Tirana!

Having seen North Macedonia in two relaxed weeks, I felt that I have more time left than I really need in the Balkans, so after a relaxed week in Tirana, when the hostel owner asked if I’d like to volunteer for a few weeks/months in return for a free bed plus €5 per day subsistence money, I agreed.  The hostel is quite chaotic (on my first full day here, when unfortunately I had gone out exploring so missed the drama, the police came and asked to check everyone’s ID; one guest said he had to go up to his room to get his – and he didn’t come back down.  When the police went up to investigate, they realised he must have jumped off the roof terrace onto an adjoining property and escaped … we found out later the guy was wanted by Interpol!!), sometimes noisy at night, dirty, etc, but owned and managed by a very nice Egyptian guy who I felt comfortable with.  At first it wasn’t that much work – stripping beds when people checked out, putting dirty laundry through the washing machine and remaking the beds, also cleaning, emptying bins, putting out new loo rolls, etc, when I saw the need.  & sometimes just ‘being there’ in the common area where the reception desk was, so as to summon the owner from one of his other properties when someone arrived to check in.  There was another volunteer, a heavy drinking and smoking Australian lady who really did no work, but she showed me the ropes and was fun to chat to when the work was done.  Then she left, but some of the hostel guests were quite interesting to chat to – people from Chile, Uruguay, Luxembourg, China, Mauritania, etc.  A very mixed crowd.  A number of the guests, however – and the one part-time staff member – were Egyptians looking for work, who were long-term hostel residents.  They were loud, and argumentative, and one night, at around 3am, an argument started, which got louder and louder and seemed to go on for about an hour.  As a result of this the part-time staff member was told to leave … and my hours got much longer.  Thankfully by this time a departing couple had left me their bag full of pasta, pasta sauce, rice, beans, and peppermint teabags, so I only needed to pop out shopping occasionally to a nearby fruit stall.

I did have evenings free, however, and although I don’t usually go out much in the evenings when I travel, this hostel was very well located for night life, and there is a lot of that in Tirana!  First I saw a free classical concert performed in the park by people in traditional costumes, then a free classical concert in a theatre (supposed to be invitation-only, but as they forgot to specify that in the advert, they let me and a few others in to sit in the back row!), then a two-hour performance of traditional music and dance in the National Theatre of Opera, Ballet and Folk – which cost only €5 – and finally another €5 performance, Çel Ensemble performing Lullabies of Nature in a theatre beneath one of the city’s cathedrals!

During the week before I started volunteering I had seen the (not-too-many) ‘sights’ in Tirana – the central square, the Enver Hoxha Pyramid, the Et’Hem Bey Mosque, and the bunker museums setting out what went on under the communist regime run by Hoxha – his increasing paranoia and all the restrictions that resulted from that.  Really interesting, and so very strange ... what on earth made him think that 'hippie tourists' were a threat??

I also took a day trip to Spaç Prison - set up in 1968 for both regular prisoners and opponents of the communist regime.  It's in a poor state now, with metal poles holding up the ceilings of the rooms where the inmates slept, and unfortunately the next-door copper and pyrite mine where the inmates were forced to work (prisoners working in pairs to fill and push seven wagons per shift of ore weighing 3,600kg each) is now privately run and so cannot be visited.  The prison is in a beautiful part of the country but is still a sobering place to visit.  Especially when I mentioned it to one of the Albanian guests at the hostel who replied that he knew about it as his uncle spent several years there, and although only imprisoned for the theft of a horse, he was still forced to work in the mine!