Changing Bird Pictures for Prime Minister Photo

So today was a bit of a let down. The ND camera crew had no interest in talking to the students, and the prime minister never showed, but that's life I suppose. Shame I couldn't get an opportunity to help the dean sell ND via video, but if his crew wasn't interested, fine by me. They got some great shots with Professor Hernandez and he really put on a fantastic display for them, so I'm pleased that all his hard work is paying off and he's able to produce the quality of product he's been working towards all this time.

We have the party tonight and I'm a little nervous. I used to be really shy growing up (hard to believe, but it's true), and I don't do so hot at parties. Walking up to someone and striking up a conversation is tough for me, and so parties aren't my scene. It'll be good practice tonight and I need to get better as the time comes for me to leave the safety of Albania and start promoting myself in Italy. We shall see.

Since I haven't posted a picture in a while, here's one of more nature. These birds have literally gone from white fluff to full grown in the time we've been here, and they live in the men's bathroom. Yesterday I walked in and they looked almost ready to leave the nest, so I snapped a photo. Today they had left the nest for good, so I'm glad I got a photo. When ever I walked into the bathroom, they would give me this look as if to say "what the hell are you doing here" as if they were in their proper nesting place. Good luck little birds!

Just Another Day in Albania

The film crew is here and the prime minister arrives and the Americans have the party tomorrow. Apologies for not posting again yesterday, but we had no Internet. Albania is still finding it's identity, and from the fall of communism to now, it's been a bumpy road, with people dying, unrest rising and falling and the economy yo-yoing. Currently it's in a moderate state. We received a modern history lesson from Professor Hernandez today (he's quite knowledgeable on Albania, having lived in the capital for a year in 2007) and he said that nearly a fourth of the population (about 1,000,000) left Albania in 1997 during a time of political unrest and now the economy is just starting to recover. As a result, the country loses power at random times, for unexplained reasons and indeterminate length. The power outage yesterday killed the Internet at Tani's, so I was unable to post.

Nature is really coming alive here as we enter the summer. The hawk's chicks have hatched to mix success: of the six eggs, one never hatched, one died the day of its birth and one fell out of the nest today, much to the sadness of our group. To make up for it, as we walked through the trenches of past years, we stumbled across one of the local domestic dogs at the edge of the Roman forum. She walked past us and we followed her to a space where she has two adorable puppies tucked away. I will try to get photos. We're not supposed to pet dogs, but I couldn't help it with the puppies. I gave them some love, and then immediately went to wash my hands. If I die of fleas or disease, it was worth it to welcome the puppy to the human world on an upnote.

A week from tomorrow I leave this country, so I'm going to try to document as much as possible between now and then. I leave you tonight with a favorite saying from a now deceased family friend, that applies to me in Butrint, you in America and wherever else you may be: 'life is hard, people are strange and God is good.'

She Sells Seasells by the Seashore

Sorry about not posting yesterday. So we're a little more than half way done with my time here in Albania and the reality that I leave a week from Saturday is setting in. With this upcoming change of scene I think back to home and my brother and parents that I'm missing. I'm living the dream this summer, but it means I sacrifice the summer with the family. I made the choice, I don't regret it, and I'm not complaining, but that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to be a little homesick. Love you guys.

So the rest of this week promises to be an interesting one. I've begun a project with the graduate student from Notre Dame focusing on seashells. When Professor Hernandez digs, he divides the site into "areas", and then within each area there are "contexts." These can be as big as a fill (think dumpsite), or as small as a grave. We're looking at all the seashells from all the areas in an attempt to reconstruct the natural environment during the last centuries before common era and directly after. Some contexts have three shells in them, but one of the ones today had 1000. We divide them first by type, and then get measurements and weight from them to compile in a spreadsheet. We then come home and do research on the various types and explanation for size differentiation, shell condition or shell density. We will then go on and draw some minor conclusions on natural environment based from all of this data, and Professor Hernandez will go on and draw his own conclusions. This is a fascinating study, and it's mind blowing that we can gather so much from so little. In the process today I got to sort ancient animal bones from shells, and that was quite the experience. We're not big hunters, so I have little experience with bones and materials that used to be living, so this was a new experience.

The final members of the team have arrived from the Netherlands and Germany, which brings our total to 14 (three Americans, five Italians, two Albanians, two Hungarians, one German and a Dane). Notably, we've had more people come into town and stop by Tani's (the bar we frequent) from New Zealand and Canada, bringing the nationalities I've met at the bar to three (New Zealand, Canada/Germany, and Norway). Albania seems to be a stopping ground for people and I'm compiling a global contact list. We have a film team from ND coming in on Friday, as well as the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, coming to visit the site, followed by a party hosted by the American crew from Utica. Should be a busy weekend.

