Dispatch from Albania # 3 Nov. 18, 1999

[Learned that the IRC has helped people not only in Germany and Hungary, but in France, Indochina, Cuba, Africa, China, behind the Iron Curtain, Bangladesh, Chile, Afghanistan, Palestine, Central America, Poland, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Yugoslavia, Russia.]

Today the driver took Kathy and me an hour away to Durres on the Adriatic Sea. It is the port where many stolen top-of-the-line Mercedeses land after having lost their rightful Italian owners! They are auctioned off right there at the dock. More later on the Mafia.

We photographed places the International Rescue Committee is helping in some way, usually with money:
· A community center under repair that will teach refugees skills, including the computer. Brand names I recognized in the computer room and am sure were contributed were Compaq, IBM, H-P, and Texas Instruments. No children’s library where they told us the most popular book is Michael Jackson’s biography
· A school for the handicapped, actually an orphanage where mentally or physically or emotionally handicapped children have been abandoned
· A public school where it was a relief to see normal young bodies with alert eyes---and even hear some giggling.
· Children playing outside their school on top of a dome-shaped bunker about 5 ft. in diameter. You see these everywhere in this town and in the fields. They were built of cement during (must find out details)...
· A gym that is being repaired and painted.
· A refugee camp built by the Belgians: Photographed a beautiful family inside their small newly-made wooden cabin; doing their laundry outside at the communal tub area; and tending their bathroom needs in another small, non-co-ed building. Heaters are in every building, but I can’t imagine how cold walking to the cafeteria or the john will be in about a month. At least they aren’t in tents.
· Another refugee dorm sponsored by the United Nations: Photographed a mother and her six children in one room; a gypsy family in a room across the hall with their 3 children under 3 yr.; and 3 Italian men who were spending one night on their way back to Kosovo. Each group has a rather large room where they sleep on cots, cook their own meals on small burners, and store their meager belongings against a wall. I wondered what else is in their bundles other than clothes. Blankets? Food? Utensils? Pictures? Mementos?

Throughout the day noticed at sidewalk stands quite a few live turkeys. Asked why and our driver said for New Year’s Day. My favorite sighting was a man biking through the middle of traffic, holding 2 frantically flapping turkeys by their feet, one turkey in each hand under each handlebar. Would have made a good picture. Missed it. I see why good photojournalists keep their cameras around their necks every minute and are able to be quite bossy with a driver, yelling, "Stop!" Maybe I’ll learn.

Report: Have electricity at our place most of the time but heat is non-existent.

Returned at dark to Kathy’s apt. after a hard, heavy day.


Love,
Carolyn

Weep-of-the-Day: handicapped and abandoned children
Smile-of-the-Day: man biking merrily through the potholes with his turkeys

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