Shopping in Tirana

Shopping for a big meal is not a quick trip to the store or to Costco, like it is back home, so I start planning and shopping two or more weeks ahead. Often my menu is based on what I can find in the markets. Here's what happened last week:

We plan a half-day shopping trip and head out of town toward the QTU shopping center. Down the rruga Durrësit we stop at the German Store where parking can be difficult to find, but we luck into a really good space around the block. The German Store is a popular place for expats. We hope to find cheddar cheese, which is unavailable elsewhere, and the very excellent Mövenpick raspberry jam, of which Marty insists we keep an ample supply. They have the cheese (yeay!) and buy three half-kilo blocks (17.6 ounces) for $12 each. I'll grate and freeze it for zone conference. To stretch it, I'll mix it with shredded gouda. The German Store also carries flour tortillas, six to a package, and I pick up five packages. Sometimes they have Marshmallows for $4.50 a bag, but that's a bit too pricey for me.

I decide to have chicken wraps for Mission Council lunch, and Taco Salad for Zone Conferences.

We drive out to the large EuroMax at the QTU mall outside of Tirana, where I can get large bags of German-made tortilla chips, and purchase several bags for the Taco Salad. I can also get canned kidney beans there. I also buy large vacuum packed packages of roasted peanuts and dried, diced pineapple to make trail mix as part of a mid-morning snack for Mission Council. However, the large bags of M & M's I like for the trail mix are only available only at the Conad stores. I notice that Schmand (sour cream) is stocked again at the EuroMax after being gone from the shelves for a month or two. We've learned that if you see something you like on the shelves, you'd better purchase more than you need, because it may not be there the next time you're shopping. Sometimes the EuroMax has evaporated milk, and other times it does not.

As long as we're out past the city, we continue to drive out the highway to the new City Park Mall. There is a Mercator Hypermarket (comparable to a small WalMart Supermart) at the mall which I like to check for new items. This day we find freshly packaged, shredded carrots which will be good for the chicken wraps. It is the only place we can find "soft" toothbrushes, also. The Mercator has packaged powdered sugar, but it's still not as finely powdered as in the states.

At the City Park is a Rossman & Lala (German) sundries store which carries small boxes of Oreo Cookies, a treat for us. We rarely buy Oreo's back home, but when we see an item common to the States that is generally unavailable here, it seems much more tempting. They also have Palmolive dish detergent. There is an ice-skating rink at CityPark and it's fun to sit, have a hot chocolate (cacao), and watch the skaters.

We head on back into town and are fortunate to find a parking spot in the pay lot next to the Conad store on the Lana (river). This is where I can get the best meat, so I purchase several pounds of ground beef. Food prices have skyrocketed in the past few months--the ground beef is almost $2.00 more per kilo. I also pick up four packages of sliced chicken breasts for the wraps for Mission Council lunch, and sliced Gouda cheese. I also find nice Iceberg head lettuce and bell peppers, which we rarely see. I forget that I need to bag the cellophane-wrapped lettuce, weigh and tag it, so the checker has to call someone to run back and weigh it for me.

Conad is the only store that carries small jars of Skippy Peanut Butter, Rice Krispies (for that rare time I had marshmallows and could make Rice Krispie treats for the missionaries), whole grain bread, hamburger buns, Ritz Crackers, Kikkoman Soy Sauce, frozen diced onions, and our favorite Müller yoghurt.

In December, the Conad had dried black-eyed peas and the German store had bottled pickled beets, so Marty was able to have his traditional New Year's Day dinner. I used "instant" polenta to make corn bread.

The freshest produce is not in the supermarkets, but at the many stands around town. Sometimes produce is simply sold on overturned crates along the streets. The produce stands (treg) at the end of our street cater to the poorer population that lives in our area of town and the fruits and vegetables are often old, or not as high quality as I can find elsewhere. If I want really nice produce, I go to the "Italian" produce stand on the Myslym Shyri road, so if Marty is heading down to the chapel near there for a meeting, I'll go along so I can shop there or at other stands along the street. Parking is really difficult in that area of town.