I'm seeing the wide range of knowledge required to be a good archaeologist. We're using zoology, biology, chemistry, physics, ecology, math and most importantly Classics in order to put everything together in terms of information, followed by philosophy, sociology, and history to figure out how it all fits together. Truly a wide range of skills required. With that, a shameless plug for Classics. It's the first video I actually like my voice in, so check it out to see how I really feel about my major.

One of our photos from the day

The eggs of the hawk hatched and she's been feeding them lizards ever since

Albanian Words

My condolences to those in California affected by the mass shooting. Clearly a very disturbed individual, who reacted to a difficult system in a tragic way. I wonder where his parents were in all of this, but that is neither here nor there at this point.  For those affected, know that you are in my prayers.

We had a hot day today and I'm now thoroughly toasted, but as the saying goes TIA (this is Albania). Now, as promised some Albanian words. Albanian is a strange language that has some remaining hints of Latin, Greek, and Slavic dialects, but it is wholly independent on the Romance language tree.

mirë (mear)- good. The most important word in the language it seems, as they use it to describe every situation and every quality of every thing. 

ç'kemi (skemi)- what's up? Mornings usually begin with this question being asked and the responding
mirë.

natëme mirë (nautem mear)- good night

mirupafshim (mear pafshem)- good bye

mire mënjes (mear menjes)- good morning

falemnderit/rrofsh (fall men derit/ rrofsh)- thank you

mire mbrëma- good evening

raki- the Albanian traditional drink. Made with grapes by the locals. Everyone has their own method of making the drink and there's no unified or commonly sold recipe, but rather different strengths depending on who makes it. It was ranked number 6 on Times 'Top 10 Ridiculous Drinks.'  http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2031497_2031504_2031461,00.html

cos- a watered down version of yogurt (it can be poured) typically served at breakfast

byrek (bu rek)- our lunch everyday. Filo dough filled with cheese, spinach or onion

kari (pronounced car), peach, rrote kar- these are not polite terms and were taught to me by the Albanian workers, often without me being aware of what they were teaching me. They get a laugh out of it,  it builds camaraderie, and it doesn't hurt for me to be aware so as not to stumble upon them. I'll let you google them if you're interested. 

Dinner tonight was stew with potatoes and chicken.
 

Sunday Adventures

Another great Sunday today. The good news is found the Catholic church in Sarande. The bad news, is that they don't have a priest. As a result, they couldn't celebrate the Eucharist and so we had a prayer service instead of a mass, and it was awfully sad without Communion. I am going to try to find some fix to the situation, but with only one weekend left in Albania, there's not a whole lot I can do. The weather was again beautiful here, and I have posted some more pictures below of some of the views of our day. We went to Sarande in the morning for the prayer service and then we spent the rest of the day at the beach. I then skyped with the family, which was much needed and then we had dinner. Without further ado, the menu for this past week:

Monday- Chicken stew
Tuesday- Soup
Wednesday- Sausage Nuggets, almost like Hot Dogs
Thursday-Spaghetti
Friday- Stew with potatoes and greens
Saturday-Grilled chicken and rice
Sunday- Chicken and pork kebobs

Meat is scarce here in Albania, so when we do get it, it's usually chicken and occasionally pork. Now we rest. Tomorrow I'm going to try to compile some Albanian words I've picked up. If there's anything you have questions about or want to see more of or learn more of, feel free to drop me a note in the comments.

View from the tower where we work

Beach at Sarande

View at Sarande

Beach at Ksamil

Global Card Players

We played cards again tonight. We had two Norwegians, who are passing through on anthropology research, two peace corps workers, five Italians, two native Albanians, two Hungarians, and the three American kids from South Bend, Indiana. It's amazing how far everything has come and how we're all unified around the table with cards and drinks, and it's impossible to fathom that a week ago we didn't know each other. We missed the shooting stars last night, but we hung out at the beach and just watched the night sky. Life is good in Albania and the American kids from Utica seem chill but are content to hang with their group and keep away from us. It's their call, and we can survive with or without them. I'm going to try to find a Catholic mass again tomorrow, and then beach for the rest of the day. Happy Sunday everyone and my love to you and yours.

