Albania (From Afar)

Photo © Rob Jones

I wouldn’t like to call it an obsession - but, it is an obsession.

There’s something about Albania.

I need to go there.

I am drawn.

It goes back to my youth, as a short-wave listener, and fascinated by the bizarre transmissions from the then communist state from Radio Tirana.

There was an announcer who in my mind morphed into Dr. Crow from Carry on Spying, who spouted communist propaganda, endlessly, every day. It was comforting in its obsessive regularity. At its height it was broadcasting 66 hours of programs in 20 foreign languages every day.

Transmissions always ended by playing "The Internationale."

Anyway - I digress.

Albania is in the news a lot these days, I think rather unfairly so. Albania was strongly connected to China, to whom it had a shared ideology at one point so I met several Albanian broadcasters in Beijing while I was there. Lovely people.

But … sat as I was on a beach (Gialiskari Beach/Παραλία Γυαλισκάρι) which is a bit of a hidden gem in northern Corfu … you have to know it’s there,
I was having a picnic..

Photo © Rob Jones

… and thinking how lucky I was. Simple pleasures - cheese, ham (I think) and a bottle of rough local wine costing about a pound.

And looking across at Albania thinking … I really need to go there.

Heard a programme recently discussing why so many people were trying to get to the UK from Albania. The odd situation where the country is a matter of miles away from where I was sitting, and yet so much poverty, and desperation.

Where’s the sense in that.

Counting blessings as usual.

R