Bananas, a favorite fruit since it was unavailable during the communist era, are sold all over town, sometimes on overturned cardboard boxes along the street.

If I need powdered milk, I need to go to a bulk store. It's a very small shop that has staples like flour, oatmeal, and nuts of many varieties in large bags and boxes and you can purchase however much you like. There are three that I shop, as one may have something that another doesn't. Last week, I found bagged dark brown sugar at the bulk store on the Rruga Elbasanit, and sometimes they have small pecans. The bulk store on the Unazë (Ring Road) has the dried milk I need for bread and rolls, and cheap paper tableclothes. Another bulk store has corn tortilla chips and taco sauce. Now, if only someone started selling fresh corn tortillas!

The Mission Council lunch was today, and the chicken/vegetable wraps were a big hit.

Two box-style stores have opened in Albania. The German company Praktiker has opened a large store in Kamez, a suburb of Tirana, and out of town on the main highway, at the turnoff to the airport, there is a new MegaTek. Both are do-it-yourself Home Depot-style stores, but they also carry furniture and decorative items. It is so nice to be able to purchase things for our apt. in one place, where previously we would have had to shop several different stores.

A curiosity here is that similar kinds of shops will be close together along one road--all selling the same items, and for the same prices. At the produce treg at the corner, there are several vendors under one big awning, but it is not considered polite to try to undercut your neighbor. You can only sell for a different price if your fruits are larger. Prescriptions and even many over-the-counter drugs like aspirin have to be purchased in a small pharmacy where a prescription is not required for antibiotics or other strong drugs. The Rossman & Lala store offers many of the personal hygiene items that our Long's Drug Store in California sells, but cannot sell any form of medical ointment, pain reliever, or other drugs.

There are thousands of small clothing shops in Tirana, and they have a tough time making it. We walk down the street, and notice that overnight a store has disappeared or changed.

Everywhere we see efforts at modernization, but are reminded by the farmer driving his donkey cart down the freeway, that Albania has a lot of catching up to do.

Humanitarian Aid for Shkodër

We had unseasonably warm weather at the end of December and first weeks of January, lots of rainfall, and unusually high tides. Those three things precipitated an early snowmelt, the necessary release of huge amounts of water from dams, and vast flooding in the delta areas surrounding the city of Shkodër. Many farm villages had to be evacuated, the national highway was under water in low places, and only vehicles with high clearance could get through to the city. Our four missionaries in Shkodër were safe on high ground, but as a precaution we asked them to purchase a few days of food and water, and make an evacuation plan if necessary. We gave them permission to watch the news in cafes or on the internet to check on the danger. They said that city life seemed normal and they saw no signs of all the emergency activity to the south.

Our Humanitarian Aid couple, Elder and Sister Snow, arranged for the Church to donate 19 tons of food worth $20,000 to the Albanian division of the Red Cross. The flooding has ruined farmland, killed animals, and damaged homes. The water in some of the low-lying places may take months to fully recede. The Red Cross wishes to supply food for 2200 people for six months, but so far has received donations for only about three months of aid. They were extremely grateful for the church's generous donation.


Today we took 10 of our Tirana missionaries to a factory to load a truck with bags of flour and pasta. It turned out that they were not needed to load the truck, but we were treated to a tour of their modern facility and watched macaroni being processed and packaged. The Red Cross warehouse was just outside of the main part of town, so we drove there and waited for the truck to arrive. On the way, some police stopped the truck and demanded the tax registration papers, which Elder Snow had not sent with the truck. The drivers were able to talk the police into letting them go, and the truck finally arrived at the warehouse where we had been waiting for an hour. The missionaries unloaded one truckload of 50 kilo bags of flour and boxes of pasta. Then the truck had to return to the city to pick up oil, sugar, beans, and rice.

The food suppliers wanted to be paid in cash so the office elders took the church's $20,000 check to the bank to exchange. The bank gave them the entire amount in 500 lek bills which are approximately equivalent to our $5.00 bills! Apparently the elders should have gone to the main office instead of a branch. So Elder Snow had to count out the payments with all those small bills!

