'A do ti dua ti dua ti dua' and other misheard lyrics

why are these building so ugly and so beautiful?

One of the first questions my students always ask me is "don't you get bored here? What do you do for fun?"

And now I can reply 'I ride my bicycle' (I'm still taking suggestions for stock Balkan names--maybe Skenderbeg? Golce Delcev? Man on the Horse?...). But seriously--I've fallen in love (perhaps not head-over-heels, but a gradual 'it's growing on me' and then it just keeps growing on me) with being here, with my life here, with living here. I even asked Fulbright if I could extend my contract for another year, because I feel like I'm just getting into the swing of things, and am loathe to up and move (granted I still have over four months here--so no need to start my goodbyes yet). Sadly, that won't be possible.
Although as another Fulbrigher in Kosovo joked, we can always get married here. and with this bicycle now... no but seriously. I think being a woman here--especially a woman raised in different cultural norms, and from a line of feisty women, nonetheless--would be challenging. I see a lot of my colleagues, especially the younger women, really pressed between cultural gendered norms and their own ambitions to be a professional academic. But, as a colleague joked, my parents are (!) coming in late June, so might as well kill two birds with one stone.
(I jest I jest. I'm not demija shopping just yet (Demija are these elaborately embroidered wedding clothes that are specific to Albanians in Tetovo--and I have a budding love-affair with them, although I'm going to my first wedding (and a demija will be worn (perhaps not by me) so well see how it looks in the flesh and blood)).

But one of the things which I'm coming to realize is that I love the thrill of being immersed in a new landscape: linguistic, topographic, cultural (hence my oodles of pictures of hills and trees and sky.) Let alone two linguistic landscapes (or three, or four--although I don't hear Turkish or Roma spoken all that much). and I always try to explain this to my students--that it's nearly impossible to be bored when there's language to be learned. And there is always language to be learned. (Especially when you sleep with a dictionary next to your bed).

           







I remember back in September attending a
poetry reading in Macedonian and Albanian, and it being the first time that I really just relaxed into Albanian--I didn't worry about understanding, or being intimidated by not being able to speak, to communicate, or not being able to engage with people in their first language, but just sat in the dark and let the words wash me. and I found that while Macedonian feels like a language with a lot of right angles (sounds like Cyrillic looks ш, ц, ж, џ, х, ч --beautiful in its own right!), Albanian is a round language, with all sorts of vowels that kind of roll around in the mouth, before landing on the ear. When walking through the streets (yeah) [Jethro Tull anyone?] I think I had been so preoccupied on not understanding, on that 'deer in the headlights' look when people would ask me something in Albanian and I had no idea what was going on, that I couldn't step back and see the language.

Being a person constantly lost in thought, I was, and still am, terribly conscious of mother-tongue pride--not to mean or to imply that one should not be proud of or attached to their mother tongue--and I love the appreciation I see on peoples faces when I try to speak their mother-tongue (even if I completely butcher it), but, especially as an outsider--it can be challenging to know which language to use with whom. Or, hear stories of the daily 'injustices' (and I use that word oh oh oh so carefully--but sometimes that is the way it has been described to me) of not getting to use one's mother tongue, instead opting for the wider lingua franca (I see this even at the Language Center where I work--where 99% of business is conducted in English, and yet a miremengjes or a dobro ytro brings a little glint to my colleagues' eyes, a sweet smile). Another place where I experience this tension is walking up Kale--and as I approach each fellow-walker, I never know what language to use to say hello--not that it's a big deal. But I like to know.

 So--while speaking Serbo-Croatian gave me a huge leg up communicating here (most everyone speaks Macedonian, another language on the South-Slavic spectrum), I didn't feel totally comfortable only speaking one language here. And yet--was unable to speak any other language. And, being in a predominantly Albanian-speaking town--it's hard to eavesdrop (one of my primary language-learning strategies) when I can't distinguish up from down--figuratively speaking.

