Julian writes from Albania
We were delighted to receive this long letter from Julian Davidson, who is in Albania with his wife, Sue, working for the Valdete Trust to help disabled people
Tirana 2013
9:00 am Tuesday.
The phone rings, starkly announcing the arrival of Sue’s Albanian teacher, Sonila.
Sue is struggling with the complexities of the Albanian language (or Shqip, as it is known to them). Highly inflected, impossible grammar, it remains one of the most difficult languages in Europe to speak, let alone write. Not for the average Englishman! I gave up months ago, preferring to brush up my French. A little guesswork and Latin at school means Italian is not too difficult. It’s widely spoken. Italy is only seventy miles across the Adriatic. It’s amazing how much Italian you can guess when you have a knowledge of music too!
An English speaker is never far away either as it’s compulsory in schools from the age of seven. Kids are great at speaking our mother tongue especially when discussing ‘The Beautiful Game’. I met two little lads the other evening idly kicking a ball in the alley outside our flat.
“Good evening”, one of them said. “How are you?”
“Very well”, I replied. “You like football?”
“I like this……. He kicked the ball hard against the wall. “……Not this……” picking up the ball and running with it, grimacing as he did so. This described American football. Sorry you fanatics, but Rugby has never penetrated the Balkans!
The other little lad piped up, “I like Man U!”
“Ah, yes, a good team” I enthused.
Not to be outdone, the lad with the ball interjects, “I like Millan”.
Millan? Who? And then it dawned. Milan! The little guy must never have heard it spoken. The stress falls on the first syllable in Shqip!
Back to Tuesday morning. Heavy of heart at what shortcomings Sonila will find in Sue’s homework she lets her in via the three locked doors between us and the outside world. This Alcatraz-esque situation is a reminder of how little trust Albanians have in their fellow countrymen.
I’ve been here since the end of January. Not the longest time I’ve stayed in the country: Sue and I spent eight months here in 2007. Enough to get the feel of the place; to establish what is right and what is wrong with society.
Albania has a population of about 3.5 million. A further one million live outside of Albania in Kosova and another one million live as ex-pats in Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and the USA. It’s about the same size as Wales, or Maryland to our transatlantic cousins. Americans form the largest e-xpat community at about 500 souls. There are sixty Dutch, sixty or so Germans: Brits only weigh in at about forty.
Valdete’s Dad, Shani, built us an apartment above his own house, in gratitude for what we did for Valdete in the way of medical treatment. It’s great! We have two bedrooms, a large sitting room cum kitchen and a bathroom. All spanking brand new! We’re in a western suburb of Tirana called Laprake. A reasonably well-off part of town, quite a ‘posh’ part. When people ask where you live they raise their eyebrows. Ah, Laprak-er, po?’ – signifying you must have a bit of dosh behind you.
Tirana is a sprawling, ugly, dusty town with no architectural merit whatsoever: Various governments have seen to that. Until the sixties Tirana had a wonderful Turkish bazaar as its centrepiece, so worthy of renovation. With no regard for beauty or heritage, Enver Hoxha flattened it and replaced it with what we have today – Skenderbeg Square. Tirana lies in a basin with mountains to the east and north-east, and the dust and automotive pollution settles everywhere. You must wash your car nearly every day and goodness knows what this pollution is doing to your lungs. Nearly everyone in Tirana has respiratory troubles of some sort or another. During a recent visit to a pharmacy for some paracetamol (always a protracted task – Albanians are terrible hypochondriacs) I counted four people in the queue before me purchasing salbutamol inhalers for asthma.
I digress. Back to Skenderbeg Square. In 1962 Enver Hoxha was colluding with the USSR. Khruschev sent architects and engineers to refashion the city centre. The result was a massive Soviet style opera house and various national museums complete with Communist realist-art mosaics. South of the square lies the area of government offices, built by Mussolini during the period of Italian influence between the wars. Painted ochre and maroon their shuttered windows lend an air of authority to the chaos outside.
Close by is the structure known as ‘The Pyramid’. An enormous glass edifice designed and built in 1988 by Hoxha’s daughter Pranvera as an exhibition centre. Today it lies derelict and has been since the troubles of 1997. Death-defying kids use its sloping walls to practice skateboarding.
And then you notice the Lana, the river which until the Mussolini era meandered peacefully through the city centre. It is common practice to culvert waterways when they pose a risk to development. From my own experience Newcastle has two underground feeders to the Tyne, London has innumerable hidden rivers feeding the Thames, but they are covered over, diverted into underground pipes.
Not so King Zog! (Ah, you’ve heard of him, haven’t you?). With Italian finance he built a mile-long concrete trough, dead straight and channelled the river into it. Ideal for Albanians to throw all their rubbish into. Plastic bags by the ton; I’ve even seen dead dogs and cats in it. An unbelievable eyesore and health risk.
I must tell you a little about King Zog, possibly the only Albanian you’ve ever heard of save Mother Teresa who was technically Albanian but born in Kosova. Zog was a tribal chieftain from central Albania. He proclaimed himself king of the nation in 1928 and hoodwinked the people into thinking he was their salvation. Italian influence was increasing, but once Mussolini invaded the country in 1939 Zog took his family and all his valuable assets over the border into Greece, including the scarlet Mercedes given to him as a birthday present from Hitler. He spent the war years living in exile (and some style) at the Ritz Hotel in London. He never returned to Albania, though his wife and son did. Queen Geraldine died in 2002 and Prince Leka in 2011.
A little more about the environment. The city is largely composed of ugly, communist era blocks (palatti). Most are six stories, without lifts and from the outside look awful. They are served by unsurfaced roads that are filled with muddy puddles when it rains, dusty dirt tracks in summer. You would imagine the apartment dwellers to be equally scruffy. Surprisingly they’re not. Millions of decent, educated people, teachers, doctors, engineers, the whole gamut of Albanian society. The apartments themselves are kept scrupulously clean by their owners. The wealthier have air-conditioning, almost essential when the ambient temperature can reach 45C in summer.
From the foregoing you should have gleaned by now how the Albanian mind works. The average Albanian has an utter disregard of what others might think of them. They care not a jot for anyone but themselves and their families. An extreme case of ‘NIMBY’. Littering the streets, causing traffic mayhem by each driver’s determination to be at the head of the queue: all these things show the Albanian’s highly individual lifestyle and point toward why Albania has never found its feet in a modern Europe. Who would invest in people with such obtuse viewpoints? I am told companies are difficult to form because Albanians cannot work together for the benefit of others in the team: impossible for them to take orders from a boss whether he be Albanian or a foreigner.
It goes even further. Albanian men generally find it difficult to bond with other men and friendships are not formed. There is very little strolling down to the pub for a game of snooker or whatever like Western men do. Albanian men in groups are invariably members of their extended families. Difficult people to do business with.
I woke up sweating this morning. By 8 o’clock the sun was clocking up 28C. Not summer yet, but getting close to it. It’s Saturday. I put the PC on and tune to ‘Sounds of the Sixties’. I’ve listened to it for years. The digital revolution has made the world a smaller place, with Skype and Internet TV. We have all British and US TV at the touch of a button as well as streamed radio any time you want. Remarkable. We knew as much about the ‘Great Arran Power Cut’ as you did – except we hadn’t the inconvenience!
Breakfast on the balcony today. I think I’ve covered enough ground for now. Another instalment may follow soon if this is appreciated by ‘Voice’ readers.
Julian Davidson
