Here in Shkodra, I am on the 1st floor of the Hotel Roz Afa. The 1st floor of the hotel is about 50 feet from the ground. It is not that the ground floor is so grand, but they must have so many storerooms and balconies that they couldn’t find room to start the first floor earlier. Giddy making. Also gives one a nice view of the surrounding area with a modern mosque (too near for comfort) and an older church which has the most amazing sounding bells. They are very muted and deep toned but sound as though they are a recording of something like Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. Perhaps, this is how Rudolf came by his red nose - from the local Raki ?
From my room I spied a photo processing shop where I expected I could buy a new film which I needed, so went there. When we saw we didn’t have a language in common, I was given a piece of paper on which I wrote 1x135x36xASA400 ? He waggled a finger (saying no) and crossed out the 400 and wrote 200. I wrote a tick beside it. He then wrote 650 and I wrote another tick and paid the bill in Lekë. One satisfied shop owner; and one satisfied client. Nice smiles on both sides. The film is even in date (process before 3/2000). Must have fallen off the back of a recent lorry.
More shooting during the night – another AK47 - probably to shoo the dogs away. The Wild West hasn’t got a patch on this place ! I really am surprised that there are any remaining window-panes intact here.
The lock on the door is interesting. I can open the door from outside, but cannot lock it from the inside unless I remove the lock and reverse it. I do just this. Then, when I want to go down to breakfast, I have to remove the lock and reverse it. The problem will come when, one morning, the lock will refuse to work from the inside after I have reversed it, and I will be locked inside, and the hotel will be unable to get it to work from the outside either. I don’t have 50 foot of rope to hand. The obvious solution – to replace the offending item – may not be viable since to do so probably means that someone must steal a lock from somewhere, and it appears that all locks behave similarly. Perhaps they can steal a whole door instead ?
If we make it away from here clothed and with a car, I think we can deem the trip a success. If not, the bus ride back to Tirana will be a memory in itself – the bus being one of the only things that may not have been stolen, and by the end of such a trip one can be forgiven for wishing that it hadbeen!
Yesterday morning was memorable. As instructed, I had to check with the local administration and with the police before deciding where to go. I want to go into the hills, figuring that poverty if anywhere, it is most likely here. The administration directs me 180º opposite – into the plains. I go to the police and then the fun starts. First, it is fortified against possible invasion by the Mafia, though quite what they would want to steal from the police remains a mystery. Secondly, the man guarding the gate looks as if he has been taken from a Mafia stereotype photograph. Baseball cap over flowing beautifully laundered black and shiny locks; wrap-round shades; what looks like a twin-set of police shirt and waistcoat; buttock-tight hugging trousers and a personalised AK47. We explain our mission, and the Mafia-look-alike-gate-guard between chomps on his chewing gum shouts over his shoulder at someone. Dashi indicates that we will be attended to shortly. Shortly becomes longly and we again ask politely. We are told to go to a minuscule window let into the wall like it is to be used for poking out an AK47 if all else fails. We state our business but because the police radio is blaring so loudly, we have to shout our business. Finally, the gate guard calls us to the gate and we are admitted to the holy of holies, which looks like the local garbage tip with old cars and rubbish everywhere. Perhaps these cars are the only ones not stolen, so have been singled out for special attention. Then we are introduced to a pleasant looking man who has scrambled egg on his shoulders so carries some rank, who turns out to be the local chief of police. He is juggling five conversations all at once, but quite courteously until a young man thrusts a paper at him for an immediate signature; and gets a right royal strip torn off him for his troubles. Then, in between shouting into his walkie-talkie and giving everyone instructions, he asks our business.
We tell him. He is interested. He tells us of one village (in the right direction) not too distant where the school was wrecked in 1997, but which is trying to do the Phoenix act all on its own. He offers a police staff member to accompany us, but says that it is dead safe anyway; changes his mind, and decides to come with us. He was nothing - if not interesting - and, surprisingly, quite sensible. We talk about water supply, waste disposal, school (now working out of half a shop), health, agriculture, commerce, migration and what not. A one-a-half-hour crash course on the sociology, demography, horticulture, economy and so on, of this part of Albania. A treat.
