Hey.... My apologies for the lack of writing. I do however have a lot of stuff to say, as well as pictures to show, but my bag has unfortunately been lost by British Airways. That means that uploading pictures to this site is now nigh on impossible, and just a chore. I hope that I will be back on line this afternoon, but that depends on Corfu airport and their incompetent staff.

Hope you're all well.

The weather is indeed pants at the moment in the uk, huh?!? I really hope it will be much better tomorrow for Rhodri and Ceri's wedding. I hope tomorrow is a brilliant day for them both. I'll remember my camera too tomorrow (I forgot it for Vix and Kurt's wedding!!) so I'll get some photos. I'm really really looking forward to seeing people again too.

You also might notice some pictures have appeared below. Just for the record, adding these took me 5 mins at my parents' home in Cardiff, whereas it would've taken about 2 hours in Albania!! The joys and blessings of a decent connection!! :o)

Anna and I are also working very hard on our wedding arrangements at the moment. I've created little fliers... What do you think...?

There's not much on the blog just yet, but there will be soon - I promise.

Tomorrow I leave for the sunny shores of Corfu, as I travel home to England, in order to go and attend my friends wedding - the wedding of Ceri and Rhodri, in Cardiff. I must say I am looking forward to it, although I would not swap the weather here for the weather at home right now!!!

I'm working up a tan at the moment, and hopefully - I will be nicely tanned in time for the summer!! Just in time to... tan some more!!! :o)

Work here has been hectic of late. I've been busy fixing computers, installing antiviruses and teaching my class. I've also finished a tourit map for Lidia (the foundation I am working for) to print.

I have made unsuccesful attempts to contact a guy in a town called Vlora, to arrange a recording of the Albanian worship songs I have, but when I return in 12 days, I hope to further that, as I will try and get these songs recorded before I leave.

Hope all is well at home. Sorry to hear about the bad weather. :o) Hopefully - I will post all the pictures which should be posted below too when i am home. I will do my best.

Sorry for the lack of pictures.... I've tried uploading them, but the speed of the connections here is so slow, that the upload keeps timing out. I promise to keep trying.

Saturday night saw a warm wind come from the deserts of Africa. Unfortunately it also brought soooo much dust, and a bit of rain, so everyones car is now very dirty in Saranda!! Ha ha - makes me glad i don't own one!! The other thing that the wind brought with it was mosquitos. Lots of them. And they're a pain in the backside. The weather at the moment is still hot and humid, so they are all out in force.

No other news really. After a slow start, my pupils are getting the hang of computers, and they learnt very quickly the ins and outs of Excel today. I'm currently fixing a computer, but the Windows XP is all in Greek, and so its a bit of a nightmare. Actually - a big nightmare. You know - one of those really scary ones. Where you're constantly falling. Ha ha.

There is sad news to report today.

I'm afraid that Mitzi the cat has died today. She was quite old, and very ill. She will be missed from the Barjami household.

On a lighter note, the ambulance which Ruth and Steve Courteny from Reading have worked so very hard on fund-raising for, finally arrived on Thursday. It has been passed on to the hospital here in Saranda, and will be used especially to reach the hard-to-reach places. It is a very well equipped Land Rover, specially adapted as an ambulance.

Today Richard and I visited Jorgo, who is house-bound, due to suffering from Multiple Sclerosis. I had been kindly given a donation of 300 pounds from 'J.P. Gainsford Associates' to buy Jorgo a wheelchair so that he could be a bit more mobile. Well - that arrived with the ambulance, and today we took the wheelchair to him. He was smiles from ear to ear, and was so very greatful. It was a great moment.

There was fighting at Cuka today. Lots of it. Bedro - one of the ladies at the church - had managed to get a very large pile of clothes from her family to distribute at the gypsy camp, but it was like the first day of the Next sale. It was crazy!!! I've never heard such shouting and screaming over a few items of clothing!!

Last but not least... A big thank you to Ruth and Steve for bringing various bits and bobs, including a little parcel from Anna. Safe journey home.

Yesterday was a terribly dull May day holiday, weather wise. So celebrations were at home, instead of the customary picnic. It's a big celebration here, and we had a fabulous meal at home.

News which I forgot to mention is that a week ago, there was a new addition in the Barjami household - the house where I am staying. 'Ene' was born on the 27th of April, and weighed in at around 9lbs. I will post photographs of little Ene soon. In case you are wondering - Ene was named after a great warrior in Albanian history. Unfortunately - everytime I've wanted to take a picture - its been sleeping!!

