When we came back from our trip in June, the intention was to post a blog entry at least every other week, if not weekly. Just how hard can it be to take an hour a week and tell about Albania. Well, let us try to explain how difficult things can be sometimes.

We had a great time when Sam and Mary Molly visited. It was warm but that is to be expected in summer and we could sit under the fan during the hottest part of the day. But when Sam and Mary Molly left, so did the power. As the month of July progressed, the temperatures climbed and by mid-month, we were miserable.

With temperatures in the upper 90’s and low 100’s, it was hot. Remember, most places here do not have air-conditioning, so the only comfort was the fan. But then came the power cuts and we were without power from 10am until 2pm and then from 5pm to 7pm. Survival was reduced to finding a shady spot in the breeze and sitting. Even thinking caused a disproportional loss of water through sweating.

And so, that is what July was about, sitting in the shade waiting for power to return.

But, before you feel to sorry for us, we really are fortunate. The other volunteer living in Durres did not have power at night and only had water 6 to 8 hours a day. We at least could sleep, or lay as it was most nights, under a fan, even if it was blowing hot air. In other, smaller villages, the power and water availability was even less.

The real challenge is for us at work. We were placed in the larger city because of the skills, experience and being old. Our work is not the traditional Peace Corps project of planting trees but transferring business skills and both of us depend on computers for our work. Without power, we are really are limited in what we can do. Where we can, we have rearranged our schedules to take advantage of the power and at this point, it almost seems normal to work around the power schedule.

But the real problem is for the businesses. For a business to remain open, it must invest have an alternate supply of power. So every business has a generator and of course the cost of running the generator far exceeds the cost of power delivered by the electric company. But, there just is no power available. It seems several factors are combining to cause the problem. One, there is a large amount of power theft so KESH, the power company, is not getting the full revenue to invest in more generation plants. Second, Albania’s demand for power increases daily, as computers, air conditioning, and general society develops, but the grid is not keeping up. The final thing is only hearsay from talk at the locales, but it is claimed that KESH is selling power to the highest bidder and so some of the power cuts are to enable more power to be sold to Greece. If this is true, then it is the result of privatizing public services under an ungoverned capitalistic system.

Fortunately, last weekend brought a break from the heat and we can become a bit more active. We are still without power, but it cools off at night and we can sleep.