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| Roof of a Hammam |
I ask to be allowed to see a dug well that I have spied beside the road, so Police Chief and I walk back to it, with Dashi driving sedately behind us. We can see the owner of the house where the well is, some distance away and hail him. Received very courteously indeed, not because the Police Chief is a big noise, but obviously they know of each other. We are shown the well which he has had constructed with his own cash. Then he shows us what he is farming – chickens, rabbits, decorative pigeons that are unbelievably tame, duck etc. He has some very interesting flowers as well. Grapes. Peaches. Cherries. This is an industrious soul, and enthusiastic too. It was fascinating talking to him. The teacher was summonsed and appeared fifteen minutes later and gave a very good description of the situation, taking me finally to the school which is primitive but which functions, and which is kept spotless despite it being the holidays. Impressive. She needs the old building renovated and some teaching materials and will undoubtedly do a fine job.
On the way home, the Police Chief makes us drive into an orchard where we get out, and he proceeds to take fruit from some of the trees, shouting to locate the owner – whom he obviously knows well. I am then handed this fruit which is probably the best I have ever tasted – warm from the tree – almost drinkable it has so much juice to it, and an aroma that is how paradise must be. The fruit is unblemished so they appear to have few birds preying on it, and no insects. There are a lot of windfalls because they simply cannot harvest and sell all the fruit. If only they could export the fruit - but there is little hope of that without the roads being completely redone.
It pays to know the Chief of Police. . . . .
There is a huge lake beside Shkodra. As we ate lunch on Tuesday when we happened to be in the city, Dashi decided that I should sample the delights of food beside the river that feeds the lake. Carp was on the menu, and not being too expensive, I took it. To be recommended, especially with the local draught beer. The only jarring note was that car disposal here is into the river just beside where we were eating our fish.
Tuesday afternoon banal by comparison, but immensely instructive. But it was on Tuesday afternoon that I also made a bad error of judgement. You see, it goes like this: When you enter the bathroom at the hotel, because it is dark, you need to switch on the light and the switch is exactly where you would expect to find it, beside the door. However, the new form of Albanian technology requires that not only do you have to click the switch but because the light does not come on with this particular action, one needs also to kick the wall to ‘jiggle’ the wires so that they short out and the light then flickers and might come on. If it doesn’t, a somewhat stouter kick is delivered until it stays switched on. Well, being of a mind to accomplish the task in one, I delivered a mule kick that an elephant would have noticed, only to discover that I had forgotten to put my shoes on before entering.
Wednesday ? Well, yes, Wednesday was equally as instructive but distinctly alcoholic. This time I had persuaded the police that we should literally head for the hills on an inspection tour. I wanted to go two and a half hours up river, but I was informed that nobody lived there – we could only go as far as Prekal. I had assumed (probably correctly this time) that bandit country starts at Prekal and the police are unwilling to expose themselves too frequently in that area. Well it took a bone jarring one and a quarter hours to Prekal by which time I was delighted that we were not allowed to go any further since it meant only one hour back to Shkodra. One of the two police with us actually carried an AK47 that I only saw when we arrived in Prekal – normally expressly forbidden in UN vehicles. As he left it under the seat more as a good omen, I figured that to chuck him out in Prekal and make him walk home might be a bit churlish. Besides, I would have had to throw him AND his gun out and he might have been tempted. . . . No, he stayed throughout, and behaved well.
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| Roof near Prekal |
The scenery is stunning but so difficult to photograph that I took none except for the odd roof. The village Prekal was on holiday, it being a saint’s day (Simona Ventura whoever she or he might be), and everything was shut. That is, the bar/café and the health centre were shut. Even the church was closed since everyone (most of the 600 to 700 residents) was travelling to Shkodra to celebrate. However, we were lucky enough to find two quite sensible older people who were waiting for the next bus (actually an open 3-tonne truck, Russian made), and who were willing to chat. One in particular was surprisingly observant, and we got virtually everything we needed. Their wish-list ? No 1: Help with more irrigation channels; No 2: Help for recreation for the village (a cultural centre or cinema or even, heaven forbid, help to erect a satellite TV repeater station); No 3: Serum against snake bite since four kids had died in the last 12 to 18 months of this. Nothing if not different !
