A Bracelet in Bajram Curry

"I told him you would give him something small, like ten euros. Nothing, really."

On the map, the only Northeastern Albania feature of "note" is Valbona, which is a national park with a developing tourist infrastructure. When you're trying to develop on itinerary involving Kosovo, it looks pretty straightforward. A road leads from Valbona and into the Kosovar city of Gjakova. For some reason, however, when you ask a local if it's possible to get from Valbona to Gjakova, they will tell you it is not. 

Puzzled by this, you will zoom in on the map and see that the road from Valbona to Gjakova passes through a town called Bajram Curry. Curry is pronounced like it has fringe on top and not like it would taste good with rice. This is where you are told it's possible to get to Gjakova. It seems to me that if there are three connected points on a line, the first will lead to the third, but to the Albanian mindset, only the second will. 

In any case, nothing is scheduled to go to Bajram Curry, but since you have to pass through it on the way to Valbona, you buy a ride to Valbona and ask the driver to let you out early, which they are happy to do, because you pay them full price for half a ride. So, after deferrying, I made this arrangement and made a driver happy. 

Since Bajram Curry is "well known" as the way to get to Gjakova, I anticipated there would be a more obvious bus or van situation, but... there was not. There was, however, a small "expeditions" storefront, so I popped in. They were, of course, hoping I was there to sign up for three nights camping in Valbona with a guide. But all I wanted was to know if they knew anyone with a haycart headed East. 

The two young women running the place didn't speak English, but my pronunciation of "Gjakova" was close enough that they got some sense of what I wanted. I'm sure it sounded like "Yempeer Shtot Billdink" to them. They motioned for me to sit down, and they made a phone call. When it connected, they handed me the phone. A voice in English said, "You want Gjakova?" When I said yes, they said, "No problem, ten euro." I said no problem. 

I handed the phone back, they spoke a little bit more, and hung up. One of the women brought me tea, and the other sat at her desk looking at me. I try to exude "harmless idiot" vibes in these situations, try to seem friendly and innocuous. No trouble here, just a gentle, wandering doofus.  

We mostly avoided eye contact, but every now and again, we would make it and share shy smiles. On one of these occasions, Desk was struck with a sudden inspiration, opened and reached into a drawer, and fished out a strip of red plastic with the word "Albania" on it. 

I learned fairly early on that anything that says "Albania" is for tourists or foreigners. They call themselves, Shqipëri. The road to them being known as Albania is rooted in the usual sort of racism. They've called themselves Shqipëri since the 1700s, but because of the classist reverence we have for anything from the ancient world, the rest of the planet refers to them by the name an ancient Illyrian civilization that once occupied this region. 

The strip had snaps, so it was a luggage tag or bracelet, but to be playful, I pretended I thought it was a necklace, and raised it up to my throat. Both woman made cries of distress and leaped to intervene. It was not the reaction I had hoped to provoke. Like... it was clearly not a necklace, but I had played the role of hapless innocent so well, they thought I might think it was. I suppose it was also interesting that didn't give me the opportunity to discover it didn't fit. 

The whole energy was as if I were a baby trying to pop a dashboard Jesus into his mouth. I put it on the handle of my backpack, and we said no more about it. Eventually the man I'd spoken to on the phone showed up and made high-energy, "Car to Gjakova is leaving now, get on it or under it" pantomimes. I thanked the women and hurried outside. 

A car with its trunk open was empty but running. I threw my bag in the trunk, and the man encouraged me to sit in front. There was a moment of great confusion, honest this time, when I accidentally sat on the driver's side. Though the drive on the right in Albania, many of the most popular cars have the wheel on that side, as if manufactured for postmen or The English. 

The driver emerged from a cafe (of course) and patiently indicated the passenger seat. I got in, and the back seat was suddenly filled with two funny old dudes, the sort who wear frayed turtlenecks underneath old sport coats and argue about Illyria over macchiatos. 

At the last moment, the man who had coordinated the whole thing, leaned through the window and handed me his business card. "Maybe you will come back and camp in Valbona," he said. I told him I hoped I would. Then he leaned in and whispered in my ear, "I told him you would give him something small for this. Ten euros or something." He meant the driver. I had already agreed to this, of course, so I double agreed. He said something to the driver, something else to the men in the back, something that made them laugh. 

I thanked him enthusiastically, he slapped the roof, and we were off. The ride was pleasant. The foothills to the foothills rose softly on the horizon, and we quickly found ourselves on a country avenue. Farm country. Fields and sporadic barns and stone houses. Our progress was often impeded by sheep or cows, which was borne patiently. 

Nobody had any English, so the old men mostly ignored me to make their own Statler and Waldorf jests in the back, and the driver (young, pleasantly and almost generically Balkan in appearance (short beard, immaculate haircut, very clean jeans)) concentrated on selecting the music. The car was new and very clean (as is the custom here). He drove with the sort of aggression that means confidence and competence to people of this age and background. 

When we reached the border, the three men made expressions of dismay and surprise. There was a line of two cars ahead of us, which, I assumed there never was. The holdup appeared to be a group of traveling motorcyclists. Six or seven Albanian police were inspecting their cycles and exploring their leather bags with long metal probes. 

The driver seemed slightly agitated, pulled out his phone and began typing. A few seconds later, he handed me the phone. A translating program was on the screen, and below what he had typed in Albanian was the English question: "Are they German?"

The license plates on the cycles showed the letter D set in a circle of stars. 

"Po," I said, which means "yes," and was really the only word I'd mastered. He rolled his eyes and said something to the men in the back. They grunted, and playing along, I growled "Deutschland," which provoked much laughter. I was in the club now. 

And then the line moved, and I was in Kosovo.