Merigoesaround

ONE: Some months ago a new person came to live on the third floor. He had a consultant look. I was right, that is what he is. A Turkish consultant. TWO: At work, during the last same 3-5 months, I have monitored the privatization of the state-owned fixed telephony company: Albtelecom. This company is NOT doing well, no investments during the last three years, penetration of the mobile phone networks is reducing its benefits, problems with the network and poor client service are some issues that I myself have suffered from (as you can read in previous posts). And how do these two stories fit together? Well, it turns out that my neighbor upstairs works for a Turkish company, Calik Group, which is the only bidder that has accepted to buy Albtelecom. So, I am monitoring him...the Turkish consultant. This is the perfect example of European neighborhood policy. Those from the College of Europe can laugh. During this monitoring we have had discussions about the process of privatization (and o...

Life is contrast in Albania. Yesterday and today are almost synonyms in some areas of the country. This is my finding after a short trip to the North East. Yesterday, life was hard, "we did not have much, we had little to eat, it was cold, no leisure activities", locals said in Peshkopi...but today "we have TVs and satellite dishes that only work some hours per day because of electricity cuts, there are few jobs and the future looks rather gloomy...still, we have good meat and the people and the atmosphere are much better than in Tirana". Again, contrast...we have good meat!! even if we have to cook it in a communist-era wooden oven!!, they said. People from Peshkopi are Dibrans (from the district it belongs to: Diber) and I breathed a certain degree of nationalism there, and felt support for the very conflictive idea of Greater Albania. Despite being only about 200km far from Tirana (it takes 5 hours to get there!!...by car not by bicycle, I swear) I felt in a Musl...

Cerrado por vacaciones. Forced blog vacations, indeed. I haven't had the time to write more during the last weeks. No creativity crisis. This drought of blog postings is mostly due to problems in organizing my duties AND, what is more important, a fixed telephone line problem which now lasts for more than a month... I have no fixed phone line or internet from home... "temporarily", ha! Albtelecom does not answer to my cellphone calls anymore... with this, you can imagine how service-oriented, pro-problem solving the Albanian fixed telephone monopoly is. I stop complaining. All in all, I will come back with my views on the new Albanian government as soon as... I can. Photos from Peshkopi, where I am going next week, will be soon posted.

Teuta was worried, baby Ilir was feeling sick. The baby's skin was reddish and in his eyes she could see a dollar sign. "I don't know Elvin", she said to her husband, "I think this baby has swallowed a dollar coin". This was confirmed by the husband, who after buying a packet of Cartier cigarettes had left some coins in the small table besides the baby cradle. Teuta was desperate, concerned about her baby's health. Suddenly she remembered that her neighbor, the one living in the big portokalli orange-saranda blue mansion, was a doctor. His name was Sali, Sali Berisha. Teuta wrapped the baby with care and ran to her neighbor's seeking medical advice. He was a reknowned professional, well-traveled, who had served in Hoxha doctor platoon. Knock, knock. "Mirdita, Zot Berisha" she said. "I think my baby swallowed a 25-cent dollar coin and I would like to ask you whether there is any health risk". After a confident look in the baby'...

...in Tirana. The first time I got into a Tirana public bus I did as normally do in any other place in the world. I read things(*). Things being ads on the upper side of the bus (how to lose 10 kilos in 2 days, need English education? graduate from Tombuctu University), being the newspaper or magazine of the person sitting besides/in front of me, being T-shirts with nasty messages (touch me, love you baby), T-shirts with witty messages...or being minds. I read minds of people and guess, on a scale from 0 to 10, if they are miserable, medium-happy or happy with their lives. I also listen to conversations and try to guess the languages I hear. Well, in Tirana few foreigners use the public bus (like myself, I took it three times) and I try to recognize Albanian Tosk/Ghegh/Kosovo different pronunciations and tone. An Albanian colleague told me that Kosovars and Albanians from the North talk like farmers, with a firm, somehow slightly rude, language. Rude is also what we EU member states do...

I still remember the day I first saw an old man sitting in the street with a weighing scale in front of him. Dummy me...I found it comical. This was in Poland, some years ago. My first thought was: this poor old man went nuts and decided to take the scale out on the streets of Warsaw...like someone not really mentally-balanced decides to walk in pyjamas through the city. I was wrong. Since then, I am not surprised anymore when I see an old man in this situation. Not comical anymore, either. I have not done any pertinent research on the issue, but my gut feeling tells me that these are retirees seeking an extra income (like old ladies selling bunches of natural flowers that they prepare themselves). Maybe in former communist Eastern/South-Eastern Europe a scale was a luxury. Some basic calculus...if the service costs 10 US$-cents, how many people should use the scale to provide the retiree with an additional dollar a day? It is heartbreaking...and the worst is that I have never ever see...