 And it was in those moments, back in September, listening to local poets, when I realized that somehow I had been afraid of Albanian, or carried some anxiety about it as I walked through the streets, as I got to know my Tetovo. And that that anxiety prevented me from just seeing it, from accepting it as this unbelievably rich, beautiful collection of sounds, symbols, a new system for meaning-making (be it a grammatically complex one).  and seeing that I was afraid--that there was something, lurking, subconsciously which was inhibiting me--well a lot has changed since then. but I guess that's the lovely chart of culture shock.

Kale and beyond

while my Albanian hasn't totally taken off--I think I mistakenly told a colleague that his son should come live with me in America (not what I was trying to say!)--it's a delight. Mujo--who works in the Language Center at the university, and whose job, it seems, is mostly dealing with student complaints/requests--always has a minute to explain something to me, Suzana--my officemate--is teaching me Albanian one recipe at a time (now I just have to cook them!), even the three women who clean the offices always wait patiently as I search for the right word (or, as the case usually is, a word, the right one or not--usually by the end of the day my language skills aren't at their best). The guy who I bought oranges from a few days ago, or the women in the bakery across the street from my house who have been my ever-patient teachers of how to say the number 2 (dy--an u with rounded lips, kind of outside of the mouth? I'm still working on it. it also means that I just try to buy lots of things in twos--just to practice a little more). Malvina--who gracefully bridges both Albanian and English--reads me Albanian poetry and then translates it (my favorite was  'all the men are sitting out under the trees, making the rules, even while they know that the women do all the work [make the community run]'), or will yell out translations of song lyrics when we're listening to music.

However--I still have my language mishaps: for at least a week I though that the song 'Faleminderit" by Elita 5 (a Albanian rock band which made their mark in the 80s but are still beloved) was "faleminderit (thank you) Chamberland (as in Neville Chamberland? 'an interesting figure from history to thank, but...') when really it is "Faleminderit qe me le (Thank you for leaving me--a bit of a different message). I've also convinced myself that 'A do ti dua pergjithmone' (will I love you forever?) are the correct lyrics when really it's 'se do ti dua pergjithmone' (I will love you forever), which again, changes things just a bit.

Last Wednesday, with my kids class at the American Corner, we've now got both Albanian speaking and Macedonian speaking kids--which means that a lot of translation happens (which I actually think is really cool, watching these kids jump from language to language--we're also going to work on learning 'we are the world' and then translate it into as many of the local languages as possible, for Earth Day. if anyone knows ASL for We are the World and wants to make a fool-proof video of it and then send it to me, I really want to teach them a little ASL (also--does anyone know how _SLs operate in other countries/other languages? do people sign Albanian SL, or Macedonian SL? (they must!?)), but they asked me to tell a joke, first in English, and then attempt in Macedonian and Albanian. Probably my speaking was more amusing than the joke itself--language/culture-based humor doesn't translate well.


My Macedonian--sadly--isn't too active, just because I don't have a lot of opportunities to use it, and don't hear it spoken as much (although I do have one-on-one classes each week with a professor at the university, which is wonderful), and there are plenty of soap-operas subtitles in Macedonian (which means that I have to watch the soap opera). Whenever possible, I try to write, read, speak, listen but it's hard because language circles don't always overlap very much. Not because there are distinct spheres where one uses one language, and not the other (except perhaps for government institutions, but even the Ohrid Framework Agreement I think stipulates that Albanian can be used as a language of state affairs in communities like Tetovo) but because we are social beings--and people go to places where they will find their friends. And at least right now, especially because schools are separated by language of instruction, I'm not sure how prevalent cross-linguistic social groups are--but I'm sure they exist.
 I think if I were here for longer, I'd really like to devote some more time to serious study of Macedonian, maybe spending more time in Macedonian speaking communities/circles, just to develop a feel for it (there are all sorts of surprises, like slight stress differences between Macedonian and BCS, which I can't seem to grasp or remember).

Anyhow--should run to work. even just for the last hour.
enjoy the photos of Tetovo's cloud-drama