On the way down, it was decided that we should drop in on the village elder ‘to consult’. Obviously the police escort knew of his wife’s reputation as being the best Raki-maker in the area. Well, we visited and learned even more – and had Raki poured copiously down our throats. Luckily Dashi (my driver) doesn’t like Raki too much so was able to deflect this part of the hospitality on the basis of company rules. I had no such let-off. Our host was so pleased that we had taken the trouble to visit and discuss local affairs that he said, in English, ‘Thank you very much’. I was astonished. Learned, so he said, when the allies passed in 1943, and never forgotten. He himself spent 20 years in gaol (1962-1982) because – if I got the story correct – he was a supporter of a restoration of the monarchy or equivalent trouble-making. Somehow the dates don’t seem to jibe but that is probably the effect of the Raki. Our host grows an amazing variety of fruit, veg and other crops. Maize, wheat and tobacco. Tomatoes, pumpkin, two different varieties of beans and potatoes. Mulberries, peach, grapes (naturally) and a sour plum that looks exactly like a cherry. And these were the ‘only’ ones I saw.
The return journey was decidedly more comfortable and far less memorable. I needed an urgent visit to my hotel room on arrival back, to sleep for 30 minutes. Happily, the Raki doesn’t seem to leave a hangover though one might sneak up on me tomorrow.
And they call this work ?
*****
I am troubled – probably that Calvinist upbringing – at the breakfast menu. Here in the hotel it is fine and mostly determined by the expatriates staying. Bread, butter, jam (sour plum), and coffee strong enough to stain your teeth. Not so in the cafes outside, where to a man they drink Raki or cognac or some noxious brew that looks like old engine oil and smells even worse. I wouldn’t dare light a match anywhere near any of them – you can see the alcoholic haze above the glasses even ! Naturally, women are allowed to parade but not participate. Don’t tell me that Switzerland is the only male haven in Europe ! Here, it being rather warmer than in Switzerland, the women wear less, and they are definitely better proportioned than the Swiss matrons – with no disrespect. The men here have it made.As I walked down the street yesterday afternoon in a shimmering heat haze that made one think of cool draught beer, and making one jealous of a dog that had found a puddle in the shade and had lain down in the middle of it, I saw two very scruffy individuals who resembled some bad examples of the homeless in Britain, sitting on some steps, close together. I thought they were either sharing philosophies or a bottle in a brown bag. They moved not at all as I approached and when I was close enough to see exactly what they were about, I was surprised that they were deep in a game of chess. Probably workmen from one of the building sites taking a break at lunch. Real up-market way of taking a lunch break, I would have thought. Chess is played quite widely here, I’m told.
This is becoming an Odessy – time I left off. Don’t miss the next exciting instalment! But just one last titbit; Dashi tells me that in times much earlier, perhaps when Albania was still known as Illyria, there was an area of northern Greece and adjacent southern Illyria known then as Epirus. According to Dashi, Aesop in one of his less well known writings, referred to the people who came from there as Barbers, which is where – so he says – we get the term barbarians. Can this really be true ? And who were the Berbers (as opposed to the Barbers) when they were at home; and where was their home ? Do you think that as the name implies, Berbers sported longer hair than Barbers ? Confusing, or is it the raki speaking ? (I know perfectly well that Berber tribes are found in North Africa, but I asked the question to see if my children had learned anything at school.)
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*****
Shkodra dies between 3pm and 5pm. The streets are empty, the dogs are quiet and hardly a car can be heard. John Conway’s celebration in verse so well describes it:
There’s a dust cloud o’er the maidan, which screens the brassy glare
Not a bird nor beast will brave that shimmering heat.
The ancient on the minaret exclaims in disbelief,
There’s someone out there swaying on his feet.
I see why wrap-round shades are all the rage here. You need them. And factor 50 sun-cream.
*****
We are ‘into’ looking at investment opportunities for UNICEF in Shkodra city but, before starting, we have been trying to track down the local Director of Education. He was missing in Tirana on Monday; at a picnic on Tuesday; missing in Shkodra on Wednesday – but then so was his delectable secretary so we might assume something – and we waited at his office door for an hour this morning since his other staff assured us that he was coming. Given that his secretary was also still missing, we hope they got the meaning right. We never did see him on Thursday.Friday. Busy; fascinating; productive except we still were unable to meet the Director of Education possibly because of his infatuation with his secretary. He always seems to be just coming. Seems appropriate in the circumstances. . .
A revisit to Shkodra is definitely in my plans. Great place. I hope I can manage to travel a little further afield when next I come to Shkodra, and see more of the rural areas.
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More village roofs
*****
Ken Gibbs can be contacted via kengibbs1941@gmail.com
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