Today I have lots of impressions from Croatia and Montenegro. From Croatia I do not subscribe the popular saying that Croatians are arrogant and nationalistic. I am sure some are, but during our days in gorgeous Dubrovnik and Cavtat I felt like in a small village in Andalusia, where humble and authentic people almost force you to try their home-made jam, taste the flavor of their fruits, the delicate freshness of their fish... If you have time and some money, please visit Dalmatia or any other part of Croatia (which I don't know, but I am sure you will not be disappointed)...and IF YOU HAVE LOADS of money, please buy an apartment immediately. Our trip to the Albanian neighbors was the p.e.r.f.e.c.t holiday: blue-flag waters, great food, absolutely terrific accommodation, chez Captain Kruja, the harbor master of Cavtat, a well-traveled wonderful man. Despite the fact that we paid for the rented apartment -that we found by chance- I had the feeling of being at home, amongst friends. ...

Ole,Ole,Ole... or should I say, hold on, how do you write "ole" in Croatian? I am finally having some holidays. Hugo and I are about taking a rented Ford Ka and visit Montenegro and Croatia for some days. Pictures and stories when I am back. And, hopefully, I'll be back with a great Dalmatian tan.

7.40 am: woke up. The alarm playing the 'holiday tone' (a sort of cheap electronic salsa) 7.43 am: bad mood. Swollen eyes, one big spot and neck pain. Noise outside. Looots of noise. The small illegal vans ('furgon' in Albanian) making the trip Tirana-everywhere-else-in-Albania piss me off. Albania has no formal interurban transport company as such (check it out investors!) and the 'furgons' offer this service for now. Imagine that you own a van with room for 6 to 10 people, you are jobless and you know how to drive, solution? become a van driver and pass by Meritxell's house everyday, every hour from 6a.m to 2a.m non-stop, horn as much as you can, I love it..and scream, I am keen on male screams at 6.00am!! I proposed my neighbour downstairs to organise a demonstration with bans reading: "QUIET STREET, HAPPY STREET" But we fear retaliation... The driver of my night(day!)mares (read previous post on the 'can flatteners'!): 8.50 am: I finall...

Today I have fresh material for 3 postings...but I want to condense everything into just one. Sometimes I think about so many amusing situations that I am scared of forgetting my thoughts. These last days I am fighting "morrinya"= the Galician word for homesickness. My antidote is simple but effective: I cook my mum's recipes (the result being so so), I sing Spanish music and I surf the web in search of the last Iberian fashion trends...because Spain, Espain, is very, very fashion. A good friend of mine (Ramon) who also lives far from home always tells me that Spain is too cool to go back. And I agree. One can feel very unfashionable after some years living and clothes-shopping in places such as Belgium, Germany or somewhere in pragmatic Scandinavia. Thanks to Mango/ZARA and other Spanish firms' global expansion you can buy the same clothes...but the style will never be the same if you don't know what is in and what is out. Naaayy. The Spanish fellows who spent th...

Not the kind of hot you are thinking of...naughty! Dear Sun, Could you please move somewhere else? I am sure up there in Siberia they are eager to have you...but here in Tirana we would not mind if you hide behind a cloud for the next two days. Melted Meri

Mini-trip to the Albanian Eastern border. I visited a XVIII century church under rehabilitation (Saint Athanase) and had a picnic with the locals... One day it will be paradise for rural tourism. Today, it is still a very poor, very nice region. My friend Toan was telling me that he just travelled to Niger and one cannot understand poverty until he/she sees a child fighting hunger. I fully agree...but poverty means also lack of hope, apathy, depression: some of the threats that I am finding in post-transition Albania. Because this country is already on the post-transition track, isn't it? Check some of the pictures here: my flickr page

2.00 am crok, kwatch, crok, crak, kwatch.... Grrrrr....Rumore, rumore!! noise, damned noise. Since I left Spain it seems that noise follows me wherever I settle down. The worst was in Germany when I was living beside the railway (the view from my window was exactly that: the rails) or in DC...where the Georgetown night works to rebuild the whole pipe system lasted for two years...every night (Georgetown is a commercial area and exceptionally works could not happen during daytime, oh well..). But for today I have a bitter-sweet story. Before coming to Tirana I prepared myself for the inconveniences of living in a noisy, polluted city. I have never been to Jakarta or Cairo, but I thought Tirana would be something similar. Indeed, it is. During the last months, mainly due to the general election, the government put the whole city upside down and street works happened 24/7. But the election is over and yesterday night when I noticed that awful noise in the street again I asked myself a ver...