Bimi, Joni and I went on a little adventure the other day too... We found a dried up river, and walked for a long time down the river bed. We saw some wonderful creatures, like butterflies and spiders, as well as just appreciating a relatively unspoilt piece of the countryside.

That's it from me.... The ambulance, which Ruth and Steve Courtney from Reading Vineyard have been raising money for arrives tomorrow. Sorry for the lack of pictures... :o(

Hope all is well in the UK (or wherever you're reading this).

How exciting!!! On Saturday, Tirana - the capital of Albania - had an earthquake that reached 5.6 on richter scale. I've never been in an earthquake before, so I didn't really realise what was going on until it was too late. First of all the crockery on the table started shaking, and so i thought that it was like a kettle boiling making the crockery shake. But then I realised the kettle wasn't on!! Then my chair started shaking too. I thought it was a train or a subway train, but then realised where I was, as they don't really have neither trains or subway. Then it was over!

I was in Tirana taking my fiance to the airport. Unfortunately I won't see her now for another month. She had a good time here, and bless her little cotton socks - worked very hard on her projects here too.




We visited a family in Berdenesh, which when we last visited the newborn baby was tiny. This family have a sad story indeed. The mother was left to die whilst giving birth to the baby, as they couldn't afford the "payment" to the doctors. She bled to death in the hospital, and no eye was raised. The doctor is still practicing in the hospital, and no compensation payout was given to the father. The father is out of work, and struggling to make ends meet, and they live in a two "bedroom" house, which is in fact just two rooms. In that house is the father, his new wife (I'll come to that in a sec), the grandmother, the sister, and 5 children. The new wife I mentioned earlier had a dream a few weeks ago, where the dead mother (her best friend) came to her and said in the dream "take care of my children". So despite her family's protesting, she went ahead and married the father in order to be able to take care of the kids. We took the family some clothes, and some gifts donated by someone in the UK, and they were very grateful.

We also took some amazing photos of some of the Albanian scenery... Here are just a few...



Finally - the most fun thing I did in the last two weeks was to visit the "shtepi oficare". This is where the old people come to hang out, play games, drink coffee and, on thursdays, get a quick checkup from a missionary nurse here called Jo. She checks their blood pressure and blood-sugar levels. We had a great time, as the old people are so friendly and full of life here. I even joined in a game of dominos, slamming the domino on the table each time!!


I would finally like to offer my condolanses to the families of those who died in the Virginia Tech shootings. I was watching "Bowling for Columbine" just two days before, and am perplexed how this sort of incident could happen *again* in America. Very sad.

Once again - sorry for the lack of updates. I am currently taking a little rest from blog writing, and spending time with my fiance who's currently visiting me here. Promise i will update you soon, with lots of pictures and stories.

Diti, Kiko and I have just finished playing some of our newest songs (and some old classics) at the orphanage. What a hoot that was. I'll upload some pictures tomorrow, but there was dancing, singing, clapping and just an all around feeling of jollyness.

I've also never played such a hotly contested game of Volleyball in my life. The final score was 2 games to 2, but because the Albanians are all such fiery charachters, lets just say that there were the odd argument here and there!!! And a spot of cheating going on too, and most suprisingly of all - not by me!! :o)

Hope you're all doing well - am missing the UK a lot (apart from the good weather we're now finally having!!)

I have today completed my course, teaching my Albanian pupils the basic techniques of MS Excel, PowerPoint and Paint Shop Pro. I gave them all a test today, and they all passed with flying colours.


Am currently furious, as I am missing out on the best film of 2007 which is currently showing in the UK cinemas. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is now out at home, and I am missing it. Its not fair. You can tell that I'm gutted, can't you??!


Having missed an hour, just like you guys at home, this morning was impossible to get up. When I did eventually get my backside out of bed, I ventured over to Lidia, where the pastor of the evangelical church, Sotiri, was there visiting. I went over to his house for coffee, and to fix his PC. Now, I knew it was possible to have Windows XP in a whole different language, but in greek?!?! When all the characters are totally messed up?!?! That was a bit of a test!!!


