Temporary expat life in Saranda

Dear friends and family

I am still in Saranda,in southern Albania. Night before last I had an incident that reminds me of my naïveté with foreign travel.

At about half past midnight, as I lay sound asleep in my bed, I heard a noise in the hallway of my apartment. I woke to see a man in the apartment, who must have gained entrance using a passkey. Instantly, from a sound sleep to full aggressive mode I reacted. I jumped up, let out a VERY loud shout and went to attack him,without any thinking on my part of course. All adrenaline, no thought. He ran fast out of the apartment and down the stairs. I chose not to give chase as I was naked and he was gone.

No way I could sleep after that episode, so I wrote an email to the management company about the incident and waited till morning to send it, as I learned that one should not fire off emails when out of control or extremely upset or angry. 

I did send it off the next morning and like I expected, never heard back. I suspect that this was some sort of “inside job”, but I am not sure the intent. If it was to steal my goods and passport, it would be easy enough to track when I leave the apartment to go exploring during the day and enter then. So, maybe the guy was drunk and got the apartments mixed up.Maybe he expected to surprise his girlfriend and got a two meter tall wild and angry guy instead!

Anyway, now I barricade the door from the inside as there is no interior lock system. With my homemade barricade the door cannot be opened, as it is an inside opening door. I prepaid for the whole two week stay, so I intend to stay for the next four days to use up my prepayment.

You would think that this might sour me on Albania, or even this city of Saranda, but it hasn’t. I still like it here and could see myself staying for an entire winter someday.

Yesterday I went to the EXPATS IN ALBANIA breakfast and met a bunch of people either owning property here, in the process of buying, or exploring these options. It was fun to meet people from all over,mostly of English speaking countries of similar thinking and we explored pluses and minuses of owning or living here. This seems to be the low cost alternative for visitors from the US and UK to Europe to stay for 90 days to once again restart their 90 inside the Shengen countries. It’s called the “Shengen shuffle”.

I was one of the oldest attendees of the breakfast and also the only one who arrived to this city by bicycle. Made me think a bit about age, so came back and did some research to find a Guinness Book of Records record of the oldest person to ride across Europe was a 75 year old woman. Only three years older than me now. I hadn’t considered that I should be too old for this, so will quit researching that sort of thing as it might give me (my subconscious) the wrong impression. And she did a mostly flat route non self-supported. I would not like to try to establish any records as that would entail documentation and going in a straight line and not taking public transportation over an area that is not desirable to ride. I prefer my meandering method, look at a map, do a little research, listen to the locals and then point the bike in that direction and see how it goes. 

One thing I am learning about this riding is to pay more attention to the present and deal with what I can control and leave the parts that I cannot control alone. Maybe all my study of Stoicism combined with the daily routines has helped embed that. Even the way I did this trip, by not planning out any longer than the next day in most cases keeps me more focused on the present. The controllables are my mindset and pacing and bike maintenance, the uncontrollables things like weather, hills and drivers.

I love to sit and observe and when possible discuss what people are thinking about their lives in these different countries.

What drives them?

There is a difference in the countries outside the US in priorities. There appears to be a higher priority on enjoying present time with friends and family and less focus and drive towards more. More money, more stuff. As a guy who has spent a lifetime accumulating stuff and then having to deal with getting rid of it, I sure notice. 

With most living in apartments, at least in or near a city, people socialize outside, strolling the waterfront or stopping for coffee at the hundreds of shops everywhere. Kids are riding their bikes on the walkway, lots of electric scooters scooting by, feral cats looking for attention  and a bunch of dogs with tags in their ears wandering around. I found out last night that the expat couple that runs a local expat bar hangout uses all their tips to pay for spay and neuter programs for street dogs. 

I just saw the latest world happiness index results. The Scandinavian countries came out the highest, the US came in at no 24, and the southern European countries came out even lower. My suspicion is that the income levels are lower in southern Europe and the “perception of corruption” is very high. Albania came in at 89, due to low income levels and high perception of corruption. These are the things that I like to study when in foreign countries and compare to my own. I am not surprised at the low level of the US, and this was taken before the new administration, so I suspect it would be significantly lower now in the US. I guess you could call this quality of life or happiness index, they mean the same to me.

On a busy Sunday afternoon I saw a young boy kicking a soccer ball as his family walked with him and every once in awhile he would run a social experiment and kick it way ahead into the crowd of walkers. Every time he did, someone, often a father with his young kids, dressed in Sunday best clothes, would advance on the ball and ( my story) remember his youthful soccer days and try his best to execute the perfect kick back to the youngster. Was interesting to watch in action and also not see any sign that this was annoying anyone. 

Five times a day I hear the Muslim call to prayer. It is broadcast from loudspeakers from the top of Mosques and can be heard anywhere in the city, including inside my apartment even with music playing. For me, it is a nice reminder that I’m “not in Kansas” anymore as I get more comfortable with the city and my life here. I do not see any change in behaviour of anyone on the street, so either no one is paying attention to the call or they are paying a lot of attention and are ready somewhere they can pray in private. Not sure of which.

Another interesting thing about the country of Albania is that all, as in 100% of the energy is generated from hydropower presently. The country is working on plans to change that. “Whoa”, you might say, why change what other countries are trying to get TO? What they are seeing here is due to climate change the flow from the water sources is drying up with more heat and the long term future of less water and more growth puts this present method at risk. A place I’ve never connected the dots before. They are working on solar and wind power to add to the expected diminishing hydropower. 

Tourism is a big industry here in this seafront city and is the way that locals see the economy growing. Because of this focus tourists are welcomed and not just tolerated. I’ve heard from locals that this is also why there is such low crime here as anything that could mess up the future of tourism here, like a reputation for crime, is not at all tolerated and would be treated harshly. I do wonder what that might mean. I see single women and children out alone late at night and it feels safe. (As long as your door is locked 🙂

I like to wonder the streets and see what is for sale in the stores. Often, on sidewalks at the edge of town I see tents and portable stands of people selling farm products and also a lot of used clothing and then the “new” clothing, with labels like Nike and Adidas. Both the retail stores and the portable sellers seem to have a lot of brand name products that seem to be “knock-offs” based on the quality and the labeling. A lot of stores that don’t seem to be the kind of stores you might expect to have the Hermes and Gucci type products, but openly being sold. I guess there is not much enforcement on this here. 

I’m enjoying the slow pace of my recovery ( lazy?) time here. Might be time for another latte. I’ve got my 200 leke (about $2) ready. 

Sending love,

Charley