When the second truck arrived, it didn't include the rice, so after unloading the beans, sugar, and oil, six of the missionaries returned home with us to be able to meet their lesson appointments, and we left the office elders and assistants behind to wait for the last truckload. It was a much longer day than we had anticipated, but everyone was pleased to be a part of this wonderful humanitarian effort.




This is Elder Snow and Marty with Artur Katuçi, Secretary of the Albanian Red Cross. At a later time we will go to his office in Tirana for a formal meeting and official pictures with some Albanian political figures.

In other news, we had lunch Monday with David Colton, Birkena Kasmi and her husband Admir. Birkena is with the Albanian Justice Dept. and is working on the religious freedom legislation that we hope will make us a "religion" instead of the "cult" as we are now classified. Admir is personal legal counsel to Prime Minister Berisha. Also attending was Rasim Hasanaj, Minister of the Cult Committee. We discussed the pending legislation and how it might affect religion in the country. The legislators are wrestling with the definition of religion, so it has been delayed for many months. All three of these people were in Provo this last October to attend the BYU International Law and Religion Symposium. Birkena and Admir were personally hosted by David Colton and his wife, so they were happy to meet again. David is working on a name change for us. Since being in the country, the church has been registered as Fondacioni Liahona (Liahona Foundation), but soon we will be listed officially as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!

Also, and sadly, we said a premature goodbye to Elder Daniel Turley who received a medical release and went home to Utah on Jan. 20 to see doctors and be treated for back problems and a hernia. He was a wonderful missionary and streamlined our office procedures when he served in the mission office for six months. We shall miss him but know he will be a blessing to the church wherever he serves.

It's a New Year!

I imagine other cities around the world have amazing fireworks for the new year, but Tirana is one amazing city for grass roots pyrotechnics displays! Everyone seems to get in the act, firing off hand-held rockets from balconies, rooftops, and streets. The display warmed up for several hours before midnight, and so the missionaries had to be safe in their apt. at dark, which is before 4 PM. We invited the office elders, who live in the apt. upstairs from us, to join us for snacks and Wii games leading up to the display, and then Marty and the two elders climbed a ladder into the attic, and out an opening onto the roof. I stayed below, racing between two different apartments to catch different views. The big display went on for 20-30 minutes, and then gradually faded away over the next couple of hours. Firecrackers continued through the night interrupting our sleep. For several nights afterwards there were small displays, probably from firework markdowns. Marty caught these pictures using a tripod and timed exposures. They're pretty, but hardly come close to accurately portraying the chaotic, cacophonous spectacle!
As we are a small mission of only 40 missionaries, we have "BIG" transfers every three months, rather than every six weeks as most missions have. That means we lose missionaries who have served 18 months or 2 years, and, usually the same day, welcome in a new group. The departing missionaries come into the mission home on a Tuesday to have interviews with Marty, a testimony meeting in our apt., an open house where members are invited to come say their goodbyes, and finally, dinner and bed for a short rest. We get up at 2 AM in order to load the vans with all the luggage and get to the airport by 3 AM. Planes leave at 5 AM for various destinations. This year we had one elder leaving for Hong Kong where his parents are currently living, and a sister depart to her home in England, so we made three trips to the airport that day. Whew!

