We watched the fireworks in the city center and then danced to the live music, which garnered us some spectators as dancing anything but the oro here "implies something about you," as I have been told.
The guests staying at my house were treated to some Thai chicken soup, which I was told rivals "the" Thai restaurant in Macedonia, and in the morning, we taught our French friend Astrid how to make breakfast burritos.
January 5th was Kolede and like last year, I joined my neighbors (along with my sitemates Helene and Lauren) for our neighborhood bonfire.
With a drink in one hand and a fork in the other, we ate sausages and chatted, watching to make sure the cute little boy didn't careen in excitement into the bonfire.
My tutor Bile was kind enough to invite me to join her family for Christmas dinner on January 7th.
Her sweet grandparents hosted and in addition to being Christmas it was her grandfather Risto's name day. A name day is the day that recognizes the saint that a person is named after and usually close friends and family will be invited by a person to celebrate his or her name day. After a wonderful filling meal, the guests started singing traditional songs. I still find it remarkable how people here will spontaneously break into song and almost everyone takes part. Click here to watch a clip that I filmed at Christmas dinner.
More photos from the holidaze are up on Picasa.
The same bursting out in song happened at our final dinner for SANAP in Korce. It was amazing and went on for about an hour with Albanian songs started off by one person or another. The other Americans and I discussed the fact later that we (as a culture) have lost traditional singing.
ReplyDeleteJen
Yeah, it is a fairly regular occurence around here when you get more than 2 or 3 people together, especially for celebrations. It's ironic that the U.S. has so many famous singers but we don't sing ourselves, except maybe at karoke.
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