Finally - I want to leave you with a very bad picture of me, concentrating very hard at a computer at my local cafe. Its even Windows Vista, to you geeks out there. Valentino's cafe is the best cafe EVER. He always shows the football on the projector screen, always serves beer nice and cold, and now the barman - Nardi - even knows my usual order :o) All I have to do is raise a finger!!! Bliss!!!

What is with this weather?!?!?

Sunshine one minute, hailstorm the next?!?! I guess that's the mediterranean for you. Glad I'm wrapped up warm with about 5 layers on today. There's a cold wind!!

So - once again - my apologies for the lack of regular updates. I tried to upload some photos the other day, but the link is so unreliable here, I decided to give up.

Not really any brand new news here at the moment. The weather is changing every 5 minutes, the work here which I'm doing is not. My course is still going ahead, teaching about photography at the moment, and how to change and improve digital photos with a graphics package. Finding the time and energy to write the documentation for it is hard though. I was never one for documentation (as all at HP know!!)

One good thing is that I've joined a video rental shop - and they have pretty up to date movies, and at 50pence a night.... My evenings are much more enjoyable!! Watched Ghost Rider last night.... Give that one a miss guys - terrible!!

Will write more soon - I promise.

My apologies for the lack of updates recently. I've been working pretty hard since my return from the UK.

Trent, Bruce, Mark and I produced a CD of Albanian songs when I was at home in February, and we have just heard that we have gone platinum. Well.... not quite. But I played some of the songs at kids church on Saturday, and the little blighters were merrily singing along to the ones I've taught them!!

Yesterday I was official match photographer at the local derby.... Saranda FC vs Butrinti FC. The final score was 3-0 to Saranda. The first goal was untidy defending by Butrint, and the Saranda attack capitalised on their mistake. You can see the ball in the back of the net below, but a lack of decent zoom stopped me from catching the scoring moment. Unfortunately I had to leave at half time.

I went to see Jorgo and his wife, who we have bought a wheelchair for yesterday. Jorgo suffers from MS, and was very difficult to understand. Richard (who came with me) was able to converse with him, and told him the good news that the wheelchair has arrived in Reading and will be on its way at the beginning of May. I am going to visit again, now that I know where they live, and I will probably take Anna with me too, when she arrives in April.

Finally I preached yesterday, as well as sang a very old Welsh hymn - Here is love vast as the ocean - at church. The preaching went well, and i think it was well received. The song, which I sang one verse in Welsh (so that they would realise that its a totally different language to English) and the two translated verses of Albanian also went very well, and I received many words of encouragement afterwards.

Hope all is well in the UK (or wherever you're reading this).... Greetings to Lionel and Lorace who are regular readers in Australia.

I hear that the weather in the UK at the moment is stunning, but I would like this opportunity to make everyone very jelous.... It is T-Shirt weather here!!! Its sooooo warm, it's fantastic!!!

Anyway.... Back to updating you guys with my news...

In the Uk, I recorded 13 songs in Albanian (with the help of Trent, Mark and Bruce). This has proved to be a very important resource. I have given out several copies of these songs, and the people here seem to enjoy them very much. They will I hope prove to be very useful for them to learn the new songs which we have translated.

Not much else has happened as yet. We didn't go to Cuke on Saturday due to a lot of illness which is going around at the moment. Church on Sunday was pretty good, although the Forskuaer church is once again lacking in numbers. Please continue to pray for them.

An update with Iliar, since I've been away, is that he has gone to the God Loves Albania center in Tirana, and is settling in. I will keep you updated on how he's doing, but he seems to be happy there apparently.

Finally - I want to thank one person in particular who contributed money to buy a wheelchair for one of the residents here in Sarande. The wheelchair will be used by a guy called Jorgo. I will hopefully get some pictures soon. The wheelchair is due to arrive in Albania in May. That is great news, especially to Jorgo and his wife.

Will write again soon, and will hopefully get some great pics of the sunshine, just to prove I'm not kidding!! :o)

Whoever thought planning a wedding was so difficult :o(

Congratulations to Mr Kurt and Mrs Vicki Jacobs.....

What a wedding!!! And how nice to be back in the UK.

More photographs to come....

Thieving little blighters!!!!

Kids church this morning was great, but when it came to locking up the gates, we noticed that some little swine has stolen the old rusty chain we use to chain them up!! Can you believe it!?! We were there for an hour at most!!! Unbelievable!!

