering Albania). Every day my mind is flooded with a ton of information and at the end of day, I just want to eat delicious food to boost my brain power, which usually includes byrek, chocolates, even ice-cream (food is so cheap here!). Apparently, cooking my own dinner relieves my stress, and it’s very much an enjoyable process too. I’m pretty sure that by the end of June I will be a good cook.
There’s a lot more good stories to tell, but I guess that’s all for today. It’s 11pm already and I have to be in the office by 8:30 tomorrow for a television program (Auron set up a debut for Michigan students on national Albanian T.V.). We’ll see how it goes…. 🙂
Here are some of the pictures I took in my first week
Boulevard near the National Coastal Agency
View from the balcony of my apartment
Government building around Skanderbeg Square
Another view from my apartment, the big building is the International Hotel in Tirana
