Spring in the Balkans - AGAIN

Spring in Korçë has been an interesting experience. We felt like spring had arrived about 5 times with warmth and sunshine, only to revert to cold, wet winter yet again. We haven't put away our winter coats and umbrellas quite yet. However, because of the rain everything is lush and green. It is a beautiful time of year, even though we have to wash the car quite often. We definitely have distinct seasons here and so far we have enjoyed fall, winter, and spring.  We are sure summer will also be beautiful, whenever it arrives...

At Lake Ohrid

We were blessed to have our two daughters come for a visit near the end of April! While they were here, we were able to visit some roman ruins, a beach on the Ionian Sea, an incredibly beautiful spring called the Blue Eye, a UNESCO World Heritage City called Gjirokastër, our very own Korçë, and some beautiful places in North Macedonia along the shores of Lake Ohrid.  We had delicious Albanian food, gelato, and baklava (lots of baklava!).  

We took them to see a castle where they climbed everything and almost gave Kathy a heart attack several times as they stood on ledges or sat with their legs hanging over edges. We also hiked to a beautiful waterfall in the mountains and hiked to a giant cross on the mountain east of Korçë. Most of all, we were able to spend time with our sweet daughters and share some of our beautiful Albania with them. We appreciated so much their sacrifice to come and spend some time with us! We appreciated their husbands missing work and even Cory’s parents came to help with the little ones. Thank you everyone!

Ksamil - Korfu in the background

We only had two minor mishaps during the trip. When Karissa was taking a shower the first evening in Saranda Albania, she barely bumped the shower wall which (unbeknownst to us) was non tempered glass, and it shattered all over her in little pieces! She had so many small cuts on her back, arms, legs, hands, feet, and a couple of nasty gashes on her elbow and hands, but nothing that required stiches. 

Gjirokaster Castle

Even though she had glass all over in her hair, she wasn’t cut on her head or face. We are grateful she was not seriously hurt. The owner said it wasn’t glass so it shouldn’t hurt anyone, but when she came in and saw glass and blood all over, she hurried and put them in another room. The family that owns this little hotel is doing the best they can, and we didn’t ask for a free night. Karissa was really tough. The other mishap happened after we drove the girls back to Tirana (3.5 hours), said good-bye to them at the security gate in the airport, turned in our rental car, and then realized that Alan had forgotten to bring the key to our car to Tirana! 

Girls at the Blue Eye

We were only given one key, or Kathy would have carried the spare in her fanny pack. The mission office in Tirana always keeps the other key—so we took a taxi from the airport to the mission office to pick up the key and rode in the taxi back to the airport to get our car and drive back to Korçë.

At the Blue Eye

We are so grateful that three of our children – Jason with his family, Karissa, and Jennifer – were able to come and experience Albania with us.  Albania is indeed a beautiful country!

Sopoti Waterfall

Just days before Karissa and Jennifer arrived, we had a Senior Missionary Conference right here in Korçë. Of course, Kathy volunteered to make Sunday dinner for everyone, which also included the visiting Area mental health advisors, so we had 23 adults. Kathy made roast beef and gravy, mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, green salad with homemade dressings, a huge fresh fruit salad, homemade rolls, and homemade apple pie with homemade ice cream. Between the church fridge and freezer and ours, we were able to fit the food in. 

Mountains near the waterfall

Everyone was so complimentary and loved every single bite. Everything was made in advance on Friday except the rolls and salads, so we didn’t miss out on the Saturday activity.  President and Sister Auras, our mission leaders asked us to arrange some activities with a demonstration of some sort. We were also supposed to figure out what everyone would eat for lunch on Monday. We arranged for a city walking tour and a demonstration of how to make byrek, a traditional savory pie they eat a lot in Albania, and especially in Korçë. 

Morava Mountains near Korçë

When we were planning the walking tour, we realized that the difficult steep stairs to the Martyrs Cemetery wouldn’t work for everyone, so Kathy said we needed to start over at the hotel again to figure out exactly how far the walk would be. There were several things that we realized we needed to change, and each time Kathy wanted to walk back to the hotel to start over so we could tell the Seniors just how far the walk really was. We tried many different routes, and before the day was half over, we had walked over 10 miles.😉 

From Kryq Morava

We asked our friend Enea to lead the walking tour for us. We asked him to find out as many facts as possible about Albania and Korçë in particular to share with everyone. He is so charismatic and fun to be around, and he speaks great English, so we knew he would be a favorite with the Seniors. We looked around for a regular shop to do the demonstration for the byrek but every place is tiny and couldn’t even fit 6 people inside. 

Senior Conference
Korçë Meetinghouse

When we asked Bardhi where to find a place, he offered to have his wife Keta make three byreks that would be ready to eat, and she would demonstrate the fourth one at the church. They also offered to make a trileçe cake (similar to a tres leches cake in Mexico) for dessert for everyone. Everything turned out fantastic and everyone had so much fun! Our walking tour ended at the church and Enea stayed to translate for us because Bardhi and his wife Keta don’t speak English. We were so happy our friends could have the opportunity for these temporary jobs.

Senior Conference
Martyrs Cemetery

It was fun to spend a couple of days with all of the senior missionaries. Since Korçë is several hours “off the beaten path”, we don’t have many opportunities to socialize with the other senior missionaries like we did in Mexico.