More chocolate on their way to Cuke again today..... I've put some Snickers in there too, just to spoil them!! :o)

No jokes today, although in my Albanian lesson today, I was reading some very unfunny jokes.... One of them was....

Man1: Oh no - I've lost my dog.

Man2: Have you put an advert in the paper?

Man1: What's the point of that - my dog can't read!!

Terrible, I know.... Sorry.

I received terrible news this morning, that I owe the taxman a lot of money, due to the tax peoples TOTAL incompetence. Unbelievable... I may now have to take my mums advice of planning my honeymoon in West Wales, instead of the Far East, where we wanted to go.

I also received GREAT news about Iliar. Some of the more regular readers will remember that I was trying to get Iliar a wheelchair part from the UK. Unfortunately, I got absolutely no replies from the companies which I contacted. News reached me this morning however, that Richard (a missionary here from Birmingham) has made steps forward in getting Iliar to a boarding school for the physically disabled. This is a place run by a charity called God Loves Albania (http://www.godlovesalbania.org/ - they haven't finished their website yet). This will cost around 50 pounds a month (all donations gratefully accepted!!), but this will give him room and board for the whole month, as well as the opportunity for him to learn valuable life skills and a trade, to help him in the future.

The weekend is beckoning, and a busy one before I venture home to the pastures of the UK for my 3 week break. I have organised a Youth Meeting at church this evening. Tomorrow morning is kids church, and Cuke Gypsy camp will be receiving more chocolates at 3pm tomorrow!! Sunday morning, I will be preaching on Repentance at the Baptist church, and I will be leading worship at the 4sq church on Sunday afternoon. Ha ha ha - I can't wait to be on holiday!! :o)

When is a wall not a wall.......?

When its an Albanian Urinal....

My eyes didn't deceive me yesterday, when in plain daylight, and not even in a corner or somewhere dark and out of the way, but on the pavement of a main street, was this youngster taking a tinkle up against a wall.... It was beyond belief!!!

When is a one-way system not a one-way system.....??

When you're in Albania!!! :o)

Sorry once again for the lack of posts. Writers block!! Actually, apart from the mundane daily things that I normally do here, nothing especially exciting has been happening here this last week. Kids church, Cuke gypsy camp and my computer lessons have been the main focus. Yesterday, however, I went to Konstipol, close to the Greek border to visit a school, and help them install two new computers for their department.

I also went to the border to get my passport stamped so that I'm legally here in Albania!! After the Albanian side meticulously wrote all my details in a book, I walked over to the Greek side. The greek passport guy took one look at my passport, threw it back at me said 'that's ok..'. I'm sure he was meant to write the details in the computer. Ahh well - never mind.

It's power cut time, so I'll sign off. Take care.

Congratulations to Roo and Tom Jeffrey, who had a fantastic baby girl on the 18th of January. Really looking forward to coming home and seeing little baby Isabelle. Hope you don’t mind but I thought I’d put the picture here for everyone to see…

Yesterday I visited Cuke, and took with me about 10 pounds (40 bars) of chocolate!! I was soooo tempted to eat a bar myself, but I resisted. The money was given to me by Anna’s mum to buy

something for the children, and since the money was raised by
holding a tuck shop at a Bosh gig (http://www.boshmusic.com/) I thought it would be fitting to take the children some chocolate.

On buying the aforementioned 40 bars of chocolate, needless to say, I had some VERY funny looks at the shop, but thankfully my Albanian is coming along enough to manage the explanation that they were for the kids at Cuke.

When we arrived at Cuke, we found out that a lot of the residents there were very ill. It looks like they all had flu, and some of the younger ones – one girl in particular (pictured here with Anna back in September) looked terrible (bless her). Please if you can remember these guys in your prayers – I really hope they all recover quickly.

Nothing much else to report, I’m afraid. Still no rain (which isn’t a bad thing in my book!!) and am still giving computer lessons – Mondays lesson is on MSN Messenger!! Hee hee!!!

Take care readers…. Still glad to know you’re all alive, so keep in touch.

My apologies for the lack of writing lately....
I am trying to update this site at every opportunity, but with the current electricity situation - those opportunities are getting fewer and further between.

Where shall I start, after a full weekend's work?

Well - I'm not so sure whether it was a total success, but I've just finished teaching my very first lesson here in Sarande. I was mainly teaching computers (the first lesson was on the internet, and to teach basic understanding of how to get around). However, due to my lack of Albanian, I also taught a lot english too.

