Ejona Korcari, Week 7, Tirana Albania

This is my 7th week in Albania. A lot of people ask me if I am bored because I have been here for a while now. The answer is always NO. You can find so many things to do in Albania, so many places to visit, so many friendly people to meet, you are surprised when you look the time and it is already evening. In addition I have to work most of the weekdays so it is even less free time I have. Usually we start working in the morning until 4:30 or slightly later. This week i started working in a translation from English to Albanian. It is around 50 pages of very elaborate legislation and I have to do it by myself. The document is named "UNWTO Technical Assistance to the Government of Albania for the Review of the Draft Tourism Law." After Albanian government send the Draft Law of the Tourism, UNWTO responded with this document to coment on the law and to make sugestions on the sections of the law they didnt seem to be clear or were not according to the Europen Union standards. So far the work has been going ok, but sometimes i have to look things up in order to translate exactly what the UNWTO is trying to say. This document is very important and there is no time or space for misinterpretation. I need to make sure to translate correctly everything, especially the legal terms. This document has not a deadline when it needs to be translated, but I need to finish it as soon as possible so it is available in both languages. For now the document seems to be confidential. After I finish translating it, the document will be sent to a group of people who will read it and then the Ministry will have to reply to UNWTO. I will try to do my best and finish it as soon as I can. 

Me working in  the translation ...

Also we continue to be part of the Black Belt Team and currently we are translating reports that the other members are preparing. We are staying in the office with one of the Directors so this way we get to know him better and we can ask him about anything we might need while at work. At the same time we have met a lot of other people that work around us. We had a small get together with young people who work at the Ministry and we talked and got to know each other better. I am really close with people that I shared an office before. They make sure to suggest me places to visit, places where to find good food etc. At the same time they are always welcoming to my questions about work, help me with words I don't understand, explain legislations and policies that the Ministry is doing etc. I am so happy I got to meet those people and I hope to continue being in touch with them even after I finish this Internship. 

This weekend I went to Korca to visit my grandparents on my dad's side. I had not been there in a while and they kept asking when I was going to visit them. We are really close, so they are not used with me being in Albania and not living there with them. When my family and I were living here our house was next to my grandparents house, so they were inseparable from us. There I get to enjoy the amazing traditional dishes of Korca, all the organic food, the fresh air. I got to spend some time talking to nena (that's how I call my grandmother). I love when she tells me story about her life, my dad and my uncles, the time when she was young and how Albania has changed since then. My baba (that's how I call my grandfather) taught me how to play domino. Since he got retired, he started playing domino with his friends and now I got to play with him. Even though the weekend went by really fast we got to spend some quality time together. I miss them so much when I am in the USA, so I don't even want to think about the moment that I will have to say goodbye to them and leave Albania.  This was a nice, not very busy week in Albania.