Elder Vondra

Did you know there is no "W" in the Albanian alphabet? So when we sent out a notice to some Albanian members that Elder Wondra wanted to meet them, we used a "V" which is how his name is pronounced anyway. He's from Vienna and is the Area Seventy assigned to work with Albania. We had very busy weekend of meetings but managed to squeeze in a couple of big lunches at nice restaurants and some American breakfasts that he said he and his wife like very much.

When visitors come, we always serve them an American-style fruit/yogurt smoothie with breakfast. When Elder Kopischke was visiting last October, he called the smoothies "brilliant--to quote the British!" Elder Wondra sent us a thank you email this morning and said, "according these two juices, I will follow the 13th Article of Faith." There is obviously a need for Jamba Juice in European countries!

Dita e Veres

March 14, Dita e Veres or Day of Summer. We understand that THE place to spend this day is in Elbasan which is famous for it's celebration. It was sunny, and thousands of people were out in Tirana enjoying the sunshine, playing in the park, sliding down the pyramid (click on the picture to see it better), and eating Ballokume, a traditional, large corn flour cookie made just for this celebration. We celebrated by going to Rudi's, simply the best ice cream place in Tirana! Rudi knows Marty's order well: two chocolate, two hazlenut (these are also the world's smallest scoops!). 80 leke--about 80 cents.

Safe House on the Lana

This east/west boulevard and river cutting through the center of Tirana is referred to as the Lana. In the summertime it can be an odorous place due to garbage and dumping of raw sewage into the river, but the mayor, Edi Rama, is trying to clean up the area. Five or six years ago, the area was a jungle of illegal, hastily built apartments and buildings. The mayor ordered the illegal buildings demolished and a green area to be developed along the river. One building that was left intact is shown here (to the left with the billboard). It is a safe house for some families involved in a blood feud. Unfortunately, there still are left in Albania several hundred feuds taken on mostly by people in the north of Albania who followed the code of the Kanun. The boys and men of these families never leave their homes because they can be killed outside of their safe house. The women and girls leave to work and get food for those inside. The young boys are unable to go to school. There are government agencies working with these families attempting to eliminate the code, but as evidenced by this unfortunate landmark, they have not been very successful. The feud ends when all male members of both families have died.

We recommend the book "Broken April" by Albanian author Ismail Kadare for an interesting read about blood feuds, or this short article in the Washington Post in 2007.

Two Humanitarian Aid Projects

Monday, March 2, we visited a preschool for Roma (gypsy) children. This is a picture of RuthLynne Snow, who is almost overwhelmed by children as they rush in to see their pictures on her digital camera. The Snow's, our Humanitarian Aid missionaries, arranged to have tables, chairs, teacher tables and cupboards, blackboards, balls, toys, and a stove and refrigerator donated to the school from our church. The chairs and tables were built by Roma people who donated their time. The teachers waited until Marty came so he could plug in the stove and refrigerator. Ilir, one of the directors at the school is a Roma who grew up on the streets of Tirana begging. A Christian organization taught him Albanian and English, gave him discipline and an education, and helped him lift himself into a better life. Now he gives back by helping with this little school. He told us that we do not help his ethnic group when we give money to them when they beg on the streets. (We've told our missionaries that they should not give, as they'll get followed home and pestered for more. Wearing a missionary tag makes you pretty identifiable.) When the little children, dirty, ragged, hungry, and wearing shoes five times their size come up to your car window with their big, beautiful brown eyes, it breaks your heart and it's difficult not to give. This preschool takes 50 children off the streets, cleans them up, teaches them the Albanian language so they can get into public schools (the Roma have their own language), and feeds them two good meals a day. The Roma are discriminated against so the odds against them getting into school and staying are very low.

Last month Marty went with the Snow's to Vlora, our southern-most city where we have missionaries. He was there for the installation of blood analyzer machines in the major hospital there. This hospital serves an area of 200,000 people and did not even have a blood analyzer, so this was a most welcome donation.

By the way, if you click on a word in a blog post that is underlined, you will be directed to a new link with more information about that subject--if you're interested. This article on the Roma is fascinating. We have thousands living in the southern United States.

"YMCA?" Not!

This is not a picture of me trying to sing and dance "YMCA"! Unfortunately, I have developed frozen shoulder syndrome, and this is as far as I can lift my left arm as compared to my right arm. I've had a lot of pain and lack of range of motion the last month, and after seeing the "best orthopedic man" in Albania, and consulting with our mission doctor in Germany and an orthopedist in Salt Lake City, they've decided this is what I've got. This is one of the diagnostic pictures I sent Dr. Larson in Salt Lake. I hope to work through this with stretching exercises three times a day, heat packs preceding, and ice packs afterward. Should take three or more months to work it out. I hope to be able to do this on my own without having to go home for surgery. Cortisone shots in Albania are not an option, and there is no such thing as arthroscopic surgery here. Medical care in Albania is many years behind the U.S.--one of the legacies of a mad communist dictator who closed off his country from the rest of the world so his people wouldn't know how bad their lives were.

Macaroni and Cheese

Yesterday for Mission Council lunch I made two big casserole dishes of macaroni and cheese with REAL Cheddar--a rare find here in Tirana. The EuroMax Supermarket had several big 3 kilo blocks of cheddar, so we bought a whole block. Mac and cheese for lunch yesterday, taco salad with real cheddar for zone conference next week. Little pleasures for our hard-working missionaries.

It All Depends on What "Crisis" Means

I picked up these two English language newspapers on the same day. Guess which one is friendly toward Prime Minister Berisha's government?