Preparing
to Return
Hi
everyone! I actually started to write
this one on July 25, but got no
further
than "Hi everyone!" Even
though the title for this one is
"Preparing
to Return", it seems that I still have many things to do before I
leave. I have only 6 working days left before I
leave for a 17 day trip to
Italy. I'll take a ferry accross the Adriatic to
Bari, Italy and then take
a train to
Milan where I'll meet my girlfriend Kim.
From there, we will
visit the
Dolomites, then Venice, Florence, the Umbria region, Perugia,
Rome, Pisa
and other points on the West coast as we make our way back to
Milan. I'll then return by train and ferry to
Albania on the 12th of
September
where I will play tourist and frantically photograph everything I
didn't get
a chance to photograph during my work days.
I'll return to
Minnesota,
after an overnight in Zurich, on September 16th, at which point,
the rest
of my adventure will begin.
Wrapping‑up
Work
As usual,
I feel like I'm going in many different directions at once with
many
different project on the burner. I am
working closely with two local
staff who
have taken on leadership roles. Miranda
will supervise all social
work staff
and Ladi will coordinate the opening of two community centers in
Durres. Both are very strong women who are respected
by the others. One of
the
community centers in Durres will serve internally displaced Albanians
who have
moved here mostly from the Northern regions of Albania, where the
economic
situation is desperate and the blood feud problem rages. Blood
feud or
blood revenge is the taking of another's life because they took the
life of
someone in your family. It is a
centuries‑old code of law governing
everything
from murder to family relationships and church attendance. It is
the law in
Northern Albania, where law enforcement officials are laughed at
because of
their inability to do anything about this problem, and their
general
incompetence due to lack of training and resources. The police in
this area
wear masks when they intervene in situations where they may need
to kill
someone, so they are not identified and marked for blood revenge by
the family
of the person they kill. Once a person
has killed someone, all
the males
in their family are at risk of being killed, regardless of age.
So entire
families will isolate themselves within their homes to stay safe.
They
suffer from lack of income, social life, and the children are kept home
from
school. This could go on for
years. Some of these families move out
of Albania
altogether, illegally, but most cannot afford to do this, so they
either
stay enclosed in their homes or move to another region of Albania,
where often
they are followed and targeted just the same.
It is a matter of
honor to
revenge the killing.
A couple
of Albanian agencies are working on this problem. One is called
the All
Nations Reconciliation Association run by a volunteer named Emin.
They gain
the trust of the enclosed families through long‑term association
and
reputation, and attempt to bring the two feuding families together to
reach an
alternative honorable solution for both sides.
They have almost no
financial
support and all of their mission members are volunteers doing very
dangerous
work. Emin carries a gun with him at
all times. He took us to
meet two
enclosed families in Shkoder, the largest city in the Northern
region. Even though one family was rich and the
other very poor, both male
heads of
household had the same dreadfully worried expression on their
faces. The rich family relies on armed guards to
protect them. The poor
family
relies on the honor of the code to
protect them which says that they
cannot be
killed unless they leave their home. I
administered a mental
health
screen to one of these men, and he answered yes to practically all of
the
questions. Another agency working on
this problem is the Peace and
international
Catholic agencies. They provide
financial support for local
infrastructure
development, home‑schooling for enclosed children and
document
studies of this problem in selected areas called communes. We have
proposed
to help by offering social work and mediation training to the
mission
members of the Reconciliation agency and to help fund analysis of
data which
they have collected. We also have
offered our social workers to
assess the
needs of the enclosed families and provide comprehensive
home‑based
social services.
If you
want to learn more about blood revenge, I highly recommend Broken
April by Ismail Kadare, a classic
Albanian novel by a world renowned
Albanian
author. He gets inside the head of a
man who has killed someone
and must
abide by the code. It is available
through Amazon.com if you can't
find it
elsewhere.
The
community center in Durres will work with these folks as well, providing
a wide
range of social services in an area of Durres called the Kaneta or
"swamp"
because the land used to be a swamp.
The houses built here are all
illegal
and are usually built by the familiy members.
I visited one
yesterday
that was basically a shack built with scraps of plywood, in a
country
where all other houses are built with cement blocks and bricks and
then
stuccoed. There is no running water or
sewage system and in the winter
months,
the swamp returns and attempts to take
back its land as the
so‑called
dirt roads through this area turn to mud.
Even on dry, hard
ground,
our high‑clearance 4‑wheel drive vehicle had a hard time
maneuvering
around the
hills and valleys in the road and had to turn back.
ICMC also
plans to open another community center in another part of Durres
to serve
Kosovars who are staying for the Winter months. We will also
target the
Roma people, who are the bottom rung of society here, and are
often
street people seen most often begging with small children or sending
their children
out alone to beg. They are very well
trained to be as cute
and
pathetic‑looking as possible.
Many of them have the same expression and
body
posture when holding out their hands for money. The children will walk
along side
me, holding and kissing my hand until they get what they want.
The best
response we have come up with is to stop with them at the nearest
fruit
stand and buy them some food. Because
we have heard that the money
they
receive is returned to an adult who may or may not use it for their
benefit. And they target the places where people
spend money for
non‑essential
items like at the ice cream stands.
It’s hard to refuse them.
I usually
buy them an ice cream so that at least they are getting some
calcium in
their diet. Local staff has told me
that infants are wrapped
tightly in
cloth and fed water with a sedative in it that keeps them quiet
all day
while the parent begs, often using the infant as the reason they
need
money. Some of the infants looked so
stiff and still that I wondered
if they
were still alive.
I also
need to do staff performance reviews with all 13 social workers,
interview,
hire and train 6 more social workers. I
hope I can get it all
done! I'm really going to miss the social workers
I supervise. They are a
great
group of people who are very committed to the work they are doing. My
relationship
with them has been excellent. We have
learned so much from
each
other. On the lighter side, I have taught them is to say "Your
welcome". At our afternoon check‑in meeting,
each person tells about what
they
accomplished during the day and asks questions and gets feedback. At
the end of
each persons' report, I always thank each one by saying "Thank
you,
Eriola." And Eriola will say, "Your welcome, David." It has become one
of those
things that makes us all chuckle when we say it. I have even
heard them
say it to one another now. They have
told me that Americans are
so polite
with one another, something that is not so present in Albanian
society.
I have run
out of time for now. Last weekend I
visited Kosova, so my next
entry will
be a description of that experience, so stay tuned.... And stay
well,
every one of you!