Some Evening Fun

Another short post. There is supposed to be a meteor shower here at 12, so we're all going to go up on the roof and watch the night sky. The rest of the team is arriving tomorrow, as well as a group from Utica University. We've been here for a week, and this feels like our home turf, so we'll see what happens. We saw the new American kids and they look more like students headed for spring break instead of the rat poop cleaning, crate lifting lifestyle that Butrint demands. I'll try to go in with an open mind and hope for the best. It'll be good to be with some other English speakers and see more students my age. It's also going to be weird seeing girls, as the girls in Albania are kept inside away from men. They go to school till 14-16, and then are kept inside until they're old women, so we've seen very few girls our age, and we work during the day with all men. It will definitely brings a different dynamic to the site. Here's hoping I can make friends with the new group...

Walking to Work

I walked to work today (3 km) and as a reward I got some excellent photos. Enjoy these sights of the commute. I worked with the small finds again today. Small finds are anything that looks unique, vs bulk finds which are thousands shards of pottery. Bulk finds take on the jigsaw effect, and need to be assembled before they can be used in publications. Small finds usually need to be cleaned and then can be analyzed. Everyone had a good day today. We worked with some of the cooler artifacts, the origin of a coin was determined and an inscription was figured out. I can't give more details then that, but let's just say there are a lot of big discoveries being made in Butrint.

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Work of the Day

Not a whole lot to post about today. We're settling into a routine of get up, work, come home and swim at the beach, shower, dinner, hang out. I spent the day cleaning the rat excrement from the small finds and then sorting the small finds in the catalog, making sure the weight, length, width and thickness of every single nail found was recorded. The experts are hard at work putting everything together and figuring out Butrint. During the excavation seasons everyone moves too fast to look at every item recovered and finds usually are removed from the trenches, rushed off to get cleaned, labeled and photographed, and then stuck in storage without more than two or three people getting a chance to analyze them. This season we're digging back through all that's been found, and really starting to draw conclusions. It's fun, and the Notre Dame students are really working to get the system finalized and functioning for the experts to run with. There are times during the day where it feels tedious, but it's necessary tedium. On site there are birds everywhere, who give little thought to workers or tourists. We have one who has laid eggs in the tower where we work, so we're watching as she nests on them and waits for them to hatch. Pictures will follow in the upcoming days.

Pictures of the Site and Conditions

Sorry for not posting yesterday. I only have internet at the local tavern, and the bartender kicked me out before I could post. This is primarily going to be a picture post, but I thought I would share our daily routine.

7:30-Wake up and Breakfast
8:00- Arrive at site
12:30-Lunch at site
5:30-Leave Site
7:00- dinner
9:00-hang out time

With each job comes new challenges. I'm living a pretty fancy lifestyle right now, but archaeology is quite a bit different from what Indiana Jones does. Yesterday and today I was charged with sorting the various crates of pottery we have. I was given a team of five Albanians to do so, and we proceeded to haul these 50 pound crates of pottery and organize them by specific numbers. In the process, we wound up getting covered in snake and rat poison (two years ago there was a 5 foot poisonous snake found in our outdoor shed, so the locals covered everything with snake poison), reaching into bags covered with rat excrement and shaking off spiders, centipedes and many other bugs I don't recognize. There are some days when it's fun in the sun in Albania, but this job is definitely messier and more dangerous than working at Hannaford in the summer. Not complaining, just letting you all know what kind of work we're doing. Would not trade this for the world. The rest of this post is pictures of the site.

Social Observations of Albania

As promised, a longer post today. We’ve begun work at the site. We scouted Butrint pretty extensively before I came, but all our work only revealed the tip of the beautiful iceberg that is this site. Pictures are forthcoming, but I can only say that this colony should be added to the list of Caesar’s best accomplishments, as he could not have picked a more picturesque site.

We’ve already had many interactions with the Albanians, and there is much to write about them as a people. Their language is a strange combination of Slavic vocabulary, and Roman grammar. It functions on the case system, no doubt do to Latin and Greek influence, but the words don’t follow the patterns of the Romance languages. The Muslims controlled this area during the Byzantine era, and the communists during the Second World War, and the language is a byproduct of this mixed heritage. Like some other languages, they go up in tone the longer they speak, with the result that if they speak about the weather for longer than five minutes they are yelling in each other's faces. I can’t decipher it, but those who can assure me they aren’t always arguing.

The older generations aren’t very well educated; if at all, and they often make mistakes when they are hired to help us at the site. I’m learning a greater appreciation for the value of education, and can understand why those who are uneducated are considered stupid. These men aren’t dumb, but many can’t read and those who can are dyslexics, and so they are unable to perform some of the tasks we ask them to do. The way it works on the site is that every item found has a specific number in relation to where it was found, as well as a number specific to that item. We had them sort by the first number yesterday by 100s, so all the 1500s went in one pile and all the 1600s in another. We had to then go back and check their work, and we found nearly 30 bags that were in the wrong piles. Any kindergartener in the states could figure out this matching, but these grown men were unable to, due to a combination of translation issues, lack of number knowledge, and learning problems like dyslexia. They’re not stupid, just suffering from a poor system. It was definitely a strange experience, and makes me value the power of education.