The name of the city I live in has a close phonetic connection to the word....Tyrant!! Et voila the dictionary's definition: An absolute ruler, especially one who is harsh and oppressive- Big Brother, despot, dictator, führer, man on horseback, oppressor, strongman, totalitarian. Baaaaad guy... M.i.l.l.i.o.n.d.o.l.l.a.r.q.u.e.s.t.i.o.n: Has this meaning something to do with the origin of the name? From what I am reading, it seems that it does not. From the many hypotheses that I have read, I picked the ones that I prefer: Hyp. 1- Honouring my Greek buddy Dimitri and the film Big Fat Greek Wedding...the first hypotheses is that Tirana comes from the old Greek word for 'dairy'= 'tyros'; in theory, Tirana's area was in the past a field where shepherds gathered to trade dairy products. However, this sounds like a Greek nationalistic intervention to the Albanian heritage...yoghurt, greek tyros....naaaay...not convincing. Hyp. 2- Another explanation is that Tirana was...

My beloved tomatoes. I remember that at school, at the early age of 7, I once drew a bowl full of red bright tomatoes which was marked with the highest distiction by the design teacher. Maybe then my passion with this fruit started. But, do not worry, this posting is not going to be an "Ode to the Tomato"...this all came to my mind while reading some export/import statistics from Albania. This is a country with a wide trade balance deficit (a negative balance of trade, i.e. more imports than national exports). Many/Most other countries suffer from large trade deficits (the U.S. to start with). In tiny Albania this is a sign of worrying economic and structural problems. Imagine that you are a tomato farmer in Albania. Do you own your farm? From my EU mind, it was sort of surprising to question whether a farmer owns the little or gigantic piece of land he/she works in. Albania is still going through the process of land restitution and compensation: an extremely complicated area...

Today at work we attempted to call the Municipal Court of Tropoja, a town in Northern Albania known for its tribal life style and its attachment to the Kanun (Kanun is a set of customary laws , whose cornestone is the 'Besa' or word of honour, a very important element of the Albanian way of life. Under the Kanun, blood revenge is particularly horrendous, USAID data reports that today around 1000 families live hidden/closed at home fearing revenge. The vendettas continue generation after generation, decimating families. Needless to say I was really shocked when I heard about the Kanun, even more when I learnt that the person who commits the crime attends the funeral of the victim!). You have more information on the Kanun and amazingly hard pictures from Albania here There is no doubt that there must be some places in Albania where all these Kanun rules are still applied...but I suspect that, maybe us, foreigners in Albania, tend to exaggerate this code of conduct of extremely po...

...and some crying. Today I found myself sobbing in front of the TV. The words of one of the London attacks survivors went straight to my heart. She was in bus number 30 when terror hit London. I found bus number 29 in one of my pictures. This was the bus that Seb and Auriane rented for their wedding in Southern Belgium. I post it here in my blog to show that the double-decker London bus can symbolize both...the tremendously good and the horrid bad times of life. Another picture of happiness and friendship: Hugo, Koen and David. Oh gosh..I am so cheeesy today.

I love Albania. I feel great here. I wake up full of energy, the sunlight, the noise in the street from people drinking coffees non-stop. Indeed, sometimes they are drinking 'raki' at 8.00 am, the regional high-voltage spirit. My walk from home to the office is just 5 minutes, enough to find stories to write about. Good and bad ones. Like the sweaty guy that passed by me and had the wonderful idea of splashing me with the sweat from his face...mmmm...nyamie..or the bunch of 15-year old 'ragazzi' that say something in Albanian (I hope a compliment) and make me feel like the hottest chick in town, which, believe me, I am NOT. I could describe to you how women are over here; most of my single male friends will feel like visiting me during the following summer months ('summer' meaning 'less-clothes-than-usual' in Albania). Women are...how can I put this...hot, sexy...slim (this really pisses me off, because they eat 'byrek', the local sort of greasy ...

How much is it? Cuanto costa?- I said. 6000 Lek (aprox. 60 US$) How much?!!!- I repeated. I really thought that 60 bucks for a watermelon and some fruit at the groceries was waaaay too much. '600 Lek'(around 6US$)- said the fruit seller after few seconds. Ahhh, finally we understood each other. Again, I forgot that Albanians, despite changing the number of zeros in their currency (the LEK) in the 60's, they still add one more zero to the prices, even the new generations do so!!!

Yes, we did. I loved it. I grew up. This was more than two months ago...and I keep on saying to myself that I have to write about our trip. For now, here's a picture of us in Palmyra. Take a look at the others on my flickr page if you want (or Hugo's )