MONDAY, MAY 27
- We find ourselves in Albania, of all places, with only two more months of travel before we return to Ireland.
- I left the apartment early to buy fresh brown bread from the bakery around the corner and strawberries from one of the many stands that line our narrow street. The streets were busy with people on their way to work, taking their children to school or shopping for vegetables and fruits that hadn’t been picked over.
- We saw more of the bizarre and wonderful public art, and dominating, Constructivist (and Brutalist) architecture. Walking toward the University area, we noticed rotting balconies and crumbling cement walls. The muezzin’s calls were more frequent on a Monday. The smells of the smoke, dust and grilling meats mixed with an occasional whiff of flower perfumes.
- We talked to the owner of a outlet shoe store, sneakers mostly, which he buys in Germany. He explained that the government is corrupt, office holders siphoning money for themselves and their cronies. Huge economic discrepancies exist between the few very wealthy and everyone else. Much of their money comes from selling illegal drugs grown in Albania, sold in Europe. He explained that the protest we saw on Saturday happens each Saturday because people want the government to oust the corrupt prime minister and replace him with someone else. But the prime minister and government are not listening. The wealthy are connected to drugs, and the fact the recent role of the country as a producer, reminded us of Belize where drugs have also only recently begun to bring corruption and violence to the country. Perhaps, I thought, the people registered as employed because they own a small plot of land, use that land to grow drugs. That would be a form of employment.
- In the dark of night, the claps of thunder, the bolts of lightening and the pounding and pouring of rain brought us to the enclosed, back balcony. The streets were empty of people. Others came to their balcony’s and to windows (a mother and daughter were scrambling to take down their laundry). The streets and parking area glistened in the streetlamp light, looking cleaner than they actually are. In each place we have traveled, we settle in quickly as if we are home, and often feel like we could live there. Tirane, much to our surprise, is a place we both talked about returning to, a place we would consider living…compelled by a sense of an excitement in the chaos and the city’s emergence, its rawness, diversity and grittiness.