The class was a difficult one, due to the difference in calibre of students, some of which were younger, and therefore understood more of the basics of computers, and some of the slightly older ones (and I'm not trying to be ageist here guys) who had never even used a mouse before!!

Not exactly a simple task. We'll see how the next one goes!! :o)

Saturday 13th January

Again - my apologies for the slowness of my writing. I'm just catching up with the updating since the very busy weekend, and lack of internet connection.

Saturday morning was another early(ish) morning. Instead of the usual kids church, I joined Richard and Lynda (his wife) in helping to fetch the Cuke and Orphanage children for Saturday morning football and volleyball. They turned up at my doorstep at 8:50, and the car was jam-packed full of kids!! I thought they came to say 'We'll take them, and come back for you' but no - I got in the car. Half the kids were shouting 'stop' for some reason as we got on our way, and to my horror - one of them had got out as i was getting in!! Richard, though, fully accustomed and aware of their tricks, had noticed, and was only teasing her by driving away and making her run after the car!!



When we arrived at the nunnery, where the football and volleyball training is held, I was shocked to discover that it was about a 10 minute walk away from my house!! When I'd seen pictures of the nunnery previously, it seemed like a place that was miles and miles away in the country. Unfortunately - now it is surrounded by brand new high-rise flats which are currently being built, and are basically an eyesore!! Its amazing how westernised Sarande is becoming, and how property is now fast becoming such a big business in Albania.

I spent a lot of my time taking photos whilst I was there, but it was amazing to see a few things. The first fantastic thing I saw was how well all the cuke children and the Sarande town kids (including the orphanage kids) are getting on. With the exception of poor Tolli, who definately has a physical disability of some sort, the kids have integrated seemlessly. This is such a blessing, as the gypsys are so often the outcasts of soceity. They are also so engulfed in their own community, that it is rare for them to be able to communicate and hang out with other people. This really gives them a fantastic way of developing social skills and increasing their potential later in life.

The second was to see a guy called Shaban there. Shaban is a shopkeeper in the town of Cuke. He has volunteered to help drive the children from Cuke on Saturday morning, for no more than petrol costs. Obviously - a taxi journey would cost over 5 pounds each way, but Shaban is dedicating his time for these children. It is defintaley a ray of sunshine in a world which I have come to realise is a very 'me me me' place.



1) Richard (left) and Shaban...
2) Sadike (i think thats how you spell it) coaching...

Volleyball is a very difficult game. We weren't playing the 3 touch rule, and a lot of the younger Cuke kids were given special treatment, being allowed to serve much closer to the net. But this was good training for them all, and it was great to see smiles on their faces when they scored points on the board (not that i dont think anyone was keeping count though!!).


1) Kristina and a girl from Sarande getting taught by Sadike the coach
2) Training in a group


3) About to serve - one of the Cuke youngsters


4) the girls mid-game...


5) Kristina hitting a return
6) The girls team (and enjoying their well deserved Sprite)


The football was great to watch, especially watching both Kristo and Jorgo. Kristo struggled a bit, hi touch letting him down a few times, and as a youngster he's evidently learning that life outside the Cuke camp will be a bit more difficult, and that its not all that easy to play against a full team. Jorgo on the other hand was in his eliment. He was a fantastic goalkeeper in the training part, and in the outfield he ran rings around the other boys, scoring 3 goals!!


1) Kristo in some 'pre-game tactics' with the Sarande town boys
2) Kristo (top right) with the boys...



3) One of the Sarande kids doing some practice drills
4) One of the orphanage children doing some keep-ups


5) Jorgo shoots and scores....
6) Jorgo showing off his dribbling skills


I would like to ask you to think about contributions to this work. Richard is funding most of the costs which is incurred for this training, and as readers of this blogsite, I am giving you the opportunity to contribute. I dont want you to feel under any pressure, but the more I spend time here, the more I realise that a little goes a long way. I would estimate the costs of this work being 10 pounds a week. Now - obviously - thats a large sum of money, but for 5 people to give 10 pounds a month, means that this project is fully funded for a month. That will include paying the petrol costs, a shaperone for the kids and of course the all important drink of Sprite at the end!! To think that David Beckham is on half a million pounds a week for his new team in the USA - it outrages me to think that a week of his wages would change this city upside down!!!


The boys football team...