The Journey to the Village

     This will be the third part of this series about the Albanian village my team and I had the opportunity of going to. In this installment I will talk about our journey to return to the village. Buckle up people it is WILD!

     The day had arrived that my team and I had decided to return to the village. Our Airbnb host could not accompany us on this trip since he was defending his thesis in the capital, so the journey to the village was all on us. We had asked all of our questions and thought we knew exactly where to go and how much it all would cost. We bought groceries, and anything else we thought we might need for the next couple of days in the village. The next day we packed up and headed towards the street where the vans park (There is not really a bus station here. There are just a few streets where vans to different cities are parked.)

     We all had our backpacks on our backs and hands filled with grocery bags. We walked to where we thought the vans are usually parked. We were told to look for a red van that only goes to this village. We were there around the time we were told to be and we looked and looked and there was no red van in sight. So, we tried to talk to some other van drivers through google translate. There was a driver that insisted he could take us to this village on the way to his final destination of Tirana, the capital of Albania. So, with trust we loaded onto the van and hoped that the driver knew what he was doing. 

     Turns out he didn’t. After being on this van for around 30 minutes our Airbnb host, Lucas calls to make sure everything is going smoothly. We tell him the situation and he asks to talk to the driver. Since they both speak Albanian they were able to communicate a lot better than we could through google translate. We find out that the driver was actually taking us to a different place with the same name that was in the opposite direction. So, the bus driver, upon the request of Lucas, arranges for another van to take us back to Vlora. Well the van driver had an interesting idea for us getting to the new van. We were then promptly dropped off on the side of the highway and are told that we have 2 minutes to cross the highway to get to the other van….

     To set the scene, we were dropped off on the side of a fairly busy highway, there was very little shoulder for us to collect our stuff safely, our amazing treasurer was arguing with the van driver to get a refund, and we only had 2 minutes to get across the highway to catch a van and if we missed it we would be stranded on the side of that highway without a way to get back. To say it was a stressful situation would be an understatement. We ended up climbing up a steep mound of dirt to get on top of the highway to cross safely. Now, we were all wearing backpacks and our hands were full of groceries and water. There was a very real chance that one of us could fall backwards and get seriously hurt but, the Lord protected us and we all climbed the mountain of dirt and the van met us where we finished climbing. The driver of this new van thought we were crazy and I could see why. 

     We took this van all the way back to the city and we had to start over. We were so close to paying an outrageous price for taxis when at that moment a red van drove by. Our team leader Kaitlynn Little drops all of her stuff to run and catch the red van. Turns out, that was the red van we had been looking for earlier! The driver thought we were very funny and couldn’t stop laughing at the crazy American girls. 

     After a long and bumpy ride coupled with some interesting traditional Albanian music playing loudly on the van speakers we arrived in the village. Luckily, the van driver knew exactly where we needed to go and what house to drop us off at. We were welcomed by the American man we had met on our last visit to the village along with his dog Bambi. 

     Overall, looking back at this day makes us all laugh now but, in the moment, it was one of the most stressful moments of the race so far. My team and I still laughed at some of the events but, there was a moment I was very discouraged. I knew the Lord wanted in that village but, I was starting to question if it was going to be this much of a struggle just to get there. Once we got there though, I knew we were going to have an adventure there. The Lord definitely showed up in the village and I will share how in my next blog post but, it was not in a way we had expected.