Last Friday I visited a couple of hospitals in Elbasan. Albania is a poor country and these hospitals were a good example of that. Dim, dirty and weathered. Stains on the sheets. Six beds to a recovery room. The surgical equipment was donated from France. Airplanes give a better illusion of cleanliness. Hard to keep old buildings like that spic and span. As my host father would say, Albania nuk ka leke (Albania doesn’t have money). There are times when this fact isn’t in the forefront of my mind. However, that doesn't make it any less true at a given moment. Everything I saw was physical so I know almost nothing about the quality of doctors and nurses. According to my host father doctors in Albania are worse than the wild dogs that roam around. They get paid a lot for a little, he says. He’s big on Italy’s health system (he lived and worked there for seven years). He had knee surgery after a work accident which was covered by the state.

Apparently, there is another hospital being built in Elbasan and it should be done in a year or so. I would like to visit it when it is completed. I would also like to check out one of the private health clinics that are, according to some people, more popular (and expensive) than the state run clinics in order to compare and contrast.

In funny things that happened to me in a funny order, I had a beer with some guys yesterday and they invited me to the following activities in the following order:

Do drugs

Eat Frog Meat

Cruise Elbasan for ladies

Go Fishing in the local waterways(and I assumed we'd eat the catch)

Going fishing takes precedent as the most important thing to say no to, then eating the frogs, cruising for chicks, snorting cocaine and finally smoking weed. You do not want to eat anything out of the water in Thane so fishing and frogs are out. I’m too worried about a shotgun wedding to go to kafe with a local girl so that’s not an option. So the most legitimate offer is the drugs which I, of course, turned down.

Getting offered drugs is pretty common for me (for whatever reason). Maybe people want to be accommodating or maybe I just keep meeting drug dealers. Who knows?

They did say I spoke Shqip well and in a truly Albanian act of bluntness said my friend Steve didn’t. Steve was almost asleep in his chair at this point and generally sleeping people do not speak second languages well. In truth, both Steve and I are garbage at Shqip and we don’t need anyone telling us otherwise.

It was nice to hang out with some Albanians closer to my age. The subjects didn’t change much from my talks with the youth; women, sports, what America is like, but the subjects were discussed in greater depth and with at a slightly more mature level.

I completed my practicum for training. I worked with two other volunteers to teach two health classes at the local school and one class at the local health clinic. I thought I did well in two of three lessons. The third one was just a poor performance by yours truly, but the group carried me so I am forever indebted to Stivi and Kimbo. We did get some good pictures of me looking professional in front of a powerpoint (my sole contribution that day).

More talk story later.