Dispatch from Albania # 5 Nov. 20, 1999

It rained all night and made good sounds. I didn’t miss the lightning that accompanied the first storm here. It had looked exactly like exploding bombs I’d seen in the movies of the Forties.

After photographing the director of IRC in Albania, we heard some excellent warnings about staying alive during threatening times. General threats (potential dangers)come from:
· Criminal
· Political-Internal (Socialists vs. Democrats)
· Political-External
· Natural disasters
· Government
· Ethnic/Racist
· Economic collapse
· Internal conflict (800,000 weapons just arrived)
· Mines and unexploded objects
· Transportation accidents (cars, pedestrians, tanks)
· Religion
· Disease
· Personal stupidity (greatest cause of trouble, because people adapt, forget they are in a threatening area, let their defenses down, and WHAM)
That’s good advice, wouldn’t you say!

Talked to a historian about Kathy’s brochure and where we should go to get the remaining pictures. He suggested Southern Albania, esp. the towns of Elbasan and Berat. We leave Wednesday with our driver and a body guard and perhaps the historian himself.

I have been eager to send messages to all my friends, but the phones at the apt. don’t go long distance, so our driver took me to a place called the Internet Cafe. He dropped me off at the enormous opera house that is much bigger than the San Francisco Opera House and looks like a Nazi building in Red Square, but has been converted to offices. Alone (first time all by myself outside our apt.) I carried my sweet Macintosh G3 in its canvas bag on my bosom up three very long flights of stairs to a door with "INTERNET" written on it. Walked in. Was greeted in non-English by nice young Albanian man who tried to help me get on line. First, we tried to plug my computer into their phone line. No luck because their plugs have 8 prongs (?) instead of whatever ours have. Then we tried using a floppy disk. Even though we both have Microsoft Word, every one of their 10 computers crashed when he inserted the floppy and tried to find my file. Finally we sadly gave up, I paid him the 300 lekes I owed, and returned with the patiently waiting driver to IRC where I’ll try the same procedure tomorrow.

Tonight at one of the high staff’s houses, we attended a "banquet" which was a lovely buffet of mostly potato dishes, baked chicken parts, and thin slabs of tough beef. The Merlot was good and the raki better.

Around 9:00 Kathy & I returned to our nest, and I finally got to cozy up with BALKAN GHOSTS (gift from Anne Dauer). It gives a thorough and interestingly written history of this strange area.

Love,
Carolyn
Smile-of-the-Day: Watching curious faces of 5 young Albania men when they saw my Apple Computer. "Mah keen tush... Mah keen tush.... Mah keen tush....First time see."

Mom, ‘Cause our family always checks out the price of gasoline, I’m giving you an arithmetic problem. Gas is measured in liters over here & money is in lekes. 1 liter of gas costs 100 lekes. A leke is equivalent to $1.34 in American money. How much does this make a gallon of gas cost in American money? ______

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