No Direction Home: Saranda, Albania

June 22, 2012

Dola's mother, Lee, Dola & Kela

Avery

Saranda, Albania

The ferry trip between Corfu and Saranda, Albania covers the two nautical miles that separate the cities in about forty-five minutes or so. We were met at the ferry terminal and whisked away to our hotels which are both located about a mile from the city center, right next to the military base that serves as the operations center for RPM’s diving in Albania.

Dola & Howard

The hotels are more like small inns in the United States, the students all stayed in one, while I moved in with staff members Derek and Howard in the hotel that RPM has been using the six years we have been working in Albanian. The hotel has an amazing view overlooking the bay and down on to the dive locker, decompression chamber and the Contender that we use to go diving.

Hotel View

Contender

Dola with her parents

Both hotels are small comfortable family run establishments and while there the owners treat you like family, since most of the students and staff will be living here until the end of the summer this becomes a real asset to our operations and to the people here as well. You really are treated like extended family as they cook, clean and even do your personal laundry every day, all for about seven dollars per night.

Speaking of family, our Albanian friends Dola and Kela are already like family to us and we spent much of our first day here hanging out with them, we joined Dola’s parents for coffee in a small café then spent the afternoon hanging out at a small, isolated locals only beach to relax catch up and enjoy the company. When traveling in new and different places it always helps to have good local contacts and we have been treated wonderfully since arriving mostly because of the friends we have here and the reputation that RPM has built up since arriving here.

Lee & Dola

Kela & Michael

Evan & Mathieu

Dola

Being mostly Americans, we do have one Canadian and one Italian student, we stand out easily among the local population, who all seem aware of who we are and why we are here and are almost to a person kind, curious and helpful. Most Albanians over the age of 25 do not speak any English at all, so much of the translation is done by young children who are now taught English in school and who love the opportunity to test it out on actual Americans. They frequently engage you in conversations and seem endlessly curious as to what we are up to.

The first day we all went out for pizza at Lumani, which was excellent, as good as just about any pizza you might find in the US and later we as a group went on a shopping expedition to local markets and to the amazing Farmer’s Market which was packed with all manner of fruits and vegetables, honey, nuts and even locally made wine and liquor. Everything has been grown locally and the quantity, quality and diversity were staggering, it was an incredible and wonderful experience.

Jeff, Chris & Derek