Despite some problems with translation, the people here really have an inner beauty. We were invited to attend a wedding party for a mixed couple (the groom is Canadian, the bride Albanian) and it was really a fun evening. The Hite men tend to come alive for wedding celebrations and cause some laughs, and I didn’t disappoint. The Albanian weddings aren’t tied to any sort of faith, but they celebrate in their own way. The week before the wedding is one pick party, culminating in a vigil ceremony that starts at 10 pm and goes till 10 am. We attended the party the night before the wedding, and joined in the festivities. The bride’s family was there, and they offered us drinks and toasted with us to the happy couple. Some members at wedding parties are all the same, and there were at least two drunken uncles representing at this particularly party. We followed the toasts by dancing traditional Albanian wedding dances, which I joined in with full merriment. This is a time for joy, and you could really see it on everyone’s faces. True to my own family traditions, whenever the bride was leading the dancing line, I made sure to hop in when the others went to refill their glasses or ducked under cover when it started to rain. A good time was had by all, and it was interesting to see the blending of cultures. The bride’s family went inside after the dancing to eat, leaving the bride and the Americans to switch music from traditional songs to the Beatles and get our jam on. I wish them all the happiness in the world, but if their marriage is half as much fun as the parties before, they won’t need too much luck to make it work.

           

Continuing in the vein of social observations, I thought I would discuss the Albanians foreign beliefs. First and foremost, they love the United States. Wherever flags are displayed it always goes Albanian flag, EU flag, US flag. They consider us their saviors due to the conflict in Kosovo, and they stereotype us as being a country of rock and roll, success for everyone, and a white picket fence for everyone. Secondly, they have little religious devotion. The country has been controlled by Muslims, Pagans, Christians and everyone in between, leaving a void in religious devotion following the country's independence. We spend some time in one of the local bars hanging out, and the Albanian bartender, who is a friend of the team and speaks excellent English, was surprised when I said I was Roman Catholic. His first question was whether I was against abortion. I said absolutely, and he laughed at me. He said that that has never been an issue in Albania, and that there’s no such thing as rules against it. Furthermore, it isn’t even considered odd to know people who have had abortions, and there is little shame in it. Definitely a different world, but more on that later.

I made it to a ‘mass’ today. I ran into an American girl on Peace Corps at the bar last night, and she said there was a bus that ran from Ksamil, where I am, to Sarande, where the church is. I took this bus, wound up in Sarande, and proceeded to spend 45 minutes trying to find the church. The Albanians didn’t know what a church was, even when I gave them the Albanian word for it and drew a cross, and when I finally found someone; they directed me to a building that had a cross on top. I entered the sanctuary at 9:45 for a 9:30 mass, and upon seeing a crucifix and pictures of the saints, I assumed I was at a mass, despite the Albanian being spoken at the front of the ‘church.’ However, there was no semblance of readings, the priest spent the mass behind a curtain, and rolls were handed out to everyone at the end of mass, without any sort of blessing ceremony before distributing them. Upon leaving the church, I was handed a bulletin in Greek, so I’m assuming I stumbled upon a Greek orthodox church. I will try again next Sunday.

That’s all for now. My parents want to know what I’m eating, so I’ll do a weekly list for everyone’s viewing. Breakfast is rarely served, and lunch is always tortillas, so I’ll just list dinner.

Thursday-Corfu-Calamari

Friday- Albania- Goat ribs

Saturday-Albania-Stuffed peppers

Sunday- Shrimp for Lunch and Octopus for Dinner

1st Days in Albania

Leaving the docks of Corfu

On the Mediterranean Sea

Professor Hernandez on the land rover

 I'm in Albania. We arrived at Corfu on Thursday and slept on the island in order to get up for the 9 am ferry ride to Albania. I christened my food journey with calamari and french fries on Corfu, and a Coke. Coke is really an international brand, so everywhere we go they sell coke, diet coke, sprite and orange crush. We took the ferry to Albania on Friday and then took the land rover from Saranda, the main city in our area to Butrint.