Pictured below are the four wonderful sisters who left us after serving for 18 months, 15 actually in Albania. They spent almost 3 months in the MTC learning the language. L. to R.: Joy Kennedy (England), Rachael Seaman, Melissa Waldron, Melissa Boyer, USA.
The group of departing missionaries, absent Elders Hamilton and Kushlan, who left at the end of Dec., and whose pictures are in my last entry, L. to R. below: John Anderl, Patrick Jones, Joy Kennedy, Melissa Waldron, Rachael Seaman, Melissa Boyer, Ian Esplin, Paul Garn, and Ty Bullough. This group was one of our larger groups. We have had groups as small as two missionaries. Balancing young people through all the missions of the world must be a daunting task!
The arriving missionaries usually pass the departing ones in the Vienna airport, which is fun for both groups, but this year the arriving missionaries' itinerary was changed to one day later, so we welcomed them on Thursday. That gave me a chance to catch up with the laundry a bit, and prepare for Thursday and Friday meals. We have a small mission home (apt.), so we put the elders to bed in the office downstairs, on foam pads, and the sisters either in our apt. on the floor and one guest bed, or in the vacant couples' apt. upstairs. I supply clean sheets, pillows, towels, etc. for them, and for lack of laundromats in Tirana, end up doing all that washing myself. I've finally gotten smart, and through their instructor at the MTC, advise the incoming missionaries to pack their clean sheets on the top in their luggage, so they use their own bedding, and I just supply each a clean towel. Even so, between the nine departing and eight incoming's linens, that's a lot of laundry!
Here are our jet-lagged, but ready and willing, new missionaries, l to r: John Riley Smith, Ryan Wallentine, Kelsey Hall, James Moyes, Stephanie Peatross, Adam Castro-Guzman (from France), Katherine Yourstone, and Joshua Anderson. They are standing in front of the Monument to the Martyrs in a park that overlooks Tirana. We take them here on their first morning in the country because this is the spot where, in 1993, Elder Dallin H. Oaks dedicated Albania for the preaching of the gospel. After a prayer, hymn, and reading of the dedicatory prayer, we give them a chance to go off alone and ponder their upcoming mission and consecrate their time to help bring to pass the blessings promised in the prayer. We will return here with them at the end of their mission.

We have just passed the halfway point of our three-year mission and celebrated by having dinner at the Rogner Hotel.

Fast December Fades Away...

In late November we took a day off and, with Susan and R.Q. Shupe, visited Apollonia, an ancient seaside city founded by the Greeks in 588 BC and later inhabited and built up by the Romans after the city sided with Julius Caesar in the war with Pompey. It was once a thriving city of 50,000 inhabitants, but an earthquake in the 3rd Century AD rerouted a river and led to the city's decline. The dog in the picture adopted us at the entry point and followed us throughout the extensive ruins, keeping a respectable distance, but seeming to be there to keep an eye on us or protect us.

The large bunker that we saw on the drive is not so ancient, but unfortunately was built to last. We liked the graffiti on the bunker.

My camera ran out of battery so I did not get pictures, but we also visited the large amphitheater in Durrës, which is the largest ancient amphitheater in the Balkans. It is said to have seated up to 20,000 people and was used for gladiator combat. It is only one third excavated, and there are houses built over part of it. Sadly, there are many ruins in Albania that, for lack of interest or money, have not been excavated and are disintegrating beyond repair. Many that have been partially excavated are unavailable for visiting (mosaics covered over with sand, for example) or are not preserved. Many have been looted or razed for development. The communist dictator Hoxha had no interest in preserving historical sites and, in fact, destroyed many beautiful places of interest. Fortunately, the southern city of Butrint was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has been excavated and is a fascinating place to visit.

One of our December activities was caroling in the Qendër (Center) of Tirana with all the Tirana missionaries and a few members. It was very cold and a light rain threatened and eventually shut us down, but we were able to sing for 35 minutes. This year Lindita Grimci arranged for us to be "legal"--she obtained permission from the city for us to sing (last year we just met and sang)--and arranged for amplification so we could be heard above the traffic and the mosque's call to prayer. Later while downloading the pictures from our camera, I noticed the ironic juxtaposition of our missionaries singing songs of the birth of Christ under a huge communist-era mural. The light, once restrained, is now shining on this wonderful country!

A huge City Park Mall has opened a few miles outside of Tirana, bringing new shopping possibilities for us. It's very fancy for Albania--and for us! Marty likes the Food Court with an AFC--Albania Fried Chicken--patterned very much after our KFC in the U.S., but not nearly as tasty.
Cookies. I made a LOT of cutout cookies in December. I made five large batches of dough, and Sister Shupe and I rolled, cut, and baked 75 cookie trees and stars for the Young Adult Christmas Party. The youth had never frosted and decorated sugar cookies, and they really enjoyed it--especially the eating part. We decorated the trees with M&M's, which are available here (made in Turkey).

