On my second weekend at site, I get caught up in a thunderstorm halfway up the side of a mountain! The road was slick and dangerous, but the sense of adventure made the whole experience exhilarating – despite the danger.
Sunday, May 21, 2017, 9:41pm
It’s been a bizarre day. The rainy weather was perfect for staying indoors and watching television, napping, and reading. But it was absolutely terrible for hiking.
Unfortunately, I did all of the above.
I started out the morning bright and early at Barbara’s apartment. The seven volunteers and one Albanian student gathered, and then we started up the mountain around 7:00am. The idea was that we’d hike to the Church of Shen Elena (Saint Helen) for the annual Festival of Shen Elenes.
Some background on the church and festival:
Every year people from Permet and the surrounding villages take a pilgrimage to the church and celebrate with special dyed eggs and traditional food.
According to the Visit Permet website, this annual event dates back to the 1600s, but the original church was destroyed by the communist regime. In 1999, nearly a decade after the fall of the communism, villagers decided to rebuild the church. Initially they wanted to construct a new space in a less rugged and rocky area, but a strange light appeared in the place where the church was originally built. “Guided by the light of St. Helen,” they rebuilt the church in the same place where it had been destroyed decades before.
On Sunday, May 21st, vespers begin at 8:15 in the morning, followed by a mass celebrated by the village priest. After the celebration, the priest invites the believers to receive the blessing with blessed flowers. Many people from the District of Permet participate, as well as pilgrims from the other Albanian cities. People from all religious backgrounds are welcome.
The hike was pretty intense right from the very beginning. It was a steep incline the entire way with very few flat areas for breaks, and the air was cool but humid. So I was huffing and puffing all the way up and definitely broke a sweat.
As we got further and further up the mountain, the clouds grew more ominous.
The weather was overcast the entire hike, and as we got further and further up the mountain, the clouds grew more ominous. The scenery was beautiful, but eventually it became obscured by the veils of mist. And by the time we were about two-thirds of the way up it began to rain.
What started out as a pleasant sprinkle soon turned into a torrential downpour that left all of us completely soaked and miserable. The rain also made the pathways incredibly slick and dangerous. We all made it up to the cross, but then decided to turn back before reaching the church because the roads were so bad.
So after a quick picture we headed back down the way we came. I had a poncho but I gave it to another volunteer since I at least had a hat and she had nothing. It was freezing cold, I was soaked to the bone, and we lost the main path a couple of times and had to make our way through the underbrush.
But the entire time I couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculous situation that I’d found myself in. My sitemate joked that she’d hazed us, but I replied that the joke was on her because she’d gotten caught up in the hazing too. After Shebenik and this experience, my track record with hikes in Albania is truly pretty poor.
What started out as a pleasant sprinkle soon turned into a torrential downpour that left all of us completely soaked and miserable.
When I got almost all the way down the mountain, my host dad unexpectedly rolled up in his car and offered me a ride because he was picking up my host sister, who’d also gone up the mountain earlier in the morning. So I shaved off at least twenty minutes of travel and was able to get home, strip off all my wet clothes, and crawl underneath my covers in record time. By that time it was only about 10:00am. I had the whole day ahead of me but absolutely no energy.
Despite my best efforts (two blankets, sweats, and a sweatshirt), I couldn’t get truly warm until I had a hot shower. And after the shower it was game over – I was not going to be able to do anything useful for the rest of the day. So I basically just stayed in my apartment all afternoon. I caught up on television shows and then called it a day.
Now that Week Two is about to begin, I feel a bit nervous to go back to work and yet at the same time I’m excited to dive back into the thick of it again. I have a lot of goals this week – I want to gain some traction on tutoring (both in Albanian and in English), I want to actually shop for groceries and maybe cook something, and I’d like to keep visiting the cultural center.
The entire time I couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculous situation that I’d found myself in.
I’d like to be able to become self-sufficient soon, and I feel badly that I have to rely on my site mate so much during this initial introductory period. In the future if I ever get a site mate, I’ll have to look back at this time and remember how it felt to be the new volunteer.
It’s challenging, and intimidating, and some of the time I just want to curl up in my apartment and never leave. But still I think this is going to be a time in my life that I look back fondly on. Hopefully in a year I’ll be reading this blog post and I’ll realize how far I’ve come!
Uprooted Abroad 