Bardhi, Keta, & Bel

The youth have an activity every Saturday afternoon.  The youth leader, Monika, asked us if we would prepare a spiritual thought for one of the youth activities. We decided to prepare an object lesson/activity for them. When we arrived, however, we discovered that they had prepared a surprise for us! They decided to celebrate both of our birthdays with a cake, personal cards that they made and read to us, and of course a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday To You”. We were very touched that they would take the time to do that for us and we had a wonderful time with them.  After the party we still had our activity with them, and we think it went pretty well also.

Lunch in Gjirokastër

One of the families that we have become good friends with has a granddaughter whose name is Bel. She is 10 years old and speaks English with almost no accent. She started to learn English on her own when she was 4, and just kept learning! She translates for the rest of her family who do not speak English. We were talking with them one day and they mentioned that she doesn’t have any good friends at school and that some of the kids make fun of her. They don’t believe that she can speak English. So, we asked her grandpa if we could pick her up from school one day so her classmates would see her with an American couple.  It was fun to wait with the other people who were there waiting, and we were able to walk her home. We had a lot of attention with so many curious stares. Bel was smiling ear to ear when she came out.  We stood in the school yard for about 6 minutes and talked with her. When we started walking her home, I asked her what eggplant was called in Shqip because I couldn’t remember, and a schoolboy turned around to tell me in English- but not before Bel had already told me. I hadn’t even realized there was anyone in front of us because we were so engaged with Bel and listening about her day. When the boy stopped to talk with us, he was smiling and very engaging, and with a heavy accent said he would help us with Shqip. We said we were fine because Bel always helped us. He said he didn’t know Bel could speak English. We made sure he knew that Bel spoke English very well! After he left, Bel told us he sat at her table and was one of the boys who teased her. Hopefully there will be no more teasing…

River fed by the Blue Eye

It is so amazing that everywhere we go, everyone we meet loves Americans! The only time we have ever been yelled at was from a preacher who was an AMERICAN from the deep South. He was here for some sort of religious conference. He didn’t speak Shqip, so we have no idea why the Conference was here. He approached us and asked a question in English, so we were taken off guard, and when we had just started to answer, he began yelling at us. He was combative, very loud, and unkind. When he saw us again later that day, he came close to yell and shout at us. He was so mean and out of control. It felt like he would have hit us if people hadn’t been all around. It was quite unsettling, but we didn’t say anything. We just walked away while he was still shouting obscenities. He also yelled at the Elders when he saw them at the park, but thankfully our Sisters never saw him. I can’t imagine how the early church members lived with that kind of hate every day of their lives until they were driven out of their cities or killed…

Surprise Birthday Party

Every Albanian has been extremely kind to us, and everyone wants to win the American Lottery. This is a different kind of lottery that involves no money, but this is the dream that everyone we have ever met tries to win. They register their names to get picked to go to America. America is still the land of opportunity for them. There aren’t very many jobs here in Korçë and the jobs do not pay well. Some families have been here for 250+ years and they do not want to move anywhere else—even to another city in Albania; they will only move if they can go to America. Last April, Albania passed a law that minimum wage was $2.30 an hour, but it is not enforced here in Korçë, so people make much less. We have tried to help some friends get jobs with other friends we have made, and sometimes it works out, but other times the job is gone before we find out about it; or other jobs aren’t ideal. There was one sales job available with our friends who own a small shop full of different household items, so we asked about hours and days. Our friend said he wanted someone to work 7 days every week for at least 8-9 hours every day. We asked if they could ever have any time off even for church or for their family, and the answer was absolutely not. We are always shocked and saddened that people work for so little, and never get any days or any time off. There are some factory jobs that don’t require working on Sunday, but the factories are far away and some jobs deal with toxic chemicals. One factory job that I thought was weirdly gross, yet interesting was pulling snails out of shells and then those snails are shipped back to France where they are used for perfumes or ??? Our friend who used to work there didn’t know all of the different uses for the snails. She said it was pretty difficult and very slimy. (The girl who ate the cricket in Mexico is gagging😉)

The Orthodox Easter was May 5. We had been told that there was going to be a big parade and everything, so we were excited. Unfortunately, we learned on Saturday that the big parade had happened on Friday late afternoon, so we missed it.  We were so disappointed because some people carry big crosses, and lots of people join in all along the way to the big Cathedral. We wanted to join our beloved people in their parade and celebrate with them.  Oh well, we also heard that Carnival is also a big celebration in Korçë the beginning of June.  Hopefully we won’t miss that one…

We continue to teach piano each week, get students to the English class twice a week, feed missionaries and different friends that we meet, go to lessons and activities, make visits and deliver dinner, goodies or fruit and vegetables to different people, support and help anyone who needs us, including the Branch in Pogradec (45 minutes away) who has no senior couple, and just get out with the people. Sometimes we don’t feel like we are making a difference or doing enough, but we keep trying.

We will end with this quote-

SPEAK in such a way that others love to listen to you. LISTEN in such a way that others love to speak to you.

We love you all so much and we pray daily for each of you. We rejoice in your accomplishments and happiness, and we weep and worry for your challenges and heartaches. Thank you for being such a huge part of our lives!

Elder and Sister Manwaring