I joined TWIG (Tirana Women's International Group), a group of expat women who get together for companionship and cultural events. Every year TWIG hosts a holiday bazaar in the shopping court of the Sheraton to raise funds for activities and to benefit an orphanage. I attended a few craft mornings with some women from the group to help make items for the bazaar and have enjoyed getting to know women from several different countries who are all here with their husbands who are working for their various embassies, or as consultants for the military or businesses. I baked and decorated four dozen gingerbread men and women with candy canes, and three dozen sugar cookie Christmas trees and put each cookie in it's own cellophane bag. I also donated three of my Christmas ornament creche balls that I made just for the event. I did not stay for the bazaar as it was on a Sunday, but I was told later that the cookies were a huge hit, sold out early, and people kept coming back to the baked goods table looking for them. They sold each cookie for a little more than $2.00 each (200 Leke)! By the way, the molasses for the gingerbread cookies was sent to me by my sister Nancy. She emptied out a large plastic Karo Syrup bottle, refilled it with molasses, taped it up really well, and sealed it in vacuum seal bag. It arrived without spilling a drop, and believe me, is much prized!

Elder Kushlan left us on Dec. 20, as he needed to get home to attend university in early January. He was scheduled to finish his mission Jan. 6 and didn't want to leave quite this early, but it was the only day a flight was available for him. This IS Albania, after all. There are not many flights in or out of the country.

Christmas Day we hosted 12 missionaries from Tirana in our apt. for feasting, carol singing, and exchanging of white elephant gifts. The three other LDS missionary couples hosted missionaries, and in some outlying cities, the missionaries got together and created their own feast. Pictured above are six of the missionaries singing their version of the "12 Days of Christmas" Albanian style. The Bairds, LDS family at the U.S. Embassy, gave us a frozen honey ham and it was soooo delicious with au gratin potatoes, orange rolls, peas, fresh pineapple and mandarin salad, with mint brownies for dessert. We had a great time. One of our white elephant gifts was a "missionary banana".

Edi Leaves for the London Mission!

When we first met Edi Çyçi (pronounced Choochi), we thought he had spent much of his life in America because his English is so good, hardly without accent, and his speech is sprinkled with American idioms. He said he learned it from television and movies. So it was fitting that he has been called to an English-speaking mission, the London Mission, and he left on Saturday, November 28 to go into the Preston MTC. We're excited for Edi and know that with his firm testimony of the gospel and love of our missionaries, whom he loves to be with, that he will be an excellent missionary himself. His mother joined the Church this year, and we're hoping that maybe Edi's mission will soften his father and brother's hearts.

We're Thankful

Since our mission is small we decided to bring everyone in for a Thanksgiving feast and afternoon movie. After debating back and forth whether to ask the Shanghai Chinese restaurant if they would provide a meal for us at their restaurant, I decided that maybe I could make dinner for 52 people. Was I nuts?!

I assigned the Tirana sisters to come up with table coverings and decorations, and invited the missionaries to provide the desserts.

The Assistants and Marty spent half a day on Wednesday in the cold, musty basement, sweeping, mopping, removing junk, stacking the huge stash of chairs we have down there, and setting up tables and chairs. I scrubbed a decade of grime off the plastic chairs and Marty cleaned the dirty basement kitchen by himself, even cleaning out the refrigerator. The basement was transformed, especially after the Tirana sisters came in with their clever decorations. I made place cards and told the missionaries that if they messed with them they wouldn't get dinner. (This was a trick to intersperse the newer missionaries among the older ones. The missionaries naturally gravitate to their MTC groups, and I wanted to "mix it up" a bit.)

