additional (and sidetracked) thoughts!

I've been thinking... it's easy to say this or that about a culture and a people like said in the blog below- but goodness me - I know so little and only have a tiny tip of the iceberg idea of how things are. Just wanted to say that. Also - I need to add something else I have noticed about the Albanian people - they have such a humanity and want to help in anyway possible when approached. If they can't help they will search out someone who can. It's almost like a deep set ideology - because it's the natural response of almost everyone.

I love looking out at people here from the Landrover, because then I can look freely - the people live in humble and interesting surroundings - there is plenty plenty life to the way they are - and little privacy. (One example of little privacy is that buildings are close together. When I looked out at the apartments, bricks, stalls all interacted with each other, from my bathroom window this morning when it was still dark and there was a flickering light post - it all looked like a set from the "West Side Story"! Expected music and dance and gangs at any moment!) There are always many people out and about. Buses are packed like sardine tins. Outside there is lots of noise and voices and car horns tooting! People walking or zipping in and out on mopeds, bikes, cars, tractors, three wheels little trucks, donkey or horse and cart. I love getting out on my bike and facing the adventerous roads - gives me a sense of life, freedom and danger!! I really like it! I have to keep my eyes on the road ahead, and the side and behind cause any form of transport will come out from any angle at anytime! I keep my eyes on the road at the same time to meander around the pot holes and puddles and rocks! Sometimes its more like riding over the tops of the ocean waves!

And my other final thought to what I wrote yesterday is that though there are problems with the way women can be treated here - there are bound to be loving relationships between men and women - the men are husbands, fathers, gradfathers, uncles, brothers, friends. I don't understand all the ways - but there must be love and goodness in the culture of life here, even though women are made to work very very hard, men work hard too. When I was looking out this morning on a journey down from Shkodra to Tirana, I saw all the men - driving cars, working on building sights, in shops, cafes, walking out and about, smoking (so many smoke) calling out, meeting one another... I kept thinking different songs - like "this is a mans world, but it would be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl..." and the Johnny Cash song "Six foot six, he stood on the ground - weighed two hundered and forty five pounds - but I saw that giant of a man brought down - by a thing called love!" I'm still looking forward to knowing this place well and its people, that's my prayer - I don't want people here to be a mystery to me - only looked at through car and house windows. I want to be in the midst of the life I see - even though I'm a girl. And how good it will be to get to know the lives of the women and girls of this country. Wow - there is so much to learn. I know it's gonna change my life.