Korça...The Home of Delicious Meatballs

Albania, The 51st State

by Davidi

My Albanian barber has two flags in front of his mirror. Both are American.   America is his favorite country, he says. He also says he has never been there.  

Albania may be the most pro-American country in the world.  It may be more pro-American than, well . . .America.  There are American flags everywhere. Gina and I see them in windows and printed on shoes and t-shirts.  The prosecutors I visit usually have a display with three flags on their desks:  Albanian, European Union and American.  (And a recent survey said that 80% of Albanians see the U.S. as very influential here, while 7% see the E.U. as influential). 

Our apartment is near "Woodrow Wilson Square."  His statue stands in the middle. We are only blocks away from "George W. Bush Street," but a little farther from Clinton Square.  On the streets, I frequently pass the "Amerika Bar," the "American Fashions" Store," the American Jewelry" store, and a sign pointing the way to the "American hospital."  ("American University" is on the other side of town). None of these places have any connection to the US, as far as I can tell.  They just want to be associated with American ideas and styles.

Albanians love to tell us about their relatives in the United States. Old men who speak no English will hold up fingers for the number of grandchildren they have in the US, then proudly say "Boston" or "Chicago." One said he had relatives in "Indianapolis, Ohio." We just said we were from close by.

A man at church last weekend asked where I worked.   When I told him Ambasad Amerikan, he gave me a military salute.  He said, "America has helped us at crucial times in our history, and we remember."  He's right.  When a European peace conference was ready to sign a treaty dividing up all Albanian lands between its neighbors, Woodrow Wilson made them give Albanians their own country.  When the Serbs were "eliminating" ethnic Albanians, Clinton got NATO to make them stop. When Kosovo, which is 90% ethnic Albanian, wanted its independence, George Bush recognized them first. They like Obama, too. He got Albania into NATO.  

For Independence Day (American Independence Day, that is), 300 Albanian police officers closed an entire city block in the middle of town. US Embassy employees and their families, as well as 600 high ranking Albanian guests, enjoyed food, music, speeches and fireworks that exploded way too low to the ground. Gina helped me greet and chat with the prosecutors who came.  I brought American flag pins and handed them out.  I told each prosecutor "today, you are American, too." One of them responded, "What about tomorrow?"

Albania is striving for membership in the European Union. We think they might prefer to be the 51st state. 

29 beat 44, but only by combining with 35

by Davidi

Albania purchased a multi-million dollar computer voting system for this year's national elections. They didn't use it. Seems the computer voting system only has room to list 45 political parties. There were 66 parties on the ballot.

Like many Europeans, Albanians vote for parties, rather than people.  (The parties tell you in advance who they have picked to represent your area if they win, but only the party is on the ballot.).  It's pretty easy to register a political party in Albania, so, if you don't like the ones you see, you can you can always start your own.  Some rich folks have decided that starting their own party is their best chance to win a seat in parliament, so they have.

Take a look at the candidate on the campaign postcard below.  He's from a minor party, number 56.  It's not surprising  that he chose to be pictured holding an Albanian flag.  But wait!  How many flags do you see in the photo?  What's our flag doing hiding back  there?  Looks like he is giving the message that the US is behind him, or perhaps that he will lead Albania towards being more like the US.   Either way, party 56 didn't win.  Party 29 beat incumbent party 44, but only by joining forces with party 35.

The election was hotly contested and the campaigning was non-stop. There were signs, banners over the streets, cars with loudspeakers, parades and rallies.  We could see fireworks from the rallies from our balcony.  (The Embassy told us not to go near any rallies, for fear of looking like the US was taking sides in the election). 

We will be reminded of the election for a long time.  That's because the parties sent out legions of guys with spray paint to stencil party logos on every piece of exposed concrete they could find.  The real legacy is better:  Albania, the newest democracy in Europe, had the most free and fair election they have ever had. 

"Sheer Ecstasy In A Fruit . . ."

On The Highway To Korça

While on one of David's work trips, we pulled off the highway to buy just-off-the-tree figs.

Figs may be green or dark brown

David's colleague Xhoana picking out perfectly ripe figs for our road trip.

Davidi eating figs from the bag. . . unable to wait.

After reading about Mimi Sheraton's experience eating figs in her article "10 Epiphanies" in the June 2013 Smithsonian Magazine, we had to share, as her encounter with an Adriatic fig provided words for our new found love:  

Until early one September morning long ago, the only figs I knew -- and liked a lot -- were dried:  golden-brown, sticky and chewy with a burnished sweetness spiked with the intriguing crackle of tiny pinpoint seeds. But on the fateful morning in the Marche town of Senigallia beside the Adriatic, I tasted a small, plump jade green fig plucked from a tree in a garden.  Sparkling with dew, the sun-warmed, suede-like skin yielded to a night-chilled, honeyed center -- sheer ecstasy in a fruit that bore little resemblance to the dried version.  I have had many delectable fresh green figs since but none that compared with the original, whether eaten out-of-hand, or split open on a plate and dabbed with a swirl of crème frâiche or a rivulet of heavy sweet cream.