Weekend in the Life

Realities of living in a developing country

We’ve lived in Albania for six months now. That seems like both a really long time and no time at all. While some days have become relatively routine, others hold constant surprises. It just is what it is, I guess. I still have plenty of mornings when I wake up and think: “What are we doing here?!” And others where it kinda sorta makes sense, at least for now. Somehow I make as much peace with it all as I can because there is no perfect. I can definitively say that we continue to collect stories just by living life. Mostly we laugh our way through the crazy, but sometimes we break. This weekend was mostly one of chuckling and shaking our heads at the things that often simply don’t make sense to us. And then we go on with our lives as best we can.

Saturday

10:00am: I took S to physical therapy. I’m getting pretty good at driving into the city, dropping S off, and parking under the Air Albania stadium. I grabbed some coffee and a pastry before making my way back to the PT office, which is in an apartment building in a converted apartment. S is making progress with her sessions. She still has some swelling, but she’s doing some light resistance work and next week will progress to body weight-aided exercises. She walks with a small limp (though she is somehow back to power walking and leaving me in the dust) and her right thigh is 3cm smaller than her left thigh, so she has lots of strength to build back, but she’s getting there.

11:30am: We got home and gave ourselves an hour to chill and grab some food before turning around and heading to Durrës for our first visit there.

1:00pm: Yeah, we’re always running late. And, unfortunately, we could see that there was traffic getting out of Tirana because of a prior accident that still had things backed up. Le sigh. But I had arranged for us to meet up with a friend, Julie, and her family, so off we went anyway. I drove and got a good laugh at all the cars that tried to switch lanes and cut people off to get ahead. Friends, the traffic is the traffic. Although at one point I realized I was following a line of cars that had created their own lane. Ha! Painted lines on the road are really a suggestion rather than a rule here. I also got a chuckle out of a Mercedes Benz with a Texas plate that was trying to speed around the traffic. How does a car with Texas plates get to Albania? (I don’t want to know the answer.)

2:30pm: We finally made it to Julie’s building. The parking garage underneath was like catacombs or something. Super creepy and the ramps down were very steep. I definitely didn’t want to be down there if an earthquake hit; we’d be toast for sure. But the views from their apartment building were fabulous! They have a partial view of the water and of the Durrës Amphitheatre. (I didn’t even know there were Roman ruins in Durrës.) We hung out there for a bit chatting. Her daughter and N had a great time doing some art together. N got to try using Procreate on Julie’s iPad.

4:00pm: We headed to the promenade to check out the views of the water and get some fresh air. We bought some street donuts and munched as we strolled. It was chilly out but sunny, and there were lots of other families doing the same thing. We walked down to the Sfinksi (sphinx-like looking area) to take in the view and the setting sun. It was quite peaceful. On our walk back we stopped by a random market Julie had discovered that sold a big bottle of soy sauce for 600 lek (~6 Euro). I normally pay 500 lek for a small one, so I was happy to grab the big version since we consume a lot of soy sauce.

5:30pm: We left much later than anticipated. I had wanted us to do more of the drive before dusk (it seems drivers get a bit crazier after dark in Albania) but that didn’t happen. Fortunately, the way back wasn’t bad in that regard, though there was a lot of traffic still. We stopped for gas; I handed the attendant some cash and told him “benzene,” which is non-diesel. Apparently he needed confirmation from C, who was driving. I missed the implication (that the attendant needed confirmation from a man) but C didn’t. Sigh, Albania and its old men (lots of patriarchy here, though I don’t usually deal with it firsthand too often). As we got back to Tirana, Google did that thing where it changed the route at the last minute and it took us the wrong way, so we ended up driving all the way around the Ring road, which was only recently completed and makes a big loop around the city. It was a very indirect way to get home, adding even more time to our journey.

7:00pm: We were finally home and hungry with nothing real to eat. We all fended for ourselves, cobbling odds and ends together. It wasn’t ideal but I didn’t want to order something and there was nothing remotely available to prepare as a full meal. That was a tomorrow problem. S and I settled into the living room to watch a few episodes of a show together.

9:00pm: Out of nowhere the power went out, or so we thought. But then within a minute it was back on. Then it went out again, almost as if a ghost were messing with it. We hadn’t had a power outage in a couple of months. I walked over to the window and could see that the neighbors had power. So I popped into the kitchen and N was in there with the heat going and some of the lights on. It wasn’t a power outage, but we had lost half our power. What was going on? Nothing in the living room worked, half of the things in the kitchen worked, the girls’ bathroom light didn’t turn on, S’s bedroom light didn’t work but her heater and outlets did. Everything upstairs worked. It was super bizarre! There was nothing to be done about it on a Saturday night, so we headed to bed and hoped it would magically be resolved by morning.

Sunday

7:00am: Nothing was magically resolved. We had the same electrical issues as the night before. Le sigh. But I was able to make coffee and get dressed for my run. I also flipped the hot water heater on so I could shower afterward. Small victories.

8:00am: I headed out to meet a friend and we joined up with the Sunday run group to do a lap of the lake. It feels so good to be running again, even if it’s only a 5k. I didn’t stay for coffee afterwards because it was chilly and I wanted to get home to take a warm shower.