I cooked six 12-lb. Butterball turkeys that the Bairds were able to buy for us through the U.S. Embassy, and one 6 1/2 lb. half turkey breast we found at the Conad Supermarket. I made tons of gravy, six batches of Parkerhouse and orange rolls, and got help on the last day from the Snow's, our Humanitarian Aid couple in Vlore, who whipped up all the potatoes (office elders and Assistants peeled), and helped me make the dressing. I put together a large fruit cocktail/fresh mandarin orange/banana/mini-marshmallows (sent by my daughter Emily)/and whipped cream salad that was devoured as the first course. Knowing that I had limited oven and stove space, the rolls, gravy, and most of the turkey were cooked ahead and frozen for thawing and reheating the day of the dinner. Getting it all together and hot at the same time was a trick. The green beans didn't heat up in time and had to be served along with the second round. There was enough food for seconds, and we had the equivalent of two turkeys left over! With all those side dishes, I guess we didn't need so much meat. Remind me never to go into the catering business.

Elder Turley and Mugleston's huge Apple Pie (they peeled 28 apples), one of many desserts provided by the missionaries. We had mixed decor as the 1st Branch had already started putting up their Christmas decorations.
Motra Kennedy, a happy Brit likes our Thanksgiving tradition! Also at her table (round to the left) are Sister Korita, Elder Allen, The Shupe's, (Institute/Outreach couple), and Elder Hixson.
The Tirana sisters decorated the tables with flowers, Thanksgiving-themed crayon artwork, small Thanksgiving cutouts to scatter on the tables, and candy. L. to R., Sister Boyer, Sister Bentley, Sister Larson, and our Albanian mini-missionary, Sister Korita, who is serving for twelve weeks until January when we get a new sister and will have even numbers again.
Gravy for a crowd! I think it was at least two gallons and was yummy, if I don't say so myself. My Kitchen Aid Mixer has gotten a good workout on our mission. Hope it holds out another year and a half.

After dinner we came up to the first floor where we had set up a theater using my computer, a multi-media projector, and some good speakers, and watched "UP" which all but the newest missionaries had not seen. The missionaries loved it! Afterward, they had seconds of dessert and went on their way happy and thankful for one another, for their missions, and for a little diversion from their long days of hard work.

Elbasan Open House

Saturday was the open house for the new Elbasan chapel. The people of that branch really did a nice job of cleaning and setting up classrooms to demonstrate the different aspects of the Church. Lindita Grimci, our Public Relations Specialist, helped to organize the event with support from our office elders. I brought flowers for various rooms in the building, and also the refreshments. Sister Grimci arranged for Marty to have a meeting with President Topi of Albania to extend an invitation to him, and he promised to send some of his deputies. Instead he sent some counselors, which we were told is a much higher position than a deputy. Since Elbasan is over an hour from Tirana over a winding mountain road, we felt very honored to have not only President Topi's representatives, but several other government officials from Elbasan and Tirana. There were two media representatives taking video for the evening news. The Director of the Committee on Cults from the Ministry of Culture of Albania, Mr. Rasim Hasanaj, came to the open house as well. He has become friends with Elder D. Todd Christofferson, whom he met during the apostle's visit to Albania in June. Mr. Hasanaj was invited to attend the BYU International Law and Religion Symposium that was held at the beginning of this month in Provo, Utah, and met again with Elder Christofferson for lunch. We would like to have the Church recognized as a religion instead of a cult. Currently there are only four recognized religions--two sects of Muslims, the Orthodox Church, and the Roman Catholic Church--so this interest in our church is very welcome.

In addition to the special invited guests, we welcomed several visitors from the community, including a large number of children and young people. There were so many young boys and girls, that the missionaries had to let them into the building in small groups to usher them through the different exhibits. We hope some seeds were planted in their hearts that will produce fruit in later years.

Center: Mr. Rasim Hasanaj, Director of the Committee on Cults in the Ministry of Culture, and another visitor from the Ministry is next to Marty on the end. Agim Grimci, a member from Tirana is on the left.

Some of the members of the Elbasan Branch, along with missionaries who worked on the event.

President Topi's Counselor listening to a presentation by Sister Xhaferaj on the Church's programs for families.

One of our Albanian missionaries, Elder Celaj, is telling some of the young visitors about the Book of Mormon.

When the day was done, Marty and some other men retreated to the basketball court out back for a quick pick-up game. Apparently, the old guys won.