Sunday, a quiet, visiting day

Planned only a couple of things for today, but more popped up along the way.

After exchanging some money into the local Albanian currency (leks), I paid a visit to the enormous cemetery in the outskirts of Tirana, where my father and uncle are buried. Although there are no privately owned plots (all land is still property of the state and there are no individual concessions), local people have now gone out of their way to build mausoleums and marbled tombs, none of which were permitted during the half a century of communist dictatorship, when just small markers were installed by the families to remember their plot’s location. This cemetery alone consists of about 5 sections, as large as any similar ones in the US, and the long road leading to it now is flanked on both sides by loads of monuments builders and flower shops!

When, in 1995, I was lucky to find where my uncle was buried (in 1953, after 7 years of political imprisonment) there was no available marble for headstones. I was unaware of this fact, but, unbeknown to me, the funeral parlor I dealt with then, traveled long distances to find one piece to be inscribed with what I wanted.

At that time I had arranged for my father’s remains to be brought back to Albania from Turkey, where he had died in exile 55 years earlier. I wanted the two brothers to be together in death, just as they were always in life, thus the current inscription (under their names and dates of birth and death), translated from Albanian, says: “For their country, united in death as in life”.

The next visit today was to a very modern, huge shopping mall, where one can find anything that’s desired, from clothing boutiques, to wine stores, and supermarkets stocked with all sorts of goodies, including foreign imports of all kind. I just wanted to buy some staples, but by the time I finished, the dark clouds that had formed within one hour, let loose not only torrential rain, but hale galore, with some pieces the size of an egg! Back home with all my stuff I had to change since I was completely drenched and turned the heat on not to shiver! By 5pm the sun reappeared in full!

Earlier in the day, I fortuitously met an acquaintance in the street, and he wasted no time in inviting me to go to a nearby office where a lawyer friend of his would be interested in meeting me. Apparently he is initiating an additional activity, such as publishing a new type of newspaper dealing with some of the 'unjust' situations that the country is still facing and that remain 'unsolved' to today notwithstanding the past dozen years of democratization. I obliged, although pressed for time, and we agreed to meet again to discuss further a possible collaboration.

In the late afternoon I received the visit of another young friend, who brought me lovely mandarins and beautiful roses from her garden. We talked into the evening about a lot of things and agreed that there is still so much to do here, if everyone would collaborate and would think more globally rather than individually. Now, however, I’d better prepare for tomorrow when I’ll be fully immersed in my work and pre planned meetings related to the projects I’m involved with.