Our teacher’s name was Fitore. She was so nice! At first, I learned some basic vocabulary and lots of greetings. Here are some examples:
Mirëmëngjesi : Good morning
Përshëndetje : Hello
Ç’kemi : What’s up?
Kurgjo : Nothing
Shihemi: See you
Mirupafshim : Goodbye
And finally, my favorite word… vezë (pronounced vez). Can you guess what this word means? You might have to use a translator! When there is an “ë” at the end of a word, it is silent. I like to call this letter “fake e” as a joke. It’s a really common letter in Albanian, but most of the time you don’t even hear it.
I think learning Albanian was really valuable. Soon I could understood street signs and order food in restaurants. The best was being able to understand my students' jokes. Learning the language helped me understand the culture and community tradiitons in Kosovo better.
A lot of people have asked me what my favorite part of life in Kosovo was. I would have to say that it's all the young people and energy in the country. Over half of the population here is under 25 years old and the average age in Prishtina is only 28! As a result, there are lots of interesting events happening in the city every day. Young people here are always busy planning something that they care about.
For example, young people plan a lot of protests and marches. Like I showed you in our first video call, one of the marches I went to was on the last day of Pride Week.