The team is considerably smaller than usual years, as we're on the study season this year and aren't actually excavating anything, but rather organizing and working towards a final product. The team is currently composed of three Americans (myself, another  undergraduate and a graduate student), five Italians, and Professor Hernandez. The Italians don't know what to make of me. They make fun of my attire (they're all cold and I'm in shorts and a t-shirt) my spirit (I haven't stopped grinning, as evident by the photo) and my card skills. The five Italians speak different levels of English, but we're quickly finding ways to communicate. Cards is universal, so I've already taught the team to play Hearts, Oh Hell, Switch and BS. I win more often than not, but I'm a Hite and am learning my father's talent of dealing aces to myself. Still, it's a lot of fun and it's bringing us together.

I'm living the dream right now. We had our first day on the site, and it's absolutely spectacular. It's late, so I'm going to sleep, but tomorrow should be a longer post. I'm missing mass tomorrow due to lack of close Catholic churches (either I learn to drive stick and take the land rover, or walk 6 miles for a 9:30 am mass,  I'm looking for other options) but I'm going to get up early and meditate a bit. We work six days a week here, so the team will sleep late and then we'll take the two minute walk to the beach, swim in the Mediterranean, eat seafood, and hang out for the rest of the day. I have lots to say about the site (snake stories and Albanian observations), this place (video coming), and the experiences [wedding party (not mine) and weird restrooms]. However, you'll all have to wait till tomorrow. Goodnight and carpe diem.

Live from Greece, it's Thursday Morning

Leaving Maine

Food on the Plane

Flying over the Alps

Morning in Frankfurt

 Made it safely to Greece, waiting for the flight on to Corfu. The body takes time to adjust after flying, and I'm currently a little foggy, so I apologize for any grammar errors in this post. After jumping around time zones and altitudes multiple times in a day, it takes some time to recalibrate everything. Anyhow.

On the flight to Frankfurt, I sat next to a German couple, on the flight to Rome, I sat next to an Italian couple, and on the flight to Greece a Chinese/Asian/Oriental/whatever the politically correct term is young woman. The couple headed to Germany spoke zero English, a fact I realized when I arrived on the plane, and they just stared at me as I sat down. I didn't know if they wanted a bow, but they just kept looking at me, waiting for something. Still, it's amazing how we humans find ways to communicate. For instance, I was able to understand the German woman when she communicated "Why is that moron sticking his bag in our department, when he has his own further up the plane, and why is his full!" We had a bit of a scare on the flight. We were about halfway across the Atlantic, and I hear someone yell for help and a flight attendant a couple of rows ahead of me. I usually feel pretty safe on flights, but when I cross large bodies of water I get anxious, as emergency landings usually mean landing in the Atlantic. Fortunately, one of the elderly women had just fallen asleep on the toilet, and one of the other passengers overreacted and thought she had had a heart attack. My German neighbors woke up long enough to look around, look at me expectantly, shrug their indifference and go back to sleep.

So far my language work is coming in handy. Hite's hints: When going to a foreign country, learn the basic stuff, even so much as to say 'hello, please, thank you, goodbye.' All the stewardesses on the flights have English as their second language, and they prefer to address people in their native language. While it's unreasonable to know how to order in different languages, giving a thank you in the native language goes a long way to fighting the arrogant and stupid American stereotype. So far I've heard German, Italian, French and Greek. It helps that I can read Greek, speak and read Italian and have picked up things from mom in German and French, but if I hadn't I would definitely have done research before.

I'm off to go through security and meet up with the archaeology team, so I'll post next either in Corfu tonight, or tomorrow once we reach Butrint.

So this is Goodbye

In Case of Emergency

One of the Views of Maine

A Friend from Baltimore

Today is the day I leave. It's been a weird couple of days, full of goodbyes. Everyone has different amounts of time before I will see them. For the lucky ones (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it) I say "see you in a couple of weeks," for the unlucky ones, I say "see you in a year." I've said goodbye to everything I've known, and am now swan diving into the unknown. I'm excited, but I would be lying to you if I said I wasn't a little nervous. Packing for Europe is strange, in that you have to pack as if you're going camping, without convenience stores or clothing shops, as medicine has different dosages in different countries, and clothes are super expensive. Rather than play around with how many European aspirin equate to American aspirin, it's best to bring and then take what you know in case of emergency.

I will be on the road from tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon until Thursday evening, and will be bouncing through four major cities on my way to Butrint. I'll be back on to give you all my opinion on foreign travel as soon as is possible. They say that travel like this changes people, but they said the same thing about the jump from high school to college. I don't know many who would say I've changed drastically, but that's kind of because I'm comfortable with who I am. Still, I'm open to the unknown and magic that is Europe.

My phone is done until August, so until I find a method of texting that works in Europe, you can reach me by facebook messaging me, or by email at tinmantom@gmail.com. Be well, keep your stick on the ice, and I'll see you when I see you.