Perfection or Honesty You Cannot Buy

We have two kids – a girl and a boy. So in the eyes of many we have reached the perfection, and should stop having children. When I was pregnant with Eva, everybody wished me a boy. When I was expecting Oliver – everybody still wished a boy. To attain the perfect duo, I suppose. And here we are – raising both a girl and a boy. Now, Albanians love sharing their opinions; with friends and strangers alike. So I should really stop getting surprised when some grandma on our first encounter honestly advises, “Be careful now. Don’t make more babies.” I love to tease them by expressing my liking of big families. In response they shake their heads with a confident, “Two is enough.” And maybe they are right, after all. If we had a third child and brought our perfect status quo to an end, there’d be no way back.

What Is Your Address?

Our address is boring; street name (Pandeli Cale was one of the signers of Albania's Declaration of Independence in 1912) and house number. Yet apart from the post office, barely anyone knows it. Street name signs reappeared throughout Albania only last year. So no wonder we had earlier rented a house "at Piro's square accross from the professor's" (Piro was a certain dissident, executed right there by the communism regime, thus the unofficial name, and the professor is still living there).

The other day I was browsing through an advertisement paper and amusing myself reading the addresses of some major appliances' stores throughout the country. A few of my favorites read: "Main avenue, "Xhevdet Neprevishta" neighbourhood" (in Lushnje), or in Elbasan: "Qemal Stafa" str., apartment building next to the former military base." (Mind you, these are large cities.) More often than not an address is "somewhere close to something former." So learning an address for a newcomer like me the enlightenment is double: I learn both where a certain store, office etc. is and, for instance, where a flour factory used to be.

With the advent of democracy in 1990, city planning in Albania went off the hook. Years later (some) illegally built structures were demolished, and some cities regained their shapes, yet others (like the capital Tirana) remain a maze.

The street name signs are in place, but if you want to find us in Korca, forget our address. You'll have more luck looking straight above the cinema (former cinema, to be more accurate), just below the water depot, and behind a tall green house. Alternatively, ask where a known writer Vangjush Ziko used to live or mention our neighbour's from across the street name.

April 2013 Newsletter!

  Mason April 2013 Newsletter by Sean Mason

our latest news! (year-end 2012)