They descended on us like a pack of hungry wolves on a two legged lamb.  Even before the car had stopped in the wood yard three men were at the door ready to escort my landlord and I to their pile...the best pile... of course.  

     Most of Gjilan heats with wood in the winter.  Electricity is expensive and it’s availability unpredictable.  I have already lost track of the number of times we have been without it in the first two weeks of our time here.

    So while we were talking about renting our place the landlord informed me that he would be happy to take me to one of the wood markets in Gjilan.  He would negotiate the price for the 4 meters of wood that I would need to heat our apartment with this winter.  He made it clear that he would do all the talking [as if my two Albanian words were going to be of much use] and that I would do well to keep my mouth closed.  A perfect opportunity for Lisa to tell him that acting dumb was what I do best but...

     They have two prices at the wood yard.  The Albanian brother in law price and a “rich American, they have money falling out of trees price”.  [I had already explained through an interpreter to our landlord during our rent negogiations that he had our NGO confused with government organizations and that we were here on donations, not the government].

     So, after some grunting, pointing, more grunting and some other unintelligible sounds, I’m thinking, “hey I spent twenty five years in the lumber business I could do that too”.  Instead I minded my own business and took some pictures [which you should not do if you are in a “black market” wood yard]-opps, dumb American-played the part well huh.

     After my landlord informed me that we should come back Saturday when there would be more wood to spit at and grunt about we got into the car, still followed by the now even more hungry wolves who realized that the two legged lamb was getting away.  My landlord was saying a bunch of stuff to them rapidly in Albanian and the only words I could pick out were “Amerikan” and “californa” which he used several times while looking in my direction.  I sure wish I could have known who they were talking about.  Maybe I can find out this Saturday when we go back for another look...sans the camera.