Volleyball and President Bush

Yesterday we all went out to a village called Vaqarr (pronounced "Vachar") where we played volleyball. It seems like the whole village came out to play volleyball and show us all how it's done. We started out playing Americans vs. Albanians but we got our butts handed to us. Then we split up and played young vs. old, but the old guys beat us then. At least it was a much closer game. I finally figured out why I learned numbers in Albanian; I was actually able to understand them calling out the score. It was very fun though, and gave us a glimpse into Albanian culture. Earlier in the day, we went to a children's bible study at the church. The two children of my host family, Paula and Gjergji (who are 15 and 13 respectively) attend this group, so we went to meet other kids and have a good time with them. We've been meeting quite a few Albanian Christians. The night we arrived we joined some Police officers who are Christians as well who eat together at the Stephen Center, which is owned by an American missionary/businessman. We already made a ton of plans for what to do while we're in Tirana, which is pretty cool that we get to plan our own time here. We're planning on doing a cultural night to share what American culture is like and what our beliefs are. There's a group of Dutch students here as well, so we hope to include them as well. We met a few of them the other day when we had lunch at the Steven Center, and the rest at volleyball. One of them came up to us during volleyball and said to us with a smile, "You don't look Albanian." They said they had never been to a country that doesn't speak English before, so I imagine they can get just as confused as us.

It's been nice for Kurt and I, since everyone in our host family understands English, and both Paula and Gjergji speak English. In fact, Gjergji has been hovering over my shoulder correcting me with spelling Albanian words and names in this blog and my emails. He's a good kid, and just like any kid he gets very excited and loves to be around us. I can't blame him though, I would have probably done the same at his age.

I'm starting to realize how long this time in Albania is going to be and I miss people back home, but I'm also pretty excited for what the trip will hold for us.

Right now I'm just sitting in an internet cafe of sorts getting updated/updating everyone, since our very own President Bush is in Albania today, and because of this, the whole capitol is essentially on lockdown. There are American flags lining the streets all the way from the airport to the city center and flags on many of the buildings, so Zef, who is the pastor here, told us that he prepared Albania for us to come. Anyways, we're having fun and learning a lot.