10:15am: The electrical issue was persisting, so C and I reset every single breaker one by one hoping that would help. None of them had been tripped, which is what we figured the problem was. But resetting breakers usually fixes things in general. Not this time. It made no difference, unfortunately. So I messaged our landlord and hopped in the shower, hoping he’d respond soon with an idea for something we could try.

12:00pm: Still no word from our landlord, so I messaged our cleaning lady to see if she had a better way to contact him. She said she’d send her husband over to take a look at the issue. He popped by with 20 minutes. I used a lot of gesturing to show him what was wrong. He got to work diagnosing and fixing things.

1:00pm: We needed to head out, as S was set to meet friends, but the electrical was still being worked on. C had gone to the gym, so I used Google translate to tell our cleaning lady’s husband that we needed to go but he could stay and that C would be home soon. He told me to wait a minute. Meanwhile, S was anxious about leaving and N wasn’t thrilled that she had to come along, though I told her we could get lunch at the food court and go shopping for a few things she wanted.

1:15pm: Somehow, magically, the electrical issues downstairs were fixed. We tested everything and all the lights, etc. worked again. Hallelujah! C arrived home just as we were leaving. The girls and I piled in the car and headed out. Within minutes of leaving C texted the family chat to say there was no power upstairs, which also meant no WiFi. Shoot!

1:45pm: Once I was parked and inside the mall, I messaged our cleaning lady back to let her know the initial issues had been resolved but now there was a new issue. All we could do was wait to hear back and I knew she was at work, so who knew when she’d even see it. S headed off to meet friends and N and I grabbed lunch and then went shopping.

2:30pm: I messaged our landlord to let him know the original issue had been resolved but now there was a new one. He responded back and said they’d pop by in about 30 minutes. Hooray! I let C know.

3:15pm: Apparently one of the master breakers for the upstairs had gotten shut off during the morning electrical work and hadn’t been turned back on, so that was an easy fix. Hallelujah, we were back in business! Even so, the landlord arranged to have an electrician come out the next day to check things.

5:00pm: The girls and I headed home from the mall. (N and I did a grocery run towards the end while we waited for S.) We ran into a huge traffic jam on our way. No idea what was going on but the Ring road came to a complete stop across all lanes; we had never experienced that before. With no way to get information, we just sat there. S played K-pop for us and N took my phone and played her own music while we waited things out. We never figured out what the issue was, but eventually cars started moving again.

5:30pm: We unloaded all of our bags and I started putting groceries away. I needed to get dinner going. I turned on the kitchen lights. They all worked! And then they went out by themselves, just like the night before. Crap! I flicked the light switch for the girls’ bathroom. Out. S’s room. Out. Living room. Out. Noooooooooo! Not again. I went upstairs to turn on the hot water because the girls needed to shower at some point and it was going to take 1-2 hours for there to be enough hot water. It didn’t turn on; it was now affected by the electrical issue, too. So was one of the heaters upstairs. And the dryer. We checked all the breakers again. None of them were tripped. Oh dear.

6:20pm: I messaged our landlord to thank him for arranging for an electrician and told him that the original issue was back and was worse than before, unfortunately. With nothing to do about it, I finally settled into making dinner. At least the most important parts of the kitchen worked: Stove, oven, microwave, fridge, and sink (the pump from the well water relies on electricity). Plus, I had the one set of lights that worked. It was enough. I made homemade vegetable lasagna that turned out really well, even if it took quite some time to make.

8:00pm: Dinner was finally served! And there were plenty of leftovers for the girls’ lunches. We ate by candlelight, plus the set of lights on the other side of the kitchen that worked. I had intended to bake something for breakfast, but I was tired and still had to wash dishes by hand (the dishwasher has been broken for a bit), including heating water with the electric kettle. Good times. But hey, we had what we needed. N was even brave enough to take a cold shower.

10:00pm: We headed to bed with our hot water bottles and hope that the electrician would actually show the next day and be able to resolve things!

Monday

I made a video to capture things (see below). The short version is that the electrician and our landlord came out a little after noon and stayed for hours troubleshooting. We had intermittent half power as they worked (but no WiFi), so I used those pockets to try to do some cooking. I was half successful, LOL.

S had a hard day at school and was out of sorts as I drove us into town in search of WiFi, heat, and food. “Why can’t Albania just develop faster?!” she yelled. I chuckled. I definitely have many days when I feel the same way. But living in a developing country means that lots of things are going to be wonky, often without knowing what or when. It’s just part of the adventure. I’d like to think that living here is helping us build our adaptability and resilience. I’m definitely much more grateful for all the things I used to take for granted. But some days, it can be a lot.

Today things got fixed, but I had no idea what was going on as the work progressed since I couldn’t communicate at all. They went about their business and we went about ours (as best as possible), trusting it would all work itself out. Fortunately, it did! I’m sure there will be new surprises soon enough. That’s just the way things go here.

Have you lived in a developing country? If so, what unexpected and interesting challenges arose and how did you handle them? I’d love to hear a story or two. :)