Mosquitoes, Travel and ASS

This is a picture I tried to take of the mosquitoes outside my house. They have been there ever since I moved in in June and don't seem to want to go away. They are really annoying. We just had a major cold front come through this weekend, though, so maybe that will finish them off. Good ridance.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I am leaving early Thursday morning to fly to Prague, so I will be spending my holiday there. Right now my plan is to spend a couple days in Prague and then go to Krakow and Auschwitz and then down to Budapest. I hope to eventually make it back to Albania within about ten days, so I probably won't be able to spend much time in Bulgaria and Macedonia. I'm trying to keep my plans open, so that I can just do whatever I feel like doing. I am very interested to see how the rest of Eastern Europe compares to Albania. I'm afraid it might be a little depressing coming back here afterwards. I think I picked a good time to travel because the dollar exchange rate is doing pretty well right now.

I don't really want to get to political on this site, but please stay informed about what is going on in the current congressional session. There are several important issues being dealt with as I am sure that you are aware. The first is major budget cuts to important social programs like food stamps and medicare. This is being down to help finance the tax cuts Bush made. The second is the proposed resolution by McCain to firmly state that torture is not something that the U.S. should engage in or tolerate. Bush/Cheney have threatened to veto the defense budget if this resolution is attached. Please stay informed and keep your representatives accountable.

Finally, on a lighter note, I took this picture in Tirana and thought it was funny. It is for ASS wedding dresses. I think there spokeswoman should be J.Lo and that their slogan should be "Make sure your bride gets ASS on her special day." Ok have a good one.

Happy Birthday

Happy 1st Birthday to my niece Sidney on the 15th and Happy Birthday to my brother on the 18th. (She was dressed as a pig for Halloween.)

Not really too much happening here. The electricity situation is about the same, but it has really cut down on how much I can cook for myself because my refigerator doesn't keep food cold very long without power.

Went to Tirana this weekend because lots of people were in town to celebrate with the group of volunteers that is leaving in the next month. They were the first group of volunteers to come back after the PC program was restarted here in 2003. In alot of ways they were guinea pigs to get the program running right, but they also managed to do alot of great things for Albania. After they leave, it will be just Katharine and I for volunteers in Durres until the new group comes in March.

OK, that's about it.

Electricity and Roads

So, yeah, we don't really have much electricity here right now. Luckily I live in a larger city, so we only go without electricity from about 8:30 am to 5:30 pm. Some of the villages go without for 13 hours a day. Here is a news story that kind of explains the problem, but I don't know if the drought is really the issue or if it is the line that the government is feeding the press.

Albania's Electrical Problems

Of course there are rumors flying around here about other possible causes, and each political party is blaming the other.

Another great development here is happening at Zogu i Zi. Zogu i Zi is a big intersection where the highway from Durres enters Tirana. It is the main road enterance into the city and so it sees alot of traffic volume. To deal with the high volume, the city is in the midst of constructing a new overpass and roundabout system. I just found out yesterday though that the project has been suspended indefinitely because some of the funds used for the project were allegedly from corrupt sources. So the halfway constructed projected is just stopped, and at possibly the worst time. The intersection right now is basically one big pot hole and all of the incoming and outgoing traffic is forced into a two-lane bottleneck. Needlessly to say this has caused problems. Wednesday night I was taking the bus home from Tirana to Durres and it took us one hour to go five blocks because traffic was so backed up. Who knows when all of this is going to be resolved if ever. It is rather frustrating but not surprising. Just Albania.

Luckily, I'm going to be getting out of this country for a little while. I bought a one-way ticket to Prague, and am going to trek back down to Albania by train and bus over the course of a week and half. Don't really have a fixed plan yet, but I'm hoping for a good break.

Oh, I've posted some new pictures from Berat, and some new Photoshop work. My boss asked me to take photos of Keneta and make them look like what we envision after our project. I did my best, but didn't have many photo files to work from. Oh well.