Barrios Unidos

The new Group of the Month for August is Barrios Unidos.

From their website: "The California Coalition of Barrios Unidos began as a community based peace movement in the violent streets of urban California in 1977. Incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1993, the national office of Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos established the mission to prevent and curtail violence amongst youth within Santa Cruz County by providing them with life enhancing alternatives. Over the past twenty-five years Barrios Unidos has developed a model that seeks to reclaim and restore the lives of struggling youth while promoting unity amongst families and neighbors through community building efforts."

The link to their webpage is on the right. Give it a look and see what this amazing group is doing for California.

Death Notices

In America we have obituaries. Here they post notices on the street.

The death notices that are pasted around town have been something that have really stuck in my thoughts over the past year. How a culture deals with death says a lot.

As an American, I sometimes feel offended by the way death notices are just pasted on walls and signs around town. I guess, more than that, it bothers me that the notices are just left to be weather beaten and pasted over by more recent passings. I cannot help but think that this is a disrespect to the people these signs are meant to venerate, even though I know that is not how Albanians see it.

Death is public here. Albanians grieve openly and demonstratively. Families are expected to open their homes for three to seven days following the death of a family member so that the community may come and grieve with them.

The American response to death is much more subdued and individual. We tend to believe that each person should be left to grieve in his or her own way, and we really offer support only when it seems the person desires it. The community still offers support, but it is much more practical and less demonstrative.

I know that this is generalizing both Americans and Albanians, and we all respond to death differently, but these are the general things I have noticed and been thinking about.

I suppose I understand the public or communal nature of death here, and I understand the purpose of the public death notices, but coming from the culture I do it just does not quite feel right.

I think it also has to do with my personal nature. This may sound weird, but I really do not want people to grieve when I die. I want people to remember me, but to be happy for the life I have had. I don't know, I guess I am still trying to work it all out in my head.

Legalization

As some people may know, I live and work in an "informal" area called Keneta. The term "informal", however, can be rather misleading. Keneta is not a place where people only wear sweat pants and greet each other with grunts. It's not that kind of "informal". Instead, it's "informal" in the sense that no one here owns an actual title for their land or buildings.

Long story short, the demise of communism here in 1991 sparked high levels of internal migration. For the previous 40+ years, Albanians had been told where they could and could not live, so with the new freedom of movement came many new residents in and around the nation's larger cities. Over the past 15 years, Keneta has been transformed from abandoned swamp land into a residential area home to approximately 75,000 people. None of whom own the land on which they have built.

Absence of land ownership is a problem plaguing the entire country. Millions of dollars have been invested in homes and businesses, but as long as they remain informal, owners are not able to realize the full potential of their investments. Primarily because they are not able to use their properties as collateral for loans and other investments.



The Albanian Government is hoping to solve this problem with a nationwide land-legalization effort that began on July 15th. All informal land owners have been given amnesty and the opportunity to register their land and receive formal titles.

I really hope that the process proceeds smoothly and efficiently. This could be a big step forward for society and the economy here. However, much of the work burden involved in the process has been put on the shoulders of the local governments, and few seem to be fully prepared to meet the responsibilities and level of work that will be required to meet the deadlines set by the new law.

There were some volunteers and others in Durres this week for a project development workshop. We had a good time enjoying Summer in Durres together.

Please pray for Peace between Israel and Lebanon, and call on our administration to take a stand. Bombs do not discriminate between the guilty and the innocent.

NightLight

I have added a new link on the right side. It is called "Group of the Month". Each month I will put a new aid group that is doing good things for people. This month it is NightLight Ministries. They have started a jewelry business that hires women and girls they bring out of Bangkok brothels. Give their site a look.

Went to the beach today and got properly sunburned. The weather has been really pleasant here the past week, compared to the week before. I think it should stay in the mid to upper 80s (30s) for next week.

I have planned a trip for the youth in Keneta to go downtown and get a tour of the archeological work being done at the amphitheater. Durres has the largest Roman amphitheater in the Balkans, and right now a team of Italians is working on digging out a new portion. The director of the archeological museum has agreed to give us a tour of the dig and tell us more about the amphitheater and the old castle walls. Durres has a rich history. Each time crews excavate at building sites, they seem to uncover new archeological finds. At one site they just found the first Hellensistic period pottery to be found in Durres.

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July to Everyone. I hope you all enjoy the new look I've designed for my page. I was getting a bit tired of what blogger templates had to offer. Making a new design really wasn't as hard as I thought it might be.

Weird story from the weekend. Walking home one night I decided to pop into a small store to buy some pasta. Looking around quickly I noticed that they had a shelf with some sauces on it. One of the sauces they had was a curry sauce that is imported from Serbia. Even though "Serbian Curry Sauce" doesn't sound too tasty, I really like it. Only, I haven't been able to find it since the Winter because stores have stopped importing it. Just my luck, I had found some in this small store. I grab two bottles and go up to pay. When I get to the front of the store, the owner just gives me one of those "Are you stupid?" looks, takes the bottles from me, says "No" and offers me a bottle of mustard instead. Mustard is about the same as curry, right? Well, I ask "Pse?" (Why?), and he turns the curry bottles over and shows me that they expired in February.

Now here is the weird part. After I say I don't want the mustard, he says okay and just puts the curry bottles back on the shelf where they were before. Now, he obviously knew that the sauce was expired, and even if he didn't know before, he knows now. So why is he putting them back on the shelf? How many people have come in since February and tried to buy curry sauce only to be rebuffed at the counter? Is he not tired to telling people the curry has expired? How many of the other products in his store are actually good and for sale? Besides the guy being just nuts, the only other explanation I have come up with is that he didn't want an empty space on his shelf. But couldn't that be solved by just moving some other bottles around a bit? I am really tempted to go back and just ask the guy.